Natural Moral Law

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  • Created by: Tori
  • Created on: 22-05-20 17:23
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  • Natural Moral Law
    • Basics
      • Deontologial
        • Focuses on the ethicacy of actions, no matter the consequence.
      • Absolute
        • Applies to all people, all the time.
      • Guiding principle:
        • 'pursue good and avoid evil'
          • Done so humans can achieve their end telos (goal)
            • Humans end telos = union with God.
    • Primary Precepts
      • Designed to help humans reach their telos
        • Meant to bring human flourishing.
      • Preserve life/ self-preservation
        • Continuation of species
          • Worship God
            • Educate children
              • Living in an ordered society
      • Secondary Precepts
        • Come from the Primary Precepts.
        • Rules that decide how me should act in certain situations.
          • Eg. Do not kill
        • For the most part, they are exceptionless.
          • Primary Precepts are absolute, but Secondary Precepts can vary depending on particular situations.
            • Eg. it may not be right to pay back a debt if it injures another individual.
    • Structure of Law
      • 1 - Eternal Law
        • 2 - Divine Law
          • 3 - Natural Law
            • 4 - Human Law
              • Everyday laws that govern our lives.
            • Humans natural sense of what is right and wrong.
              • What directs our conscience.
          • God's laws revealed through the Bible.
        • The mind of God that humans can't comprehend.
          • Contains the laws that govern creation.
            • Humans can only get glipses of this through Divine Law.
    • Avoiding making mistakes
      • Real/ Apparent goods
        • Aquinas argued that humans would never purposefully seek out evil.
          • Thus, evil acts that people do must just be due to misguided reason.
            • Real Goods
              • The correct use of reason to actually do good.
            • Apparent Goods
              • Misguided reason that leads to what seems good, but is actually evil.
                • Eg. cheating on a partner because it 'feels' like the right thing to do.
                • Seeking happiness in the wrong places/very short term fulfilment.
      • Interior/ Exterior acts
        • Interior Act
          • Done for non-selfish reaons/ because you know it is right.
        • Exterior Acts
          • A good thing done by a person, but because they want to look good.
            • Eg. impress someone by donating to charity.
      • Virtues our decisions should be aided by:
        • Temperance
          • Prudence
            • Justice
              • Fortitude
                • Faith
                  • Hope
                    • Love
    • Doctrine of Double Effect
      • Help us avoid making mistakes in difficult moral situations.
      • There are 4 conditions that have to be satisfied before an act is morally permissible:
        • 1) The act must be morally good or neutral.
          • 2) The bad effect must not be the means by which the good effect is achieved.
            • 3) The intention must only be for the good thing.
              • 4) The good effect must be at least qquivalent in importance to the bad effect.
                • Bad effect cannot outweight any good caused.
              • Cannot set out for a bad outcome.
            • A bad outcome can't be how a good effect happens.
          • Cannot do a bad act for a good outcome.
      • Criticisms of Double Effect
        • Consequentialists would argue that it doesn't matter what your intentions are.
          • A good act is one that has a good consequence, no matter the intention.
        • Some times seems counter-intuitive.
          • Eg. Aquinas says it's wrong to lie to save someone from danger, but that goes against the intuition of people.
        • Suicide is forbidden in NML as it goes against preservation of lfie/self.
          • Thus, a soldier throwing themseleves on a grenade to save the lives of others wouldn't be allowed.
            • Disallowed as by intending to die the soldier is doing a bad act.
              • Doesn't make much sense as not doing so would cause the death of more people, breaking the preservation of life.
                • Thus, some argue that the intrinsic morality of an act wouldn't matter if the conseuence is good.
    • Proportionalism
      • Modern theology that is rooted in the work of Aquinas.
        • States that where there is proportional reason, it would be right to ignore a rule in such a situation.
      • Acts become morally good or bad only where the agent:
        • 1) Compares the value and disvalue of an act.
        • 2) The intenion of the individual.
      • Criticism
        • Some say this becomes consequentialsim (calculation of good and evil), thus loosing the true message of NML.

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