Natural Law Answers to Modernist Confusion by Gary L. Morella
There are many rival theories of morality. Among these are conventionalism (relativism), utilitarianism (consequentialism, proportionalism, situational ethics), emotivism/hedonism, human rights, revealed religious commands, and autonomy.
Conventionalism says that there is no such thing as universal absolute morality, just human beings living together agreeing on a few things, trying to get along with each other. You could have polygamy in one culture and monogamy in another with no absolute standard to say which is best. Joseph Fletcher is associated with this theory. [See "What is Natural Law?" lecture, Introduction to Sexual Ethics, Janet Smith, adapted from "Natural Law and Sexual Ethics," in Common Truths: New Perspectives on Natural Law, ed. By Edward B. McLean, 193-218.]
Utilitarianism tells us to act in such a way that we can maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number, suggesting that there exists no absolute moral rights or wrongs. This was the gospel according to John Stuart Mill. [See Written On The Heart, The Case For Natural Law, J. Budziszewski.] Premarital sex is OK in some cultures and not in others. Acts are judged by their consequences, i.e., what goods they bring about for certain people. Adultery is perfectly permissible if you are away from your spouse for a long time.
Emotivism/hedonism says that emotions and passions are the most important factors in determining our actions as opposed to reason ruling our emotions and governing our lives. We live for the desire to be fully passionate, which is all that matters with reason put on the backburner. There is no cause for concern as "God is dead with everything permitted", the guarantee of Friedrich Nietzsche. [See Ibid.]
Human rights (e.g. U.S. Constitution), has become very popular, containing some universal aspects. The problem is, what is the foundation for human rights? Are they God given or do we give them to each other? Are they inalienable, self-evident? Where do they come from? Who has to provide them? Has the Constitution become blurred because of the innumerable penumbras found by judicial activists who consider it an "evolving document?"
Revealed religious commands are found in the texts of different religions’ sources of morality. For Judeo-Christians the Bible, in particular, the Ten Commandments are the source. If God says it, we have to do it. Do we need to ask Him why? No. Ethical norms are revealed directly by God with man expected to act upon them. We must be careful in strictly literal interpretations, e.g., "If the eye offends, pluck it out." Reason must be used to interpret these commands; else the entire population of this planet would be blind.
Autonomy based ethics, a primary principle in biomedical ethics gone mad, tells us to make our own laws, in particular, we make our own universal laws geared to ourselves, which is very similar to relativism – an individual relativism with the root being a kind of skepticism. Can we know anything for certain? Who is to say what is right or wrong? We should not be imposing our morality on another, the gospel according to Immanuel Kant. People should make their own choices as much as possible. Many papal encyclicals have challenged this point of view of doing whatever I want.
An examination of the Natural Law challenges to all of the above will be made by seeing its basis in nature, on reason, and its relationship to the other forms of law identified by Thomas Aquinas in Treatise on Law (Summa Theologica, Questions 90-97), Introduction by Ralph McInerny. This will be undertaken from a Catholic ethics standpoint.
Catholic ethics can be approached from a philosophical perspective or a theological perspective. The truths of philosophy are those discovered by man as he observes and thinks about reality; truths, discovered in this way are said to be truths of reason. Those truths that are discovered and established by reason in the moral realm are called truths of the Natural Law. Most philosophers concede that we do not need revelation to know that some acts, such as murder, adultery, rape, and stealing are wrong.
Theological ethics have as their chief sources revelation and tradition with revelation often revealing to us what we can know through reason (see the Ten Commandments) but also revealing to us truths that are beyond our ability to discover without the help of revelation. The Christian teaching, that we must love our enemies, for example, goes beyond reason.
If one considers sexual ethics, the Catholic Church teaches that human beings are capable of determining what is moral and immoral in the realm of sexuality without special revelation. Thus, Catholic sexual ethics are based on the Natural Law. St. Thomas Aquinas, greatly influenced in thinking about philosophical issues by Aristotle, was one of the great proponents of Natural Law ethics. It is important to note that neither revelation nor theology are irrelevant to Natural Law or sexual ethics, but the Church holds that the fundamentals of both are knowable without recourse to revelation, which makes it possible for all men to come to some agreement about morality.
Realism distinguishes Aristotelian and Thomistic Ethics, the philosophic position essential to Catholicism in the papal encyclical Fides et Ratio. Simply put, this means that there is an external world that we can know through our senses, a fact seemingly innocuous considering that my Shetland sheepdog Shasta is knowable through my senses. However, much of modern philosophy since Descartes has been based on the premise that I can never know my little dog because I can’t trust my senses. Moreover, some argue that I cannot even know that there is a world outside of my mind. Alas, little Shasta will die for want of nourishment since her world doesn’t exist outside of my mind.
