Module 5

Natural Law
Ezekiel T. Mostiero, JD
Instructor
Introduction
All actions are directed towards an end and that happiness is the final end. But how could one
attain happiness? In our journey of exploring answers to this question, Aristotle’s view on virtue
ethics has been discussed in the previous module. For him, happiness, being the chief good of
the human person, is attainable through the proper exercise of reason, both morally and
intellectually by consistent doing of acts making own virtues. However, this module would
recognize another important thinker during medieval period, who cultivated his own idea in
finding answers to what actually guides a human person towards his attainment of this final
end. This module would seek how this medieval philosopher made use of our previous ancient
Greek concepts in providing a rational grounding to another ethical theory based on the

standpoint of faith :

natural law
Source: (Module 5, Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, University of Batangas (2020)
What is Natural Law?
Does obeying the natural law mean
that human beings must only conform
their self-realization to the laws of
nature?
Natural Law

• It is an absolute theory of ethics that is not rooted in duty or externally imposed

laws.

• By discovering our end telos or purpose, we can work out how to achieve this.

• It does not give a fixed law; it is not always straightforward and there is some
flexibility in its application.

• Instead it is found in our human nature and our search for genuine happiness and
fulfilment.

• There is a natural order in our world, determined by some supernatural power

that should be followed.

• The moral life is a life lived ‘according to reason’.

• St. Thomas Aquinas built on the ideas of Aristotle and developed natural law
into a moral framework.
 Aquinas spent his last years
teaching and writing in Italy.
He died in 1274 at age 49
from an illness he developed
while walking to France to
attend a church conference.
At first, the Roman Catholic
Church rejected Aquinas’s
massive effort to reconcile
human reason with Christian
faith. In 1277, the church
condemned some of his
writings based on Aristotle’s
ideas. About 50 years after his
death, however, the church
revived his works and made
him a saint.
The writings of St. Thomas

St. Thomas Aquinas Aquinas combining reason and

faith became the basis for
official Roman Catholic doctrine
(known as "Thomism"). In
The master principle of natural law, wrote Aquinas, was that: addition, his forward-looking
political ideas regarding natural
"good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." law, unjust rulers, and rebellion
influenced European
Enlightenment philosophers
Aquinas stated that reason reveals particular natural laws that are such as John Locke and even
Americans such as Thomas
good for humans such as self-preservation, marriage and family, Jefferson and Martin Luther
and the desire to know God. King.
 St. Thomas Aquinas
The master principle of natural law, wrote Aquinas, was that:
"good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided."

For Aquinas everything has a function (a telos) and the good thing (s) to do are those acts that fulfill that function.
Humans are free and hence need guidance to find the right path. That right path is found
through reasoning and generates the “internal” Natural Law. By following the Natural Law we participate in
God’s purpose for us in the Eternal Law.
Faith, F reedom and Wisdom:
Etsi Deus non daretur

Faith

F reedom

Wisdom
 Faith

“
• Thomas Aquinas begins from the standpoint of faith.
His perspective presupposes the existence of a God
who is the creator, author (source) and the goal (end)
of all reality. This Creator for Thomas, however,
relates in freedom with the human person and so
F reedom enables him/her in freedom to recognize through
reason, the very principle of foundations of all tings.
In accordance with this foundational knowledge, the
human person can choose to act in such a way that
is worthy of one’s very reality. One who can reach
the wisdom at the very heart of all things is obliged
to act in accordance with his/her dignity. The human
being then is said to be gifted with “the ability to
know the highest good” that engages him/her in
Wisdom freedom in “choosing to act on the good that he/she
ought to do.”
 Faith
• For Aquinas, God reveals his Goodwill as the
Eternal Law reflected in the order of reality.
Relating with the Law as governing all is relating with
God himself whose will emanates to govern all that
is. The reality then of life as growth, nutrition, and
reproduction is founded on the will that is eternal.
F reedom Even the reality of sensitive consciousness as ruled
by instinct that is true of animals is also in
accordance with the same will. That “plants persist
to carry themselves out to the fullness of being
plants” is an imprint of the governing will that comes
to human understanding as law. That “animals
governed by instincts behave in such and such a
way” is also recognized by the human person as
following the dictate of a law that guides all of
Wisdom creation.
 Faith • The reality of the human person who is able,
through his/her intellect, to decide in freedom
and, through his/her will to move himself/herslef
voluntarily in accordance with the good that he/
she can know, follows the very will of God who
has created man in his own image. (Genesis 1,
27). Many in his fullness shares life with plants and
animals but goes beyond them in his voluntary
action and freedom in decisions.
F reedom
• “VERY IMPORTANT: Human freedom for St.
Thomas, is an imprint of the divine will in the
very being of the human person. This sharing of
human reason in the eternal will or divine law is
for him/her is the natural law.”

