Natural Moral Law
- Created by: hmadyah
- Created on: 09-11-17 09:32
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- Natural Moral Law
- Natural law defines good as what is natural
- It Is mostly associated with the medieval catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas
- The concepts of Absolutism and Legalism
- Absolutism is the holding of absolute principles in all places, at all times, and for all people, it is universesal
- Legalism states that when it comes to morality, we should make our decisions based on previously established laws.
- The two ideas intertwine. A legalistic code of ethics is often an absolute one, and vice versa. Natural Moral law theory is both legalistic as it specifies certain rules for moral behavior and absolutist as it holds that these rules are universal
- Aquinas borrowed two key concepts from Aristotle in order to develop his Natural Law theory: Telos and Eudaimonia
- Telos is a Greek term which Aquinas adopted from Aristotle it means 'end' or 'purpose'
- For Aristotle the purpose of human being is the achievement of Eudaimonia which can roughly be translated as 'good living' or 'human flourishing'
- Aquinas took up Aristotles idea of a final cause and combined it with christen teachings about God. he stated that all humans have a natural purpose towards which God wants them to aim
- There are numerous biblical passages which support the idea of a moral law instilled by God in nature.
- there are two sources Aquinas believed that humans could use to understand this purpose of God had given to humanity
- The bible is considered revelation so it reveals or shows something about God
- The world reveals God's moral law because it was designed by God and therefor has signs of its creator in its design
- Reason: Aquinas believed very strongly in the ability of human reason to gain knowledge about God. He argued that through reason we could know what actions would fulfill our natural purpose.
- Aquinas believed that humanity was given reason and freedom by God so that we would be able to discover and fulfill our natural purpose. All humans had the ability to reason which meant that we are able to follow natural moral law if they chose to
- Aquinas believed that everyone has a specific purpose unique to them that could be fulfilled through the skills and talents given to them by god.
- Primary Precept is the fundamental rules which can never be broken and from which secondary precepts are drawn
- Secondary Precept are rules developed on the basis of primary precepts
- Bernard Hoose's Proportionalism
- This is an ethical theory most commonly associated with Bernard Hoose.
- It is often seen as an attractive middle way between the absolutism of natural law and other situational ethics
- Natural law defines good as what is natural
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