Aristotle and Aquinas believed that human beings are made in such a way that we can discover truths about reality starting with the information given to us by our senses, an important truth for ethics exclusive of revelation connotations. In his great work the Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas showed the followers of Aristotle that the truths of revelation were compatible with truths that they had discovered through reason in this attempt to get them to be more open to revelation. One truth that our reason discovers is that things have essences or natures and purposes and that it is good to act in accord with them. This is a fundamentally important truth for ethics, since once we know the purpose of human life and sexuality we will be better able to live morally.
What is the Natural Law? The Natural Law is an ethics that requires much observation of the world around us, and penetrating insight into the nature of things. This insight is gained through a process of induction that leads us to recognize that man is a rational animal. Through the experience of man we learn what his natural inclinations are and to what goods he is naturally inclined. Next we must discover and determine what are good means of achieving these goods.
The fundamental tenet of all human thought is the principle of contradiction, "something can’t be and not be at the same time and in the same respect." To deny this is to verify it. Natural Law theory works on the same premise. We should all act for the good at all times. "Do good and avoid evil." This leads to the following initial Natural Law principles:
Consider the example of a tomato plant. It won’t grow in a closet; it will grow if it is nourished, watered, and gets sufficient sunlight. Thus, we must treat tomato plants properly if they are to flourish.
Human beings have a nature that also demands acting in accord with reason given that man is a higher animal containing an intellect. In terms of acting in accord with reason we’re talking about thinking, reflecting, appreciating, being grateful. This doesn’t mean that passions aren’t important but acting in accord with reason tells us when they are, e.g., to be angry or sad at the sight of a small child being beaten by an adult or the death of a loved one respectively. Human beings think about how things are rightly ordered, how they ought to be. They act rationally in accord with virtue with a well-formed conscience; they act in a loving way. Similar to tomato plants human beings need the same thing, rest, shelter, friends, love, families, creativity, and play. To deprive a human being of these essential nourishing requirements would be bad.
The Natural Law is based on man’s ability to make generalizations about things having natures, what they are, what is good for these natures and acting in accord with them. If a person didn’t believe in God he still would know how to treat a person in a certain way through a realization of the Natural Law.
Expanded to the supernatural level God is the author of all nature. As such the Natural Law becomes a law of God written on the hearts of men. In recognizing the truth of the Natural Law we will have more reverence for God’s creation and the Creator as He is behind the great ordered universe making it His will that we live in accord with the Natural Law.
How can we know what is in accord with the Natural Law? All non-rational created things participate in the Natural Law by inclination only, by instinct. All rational creatures participate by inclination and rational free will. In considering the natural inclination to things, experience telling which are good or bad, the rational reflection upon what to do, and the rational ordering of the doing, we see a natural algorithm that human beings follow in determining what is good or bad, an algorithm that is unique to human beings.
Supernatural revelation helps us to know the Natural Law. In the Old Testament God gave us the Ten Commandments, which are really the Natural Law, as good rules to live by. The Bible can be considered an owner’s manual telling us how to live. In the New Testament Christ ratifies the Ten Commandments. We shouldn’t have a heart full of anger or contempt; we can’t lust after someone. Christ upped the ante with a whole new realm of considerations mapped onto the Natural Law aspects of the Decalogue that are necessary to avoid the occasions of error (sin) of the New Law extension of the Old. The Teaching Magisterium of the Church as faithful interpreter of Divine Revelation takes the Word of God, the Verbum Dei, found in Sacred Scripture and in the Great Tradition of the Church and relates it to the contemporary issues of the day, e.g., contraceptive mentality of the age, responding to the Culture of Death via the Culture of Life. God gives us the Holy Ghost to guide the Church in this endeavor in order to work through His Church.
In summary the Natural Law gives us a basis for formulating moral laws based on the observation of human nature. We must act rationally, i.e., in accord with what we have determined after reflective thought to be the best action we can do. We of necessity reject the false view of reason traced back to Descartes and Kant who looked at the human mind completely divorced from the body with the human person being simply a mind, and the body, a vehicle for holding the mind. We reject this negation of bodily or sensory influence with pure reason unencumbered by bodily considerations. We recognize that we’re embodied spirits in an Aristotelian and Thomistic sense, a union of body and soul. The body is a part of our essence; we’re not just minds in a body as our bodies are part of who we are. We recognize the importance of the human body as essential; everything that we know comes to us through our senses. There is no other way to know anything. Fear not, faithful Shelty Shasta, your master knows you’re still there! Puppironies will be forthcoming. The body is key to our whole response to reality. Emotions are important but they are not the rulers but the ruled. We have a full view of reason, not just a mind-like computer devoid of passion. Our reason is completely informed by the body, by emotions. "Ratio" means ordered. Minds are ordered or measured to reality or things that we need to live in accord with. We can’t build bridges out of tissue paper or run a car on molasses. Reason helps order data to get the right conclusions.