• This law impinges on the very freedom of the human

Wisdom being who can know his/her options and voluntarily
will to take action. The rational human person’s
participation, ability to discern what is good from
what is not, is the VERY PRESENCE of the dictate of
the law within him/her, and is also the imprint on
him/her of the Creator.
 • The ethics of natural law has gained wide
acceptance at one point in history of Western
Civilization.

• Etsi Deus non daretur (“Even if there is no God”)

Etsi Deus non is an expression that highlights the validity of this
ethical system with or without faith in the Creator
God. This implies that the wisdom of the ethical
daretur system that is natural law is valid and binding for the
human person even if we bracket belief in God.

• CAVEAT: This does not advocate atheism or protest

against faith.
Conscience and Natural
Law

• The ability of man to know is important in his or her

“ Conscience” acting ethically. Hence, if one follows St. Thomas’
discussion on conscience, one is inclined to
conclude that “it is the proper functioning of reason
in moving the human person towards an end goal
that is fitting of his/her dignity.” One cannot do the
right things if one does not know what it is. The
famous dictate then to follow the conscience
absolutely is tied to an obligation to educate it. Not
knowing St. Thomas is NOT an excuse. Even if
one does not know, he/she is obliged to know. If one
acts badly out of ignorance and does not act to
rectify the situation by bothering to learn, that person
Conscience is a person’s God-given guide to right conduct is to be held accountable to the Angelic Doctor.
and its demands must therefore always be followed;
Conscience comes from God and must be obeyed
Conscience will harmonise self love and benevolence
• If he/she is able to know but fails to act in his/her
the consequence of an action is not what makes it right or obligation to do so, then he/she is NOT free from
wrong as that has already happened; blame and responsibility for what was done.

”
the purpose of conscience is to guide a person into a way of
life that will make them happy;
conscience will harmonise self-love and benevolence – this Source: Pasco and Suarez, Ethics, C and E Publishing (2018)
may take some sorting out and so in moral dilemmas we may
be uncertain what to do;
conscience controls human nature;
 “ Conscience”

• Given the propensity to error of the human

conscience, can we then disobey the dictates of our
own conscience? St. Aquinas still insists, “absolutely
not!” Conscience remains to be our proximate
norm that bids us to do good and avoid evil;
simply put, going against one’s conscience is doing
the contrary of the dictates of what one knowingly
elects as good. If the extent of what one knows
Conscience is a person’s God-given guide to right conduct determines what is the good to be done and the evil
and its demands must therefore always be followed; to be avoided, the self is obliged to act accordingly,
Conscience comes from God and must be obeyed i.e., “act on the good and shun the bad”.
Conscience will harmonise self love and benevolence
the consequence of an action is not what makes it right or
wrong as that has already happened;

”
the purpose of conscience is to guide a person into a way of
Hierarchial Mora Code
l
The dilemma runs as follows: Either God commands something is right because it is, or it is right because God
commands it. If God commands something because it is right, then God’s commands do not make it right, His
commands only tell us what is right. This means God simply drops out of the picture in terms of explaining
why something is right.
If on the other hand, something is right because God commands it then anything at all could be right; killing
children or setting fire to churches could be morally acceptable. But if a moral theory says this then, that looks as
if the theory is wrong.

So for Aquinas:
what role, if any at all, does God
have when it comes to
morality?

