Natural Moral Law

Natuaral Moral Law is a deontological approach to ethics, as well as being an absolutlist approach. By this it is made clear that moral laws are objective and morality is judged on consequences. Therefore within the NML debate it is essencial to look into the work of Greece Philosophers, St Paul and Aquinas. 

NML was first discuessed in Ancient Greece 2500 years ago. At the time Moral laws changes depending on where one lived. This is known as moral relativism. However 2 philosophers who disagreed with this, were Aristotle and Plato. They beleived that Moral Laws were absolute and unchanging and so supported moral objectivsism. Aristotle stated "the natural is that which everywhere is equally valid". Ancient greek thinker, Cicero also stated "True law is right reason in agreemtent with nature, it is applied universally and is unchanging". 

NML was discussed again by St Paul, who was deeplpy influenced by his faith. He thought that NML should be used by humans in order to reach their full potential and goal in life. St Paul explained that "ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity has been clearly percieved in the things that have been made". 

Despite these contributions, the main figure who delevloped NML was St Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas began by stating 4 kinds of Law- divine, natural, human and eternal. He explained that humans should be guided and belived that NML was a fundemental part of life. Reason and revelation both work in harmony according to Aquinas, who belived both should be used daily for moraility. Reason, found in the natural world and revalation found in the Bible make up a large part of NML. Furthermre, Aquinas had an optimistic view of human nature, so much so that he claimed that all humans were essencially good. However is this is the case, why do humans make mistakes? Aquinas responded…