To act rationally is to act in accord with human nature, reason, reality, and a well-informed conscience. The first kind of reason, which informs all of our action, is judgment. "Do good and avoid evil," the primary principle of the moral law, e.g., marriage is good and adultery is bad. How do we know what’s good or bad?
We consider secondary precepts of the Natural Law ordered to the order of our natural inclinations. What’s good? The answers might be: 1) continued existence – need to eat and sleep, 2) sexual intercourse – pleasurable, provides intimacy, allows for children, 3) education of offspring – take care of children, 4) advancement of knowledge – want to know about things, and 5) live in community – not good to live in a closet. Human beings need to be in accord with their higher nature as opposed to their lower natures or animal like tendencies. Our natural inclinations are filtered through our reason in order to determine how to act. From these natural inclinations we can start formulating rules that at most can reach a moral level, e.g., how to eat – like a human being or like an animal.
As an example of the natural inclination of the desire to live or continued existence we can make a general precept. Act in such a way as to respect life. This leads to particular or secondary precepts such as don’t deliberately take an innocent life, don’t commit suicide, eat nutritious food, and rescue drowning individuals. Note that these precepts are met by adhering to the Cardinal Virtues of Justice, Temperance, and Courage respectively given a relationship between doing good and acquiring good habits.
The Natural Law is not about laws or rules but rather about human excellence or virtues. A virtuous human being has qualities that make for a good or excellent human being. The most important part of the human body is the soul. There is a huge difference between a living human being and a dead one. The body is still there but something is gone, i.e., the soul, which is the form of the body. The soul is responsible for all activities of life and growth – the principle of life. The basic appetites, hunger, thirst, sexual desire, need for sleep, are gone after death. In Thomistic psychology we talk about the rational part of the soul, the intellect allowing us to think, the will allowing us to choose, and the emotive part of the soul, the concupiscible allowing us pleasurable desires, eat, have sex, the irascible allowing us the force to overcome anything difficult, i.e., the anger which motivates us toward doing something that is difficult. The order here is from higher to lower, rational over emotive. Western tradition says that the soul should be so ordered with the higher parts ruling over the lower parts. In a theological sense we see the necessity for "fallen nature" to be ordered. The intellect, the ability to think, tells you what you ought to do. The will, hopefully, chooses the right thing to do. Virtues are habits, which help the intellect, govern the passions, i.e., help the rational part of the soul govern the emotive part.
Let us consider how the Cardinal Virtues do this. The moral virtue temperance aids us in self control, self mastery, and self moderation, the moral virtue courage overcomes fears, the moral virtue justice, a virtue of the will, governs our relationship with other people and our desire for foods. The intellectual virtue prudence, which has a moral aspect to it, orders us to the good, sees the right thing to do, and causes us to do it. A supernatural aid in recognizing the truth of the Natural Law working in conjunction with the aforementioned virtues is Grace through prayer and the Sacraments, which helps us to be good and live moral lives. Virtue based ethics and Natural Law are intertwined. Virtue based ethics assert that all human beings because of the nature of their souls need certain dispositions to achieve the goods that they need. Acts such as drunkenness that violate moderation are against virtue and therefore the Natural Law while acts such as sobriety that nurture moderation are therefore in accord with the Natural Law.
The fact that Natural Law is based upon reason, upon thinking about one’s observations about reality, makes the ethics of Natural Law a universal ethics since all human beings by their nature are able to reason, are able to think and thus to arrive at some universal truths. Everyone acknowledges the universal truths of the mathematical sciences but many claim no such universality in the moral realm. One might consider how slavery is wrong and that any culture that allows slavery is a culture that fails to recognize a universal truth about human beings and that is that they should never be owned or treated as property.
Natural Law morality can be reduced to plain old common sense. The practice of reasoning in accord with natural law principles, according to the theory itself, is natural to ordinary people, i.e., natural to all mankind for Natural Law holds that many of the most fundamental precepts of moral reasoning are obvious.
