ST.

THOMAS AQUINAS’ NATURAL LAW ETHICS

Natural law ethics is a popular name attributed to the model of ethics developed by St.
Thomas Aquinas during the medieval period. Because it was developed by St. Thomas
Aquinas, natural law ethics is also called Thomistic ethics.

MAN’S NATURAL CONDITION

 The basic idea in natural law ethics is that “reason” is the source of the moral law
and that it directs us towards the “Good”. According to Aquinas, the “Good” is
the ultimate goal of the person’s actions. And for Aquinas, the “Good” is
discoverable within the person’s nature. This explains why the basic goal of
natural law ethics is “to do good and avoid evil”.

Because of Aquinas’ background as a Dominican friar, his ethical principle has a bias
towards Christian beliefs.

 He views human nature in relation to God as the creator of everything.

 Human nature should be viewed with relation to a “hierarchy of beings” with God
at the top, followed by angels, the humans, then animals, and plants as the
lowest creatures of God.
 The idea here is that every living thing exists is in this hierarchy because all
things depend on God as the first cause of all things that exist as well as their
final end. This means that every living thing that exists receives its nature from
God and since He is the source, it follows that one fulfills his nature only in
relation with Him.
 Humans are one of the “higher beings” since we have innate rational capacities
such as thinking and willing.
o When a lion gets hungry, it devours anything in its path. But man, as a
rational animal, even when hungry will not immediately ransack
someone’s house but follows the dictates of his reason and will to do the
right thing.
 As human beings, we use our intellect and will to make choices even at the
expense of giving up some of our human duties like preserving our own life. We
have the natural capacity of intellect and will to make appropriate choices and
actions.
o Our intellect is responsible for eliciting “human actions” or it is through our
intellect that we can comprehend the truth about everything in the world
and assist us in recognizing what we ought to pursue and what courses of
action are needed to achieve it.
o Our will is capable to responding to the judgments of our intellect and it
disposes is to the objects of our desire and moves us to act.
  Our actions are not random or arbitrary but rather deliberate or purposive or
always directed towards a goal or an end, and that end is “to do good”.
 When making a decision or an action, the intellect and the will perform their
function according to their natural inclinations, which is to do good, hence, the
intellect and the will do not just enable man to elicit human actins but also enable
him to perform moral and ethical acts.
 But how can we be both ratinal and moral when we usually act wrongly because
of erroneous decisions?

THE NATURAL LAW AND ITS MORAL PRECEPTS

As we had mentioned before, Aquinas believes that God is the creator of everything and
as the ultimate creator, God had imprinted on the whole of nature the principle of its
proper actions” or the natural inclinations in which all creations manifest certain natural
dispositions or tendencies both in their action and nature.

 Aquinas believes that every creature of God is bounded by eternal law as proven
by the fact that we have our natural inclinations.
 This eternal law is a product of God’s wisdom and it direfcts the movements and
actions of his creatures towards their proper end. This is how ensures that
everything flows according to his plan.

While irrational creatures obey the law by simply following their natural inclination
spontaneously, huamns follow their natural inclination with elements of freedom and
“understanding of God’s commands.”

 Humans know what and why we do things because of our innate intuition and
our ability to understand who we are and what our duties are helps us to
distinguish appropriate human actions from improper ones

The issue, however, of eternal law, is that even if it is imprinted in everyone’s nature,
only God knows what this law truly is. This is why he introduces the idea of the “natural
law”.

 The natural law is a portion of the eternal law that God instilled into man’s
mind so that we can grasp it naturally. This natural law is reflected in the
natural operation of both intellect and will.
 Meaning, our natural ability to know and direct out actions towards the “good”
and the “end” through the operation of our intellect and will.
 The natural law is simply us acting and functioning properly as rational, moral
beings.
Now, how do we know if a person is acting rightly or wrongly? What does the natural
law want us to do?

 Aquinas answers: “…good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to avoided. All
the other percepts of the natural law are based upon this.”

So, according to Aquinas, an act is morally right if it is done in accordance with the
natural law and the natural law, which comes from the Eternal law, expressed in human
nature, tells us that we must: “Do good and avoid evil.”

