10.11..22 Natural Law Theory

The question what is natural law provokes so many different answers as it has been recognized by many writers. It has had different meanings and has served entirely different purposes. Yet, there have been different theories on it and despite these different doctrines, it has for long been asserted that there are principles of natural law. Indeed, natural law thinking has occupied a pervasive role in the realms of ethics, politics and morality. Proponents of Natural Law generally posit that, the existence of law is based on a higher law dictated by reason. The essence of the Natural Law may be said to lie in the constant assertion that there are objective moral principles which depend upon the nature of the universe and which can be discovered by reason. Thus the Natural Law school generally posits that a law that is immoral is no law, therefore if a law is made and that law is not in accordance with the individual’s sense of morality, the individual should not obey the law. Thomas Aquinas for instance held the view that, if the king made an immoral law, the king himself by virtue of making that immoral law had become a rebel against the laws God, and therefore people had not only a right but also a duty to oppose that king. However, Finis argues that a legal system is there to further the common good. Therefore any disobedient act that tends to weaken the legal system as a whole may be unjustified. He thinks however, that sometimes a law may have to be obeyed, even if it seems immoral, because disobeying it might weaken the whole system. This digest shall include the theories of Thomas Aquinas, Lon Fuller and Finnis and the relevance or otherwise of Natural Law in contemporary legal studies.

The work of St Thomas Aquinas has for centuries been the major content in all theological education, and indeed continues to be recommended reading by the Second Vatican Council. Gula defines nature as “the total complexity of human reality take in all its relationships and with all its potential … providing the potential which would make it possible for each person to come to wholeness in community with others seeking wholeness”. But this holistic understanding was not always the case. Classically nature, or more specifically, human nature, has been understood to have two parts, viz. the biological and the rational. This position is as a result of Aquinas’ major contribution to NL Theory as contained in his Summa Theologiæ (ST, I-II, q. 94) where he combined the two prevailing positions in NL Theory viz. the Aristotelian and Stoic Greek philosophers’ emphasis on biological physicality, and the Roman jurisprudence that championed reason and rationality. This was not just a bringing together of Greek and Roman thought, but as Pope Benedict noted, Aquinas “succeeded in establishing a fruitful confrontation with the Arab and Hebrew thought of his time” Additionally, there was an extant Hebrew understanding of NL that held it to be inextricably intertwined with creation, as John Paul II and Gula observes.

This paper proves that Aquinas has a means of demonstrating and deriving both moral goodness and the natural moral law from human nature alone. Aquinas scientifically proves the existence of the natural moral law as the natural rule of human operations from human nature alone. The distinction between moral goodness and transcendental goodness is affirmed. This provides the intellectual tools to refute the G.E. Moore (Principles of Ethics) attack against the natural law as committing a "naturalistic fallacy". This article proves that instead Moore commits the fallacy of equivocation between moral goodness and transcendental goodness in his very assertion of a "naturalistic fallacy" by the proponents of the natural moral law. In the process the new deontological/kantian theory of natural law as articulated by John Finnis, Robert George, and Germain Grisez is false historically and philosophically. Ethical naturalism is affirmed as a result.

2018

These days, the Thomistic account of natural law is the object of renewed interest and criticisms. A number of objections are usually lodged against the idea of a human nature and a shared human good, in that it might seem that these ideas are unquestionably culturally related and that cultural boundaries cannot be crossed. At the same time, the concepts of ‘human nature’ and ‘natural law’ are often misunderstood to be related to human biology only. To overcome these issues, this paper aims to reinterpret the Thomistic doctrine of natural law as a form of the golden rule (‘Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you’; ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’).

Philippiniana Sacra

IN THIS article I wish to offer an interpretation of Thomas Aquinas's natural law theory that at once respects the fact of its historical development while arguing that such respect does not negate the claims of natural law to universality. 1 Central to my argument is a correct understanding of the role emotion plays in practical judgment for Thomas, a role that is not that of a mere psychological support or prop but rather is integral to the process of reasoning itself.This point is quite easily missed if one reads Thomas's treatment of law in isolation from the rest of his ethical teaching. In order to facilitate an appreciation of this connection, I have chosen to concentrate primarily on the Summa theologiae, a work in which he offers a systematic treatment of all aspects of his ethical teaching, along 41 1 The limitations of this essay require that I prescind from the wider theological context in which Aquinas develops his natural law theory, concentrating instead on purely philosophical issues. While the view presented here is incomplete, it nevertheless constitutes a necessary propaedeutic to any adequate theological discussion of the subject, for as any student of Thomas knows, grace does not abolish nature, but rather perfects it. In the conclusion I will indicate the significance of this basic tenet for further theological reflection on the themes that I discuss throughout the course of this article. For a discussion of the natural law as a participation in the eternal law, see Pauline C.Westerman, The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory: Aquinas to Finnis (New York: Brill, 1998), 21–47. For a treatment of the Old Law as a restatement of the natural law—a restatement required because of the obscuring effects of sin on human perception of the natural law—as well as of the insufficiency of the Old Law and of the necessity for the New Law, as the law that enables union with God, see Pamela M. Hall, Narrative and the Natural Law: An Interpretation of