Natural Moral Law: Strengths and Weaknesses


	Natural Moral Law
	Advantages In a time of moral uncertainty, it establishes rules by which people can live in an ordered society, It encourages people to think of some acts (e.g slavery) as intrinsically wrong, It is realistic in that it admits that people can make mistakes, It has underpinned our thinking on natural rights and responsibilities, It emphasises virtues, It can be adapted to form a non-theistic system (eg. Finnis).	Disadvantages Its view that we all share a single, common human nature is arguably false, Aquinas' system does not help atheists who reject his assumptions about God (although Finnis addresses this issue, Many Christians reject its legalistic approach, for example some prefer to follow the approach of Situation Ethics, It can lead to immoral outcomes, as with its approach to contraception and homosexuality, Some Catholics (e.g Proportionalists) feel that it should be amended.
	Evaluation

In a time of moral uncertainty, it establishes rules by which people can live in an ordered society,
It encourages people to think of some acts (e.g slavery) as intrinsically wrong,
It is realistic in that it admits that people can make mistakes,
It has underpinned our thinking on natural rights and responsibilities,
It emphasises virtues,
It can be adapted to form a non-theistic system (eg. Finnis).

Its view that we all share a single, common human nature is arguably false,
Aquinas' system does not help atheists who reject his assumptions about God (although Finnis addresses this issue,
Many Christians reject its legalistic approach, for example some prefer to follow the approach of Situation Ethics,
It can lead to immoral outcomes, as with its approach to contraception and homosexuality,
Some Catholics (e.g Proportionalists) feel that it should be amended.

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