Republic of the Philippines

NORTHERN ILOILO POLYTECHNIC STATE COLLEGE

VICTORINO SALCEDO CAMPUS
Sara, Iloilo Reg. No. 97Q19783

Course Code : GE 8
Descriptive Title : ETHICS
Term and Academic Year : 1st Semester, AY 2020-2021
Department and Year Level : BSTM 2/ BSCRIM 2
Professor : JOY ARANDA-TUBURAN/CHARLENE A. BLANCAFLOR

Module 3, Lesson 1
Natural Law
I. Introduction

In this lesson, given the varied meanings of the term “natural”, you need to find a more solid and nuanced way to
understand the term. You will explore how Thomas Aquinas provides understanding, emphasizing the capacity for
reason as what is essential in your human nature. This understanding of human nature anchored on your capacity for
reason will become the basis of the natural law theory, a theory which will provide you a unique way of determining the
moral status of your actions. You will also learn how natural law theory is instrumental to ethics that is rooted in the
Christian faith.

In order to gain a thorough understanding of this lesson, you have to read the discussion. You are also tasked to
answer the assessment and submit requirements found in the “to-do” section.

Time Frame: 6 hours Date of Submission: _____________________

II. Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you must have:

1. differentiated natural law from other types of law mentioned by Thomas Aquinas: divine law, eternal law and
human law;
2. identified the four concepts in understand a particular being under Aristotle; and
3. discussed how an act can be considered ethical under the natural law.

III. Learning Contents

Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
There have been various thinkers and systems of thought emerging throughout history that could be
said to present a natural law theory. Among them, the one we will be focusing on is the medieval thinker
Thomas Aquinas. It has been recognized, however, that natural law theory is part of a larger discussion, which
is moral theory taken as a whole. This moral theory, in turn, is part of a larger project, which is Aquinas’s vision
of the Christian faith.

Hailed as a doctor of the Roman Catholic church, Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar who was the
preeminent intellectual figure of the scholastic period of the Middle Ages, contributing to the doctrine of the
faith more than any other figure of his time. His Summa Theologiae, Aquinas’s magnum opus, is a voluminous
work that comprehensively discusses many significant points in Christian theology. He was canonized in 1323.

The Context of the Christian story

The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated by Aquinas in all his work is the promise right at the
center of the Christian faith: that we are created by God in order to ultimately return to him. The Summa is
divided into three parts that may be said to speak of part I: God; part II: Man; and part III: Christ (or the God-
Man). The first and second parts are wholly the work of Aquinas; only the first 90 questions of the third part are
his. The ending was aborted by his death.

Given that our concern here is the question of ethics, it would seem clear that what would be of
greatest interest to us is the second part or the section of the story that centers on human life and its striving
toward God. However, bringing up the notion that living a good life leads us to God could easily be
misunderstood as a simple exhortation to obey certain rules as a given to us through Church doctrines or by
following certain passages lifted randomly from scared Scriptures. In other words, we may fall into the danger
of the divine command theory. Instead, we should hope to find that there is much greater complexity, but also
coherence, to the ethics of Aquinas.

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NORTHERN ILOILO POLYTECHNIC STATE COLLEGE
VICTORINO SALCEDO CAMPUS
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The Context of Aquinas’s Ethics

A full consideration of Aquinas’s ethics would require us to explore his discussion of other matter, such
as how, in our pursuit of happiness, we direct our actions toward specific ends.

Aquinas puts forward that there is within us a conscience that directs our moral thinking. This does
not refer to some simple intuition or gut feeling. For Aquinas, there is a sense of right and wrong in us that we
are obliged to obey. However, he also adds that this sense of right and wrong must be informed, guided, and
ultimately grounded in an objective basis for morality.

So, we are called to heed the voice of conscience and enjoined to develop and maintain a life of virtue.
However, these both require content, so we need something more. We need a basis for our conscience to be
properly informed, and we need a clearer guidepost on whether certain decisions we make lead us toward
virtue or vice. Being told that one should heed one’s conscience or that one should try to be virtuous, does very
little to guide people as to what specifically should be done in a given situation. Thus, there is a need for a
clearer basis of ethics, a ground that will more concretely direct our sense of what is right and wrong. For
Aquinas, this would be the natural law.

We can recall how the ethical approach called the divine command theory urges a person toward
unthinking obedience to religious precepts. Given the problems of this simplistic approach to ethics, we can
contrast how the moral theory of Aquinas requires the judicious use of reason. In doing so, one’s sense of right
and wrong would be grounded on something stable: human nature itself.