Professor Janet Smith of the University of Dallas lists some of the philosophic claims fundamental to the Natural Law as follows:
The relationship between the Natural Law and the other forms of law considered by Thomas Aquinas can be seen by examining the principle of "rightful autonomy," not radical autonomy, at the heart of the moral life concerning man as the personal subject of his actions. The Moral Law has its origin in God and always finds its source in Him: at the same time, by virtue of natural reason, which derives from Divine Wisdom, it is a properly human law. The Natural Law is nothing other than the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided - no Kantian ambiguities here where all choices are equal. This law is called natural not because it refers to the nature of irrational things but because the reason which promulgates it is proper to human nature. We are commanded to respect the natural order and forbidden to disturb it. This is why sins against nature cry out to heaven for vengeance (Genesis 18:20-21), as they are sins against the very Author of nature. God cares for man not from without through the laws of physical nature, but from within through reason, which, by its natural knowledge of God’s Eternal Law, is consequently able to show man the right direction to take in his free actions. This participation of the Eternal Law in the rational creature is the Natural Law which involves universality in that it is inscribed in the rational nature of the person, and makes itself felt to all beings endowed with reason.
Budziszewski in Written On The Heart, The Case For Natural Law introduces the Grand Design of Law by emphasizing the need for understanding the architecture of law by first understanding what is meant by law. Aquinas defines law in general as "an ordinance of reason, for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated." By "reason" Aquinas means practical rather than theoretical, a reason directed to choice rather than pure knowledge. "Promulgated" means "made known." The phrase "him who has care of the community" is understood as meaning "those who have care of the community," because Aquinas recognizes not only monarchies (in which authority to make laws belongs to one person) but also aristocracies (in which it belongs to a council) and "free" communities (in which it belongs to the whole people). The definition of law becomes "an ordinance of practical reason, for the common good, made by those who have care of the community, and promulgated or made known."
All four elements of the definition are essential as whatever does not have all four is not a law. Aquinas utterly repudiates the common definition of law as merely the command of the sovereign. The judges of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal were reasoning like Aquinas when they rejected the defense of the Nazis that they were only following orders.
One can envision the following hierarchical diagram for the grand design of law as understood by Aquinas. At the top would be the Eternal Law with the Natural Law and the Divine Law following two separate but parallel paths. Within the Natural Law are found Primary, Immediate, and Common precepts. Within the Divine Law is found the Old and New laws. The parallel paths emanating from the Natural and Divine Laws are then joined in the Human Law wherein is found the Law of nations and Civil law. A separate path from the Divine Law leads to the "Law of Sin".
The Eternal law is the principles by which God made and governs the universe. Without the Eternal Law, nothing would be knowable at all. Only God can know the Eternal Law as it is in itself. We created rational beings can know it only in its "reflections." One can think of God as the sun and the Eternal Law as the sunlight. Without the sunlight, nothing is visible; yet we cannot look at the sun directly because it is too powerful for our human eyes. All law derives its authority from Eternal Law; whatever does not is not a law.
The Natural Law is the reflection of the Eternal Law in the very structure of the created rational mind, directing us to our natural good. Specifically, we’re speaking of the law written on the hearts of mankind – the deep structure of all moral knowledge. Aquinas classifies its principles, or precepts, into primary and secondary, and then subdivides the secondary precepts resulting in three groups in all.
The primary precepts, also called the "first principles of practical reason," can be thought of as moral principles that we cannot "not know" such as "Good should be pursued and evil avoided" and "Love your neighbor." In one sense these general rules are like classical geometry axioms; they cannot be proven, but they are what every proof depends on. In another sense they are not since, instead of beginning with them, we end with them.
The secondary precepts are like theorems that are derived from the primary precepts and express moral truth because the primary precepts do. Some are so obvious that everyone recognizes their truth immediately, e.g., "Do not murder." These are the immediate precepts. Other more detailed precepts are not as obvious. These are the common precepts such as "Always return to a person what belongs to him."
To call a principle general is to say that it applies in all cases; there can be no excuse for violating it. To call a principle common is to say that it applies only in most cases; there are exceptions, e.g., ordinarily you should give back an item that a friend has left in your safekeeping, but not if he is drunk and the item is his car key. Thus, having true and objective moral laws does not do away with judgment.
The Divine Law is the reflection of the Eternal Law in God’s revealed Word, the Bible, directing us to faith in Christ as the only possible means of our reconciliation with God. Unlike Natural Law, which aims us only toward our natural good, Divine Law aims us toward that unimaginable ultimate joy which is far beyond our merely natural good and consists of the vision of God Himself in Heaven.
Aquinas holds that God gave two different editions of the Divine Law: the Old Law in the Old Testament, and the New Law in the New Testament. These two laws are not contradictory; the Old Law points to the New Law and is fulfilled (and thus superceded) in the promised Savior, Who offers the way out of sin and guilt. Although some parts of the Divine Law are also contained in Natural Law and so are discoverable by unaided human reason, reference Aquinas’ proofs of the existence of God, other parts go beyond what we could have figured out by ourselves, and would not have been known unless God had revealed them.
