An A** 40-mark A-Level Ethics essay assessing the use of Aquinas' Natural Law. From the Normative Ethics topic within the OCR RS curriculum.
Written by an A-Level student who achieved an A* in A-Level Religious Studies (a.k.a Philosophy and Ethics) (2022) and a Grade 9 (A**) in GCSE Religious Stud...
“Natural Law is a useful way of practical decision making”
Natural Law, as conceived by 13th century philosopher Thomas Aquinas, is the deontological sys-
tem that humans are naturally inclined to recognise and understand morality, reflecting that hu-
mans are inherently good. Aquinas, author of the Summa Theologica, argued that Natural Law can
be translated to the human laws that are enforced in society.
A logical argument to support the statement is that natural law develops and expands human
morality. This can be seen through Aquinas’ 5 Primary Precepts which outline the goals and pur-
poses of humans and allows humans to direct their actions towards reaching a state of eudaemo-
nia. Aquinas intentionally conceives these precepts as ambiguous and open to interpretation, for
example, living in an ordered society, in order to encourage deeper human thought and considera-
tion into the pursuit of good choices, rather than giving strict rules which can blindly be followed.
Aquinas’ secondary precepts are individual to each person, allowing them to reach the universal
primary precepts in whichever way is most achievable to them. This has merit as the encourage-
ment of developing a sense of goodness would be supported by Aristotle, as his Virtue Ethics out-
lined the similar belief that virtues must be cultivated in order to be good. However, this argument
is of limited convincingness due to Aquinas’ belief that the inherent goodness of human nature
comes from God. This is a critical oversight as it undermines the universality of natural law by con-
flicting with atheist and agnostic thought. This is due to the fact that natural law revolves around
the obvious purpose of the Creator, a being that is rejected by atheists and that is not explored
deeply by agnostics, therefore, neither party can accept the Natural Law theory. The philosopher
Grotius would support this argument as he created an alternate version of natural law, one which
was detached from a deity, proposing that natural law does not emanate from God, rather, that it is
a reflection of human nature. Therefore, whilst natural law is useful in encouraging deeper thought
into making decisions that will produce the most good, the theory fails to be universal and is
thereby hindered in its practicality.
A weak argument against the statement is that Natural Law cannot be followed due to the pres-
ence of contradictions which impede decision making, as is seen when the primary precepts come
into conflict with each other. For example, in the case of ectopic pregnancies, a woman's life is
threatened by her foetus, however, by terminating this foetus to preserve the woman's life, one is
directly contradicting the primary precepts of reproduction and preservation of life, by killing. The
vagueness of the precepts therefore partially weakens natural law by producing contradictory situa-
tions. However, this argument is severely restricted as it does not account for Aquinas’ Doctrine of
Double Effect which outlines that it is the intention of an action which truly matters. In this way, ac-
tions which have undesirable outcomes, such as loss of life, are acceptable if the act is not evil in
itself and if there is reason to justify the bad effect. This is a convincing argument as the Doctrine is
useful in allowing individuals to perform actions that bring about significant good and enable them
to make decisions that are based on their own situation. Furthermore, Aquinas suggests humans
can be entrusted with making such decisions as natural law is within humans, giving all the ability
to make logical arguments and to reason, regardless of their intelligence level. Aristotle supports
this view that intelligence, or theoretical knowledge, is separate from reason, therefore, the rela-
tivism of the Doctrine is not a weakness as humans will naturally make the decision with the best
intention, even if it will cause death. Therefore, natural law offers a practical solution to making dif-
ficult decisions and to achieving the greatest good possible.
A convincing argument against the statement is that natural law is limited by the experience of
man. The human mind only knows what it has experienced or what it has been told, therefore, as
new experiences are eternally occurring, the mind will never be able to identify complete natural
law. Thus, the Natural Law theory must follow the experiences of man, suggesting that humankind
will always be struggling with problems and will always rely upon God to solve them. Furthermore,
the limitations of the mind mean that humans have different experiences and have great difficulty in
comprehending the opposing experiences of another, emphasising that humans are prone to dis-
agreement. This argument is highly convincing as it means that there will never be a universal con-
sensus amongst humans about the natural laws. David Hume would lend weight to this argument
as he believes that morality is not objective and so cannot come from God, rather it is based on
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