We will start by exploring how Aquinas restates the Christian message, making use of a philosophical
vocabulary appropriated from the ancient Greeks. We then look at how Aquinas speaks of the essence and also
the varieties of law. From there, we will be able to explore the precepts of the natural law.

The Greek Heritage

Neoplatonic Good
God creates. This does not only mean that He brings about beings, but it also means that He cares for,
and thus governs, the activity of the universe and of every creature. This central belief of the Christian faith,
while inspired by divine revelation, has been shaped and defined by an idea stated in the work of the ancient
Greek philosopher Plato, which had been put forward a thousand years before Aquinas. He is credited for
giving the subsequent history of philosophy in one of its most compelling and enduring ideas: the notion of a
supreme and absolutely transcendent good.

In his work The Republic, it is often supposed that Plato is trying to envision the ideal society. But that
plan is only a part of a more fundamental concern that animates the text which is to provide an objective basis
and standard for the striving to be moral. In other words, it can be said that Plato was trying to answer
questions such as, “Why should I bother trying to be good?” and “Why cannot ‘good’ be just whatever I say it
is?” His answer, placed in the mouth of the main character Socrates, is that the good is real and not something
that one can pretend to make up or ignore.

In the next centuries after Plato’s time, some scholars turned to his texts and tried to decipher the
wealth of ideas contained there. Because they saw their task as basically clarifying and elaborating on what the
great thinker had already written, these later scholars are often labeled as Neoplatonists.

In the hands of the Neoplatonists, Plato’s idea of the good, which is the source of all beings, becomes
identified with the One and the Beautiful. This is the ultimate reality, which is the oneness that will give rise to
the multiplicity of everything else in the cosmos. All these beings have a single goal, which is to return to that
unity.

Through Neoplatonists like Plotinus, the Platonic idea of the good would continue well into the
Christian Middle Ages, inspiring later thinkers and allowing it to be thought anew in a more personal way as a
creative and loving God.

Aristotelian being and becoming

In Aristotle’s exploration of how to discuss beings, he proposes four concepts which provide a way of
understanding any particular being under consideration. Any being, according to Aristotle, can be said to have
four causes.

First, we recognize that any being we can see around is corporeal, possessed of a certain materiality or
physical “stuff”. We can refer to this as the material cause. A being is individuated—it becomes the unique,

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NORTHERN ILOILO POLYTECHNIC STATE COLLEGE
VICTORINO SALCEDO CAMPUS
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individual being that it is—because it is made up of this particular stuff. Yet, we also realize that this material
takes on a particular shape: so a bird is different from a cat, which is different from a man. The “shape” that
makes a being a particular kind can be called its form. Thus, each being also has a formal cause.

One can also realize that a being does not simply “pop up” from nothing, but comes from another
being which is prior to it. Parents beget a child. A mango tree used to be a seed that itself came from an older
tree. A chair is built as the product of a carpenter. Thus, there is something which brings about the presence of
another being. This can be referred to as the efficient cause. Also, since a being has an apparent end or goal, a
chair to be sat on, a pen for writing, a seed to become a tree, or a child to become an adult, one can speak of
the final cause of each being. Identifying these four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—gives a way
to understand any being.

Of course, it is not a case of a being that is something which is already permanently set as it is and remains
forever unchanging. So in addition to describing a being, Aristotle also has to explain to us the process of becoming or
the possibility of change that takes place in a being. A new pair of principles is introduced by him, which we can refer to
as potency and act. A being may carry within itself certain potentials, but these require being actualized. A puppy is not
yet a full-grown dog. These potencies are latent in the puppy and are actualized as the puppy grows up and achieves
what it is supposed to be. The process of becoming- or change- can thus be explained in this way. Understanding
beings, how they are and how they become or what they could be, is the significant Aristotelian contribution to the
picture which will be given to us by Aquinas.

Synthesis
The idea of a transcendent good prior to all being resurfaces in Aquinas in the form of the good and loving
God, who is Himself the fullness of being and of goodness; as Aquinas puts it, God is that which essentially is and is
essentially good. So, we recognize that all beings are only possible as participating in the first being, which is God
Himself. God’s act, like an emanation of light, is the creation of beings.

Insofar as God is that from which all beings come, it is possible for us to speak of Him as the first efficient
cause. Insofar as God is that toward which all beings seek to return, it is possible for us to speak of him as the final
cause. We see here the beginning of the synthesis by noting how the Neoplatonic movement from and back toward the
transcendent is fused with the Aristotelian notion of causes.