For him, God’s commands are there to help us to come to see what, as a matter of fact, is right
and wrong rather than determine what is right and wrong.

if it is not God’s commands that make something right and wrong, then what does? Does not
God just fall out of the picture? This is where his Natural Law Theory comes in.
 Hierarchial Mora Code
l
Aquinas means God’s rational purpose and plan for all things. And because the Eternal Law is part of God’s mind then it has always, and w

Divine Law
uman Law (those discovered through rational reflection and created by people). Divine laws are those that God has, in His grace, seen fit to give us and
Hierarchial Mora Code
l

Natural Law
Reason makes us distinct from rats and rocks. What is right for me and you as humans is to act according to
reason. If we act according to reason then we are partaking in the Natural Law. If we all act according to
reason, then we will all agree to some overarching general rules (what Aquinas calls primary precepts). These
are absolute and binding on all rational agents and because of this Aquinas rejects relativism. The first primary
precept is that good is to be pursued and done and evil avoided. He thinks that this is the guiding principle for all
our decision making. When Aquinas talks of Natural Laws, he means internal rules and not external ones or
secondary precepts. Natural Law does not generate an external set of rules that are written down for us to
consult but rather, it generates general rules that any rational agent can come to recognize simply in
virtue of being rational.

For example, for Aquinas it is not as if we need to check whether we should pursue good and avoid evil, as it is
just part of how we already think about things. Aquinas gives some more examples of primary precepts:

1. Protect and preserve human life.

2. Reproduce and educate one’s offspring.
3. Know and worship God.
4. Live in a society.

These precepts are primary because they are true for all people in all instances and are consistent with Natural
Law.
Hierarchial Mora Code
l

Natural Law
It is clear that on our own we are not very good at discovering primary precepts and consequently Aquinas thinks
that what we ought to do is talk and interact with people. To discover our real goods — our secondary
precepts which accord with Natural Law — we need to be part of a society.

For example, we might think that “treat Christians as secondary citizens” is a good secondary precept until we talk
and live with Christians. The more we can think and talk with others in society the better and it is for this reason
that “live in society” is itself a primary precept.
But looking at what we have said already about Natural Laws and primary and secondary precepts, we might think
that there is no need for God. If we can learn these primary precepts by rational reflection then God simply drops
out of the story. This is Natural Law.
Hierarchial Mora Code
l

Positive Law
Aquinas also introduces what he calls the Human Law, which gives rise to what he calls “Secondary Precepts”.
These might include such things as do not drive above 70mph on a motorway, do not kidnap people, always wear
a helmet when riding a bike, do not hack into someone’s bank account. Secondary precepts are not generated by
our reason but rather they are imposed by governments, groups, clubs, societies etc. It is not always morally
acceptable to follow secondary precepts. It is only morally acceptable if they are consistent with the
Natural Law. If they are, then we ought to follow them, if they are not, then we ought not.

That is why: Not all laws are moral.

Hierarchical Moral Code
Another explanation about the Hierarchical Moral Code:

Thomas Aquinas, much like Aristotle, wrote that nature is organized

Eternal Law for good purposes. Unlike Aristotle, however, Aquinas went on to say
that God created nature and rules the world by "divine reason."

Aquinas described four kinds of law. Eternal law was God’s perfect
plan, not fully knowable to humans. It determined the way things such
as animals and planets behaved and how
people should behave. Divine law, primarily from the Bible, guided
individuals beyond the world to "eternal happiness" in what St.
Augustine had called the "City of God."

Divine Law Aquinas wrote most extensively about natural law. He stated, "the
light of reason is placed by nature [and thus by God] in every man to
guide him in his acts." Therefore, human beings, alone among God’s
creatures, use reason to lead their lives. This is natural law.

The master principle of natural law, wrote Aquinas, was that "good is
Natural Law to be done and pursued and evil avoided." Aquinas stated that reason
reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans such as self-
preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God.
Reason, he taught, also enables humans to understand things that
are evil such as adultery, suicide, and lying.

