‘Natural law provides clear guidance on how to act in moral situations.’
If human nature is sinful, can natural law work?
Assess Aquinas’ 4 tiers of law.
Asses how ethical the primary precepts are.
A complete set of all essay plans needed for possible questions which may come up i...
E- Evaluation (discuss which argument is strongest and why)
L- Link (link back to the question)
‘Natural law provides clear guidance on how to act in moral situations.’
Paragraph 1
P- Natural law does provide clear guidance.
E- The primary precepts are a set of rules developed by Aquinas which are rooted in human nature.
These are the basis of our knowledge of right and wrong and help guide us to make a moral decision.
These five precepts are based on reason and offer a universal code to everyone. This means every
person can use reason to discover the precepts and make moral decisions. For example, one of the
primary precepts is to preserve life. This is a clear and logical idea by which guides humans.
R- However, Hume and Moore argue the idea of naturalistic fallacy. This is the argument that just
because something is natural, does not mean that you ‘ought’ to do it. They point out that Aquinas
tries to connect something natural to something good. For example, Aquinas would say that a
mother ‘ought’ to breastfeed her baby as it is natural and therefore good. However, some mothers
are unable to do so, this may be ‘unnatural’ however it does not make it unethical.
Paragraph 2
P- Natural law does not provide clear guidance due to the issue surrounding the doctrine of double
effect.
E- The doctrine of double effect allows the rules of natural law to be bent in certain circumstances. If
the good intention of an action comes before the bad consequence of the action, then the act may
be moral. For example, a doctor may give a high dose of drugs to a patient in order to relieve
suffering even though they are aware the drugs will shorten their life. In this case the good intention
of relieving suffering occurs before the bad outcome of the patient’s death. This concept of the DODE
seemingly contrasts the main basis of natural law.
R- However the doctrine of double effect provides flexibility of natural law. in some cases of abortion
saving the life of a pregnant woman causes the death of her unborn child, in this situation abortion
would be accepted even though it is not natural because the good intention of saving the mother
comes before the bad intention of the abortion.
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