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Natural Law - Coggle Diagram

- - - - This telos is built by God into our nature because Aquinas thinks we are all born with an ability called synderesis - the ability to know first the synderesis rule - to do good and avoid evil - and then the primary precepts of natural law:
        
        Preserve human life, reproduce, educate, orderly society, worship God
        
        We then apply the primary precepts to moral actions/situations and get a secondary precept - a judgment on that particular action/situation. This process is called conscientia
        
        e.g. euthanasia goes against the primary precept to preserve human life - therefore 'euthanasia is wrong' would be a secondary precept
  - - - Aquinas says in situations like this, it is morally acceptable so long as you intended to bring about the good effect and the bad effect was beside your intention
        
        There must also be proportionality - e.g. if you use more force than is necessary then that's no longer acceptable
        
        The traditional Catholic approach adds some further conditions:
        
        There is also a condition that the bad effect not be an intrinsic evil - like killing and innocent person or adultery
- - - - It was created in a mediaeval socio-economic time and its rules reflect that
        
        In Aquinas' time, having sex outside marriage was often a death sentence because sex led to children, and single mothers struggled to survive. There was no great need for reproduction because so many children died - which was part of why it was against homosexuality, because of the intense need for reproduction. Homosexuality was also seen as against the nuclear family dynamic, which was also needed for reproduction and education
        
        There was around 60-70 times the murder rate in Aquinas' time, showing the clear need for really strict rules against killing - which is why being against euthanasia made sense then
        
        Today, these socio-economic conditions are no longer present. We now have efficient contraception and support for single parents. We have overpopulation, and it's no longer the case that children outside marriage are doomed to lack education
        
        The reasoning behind Aquinas' views on the primary precepts, including their application to euthanasia and sexual ethics, no longer apply
        
        It is outdated. In Aquinas' time, his reasoning made sense - but that was because of the dire situation society was in
  - - - If Hitler had won WW2, democracy would have come to be seen as 'outdated'
  - - - Aquinas thought that he discovered the primary precepts through human reason, as God designed. However, arguably it's a simpler explanation that Aquinas was simply figuring out what would have been good for people in his socio-economic condition. That the resulting principles actually came from God was only in his imagination
- - - - The modern scientific view is that the universe is just composed of atoms and energy in fields of force. There is no space in our scientific understanding of the universe for anything like purpose or telos to exist
        
        Physicist Sean Carroll concludes purpose is not built into the 'architecture' of the universe
        
        Telos looks like an outdated unscientific term that people just project onto reality
        
        Aristotle said an acorn must have the telos of growing into an oak tree. But we now understand thanks to modern science that this can be explained purely through material and efficient causation - the DNA of acorn
        
        Similarly, human nature might behaviourally orient us, but this too can be explained by evolution
        
        Evolution in a herd species will generate instincts like empathy. There are not intrinsically 'moral' behaviours from a God, they are just what were evolutionarily advantages to our species
        
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  - - - Polkinghorne argues that science can explain the 'what' but not the 'why'. Science investigates what is true of the universe. Polkinghorne claims we do need the concept of purpose, to explain why the universe exists in the way it does. Science can't explain that
  - - - Or, Russell could be right that there are no 'why', the universe could be a brute fact. Dawkins develops this point. Just because it's possible to ask the question 'why', that doesn't mean there actually is a why
        
        Either way, we have no basis for thinking telos exists nor any need for it as an explanation
        
        So, purpose only exists in people's minds
        
        This critique of Aquinas is successful because of the clear power of science
        
        Science has transformed out world through its immense explanatory power. Although is cannot absolutely disprove telos, it does show that we have no reason to believe that telos exists. Ockham's razor further justifies this approach. We are justified in believing the simpler explanation the works. If we have a scientific explanation it is simpler that those which require supernatural beings
        
        Aquinas' theory fails - scientific approaches are better explanations
- - - - Different cultures have different moral views - e.g. some countries are religious and thus ban euthanasia, but other countries allow euthanasia
        
