Ethics Notes: AS/A1 Religious Studies (OCR)

Ethics

Natural Law
Natural Law:
 Advocated by Thomas Aquinas
 Main ethical principle around Aquinas’ time promoted the ‘Divine Command
Theory’
o Means that anything God says, goes
 Humans have an innate power to understand Good and Evil – God has created
humans so that they can recognise morality in this way
o Nature decides what is right and wrong
o God made nature but nature works on its own, towards its telos
o Ethics come from nature and not God
 Allowed Aquinas to combine science of nature (proposed by Aristotle) and God
Aristotle’s Theory of Natural Law:
 Aristotle took a teleological approach – actions judged by the outcome of events
– telos
o Can be observed in nature – an acorn grows into an oak tree because of
its nature
 Law and justice make a virtuous life and create a perfect community
 Justice is ‘a state of mind that encourages man to perform just actions’
 Four kinds of justice according to Aristotle:
o Natural – set by nature and is universal
o Conventional – set by individual communities – subject to change
o Distributive – allocating property to individuals on the basis of merit
o Corrective – rights any wrongdoing to a person
Telos and Eudaimonia:
 Aquinas took influence from Aristotle – movement in nature is towards a telos
 Agreed with by Aquinas – God created the world with the aim for everything to
comply with Natural Law in order to fulfil everything’s telos
 Same for humans – humans move to their telos
o The telos of rational beings is the goodness of God through glorifying
God through the moral law
 Refers to Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia, a bliss and eternal happiness
o Aquinas – this was only achieved after death
 Humans could still pursue Eudaimonia by doing good and avoiding evil
(Synderesis Principle) – we get closer to it by acting morally according to Natural
Law
o Disobeying what is naturally good for us has the opposite effect
 Argued we know what is good through human reason and consciousness –
reason unlocks moral knowledge for us – tells us how to live and act
The existence of telos:
 Telos-based ethics are ultimately empirical
o Biological fact that certain behaviours cause an organism to flourish
o Empirically valid concept
 Francis Bacon (father of empiricism) rejects final causation as unscientific
o Observation of atoms move in fields of force
o Sean Carroll (physicist) says purpose is not built into the architecture of
the universe
 John Polkinghorne (Christian philosopher and physicist) – science is limited
thus we cannot answer all the questions

, o Cannot rule out something like God which provides a telos – science
cannot be used to dismiss the existence of purpose
 Sartre – rejects the concept of telos – life in itself has no meaning
o Telos derives from psychological human desperation and a need for
purpose in life
o JP II in Mulieris Dignitatem – female telos is motherhood
 Stephen Pinker – we are born with a tabula rasa (a blank slate)
 Nietzsche – only human purpose is self-appointed
o Thus basing an ethical theory on a misfounded notion of purpose is
detrimental to the theory
Aquinas’ Four Tiers of Law:
 Eternal Law
o Divine and rational model according to which God made the world
o Aquinas said the world was ruled by Divine Providence or “divine reason”
o Eternal law because God is eternal
 Divine Law
o Derived from God
o From Holy Scripture or teaching e.g. the Bible
o Guides man to reach eternal happiness and to fulfil man’s “good
tendencies” such as having children and serving God
o Aquinas argued that man’s instinct is an inclination towards virtue
 Natural Law
o The process in which a natural being participates in the Eternal Law
o Irrational beings (animals, plants) are judged according to eternal law but
cannot rationally participate in it
 Human Law
o Moral obligation for man to create laws in accordance with divine reason
o Man-made laws can be fallible and morally unjust
o Aquinas argued in favour of “lex iniusta non est lex”, but following an
unjust law does “not bind in conscience
The Synderesis Principle:
 Aquinas – “Good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided”
o We know this through our recta ratio (right of reason) of basic moral
principles
 Though process behind moral decisions is called Synderesis
 Technique used to work out the telos of an action is called casuistry
o When applying reason to this, it is known as Conscientia
 Aquinas believed that one never purposefully or deliberately pursues evil
o Evil occurs through ‘Apparent’ and not ‘Real’ goods
 Apparent Goods – appear good but in reality do not fit the perfect human ideal
o Reason why humans do things wrong and cause evil
 Real Goods – supreme goodness
o Reason used correctly and fits in with the idea of telos/perfection
 Thus is deontological
o Focuses on actions and intentions rather than outcomes
o If the actions (conscientia) and intentions (synderesis) are good, then real
good is met
Aquinas and human nature:
 Possible Aquinas is too optimistic about it
 Augustine – natural inclination to do wrong – stolen pear example
o ‘doing right’ in the modern world is linked to gaining wealth and material
accumulation
 Counter – Aquinas argues that negative actions of humans are apparent goods

