Natural Law

In October 2016, newspapers reported that Pantaleon Alvarez, Speaker of the. House of
Representatives, was intending to draft a bill which would amend the country’s Family Code,
thereby allowing for the legalization of same - sex unions.
This would result in the possibility of two men together or two women together being identified
as a couple with rights guaranteed and protected by the law. However, as one newspaper
report revealed, even before anything could be formally proposed, other fellow legislators had
already expressed to the media their refusal to support any such initiative.

The reasons given in the news article vary, ranging from the opinion that seeing two men kiss is
unsightly, to the statement that there is something “irregular” about belonging to the LGBT
community, and to the judgment that two people of the same sex being together is unnatural.

Natural
- Used to refer to some kind of intuition that a person has, one which is so apparently true
to him that it is unquestioned.
- E.g.
- A woman may claim that it is simply unnatural to eat any kind of insect and what this
means is that she personally finds herself averse to the idea of doing so.
-
- It is used to try to justify a certain way of behaving by seeing its likeness somewhere in
the natural world.
- E.g.
- A man might claim that it is okay for him to have more than one sexual partner, since, in
a pride of lions, the alpha male gets to mate with all the she - lions.
-
- It is used as an appeal to something instinctual without it being directed by reason.
- E.g.
- A man may deem it all right if he were to urinate just anywhere because after all he sees
it as natural function of humans.
-
- It is also used to refer to what seems common to them given their particular
environment.
- E.g.
- A Filipino/Filipina may suppose that eating three full meals of rice and viand everyday is
what is natural because everyone he/she knows behaves in that way.

- Given these varied meanings of the term “natural”, we need to find a more solid and
nuanced way to understand the term.
- Thus, we will explore how Thomas Aquinas provides this, emphasizing the capacity for
reason as what is essential in our human nature.
- This understanding of human nature anchored on our capacity for reason will become
the basis of the natural law theory.

Natural Law Theory

 - A theory which will provide us a unique way of determining the moral status of our
actions.

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

- A medieval thinker that present a natural law theory.
- Hailed as a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, he 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’ magnum opus, is a voluminous work that
comprehensively discusses many significant points in Christian theology.
- He was canonized in 1323.

*Natural Law theory is part of a larger discussion, which is his moral theory taken as a whole.
This moral theory is part of a larger project, which is Aquinas’ vision of the Christian faith.

The Context of the Christian Story

The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated by Aquinas in all his works 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 structure of his magnum opus Summa Theologiae follows the trajectory of this story.

There are 3 parts to this work:

First, Aquinas speaks of God, and although we acknowledge that our limited human intellect
cannot fully grasp Him, we nevertheless are able to say something concerning His goodness, His
might, and His creative power.

Second, which deals with man or the dynamic of human life.

This is characterized by our pursuit of happiness, which we should realize rests ultimately not
on any particular good thing that is created by God, but in the highest good which is God
Himself.
Our striving for this ultimate happiness, will not in itself bring us to this blessed state.
Salvation is only possible through the presence of God’s grace and that grace has become
perfectly incarnate in the person of Jesus.

Third, Jesus as our Savior.

In our study of ethics, the second part would be of greatest interest to us. 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 given to us through church doctrines or by following certain
passages lifted randomly from sacred scriptures.
We should hope to find that there is much greater complexity, but also coherence, to the ethics
of Aquinas.

The Context of Aquinas’ Ethics

- A full consideration of Aquinas’ ethics would require us to explore his discussion of
other matters, such as how, in our pursuit of happiness, we direct our actions toward
specific ends.
 - We might explore how emotions — the passions — are involved in this process, and
therefore require a proper order if they are to properly contribute to a good life.
- We might explore how our actions are related to certain dispositions (habits) in a
dynamic way since our actions both arise from our habits and at the same time reinforce
them.
- We might explore his discussion of how we develop either good or bad habits with a
good disposition leading us toward making moral choices, thereby contributing to our
moral virtue and a bad disposition inclining us toward making immoral choices,
bringing us to vice.
- The Christian life, therefore, is about developing the capacities given to us by God into a
disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.
- Aquinas puts forward that there is within us a conscience that directs our moral
thinking.
- There is a sense of right or wrong in us that we are obliged to obey. However, this sense
of right and wrong must be informed, guided and ultimately grounded in an objective
basis for morality.
- 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 — this would be the Natural Law.

The Greek Heritage

Neoplatonists
- These are the label of the scholars who went on clarifying and elaborating on what Plato
had already written.

