What is Natural Moral Law? What are the strengths and weaknesses of NML?
Uzma Tariq 13-06 R.S Essay
Natural Moral Law
What is Natural Moral Law?
Natural law or the law of nature has been described as a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore is universal. As classically used, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behaviour. Philosopher, Aristotle stated that everything has a purpose. If we are to find something new of which we had no prior knowledge of we can always ask four vital questions. 1) What is it? 2) What is it made of? 3) How did it come to exist? 4) What is it used for? These questions enable us to prove that everything in the universe has purpose. He also discusses the hierarchy of purpose: Humans, Animals, Plants, Rain - everything in this hierarchy has a proper place and purpose.
Philosopher Cicero famously said: ‘The law will not lay down one rule in Rome and another in Athens...There is one law eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times on all people.’ This quote shows Cicero’s beliefs that there is one universal law which applies to everyone. The stoics taught that the world was ordered according to this law. Cicero believed that Humans have reason and therefore can understand nature. He also believed that the greatest evil is emotion. Emotion goes against Natural law; such example would be the love between one man and one woman (natural). However, if one of either party was to have an affair, they will be acting on their emotions to go against nature. Overall, the stoics believed that we should fit in the world or fight against it in some futile way.
Philosopher John Locke saw the importance of living in an orderly way. He believed that there are natural rights to life and liberty, which can be explained as ‘survival of the fittest.’ Locke focused on individual rights. He believed that we should all look after ourselves and thus our duty to one another is not of importance. He also disagreed with the notion of paying taxes – he believed in justice, where our role is to survive – not to make sure our neighbour survives.
Thomas Aquinas developed his views on Natural law. He stated that everything in the universe had ‘efficient cause’ and a ‘final cause.’ This belief combined with Christian concepts begins to mean that God bought everything into existence for a reason. He then goes on to say that something is only ‘good’ if it does its job properly. For example, a good knife cuts. In the context of the world and God Aquinas states that – for something to be good, it has to do what God had intended at the creation of the world. For example, at creation God intended for humans to procreate, thus contraception is bad as it intervenes with God’s intentions. So from this we can conclude that a ‘good’ person is one which has lots of offspring and a ‘bad’ person doesn’t. Aquinas also states that all things have potentiality and actuality. Potentiality refers to the things something can change into for example, a tadpole can potentially turn into a frog and an accord can potentially turn into an oak tree. Actuality is the way something is – the more potentials that are realised, the better it is. For example, a developed oak tree is better than a stunted one. We can then go on to apply this theory to humans. A healthy educated person, who has developed their conscience, is better than a sick, ignorant or vicious one. Fulfilling purpose, or as Aquinas would say - turning potential into actual is the essence of goodness. However the problem lies at how humans are supposed to no their purposes. Aquinas stated that we needed to be ‘good’ humans, but what is the definition of ‘good.’ He was an ethical naturalist and thus believed that it was possible to look at the things around us to see what we ought to do (Naturalistic Fallacy - drawing ethical conclusions from empirical observation). Aquinas tells us we should obey natural law. A seed planted in fertile ground that receives daylight and water will grow, therefore obeying natural law. However, humans are different from other things as we have free will. We should try and reach our potential by deciding what we think is right.