Human Law is detailed "determinations" or applications of Natural Law to the circumstances of particular human societies. Human law is derived from Natural Law in two different ways.
Some human laws (the laws of nations) are derived by deduction, e.g., poisoning my neighbor would do him harm; since the Natural Law says that I should not do harm, I should not poison him. The role of Human Law is to make this particular act punishable.
Other human laws (civil laws) are derived by determination of certain generalities, e.g., we might fulfill the natural-law precept of furthering the safety of the people (the common good) either by making everyone drive on the right or on the left. The role of Human Law is to make and enforce the choice.
Our aforementioned diagram of the Grand Design of Law has what can be thought of as a solid line connecting Natural Law with Human Law, but a dotted line connecting Divine Law with Human Law. Why? Human Law is not derived from Divine Law because the government is charged with directing the community to its natural rather than its supernatural good. God does not intend the enforcement of Divine Law upon unbelievers. That would make a mockery out of His gift of free will to mankind. But even if Human Law should not enforce Divine Law, it should not violate it either – not any more than it may violate Natural Law. The reason is that any authority Human Law has comes ultimately from God. The bottom line, holds Aquinas, is that if government commands something contrary to either Natural or Divine Law, its command is not a law but an act of violence that must be disobeyed, e.g., the holocaust of our time legitimized by Roe v. Wade, and the lunacy of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey where the human agent is an isolated unencumbered individual whose task it is to define what he is and decide what will be fulfilling of him, the autonomous unencumbered self. The infamous Casey decision makes the absurd claim that we all have a right to define the universe and the nature of reality and what is good and bad. That such nonsense should be pronounced by a high court indicates how far we have come from an adequate understanding of the human person and basic logic 101 as what happens when these myriad of universes collide as they invariably will? Whose rights are primary in the absence of some universal truth? The ridiculous decision of the court left only anarchy for an answer with its incoherent view falling of its own weight. The single greatest obstacle to profiting from Aquinas’ treatise on law lies in the notion that each of us is autonomous, a law unto himself, and that it is possible to have a shared sense of the good or to form a society on that basis. It is ironic that we find a true sense of what a human being is in a medieval theological work. The same view can be found in the Founders, as it is not a matter of recapturing a medieval vision, but of restoring the sense of the person operative in the Declaration and in the Constitution.
The "Law of Sin" discussed by Aquinas is not a law in the strict sense but a penalty or consequence resulting from Divine Law for man’s turning his back on God. In Romans 7 the apostle Paul comments on the fact that without the help of Christ we often do what we do not want to do and fail to do what we want to do. He concludes from this that there is a "law of sin" in us which battles against the law of God in our minds. Some medieval thinkers found this passage puzzling and asked how sin could be a law. Aquinas points out that the term law is used in two senses: first, as a command; second, as the penalty or consequence one suffers as a result of breaking a command. The "Law of Sin" is a law in the second sense. The penalty or consequence of the mind’s rebellion against God is that the desires and feelings rebel against the mind; they no longer behave, as they ought to. From this consequence others follow, and human life becomes completely disordered. Vice becomes virtue in this disordered state, e.g., homosexuality becomes an alternative lifestyle in an affirmative action civil rights sense – a manifestation of what happens when society in general becomes disordered.
The remedy for this disorder is found in the Grand Law Design of Thomas Aquinas, in particular the relationship of Natural Law to Eternal, Divine, and Human Law. Much in the same way that we, without musical training, can judge certain tones to be off pitch, we have moral "perceptions" that some actions are good and some bad, without having any explicit training about such kinds of actions. These perceptions are rational because they are cognitive acts that are in accord with reality. They had better be listened to. The alternative is whatever one feels comfortable with and whatever one agrees to is morally OK. This is basically what we are teaching to our young people and they are doing exactly what one would expect given that teaching. As long as it feels good, and they have consented to it, there is no reason for them not to do "it".
Is this working? Is this principle, as an alternative to the Natural Law, leading to moral health or moral sickness? What can we say about the moral sexual health of our society? What does the fact that 68% of African-American babies are born out of wedlock suggest? The figure is now 22% in the white community and rapidly growing. This figure would be higher if it were not for the one and a half million abortions a year. One of two marriages is going to end in divorce. AIDS is decimating some portions of our population. Are there any hints here that we are violating nature, acting irrationally, failing to live in accord with reality? Are our tomato plants thriving? Can we see our Shetland sheepdogs?