THE NATURAL MORAL OBLIGATION

If the moral law is “doing good and avoiding evil”, how do we know that one is acting in
accordance with the good? According to Aquinas, the “good” is that which is suitable to
human nature or that which is proper to human nature. And for Aquinas, we know that
an action is good, that is, suitable to human nature, if it is done in accordance with
conscience.

 Aquinas understands conscience as the inner voice of the intellect or reason

which calls the human person to follow the moral law, that is, to do good and
avoid evil. As we can see, in natural law ethics, conscience serves as the guide
in making moral and ethical decisions.
 Our conscience seems to be acting as the “voice of God” which reminds us if our
actions are right or wing and that if we don’t follow those moral principles,
consciences will be there to “accuse, torment, or rebuke” you.

But how do we know that one’s action obeys conscience?

According to Aquinas, an action obeys conscience if it satisfies the three-fold natural

inclination of the human person, namely:

1. Self-preservation. Self-preservation is a natural inclination that urges the human

person to take care of their health or not to kill or put themselves in danger, This
explains why for Aquinas, suicide is absolutely wrong.
2. Just dealings with others. Just dealings with others urges us to treat others
with the same respect that we accord ourselves. Thus, for Aquinas, all forms of
inhumanities such as exploitations, seduction, deception, manipulation, cheating,
kidnapping, murder, and intimidation, are absolutely wrong too.
3. Propagation of human species. Aquinas believes that the reproductive organ is
by nature designed to reproduce and propagate the human species and any act
of intervention, therefore, that frustrates the very purpose of the reproductive
organ is unnatural, hence immoral. This explains why even masturbation is
immoral in natural law ethics. We must also do this in the context of a sacred
 marriage so adultery, polygamy and any sexual relations outside of marriage is
not allowed.

It must be noted that for Aquinas if at least one of these three natural inclinations of the
human person is violated, then an act does not obey conscience; it is therefore immoral.
Needless to say, for an action to be considered moral in natural law ethics, it must be
done in accordance with conscience. Again, it must be done in accordance with the
moral law, that is, “doing good and avoiding evil”.

THREE DETERMINANTS OF MORAL ACTIONS

In addition to the three-fold natural inclinations of the human person, Aquinas

introduced three things that determine the morality of a human act, namely:

1. Object of the human act

2. Its circumstance, and
3. Its end

 The object of the act refers to that which the will intends primarily and directly.
It may either be a thing or an action. Take, for example, the physician’s act of
removing a tumor. As we can see, the direct object of the act is “to remove a tumor”.
Please note that the circumstance and the end are also intended here, but not
directly.
 The circumstance refers to the condition which affects the morality of an
action. It is important to note that the circumstance may aggravate or mitigate the
morality of the human act. Aquinas classified circumstance into:
 Quality of a person (who). It is bad to rape a women, but it is worse to rape
a daughter.
 Quality or quantity of the moral object (what) . The act of a taxi driver who
returns a wallet containing a couple of thousand dollars is good in itself, but
that of one who takes the initiative of returning fifty-thousand dollars left by a
tourist is even better.
 The circumstance of place (where). Smoking in public may not be good, but
it is worse if one smokes inside a church.
 The circumstance of means (by what means). To pray for a sick person is
good in itself, but to give her money for medicine is better.
 The circumstance of end (why). Helping an orphan kid finish schooling is
good, but doing it with the intention of employing her is better.
 Manner in which the action is done (how). Killing might generally be
conceived as evil. But in the case of an unjust aggressor, it might be morally
right to kill the aggressor.
  Time element involved in the performance of the action (when). It might
not be a good idea to smoke inside the church, but is worse to do so while the
mass is going on.
 The end of the act refers to the purpose of the doer or the agent of the human
act itself. According to Aquinas, it can be taken as a circumstance because the end
is an integral part of every moral act. For example, marrying a person one is engaged
to is good in itself but doing so while motivated by the selfish end of taking a big
share of an inheritance makes the whole action morally wrong.

It must be noted that for Aquinas, all the three determinants of a human act must be all
good for an act to be considered good or morally right.