, o Short-term pleasures of material accumulation justifies the use of
sweatshops
o Weak argument – a Hobbesian view of human nature is more reasonable
 Barth – natural theology places a dangerous overreliance on human reason –
finite minds cannot grasp God’s infinite being
o However – doesn’t address Tommy’s point that reason isn’t always
corrupted
 Conclusion – it is dangerous to rely on human rationality – inclined to sin
through Adam’s choice
o Example of the Nazis – believed what they were doing was right – more
reasonable to align oneself with Biblical teaching
Primary and secondary precepts:
 When we used reason – we notice basic rules that all humans are drawn toward
 Precepts are built into nature
o These are understood using reason
 In order for people to be able to concentrate on Natural Law, you need to live in
a civilised society
o This is where one is free and can survive and flourish
 5 basic goods – primary precepts
o Life
o Reproduction
o Education
o Worshipping God
o Law and Order
 Primary precepts are always true, and apply to everyone without exception
o They are a direct reflection of God’s Eternal Law
 We derive secondary precepts from the primary precepts – using conscientia
o Secondary precepts are practical human interpretations of the primary
precepts that govern our daily behaviour
o E.g. the precepts say nothing about euthanasia, use reason to discern
 Primary precepts are set in stone, secondary precepts vary
o This can be as a result of local laws, or accepted codes of behaviour within
families
 Primary precept – Life
o Secondary precept – do not murder
 Morality is an absolute given by God
Violating Natural Law
 Why do people violate natural law even if we have reason that allows us to
understand morality
 God is balancing Natural Law with Free Will – we are able to physically violate
the Natural Law through Free Will
 Natural Law is broken due to emotion – humans are emotional beings and
cannot live by just reason alone – reason is overpowered by emotion
Doctrine of Double Effect
 An action that is bad is always bad, but an action that is positive with an evil
consequence is sometimes permissible
 Always wrong to do bad intentionally to bring about good
o Sometimes right to do good actions knowing it will bring about bad
consequences
 Relies on four conditions being fulfilled
o Nature of the act – action must be morally good/indifferent
o Means-end – the bad effect mustn’t be the means of achieving the good
effect

, o Right intention – the intention must only be the good effect and the bad
effect must be an unintended side effect
o Proportionality – the good effect must be at least equivalent in importance
to the bad effect
Strengths:
 Based on reason – technically open to any with the capability of reason
 Focused on search for happiness and fulfilment
 Children have an innate sense of what is right and wrong
o Proves that everyone has this God-given reason
 Christian version unites faith with reason – unique for the modern world
 Primary precepts provide an absolutist and legalistic framework
o Applies same principles to everyone
 Much simpler to find answers to ethical dilemmas compared to a relativist
theory
o A lot more concrete than personal opinion
 Secondary precepts allow for a bit more flexibility in this case
Proportionalism:
 Double effect has been used by modern Catholics to allow euthanasia, abortion
to save the life of the mother, and contraception to prevent the spread of AIDS
 B. Hoose – developed natural law into proportionalism
o It is reasonable to go against the primary precepts if you have a
proportionate reason for it
o Fletcher’s example of killing a baby to save the lives its family – more
value than disvalue
 No part of an action can be morally bad, just the outcome of the action
o Ontic goods (factual goods like health, life and knowledge) vs ontic evils
o An action that is morally good produces more ontic good than evil
 Criticism – just ends up like utilitarianism – removes the legalistic aspect of
Natural Law
Issues with Natural Law:
 Casuistry – manipulating Natural Law in order to achieve what we believe will
result in the outcome of most good – feels more consequentialist rather than
absolutist
 What good is Natural Law if you don’t believe in God – if we reject the concept
as a whole Natural Law collapses
o Counter: Aquinas believed God made is possible for all humans to
achieve their telos through reason alone
 Sophistry – Natural Law sounds sophisticated and logically sound but is an
ultimately flawed argument
 Naturalistic fallacy – criticism introduced by G.E. Moore
o Criticises the mistake of Natural Law reducing actions to purely good or
purely evil by describing things as desirable
o Connected to the is/ought problem – just because things are good, does it
necessarily mean that it should happen – can’t objectively describe
something as good
 Not everyone has the same moral compass – problem with absolutist ethical
theories as a whole – people will have different ideas of what is good etc
 Hans Kelsen – criticises Natural Law as it attempts to create an ‘idealist legal
doctrine’
o Absolutist, unchanging stance it takes on moral law does not help when
trying to decide how to tackle moral dilemmas in the modern day
 Richard Dawkins – Argues that there is no God governing creation
o Everything can be explained in terms of evolution
 Karl Barth – reason is fallible