Transcript Aquinas and Natural Law Ethics

Aristotle + God
Al-Farabi
870-950 CE
Avicenna
Anselm
Averroes
980-1037 CE
1038-1109 AD
1126-1198 CE
900
Ockham
1287-1347 AD
1300
Al- Kindi
801-873 CE
Al-Ghazali
1058-1111 CE
*All images link to scholarly articles
Maimonides
Aquinas
1138-1204 AD
1225-12742AD
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Aquinas was dubbed “the dumb ox”
by his fellow students, for being
large and quiet. He was
apparently quiet because he was
busy thinking; he became the
Catholic church’s top theologian,
a title he still holds today, without
dispute.
Aquinas’s major work, the Summa
Theologica, is divided into 4 parts.
 Prima Pars (1st Part) Existence and
Nature of God
 Prima Secundae (1st Part of the 2nd
Part) Happiness, Psychology,
Virtues, Law (Human, Natural,
Divine)
 Secunda Secundae (2nd Part of the
2nd Part) The virtues in detail
 Tertia Pars (3rd Part) Christian
Doctrine
During the Middle Ages, many of Aristotle’s works were
lost to Western Europe, beginning in the first few
centuries AD.
Aquinas merged Aristotle with Christianity after the
recovery of his philosophy via Muslim scholars in the
12th and 13th century.
The ‘purposiveness’ or ‘end-directedness’ of nature in
Aristotle is identified by Aquinas with God’s purposes.
Human nature determines
what is ‘natural’ in
‘Natural Law’.
God’s commands determine
what is ‘lawful’ in
‘Natural Law’.
Viewed from the human
perspective, the
principles of natural
law are knowable by
human nature and are
structured to aid in
furthering individual
and communal goods.
Viewed from God’s
perspective, humans
participate in the Eternal
Law, which is God’s
eternal plan— “A law is a
rule of action put in place
by someone who has care
of the community” –Mark
Murphy
Aquinas’s first principle of morality is:
 Good should be done, and evil avoided
We are by nature inclined toward the Good, according to
Aquinas, but we cannot pursue the good directly because it
is abstract—we must pursue concrete goods which we know
immediately, by inclination. Those goods are:





Preservation of life
Procreation
Knowledge
Society
Reasonable Conduct
Aquinas, then, has a value-based ethical theory. The rightness or
wrongness of particular actions is determined by how those
actions further or frustrate the goods.
Certain ways of acting are “intrinsically flawed” or “unreasonable”
responses to these human goods.
Like Aristotle, Aquinas seems sure there can be no formula
provided to determine what action is right or wrong in all
particular cases.
Prudence (practical wisdom) is required for the most part, if not
always, to determine if a given act is intrinsically flawed or not.
Murphy provides a nice account of how acts can be
intrinsically flawed or unreasonable:
Aquinas does not obviously identify some master principle that one can use to
determine whether an act is intrinsically flawed … though he does indicate where to
look -- we are to look at the features that individuate acts, such as their objects …,
their ends …, their circumstances …, and so forth. An act might be flawed through a
mismatch of object and end -- that is, between the immediate aim of the action and
its more distant point. If one were, for example, to regulate one's pursuit of a greater
good in light of a lesser good -- if, for example, one were to seek friendship with God
for the sake of mere bodily survival rather than vice versa -- that would count as an
unreasonable act. An act might be flawed through the circumstances: while one is
bound to profess one's belief in God, there are certain circumstances in which it is
inappropriate to do so…. An act might be flawed merely through its intention: to
direct oneself against a good -- as in murder …, and lying …, and blasphemy … -- is
always to act in an unfitting way. –Mark Murphy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
Is an action ever intrinsically flawed because it fails
to maximize goodness? Murphy, again:
His natural law view understands principles of right to be
grounded in principles of good; on this Aquinas sides with
utilitarians, and consequentialists generally, against
Kantians. But Aquinas would deny that the principles of the
right enjoin us to maximize the good -- while he allows that
considerations of the greater good have a role in practical
reasoning, action can be irremediably flawed merely through
(e.g.) badness of intention, flawed such that no good
consequences that flow from the action would be sufficient to
justify it -- and in this Aquinas sides with the Kantians against
the utilitarians and consequentialists of other stripes. –Mark
Murphy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
Must prudence determine the right action in every
situation, or are there at least some universal general
rules that are always valid or correct?
And while Aquinas is in some ways Aristotelian, and recognizes
that virtue will always be required in order to hit the mark in a
situation of choice, he rejects the view commonly ascribed to
Aristotle (for doubts that it is Aristotle's view; see Irwin 2000)
that there are no universally true general principles of right. –
Mark Murphy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-lawethics/
 Title Slide: Library, St. Paul’s College, Washington,
D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lricecsp/2365699386
The
Good
Analogy of the Sun
Mind
The Sun
is…
that makes…
to the …
through the power of…
by providing …
a visible object
objects visible
eye
sight
light
The Good
an intelligible object
objects intelligible
soul
understanding
truth
The tree above is the visible object, the Forms (Universals) are the
intelligible objects that the Good shines on. Both the Sun and the
Good create their objects.
http://www.boisestate.edu/people/troark/didactics/ancient/materials/Line_Sun.pdf
The Good
Substance
Quality
Place
Quantity
Relation
Socrates
is one
is white
is in
Athens
is a
friend
to
Plato
as a transcendental property
Position
Action
Time
Possession
Passion
is seated
it is
noon
is
speaking
has a
toga
Is it odd that ‘good’ can be predicated in any of the 10 categories?
is being
spoken
to
The
Great
Chain
of
Being
God = Being = The Good
Angels
Actuality
Humans
Animals
Plants
Rocks
Potentiality
Mud
Nothingness
Aquinas gets the chain from Plotinus (his student, Porphyry),
Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and others,
and adds to it