While natural law applied to all humans and was unchanging, human
law could vary with time, place, and circumstance. Aquinas defined
this last type of law as "an ordinance of reason for the common good"
Positive Law made and enforced by a ruler or government. He warned, however,
that people were not bound to obey laws made by humans that
conflicted with natural law.
Source: https://www .crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-22-4-c-st-thomas-aquinas-natural-law-and-the-common- good#:~:text=The%20master%20principle
%20of%20natural,the%20desire%20to%20know%20God.
Hierarchial Mora Code
l
Eternal Law
• REMEMBER: For Aquinas, there are four types of laws.
The type of law that is primarily significant in Ethics is
the natural law.

• According to Aquinas, this natural law is knowable by

natural reason.
Divine Law • FOR INSTANCE: our practical reason naturally
comprehends that good is to be promoted and evil is to
be avoided. By virtue of a faculty of moral insight or
conscience that Aquinas called “syndresis”, we also
have natural inclinations to some specific goods.
Natural Law Aquinas enumerated the three sets of these inclinations:
(1) to survive; (2) reproduce; (3) to know the truth about
God and to live peacefully in society. These prescriptions
to have families, love God and our neighbors, and
pursue knowledge are but rationally obvious precepts
and simply stand to reason;

Positive Law
Hierarchial Mora Code
l
Eternal Law
• Grasping the prescriptions of natural law and
using our practical reason are necessary in
determining which means will direct us to our
ultimate end. Accordingly, this concept helps us
Divine Law in judging some deeds as moral or otherwise. The
principle is simple: the closer an action
approaches our end, the more moral it is;
further it departs, the more immoral.

Natural Law

Positive Law
What is the principle of Double Effect?
Double
Effect
Imagine a child brought up in a physically, sexually and
emotionally abusive family. He is frequently scared for his life
and is locked in the house for days at a time. One day when his
father is drunk and ready to abuse him again he quickly grabs
a kitchen knife and slashes his father’s artery. His father bleeds
out and dies in a matter of minutes. Do you think the son did
anything wrong?

Source: https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/
Book%3A_Ethics_(Fisher_and_Dimmock)/4%3A_Aquinas%E2%80%99s_Natural_Law_Theory/
4.5%3A_Putting_this_into_Practice%3A_The_Doctrine_of_Double_Effect_(DDE)
Double
Effect

In our example, the action is one of self-defense because of the son’s

internal action and because of this, Aquinas would think the killing is
morally acceptable. This distinction and conclusion is possible because
of Aquinas’s Doctrine of Double Effect which states that if an act fulfills
four conditions, then it is morally acceptable. If not, then it is not.
The first principle is that the act
must be a good one.
The second principle is that the act must come about before the consequences.
The third is that the intention must be good.
The fourth, it must be for serious reasons.

Source: https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/
Book%3A_Ethics_(Fisher_and_Dimmock)/4%3A_Aquinas%E2%80%99s_Natural_Law_Theory/
4.5%3A_Putting_this_into_Practice%3A_The_Doctrine_of_Double_Effect_(DDE)

For complete discussions about double effect, Read Module 5.

Conclusion

• Thomas Aquinas was influential in his articulation of the theory of natural law.
• For Aquinas everything has a function (a telos) and the good thing (s) to do are those
acts that fulfil that function. Some things such as acorns, and eyes, just do that naturally.
However, humans are free and hence need guidance to find the right path. That right
path is found through reasoning and generates the “internal” Natural Law. By following
the Natural Law we participate in God’s purpose for us in the Eternal Law.
• However, the primary precepts that derive from the Natural Law are quite general, such
as, pursue good and shun evil. So we need to create secondary precepts which can
actually guide our day-to-day behaviour. But we are fallible so sometimes we get these
secondary precepts wrong, sometimes we get them right. When they are wrong they
only reflect our apparent goods. When they are right they reflect our real goods.
• Aquinas is an intellectual giant. He wrote an incredible amount covering a vast array of
topics. His influence has been immense. His central idea is that humans are created by
God to reason — that is our function. Humans do the morally right thing if we act in
accordance with reason, and the morally wrong thing if we don’t.

• Aquinas is an incredibly subtle and complex thinker. For example, his Doctrine of Double
Effect makes us to reflect on what we actually mean by “actions”, “intentions” and
“consequences”. (https://books.openedition.org/obp/4422?lang=en.)
•
 Module 5

Natural Law
Ezekiel T. Mostiero, JD
Instructor