God creates - He not only 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 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 Plato’s 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.
Plato was trying to answer the 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 Socrates, is that the good is real and not something that one
can pretend to make up or ignore..

Socrates elevates the notion of the good to unprecedented heights:

The Idea of the Good

(Excerpt from The Republic)
Plato
Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I
would have you term the idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of
truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth
and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either;
and , as in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not
to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to e like the good, but
not the good; the good has a place of honor yet higher.

You would say, would you not, that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things,
but of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation? In like
manner the good may e said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of
their being and essence and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and
power.

- In the hands of Neoplatonists, Plato’s idea of the good, which is the source of all beings,
becomes identified with the One and the Beautiful.

The Good and the One

Excerpt from the Enneads
Plotinus (Search online, will be included in the test)

Aristotelian Being and Becoming

1. Material Cause
- We recognize that any being we can see around is corporeal, possessed of a certain
materiality or physical stuff.
- A being is individuated — it becomes the unique, individual being in it because it is
made up of this particular stuff.

2. Formal Cause
- Each being 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 is called “form”.

3. Efficient Cause
- A being does not simply pop up from nothing, but comes from another being which is
prior to it.
- There is something which brings about the presence of another being.
- E.g.
- Parents beget a child.
- A mango tree used to be a seed that came from an older tree.

4. Final Cause
- A being has an apparent end or goal.
- E.g.
- A chair to be sat on
- A pen for writing
- A seed to become a tree
 - A child to become an adult.

This 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.

The Principle of Potency and Act

- A new pair of principle that was introduced to Aristotle wherein states that a being may
carry within itself certain potentials, but these require being actualized.

*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.

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.
- However, just because we think that a certain end is good and is therefore desirable
does not necessarily mean it is good.
- It is possible to first suppose that something is good only to realize later that doing so
was a mistake. This is why it is important for REASON to always be part of the process.
- Acts are rightly directed toward their ends by reason.
- What is necessary is to think carefully of what really is 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 can be called the common good.
- A law 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 person.
- E.g.
- City officials put up ordinances concerning garbage collection, traffic schemes, or zoning
to control building sites.
- 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 — referred to as Promulgation.
- Aquinas’ summary of this point is worth citing: “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
- Eternal Law
- It refers to what God wills for creation, how each participant in it is intended to return to
Him.
 - (It is said that given our limitations, we cannot grasp the fullness of the eternal law,
nevertheless, it is not completely opaque to us.)
- We must recognize that first, we are part of the eternal law, and second, we participate
in it in a special way.
- Human being’s participation is different from those of irrational creatures (plants and
animals), we participate 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.”
- Human Law
- It refers to all instances wherein human beings construct and enforce laws in their
communities.
- Divine Law
- It refers to the instances where we have precepts or instructions that come from divine
revelation.

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 apprehended 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 seeks 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 wading 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.

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 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.
-
In Common with Other Beings
The natural inclination to preserve one being.
- E.g.
- Makahiya leaf folds inward and protect itself when touched; or a cat cowers and then
tries to run away when it feels threatened.
- It is according to the natural law and therefore unethical to take the life of another .
- E.g.
- Murder (violation of natural law).
- 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 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.
- Animals periodically engage in sexual intercourse at a specific time of heat and could
result in offspring. (Same with human beings).
- The intrinsic connection between the sexual act and fecundity gives rise to a number of
notions of what is acceptable and unacceptable in varying degrees of conscientiousness.
- E.g.
- Whether abortion is acceptable.
- From the stance of natural law, the act of preventing the emergence of new life would be
considered unacceptable.
- The claims how it is good to care for the young, to make sure that they are properly fed,
sheltered and educated.
- As it is bad to abuse the young, to force children into hard labor or to deprive them of
basic needs or otherwise abuse them in a physical or emotional way.
- As for sexual act, 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 (like the homosexual act).

Uniquely Human
- Third reason which states that we have an inclination to good according to the nature of
our reason.
- We have a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society.
- E.g.
- Shun ignorance and to avoid offending those people with whom one lives.

- Aquinas did not go into great detail enumerating what specific acts would be clearly
ethical or unethical. Instead, he gave certain general guideposts:
- A. The Epistemic Concern
- Which we know we pursue the truth
- B. The Social Concern
- 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.
- First, we had been presented with these three inclinations as bases for moral valuation.
- Preserving the self is good.
- Second, recognizing how being rational is what is proper to man.
- 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.