It must be noted, though, that this is not some mechanistic unthinking process. It is God’s will and love that are
the cause of all things; to every existing thing, God wills some good. Creation therefore is the activity of the outpouring
or overflowing of God’s goodness. Since each being in this way participates in God’s goodness, each being is in some
sense good.

However, while beings are good because they are created by God, the goodness possessed by being remains
imperfect. “For Aquinas, only God in the fullness of His being and goodness is perfect; all other beings are participating
in this goodness, and are good to the extent, but are imperfect since they are limited in their participation.” But once
again, God did not create us to simply be imperfect and to stay that way as He leaves us alone. Instead, God, in His
infinite wisdom, directs how we are to arrive at our perfection. The notion of divine providence refers to how beings are
properly ordered and even guided toward their proper end; this end, which is for them to reach their highest good, is to
return to the divine goodness itself.

Beings are created by God in a particular way. It is not accidental how beings emerge into existence; each
being is created as a determinate substance, as a particular combination of form and matter. This applies to all beings,
including man. The particular form determines the materiality which makes a being a certain kind of being; the unique
way that we have been created can be called our nature.

This nature, as a participation in God’s goodness, is both good and imperfect at the same time. Coming from
God, it is good, but in its limitations, it has yet to be perfected. This perfection means fulfilling our nature the best we
can, thus realizing what God had intended for us to be. We accomplish this by fulfilling or actualizing the potencies that
are already present in our nature.

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While all beings are created by God in order to return to Him, the way the human being is directed toward God
is unique. Given that we are beings with a capacity for reason, our way of reaching God is by knowing and loving him. It
is of key importance then that the presence of a capacity for reason is the prime characteristic of the kind of beings we
are, and how that capacity for reason is the very tool which God had placed in our human nature as the way toward our
perfection and return to Him.

The essence and varieties of law

Essence
As rational beings, we have free will. Through our capacity for reason, we are able to judge between
possibilities and to choose to direct our actions in one way or the other. Our actions are directed toward attaining ends
or goods that we desire. We work on a project to complete it. We study in order to learn. These are goods, and we act
in a certain way to pursue them, so goods are sometimes referred to as the ends of actions.

There are many possible desirable ends or goods, and we act in such ways as to pursue them. However, just
because we think that a certain end is good and is therefore desirable does not necessarily mean it is indeed good. Acts
are rightly directed toward their ends by reason. But this does not simply mean through reason we can figure out how
to pursue something that we already had thoughtlessly supposed to be good for us; what is necessary is to think
carefully of what really is in fact good for us.

In thinking about what is good for us, it is also quite possible that we end up thinking exclusively of our own
good. Aquinas reminds us that this will not do; we cannot simply act in pursuit of our own ends or good without any
regard for other people’s ends or good. We are not isolated beings, but beings who belong to a community. Since we
belong to a community, we have to consider what is good for the community as well as our own good. This is called the
common good.

What exactly the common good is might not always be easy to determine as there are many variables to
consider, such as the particular community we are thinking of or the particular ends that the community is pursuing.
Since we must consider not just our own good but also that of others, we cannot act in just any which way; there would
have to be some kind of measure to our acts. It is good for us to not simply be free to act in whatever way we like. We
should recognize the proper measure or the limits in our actions that would allow us to direct our acts in such a way
that we can pursue ends, both our own and also that of others, together. The determination of the proper measure of
our acts can be referred to as law.

Using a simple example. We can think of traffic rules. A motorist cannot just drive in any way he likes, but must
respect traffic rules. These rules seem to measure or place a limit on his driving, for example, by placing a maximum
speed he can travel on a particular road. Such a limit or such a rule is something good, for both him and for others as it
helps prevent motor accidents. As Aquinas puts it, the law must regard properly the relationship to universal happiness.

A law, therefore, is concerned with the common good. In a way, making of a law belongs either to the whole
people or to a public person who has care for the common good or is tasked with the concern for the good of the
community or of the whole people.

It is also necessary for rules or laws to be communicated to the people involved in order to enforce them and
to better ensure compliance. This is referred to promulgation. Law is a form of restriction and direction of human
actions in such a way that the common good is promoted. As Aquinas stated: “the definition of law may be gathered;
and it is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community,
and promulgated”.

