AS Religious Studies- Natural Moral Law PT.1

AS Religious Studies- Natural Moral Law PT.1

What is Natural Moral Law? (NML)

Natural Moral Law is the belief that right and wrong follow a ‘natural’ law which people can discover using ‘observation’ and ‘reason’. In other words, we can know clearly what is moral and immoral by using rationality. A simple definition of rational is ‘thinking and choosing’. (LEARN THIS!)

ST THOMAS AQUINAS (very important guy) - said that ACTING RATIONALLY=ACTING MORALLY and ACTING IRRATIONALLY=ACTING IMMORRALY. Aquinas would say that a father showing forgiveness and support to son, who has done wrong, is not only moral, it is rational. Therefore, the right thing to do… makes sense right? It would be irrational to yell abusive words at his son and perhaps hit him, so that would be morally wrong.

The theory of Natural Law claims that all humans can reason or be rational and discover what the right course of action is, and that it is written into our natural in some way as NML.

ARISTOTLE (another important guy) was a Greek philosopher and was the original proponent of NML. His writings greatly influenced Thomas Aquinas, who later adopted the theory, but as a Roman Catholic monk, developed it…