FOUR PRINCIPLES OF DOUBLE EFFECT

Sometimes a human act may produce two conflicting results, that is, one is good and
the other is evil. To address this dilemma, Aquinas, formulated the four principles of
double effect, namely:

1. The action intended must be good in itself, or at least morally indifferent;

otherwise the act is evil at the very outset. (The act is in itself good)
2. The good effect must follow the action at least as immediately as the evil
effect, or the good and evil effect must occur simultaneously. (The agent
does not intend the bad effect)
3. The foreseen evil effect should not be intended or approved, but merely
permitted to occur. (The bad effect is not a means to the good effect)
4. There must be a proportionate and sufficient reason for allowing the evil
effect to occur while performing the action. (The badness of the bad effect
does not sufficiently outweigh the goodness of the good effect).

According to Aquinas, all of the 4 principles must be satisfied for an action to be

considered morally right.

Let us take for example the act of removing a cancerous uterus of a pregnant woman
which necessarily implies abortion, As we can see, the act will produce two results: one
good and the other evil. Of course, the removal of the cancerous uterus of the pregnant
woman will definitely save her life (good effect) but at the same time, it will kill the fetus
(the evil result). So what is the morality or ethicality of the action if we apply Aquinas;
four principles of double effect?

Please note that the act is simply to remove the cancerous uterus. So, obviously, we
satisfy principle no. 1, because the intention of removing the cancerous uterus is good
in itself. We may even view it as morally indifferent. We also satisfy principle no. 2
because the good effect, that is, the recovery of the pregnant woman follows the action
immediately. And even if the fetus dies after the removal of the cancerous uterus, at
least this evil effect occurs simultaneously with the good effect.

We also satisfy principle no.3 because abortion, that is, the death of the fetus was not
intended, it was just allowed to happen, As we can see, the main intention of removing
the cancerous uterus of the pregnant woman is to save her life. Even if the death of the
fetus was foreseen, according to Aquinas, it was just allowed to occur.

We also satisfy principle no.4 because there is indeed a sufficient reason for allowing
the evil effect, that is, abortion or the killing of the fetus, to happen. Needless to say, if
we don’t remove the cancerous uterus, then we lose both the lives of the woman and
the fetus. But if we remove the cancerous uterus, at least, as Aquinas would have us
believe, we save one life. As we can see, the removal of a cancerous uterus of a
pregnant woman which implies abortion is morally right.

Let us take another example, that of killing a drug lord. As is well-known, illegal drugs
have been destroying many lives both young and old. So, killing a drug lord will produce
a good result. However, the act produces an evil result too, that is, murder. So, what is
the morality of the act of killing the drug lord from the vantage point of Aquinas’s 4
principles of double effect?

For Aquinas, the act of killing the drug lord is intrinsically immoral because, as we can
see, it does not satisfy the first principle of the 4 principles of double effect. The first
principle says that the act must be good in itself or at least morally indifferent. But the
act of killing the drug lord is evil in itself. Hence, even if this act produces more benefits
to many people concerned, for, Aquinas, it is absolutely immoral. This explains why the
Roman Catholic who adhere to Aquinas’ natural law ethics strongly oppose extrajudicial
killing in general and killing a drug lord in particular.

Now, since the first principle is violated, we need not proceed and check the remaining
principles because in the first place the act is already immoral.

HAPPINESS AS MAN’S ULTIMATE END

So, what is this end of food that will bring us completeness, satisfies all out desires, and
ends all our actions? Aquinas answers: HAPPINESS!

 The end point of Aquinas’ ethics is for us to be happy! But this happiness is not
ot be understood as physical or material happiness but it is to be understood as
us being able to know and love God through “beatific vision”.
o In a beatific vision, we are shown that God is the only perfect good for it is
only him who could satisfy all the desire of our human heart and the act of
 knowing and loving God is in itself perfect and true happiness for we are
now in union with God.
o Not a face-to-face sort of union but union in the sense that we know and
love him.
o Human reason has achieved the perfection of its expression when it
reached such beatific vision of God and union of affections with him in
love.
 Beatific visions, however, is not something that we can achieve through our own
efforts.
o We can be given beatific visions through God’s grace alone and it is only
through God’s grace that humans can attain true happiness and salvation.
o Still, it demands perfection of our rational willsto acquire the habit of love
before a complete union with God is achieved.