Varieties
“He governs all the acts and movements that are to be found in each single creature, so the type of Divine Wisdom, as
moving all things to their due end, bears the character of law.”—Thomas Aquinas.

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NORTHERN ILOILO POLYTECHNIC STATE COLLEGE
VICTORINO SALCEDO CAMPUS
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This line involves the assertion that the divine wisdom that directs each being toward its proper end can be
called the eternal law. Eternal law refers to what God wills for creation, how each participant in it is intended to return
to Him. We must recognize that first, we are part of the eternal law, and second, we participate in it in a special law.

All things partake in the eternal law, meaning, all beings are already created by God in a certain way intended
to return to Him. Thus, we can find in them the very imprint of the rule and measure of the acts by which they are
guided. These can be determined in the very inclinations that they possess, directing their acts toward their proper
ends.
Therefore, irrational creatures (ex., plants and animals) are participating in the eternal law, although we could
hardly say that they are in any way “conscious’ of this law. Aquinas notes that we cannot speak of them as obeying the
law, except by way of similitude, which is to say that they do not think of the law or chose to obey it, but are simply,
through the instinctual following of their nature, complying with the law that God has for them.

On the other hand, human being’s participation is different. The human being, as rational, participates more
fully and perfectly in the law given the capacity for reason. The unique imprint upon us, upon our human nature by God,
is the capacity to think about what is good and what is evil, and to choose and direct ourselves appropriately. So
Aquinas writes: “Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act
and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.

Aquinas points out that while reflecting on our human nature will provide us the precepts of the natural law,
these are quite general and would have to be made more specific, and at the same time more concrete in the actual
operation of human acts. For this reason, there is also human law.

Human law refers to all instances wherein human beings construct and enforce law in their communities.
Given the larger picture of Aquinas’s view, one would have a basis for assessing the validity or invalidity of a human law:
whether or not it conforms to the natural law. The natural law theory of Aquinas is that while it is clearly rooted in a
Christian vision, it grounds a sense of morality not on that faith but on human nature.

Aquinas writes: “So then no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in
his Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less… Now all men know the truth to a
certain extent, at least as to the common principles of the natural law.”

The statement is a remarkable claim: anyone, coming from any religious tradition, just by looking at the nature
that she shares with her fellow human being, would be able to determine what is ethical. The complication one may
have over an overtly religious presentation is dispelled when we recognize the universal scope that Aquinas envisions.

Natural law

The Natural Law

Summa Theologiae 1-2, Question 94, Article 2
Thomas Aquinas
Since, however good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those
things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally appreciated by reason as being good, and
consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according
to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law. Because in man there is first
of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances:
inasmuch as every substance seek the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of
this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the
natural law. Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to
that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this inclination, those things are said
to belong to the natural law, “which nature has taught to all animals”, such as sexual intercourse, education of
offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason,
which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in
society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to
shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the
above inclination.

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In Common with Other Beings

In reading Aquinas, we have to consider how we, human beings, are both unique and at the same time
participating in the community of the rest of creation. Our presence in the rest of the creation does not only mean that
we interact with creatures that are not human, but that there is also in our nature something that shares in the nature
of other beings.

Aquinas thus identifies first that there is in our nature, common with all other beings, a desire to preserve
one’s own being. A makahiya leaf folds inward and protects itself when touched. A cat cowers and then tries to run
away when it feels threatened. For this reason, Aquinas tells us that it is according to the natural law to preserve human
life. We can thus say that it would be a violation of the natural law, and therefore unethical to take the life of another.
Taking one’s own life would be unacceptable, even in the form of physician-assisted suicide. On a more positive note,
we can confidently posit that acts that promote the continuation of life are to be lauded as ethical because they are in
line with the natural law.

In Common with Other Animals

Aquinas then goes on to say that there is in our human nature, common with other animals, a desire that has
to do with sexual intercourse and the care of one’s offspring. As a matter of fact, animals periodically engage in sexual
intercourse at a specific time of “heat”, and this could result in offspring. In human beings, too, that natural inclination
to engage in the sexual act and to reproduce exists.

The instinct connecting between the sexual act and fecundity gives rise to a number of notions of what is
acceptable and unacceptable in varying degrees of contentiousness. An ethical issue that is hotly contested in some
part of the worlds is whether abortion is acceptable. From the stance of natural law, the act of preventing the
emergence of new life would be considered unacceptable.