        Not only is there disagreement, it tends to fall along cultural boundaries. Culture and social conditioning is therefore the better explanation of what determines our moral compass, not telos. This was the view of psychologists like Freud and Skinner. Their scientific approach looks stronger than Aquinas'
  - - - Everyone agrees that killing for no reason is wrong, everyone agrees an orderly society is good, reproduction is good, education is good
        
        Moral disagreement could just be the result of sinful and corrupt cultures and orginial sin
  - - - Richard Dawkins argued our moral sense partly came from evolution - which programmed us with empathy to care about other people, reproduce, educate, etc., all of which is evolutionarily advantages for a herd species like us
        
        Furthermore, there is just a practical requirement for a society to exist. Imagine a culture started allowing killing and stealing - it would fall apart and end. So no special explanation of cross-cultural moral codes is needed
        
        Conscience isn't God's design directing us towards our telos then. It's evolution, social conditioning and social practicality
        
        Aquinas' supernatural explanation of explain cross-cultural moral agreement is an unnecessary hypothesis
        
        Aquinas' whole theory of natural law is better explained by scientific analysis of the nature and nurture that goes into human moral decision making
        
        Freud's scientific approach is a simpler and better explanation of our moral compass than Aquinas' theological approach
        
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- - - - This supports Aquinas' proposal of a natural law in addition to the divine law
        
        It is also logical for Aquinas to explain this through Aristotle's concept of telos - that every being's nature is orientated towards its good end
  - - - Reason is corrupted by original sin. Original sin might not have totally destroyed reason, but it does make it unreliable
        
        "The finite has no capacity for the infinite"
        
        Our finite minds have no - zero - capacity to understand God's infinite nature
        
        So, we should not use reason to know God
        
        If we make a mistake when trying to use reason to know God, then we will gain a false of God and could end up worshipping the wrong thing - perhaps even worshipping something earthly - which is idolatry. This is dangerous as it can lead to the worship of human things like nations, fatherlands, and that he argued contributed to Nazism
        
        Barth concluded we should solely rely on faith in the Bible
  - - - With natural law, reason isn't grasping God's infinite eternal law - just the lesser natural law within our nature
        
        Through reason we can also know that God has a quality of love/power/knowledge which is analogous to ours yet proportionally greater than our own
        
        Aquinas' approach is successful because he takes care not to claim too much about God based on reason
        
        Reason may sometimes indeed be corrupted, but that doesn't mean it will always by corrupted. Sometimes, with God's grace, human reason is capable of knowing something about God
- - - - In this fallen world, acting on the primary can actually be disabling of flourishing because of the presence of ontic evil (whatever inhibits flourishing, like suffering)
        
        Proportionalists conclude that following natural law is valid, but it an action causes a greater balance of ontic good (enables flourishing) compared to ontic evil then it is morally justified - even if it goes against the primary precepts
        
        This gives the double effect much more flexibility and would even allow acts previously condemned as intrinsically immoral like killing innocents
  - - - He argues that the point of natural law is our intertional alignment with God's moral law. That is our telos
        
        Proportionalism forgets that our true telos is to follow God, not to secure our happiness, not even our lives
        
        Following God's moral law is mor important than enabling our flourishing. In fact, doing intrinsically evil acts corrupts our alignment with God. Pope John Paull II points to the example of Christian martyrs who died for their faith. It is better to die than to o something evil
        
        Proportionalism misunderstands the point of Christian ethics, which is to follow God's moral law
  - - - However, the proportionalists also have a point that flourishing was meant to be a component of following the natural law - as Aquinas said
        
        Furthermore - consider Fletcher's case of the family faced with the choice of killing their crying baby or all being discovered by bandits who would kill them all, including the baby, if discovered
        
        Pope John Paul II has selected a self-serving example of the Christian martyrs. Sacrificing oneself for the sake of other is valid in Christianity, as shown by the examples of Jesus
        
        However, in Fletcher's example, if we do not kill the baby - we would be sacrificing other people (the other family members), including other children, not just yourself, simply to do the 'right' thing by all dying. Is it really ok to get your other kids killed, just because you wouldn't kill one of them?
        
        This is a terrible moral choice, but it does show the limits of traditional natural law eithics
        
        The presence of ontic evil in our fallen world is relevant to the moral situation in a way that Pope John Paul II did not adequately address