Unit 3: Natural Law

Natural
- Refer to some kind of intuition that person has, one which is so apparently true to him
that it is unquestioned.
Example: A woman may claim that it is simply “unnatural” to eat any kind of insects.
- Used as an appeal to something instinctual without it being directed by reason.
Example: A man may deem it is alright to have many sexual partners, since in a pride
of lions, the alpha male gets to mate with all the she-lions.
- Refer to what seems common to them given their particular environment.
- Example” Filipina may suppose that eating three full meals of rice and ulam every day
is natural.

Thomas Aquinas
- A Medieval thinker and a Dominican friar.
- Hailed as a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church.
- He wrote “Summa Theologiae”, which discusses many significant points in Christian
theology.

The Context of the Christian Story

- There are three parts of the “Summa Theologiae”
1. God- His goodness, his might and his creative power.
2. Man or Dynamic of Human Life- pursuit of happiness.
3. Jesus- our Savior

The Context of the Aquinas’s Ethics

- Explore how emotions “the passions” are involved in the process and require a proper
order if they are properly contribute to a good life.
- Explore how are actions related to certain dispositions, (often referred to as “habits”)
- Explore discussion how we develop either good or bad habits with a good disposition
leading us toward making a moral choices which contributing to our moral virtue and
bad disposition inclining us toward making immoral choices, bringing us to vice.
- Christian life is about developing the capacities given to us by God into a disposition
of virtue inclined toward the good.
- Conscience directs our moral thinking.
- Natural Law- for Aquinas, it is a basis to ethics, a ground that will more concretely
direct our sense of what is right and wrong.

Neoplatonic Good
- God creates- He brings the being (human) he cares and governs the activity of the
universe and every creatures.
- Plato- wrote “The Republic” envisioning the ideal society. It provides an objective
basis and standard for striving to be moral. His idea of good is the source of all
beings.
- Socrates- The good is real and not something that one can pretend to make up or
ignore.

Aristotelian Being and Becoming

 - Exploration of beings.
- Four Concepts of Being (Causes)
1. Material Cause – possessed a certain materiality or physical “stuff”
2. Formal Cause – the “shape” that makes a being a particular stuff.
3. Efficient Cause- brings about the presence of another being and realizing that
a being does not simply “pop up”
4. Final Cause – a being has apparent end or goal.
- Potency- being may carry within itself a certain potential.
- Act- required a being to be actualized.
- Example: These potencies are latent in the puppy and are actualized as the puppy
grows up and achieves what it is supposed.

Synthesis
- For Aquinas, God, 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 (reaching their highest good and is to return to the
divine goodness itself.
- All things come from God and created by Him in order to return to Him.
- Nature- materiality which makes a being a certain kind of being; unique way of
creating.
- Perfection- fulfilling our nature the best we can, thus realizing what God had intended
for us to be. We can accomplish this by fulfilling or actualizing the potencies that are
already present in our nature.

Essence
- As rational being, we have a free will.
- Acts are rightly directed toward their ends by reason.
- Aquinas- “We cannot simply act in pursuit of our own ends or good without any regard
for other people’s ends or good.
- Common Good- Considering what is good for the community as well as our own
good.
- Law- the determination of proper measure of our acts. According to Aquinas, Law
must regard properly the relationship to universal happiness.
- “Law concerned with the common good.
- Promulgation- necessary for rules or laws to be communicated to the people
involved in order to enforce them and to better ensure compliance.
- Aquinas, “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
- Characters of Law
1. Eternal Law – assertion that the divine wisdom directs each being toward
its proper end. God wills for creation, how each being intended to return to
Him. All Things partake in the eternal law which means all beings that was
created by God are intended to return to Him.
2. Natural Law – natural inclination to its proper act and end in which
participation of eternal law in the rational creature which are human being.
God has given human nature a natural inclinations to determine the rule
and measure our acts.
 3. Human Law – human beings construct and enforce laws in their
communities. Natural law was used to assess the validity of human law.
4. Divine Law- specifically it is an instances where percepts or instructions
that come from divine revelation. Example: The Ten Commandments

Natural Law
- According to Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae, Man has a natural inclination.
They are naturally apprehended by reason to pursuit of being good and avoid the evil.
- Reasons why man are has natural inclinations in perception of natural law.
1. Inclination to good in accordance with the nature which is common with all
substances.
2. Man an inclination to things that pertain to him (example is animals)
3. Man an inclination to good according to the nature of his reason.

In Common with other Beings

- Thomas Aquinas emphasize in his readings that human beings are both unique and
participative in the community.
- The natural law is saying to us that we must preserve human life and it is unethical to
take the life of another (Murder as an example).

In Common with other Animals

- Thomas Aquinas believe that our human nature has common with other animals. We
have a desire to do sexual intercourse and care of one’s offspring.
- For example according to the natural law it is unacceptable to have an abortion,
abuse the children.

Uniquely Human
- 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.
- Epistemic Concern – pursue the truth.
- Social Concern – living in relation to others.