With regard to the sexual act, the moral judgments get more volatile. This argument seems to provide ground
for rejecting various forms of contraception since these allow for the sexual act to take place, but inhibit procreation.
This also seems to justify the claim that any form of the sexual act that could not lead to offspring must be considered
deviant. One of these is the homosexual act.

To explain, Aquinas writes: “certain special sins are said to be against nature; thus contrary to sexual
intercourse, which is natural to all animals, is unisexual lust, which has received the special name of the unnatural
crime”.

Uniquely Human
After the two inclinations, Aquinas presents a third reason which states that we have an inclination to good
according to the nature of our reason. With this, we have a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live
in society. It is of interest that this is followed by matters of both an epistemic and a social concern. The example given
to us of what would be in line with this inclination are to shun ignorance and to avoid offending those people with
whom one lives. We could surmise on this basis that acts of deception or fraud would be unacceptable to Aquinas.

Aquinas, instead of enumerating the specific acts that would be clearly ethical or unethical, gave certain
general guideposts: the epistemic concern, which is that we know we pursue the truth, and the social concern, which is
that we know we live in relation to others. The question of what particular acts would be in line with these or not is
something that we have to determine for ourselves through the use of reason. Let us elaborate on this.

First, we had been presented with these three inclinations as bases for moral valuation. In light with this, we
know that preserving the self is good. Contrary to common misconception, the sexual inclination and sexual act are
considered good things, not something to be deplored or dismissed. However, reason is not only another inclination
that we have in par with the others. Instead, reason is the defining part of human nature. Aquinas tells us that there is a
priority among the powers of our soul, with the intellectual directing and commanding our sensitive and nutritive
capacities. What this amount to is the need to recognize that while our other inclinations are good, as they are in our
nature, what it means to be human is, precisely to exercise our reason in our consideration of how the whole self

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should be comported toward the good. We are enjoined to make full use of our reason and determine when the
performance of our nature inclinations is appropriate.
Second, recognizing how being rational is what is proper to man, the apparent vagueness of the third
inclination that Aquinas mentions is counter-balanced by the recognition that he is not interested in providing precepts
that one would simply, unthinkingly, follow. To say that the human being is rational is to recognize that we should take
up the burden of thinking carefully how a particular act may or may not be a violation of our nature. It is to take the
trouble to think carefully about how our acts would either contribute to, or detract from, the common good.

For this reason, in making human law, additions that are not all problematic for the natural law are possible. At
first glance, it may seem like there is nothing “natural” about obeying traffic rules or paying taxes. However, if it has
been decided that these contribute to the common good, then they could, in fact, be proper extension of the natural
law. As Aquinas puts it, nothing hinders a change in the natural law by way of addition, since our reason has found and
can find many things that benefit individual and communal human life.

KEY WORDS
 Idea of the God  Final Cause  Divine Law
 Material Cause  Potency  Natural Law
 Formal Cause  Human Law  Act
 Efficient Cause  Eternal law

IV. Assessment
Part I. Define the following in your own words and give an example to support your definition. Write your answer in a
long-sized bond paper. (5pts. each)
1. Divine law.
2. Natural law.
3. Eternal law.
4. Human law.

Part II. Essay. (15pts)

1. In your own understanding, is it possible to maintain a natural law theory without believing in the divine
source? Why or why not? Give at least two examples to support your claim.

2. Given the scenario below, was the action of A ethical under the natural law or not? Explain.

A is a policeman. One day, when he was on patrol, he heard some shouting and cries in a secluded
and abandoned building not far away from the main road. He decided to check the place. There
and then, he witnessed B stabbing C using a knife. He announced his presence to B and asked him
to stop what he was doing while raising his gun. After doing so, B ignored A and tried to stab C
again. However, before the knife hit C, A shot B causing his death.

V. Enrichment Activities:
Research and answer the following. Write your answers in a long-sized bond paper.

1. Find an article online relating to current events/news. Summarize and evaluate whether the acts done in
considered ethical or unethical under natural law introduced by Aquinas. Don’t forget to write the title of the
article, the date and the writer.

2. Are there current scientific developments-for example in biology- that challenge the understanding of nature
presented by Aquinas?

VI. References

Bulaong, O., Calano, M.J., et al (2017) Ethics foundations of moral valuation, Rex Book Store, Inc.
Crisp, R. (2009) Routledge philosophy guidebook to Mill on utilitarianism. London: Routledge
Justice and moral (2018) Retrieved from: http://www.researchgate.net
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Tardi, C. (2020) Investopedia

Utility. Retrieved from: www.faculty.msj.edu>whiter

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