St. Thomas Aquinas on Law

• The study notes cover the normative ethics readings in one part

Treatise on Law – St. Thomas Aquinas

• Thomas Aquinas advocated natural law theory
• Aquinas defined Law as: A rule of reason for the common good, promulgated [made public] by the caretaker of the community
• Aquinas believed there are 4 types of laws

Eternal Law

• It is God's plan for the universe
• Aquinas viewed the entire universe as a community with God as its caretaker
• Humans can only understand it through its impacts
• Numerous aspects remain beyond human comprehension

Divine Law

• It is the eternal law revealed in Scripture
• The divine law imparts truths unattainable through reason alone
• These truths are vital for salvation and an integral part of God's plan
• Without revelation, these truths would remain unknown

Human Law

• It is the body of laws created by humans
• Unlike the other three types of law, human law is not always directed to the common good
• Throughout history, governments have enacted immoral laws not intended to benefit the community
• According to Aquinas, if a law deviates from reason, it is unjust and resembles violence rather than law

Unjust Law

• Many Natural Law Theory supporters concur with Aquinas
• Martin Luther King cited Aquinas and Natural Law to justify breaking immoral laws during the Civil Rights movement
• A just law aligns with moral or divine law, while an unjust law contradicts it
• Unjust laws, not rooted in eternal and natural law, degrade human personality
• Segregation statutes are unjust as they distort the soul and give a false sense of superiority
• King urged obedience to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision but disobedience to segregation ordinances

Natural Law

• Natural law involves rational participation in eternal law
• Aquinas defined it as the imprint of eternal law on rational minds
• Manifests through natural inclinations towards goods: goods for being, animal goods, and rational goods

Self-Preservation

• It is the good for being
• Aquinas believed existence is inherently good
• Nothing can be purely evil, as existence is a basic good
• The desire to maintain existence drives pursuit of good and reflects eternal law

Animal Goods

• These goods are things such as food, procreation, health, shelter, etc
• They can be pursued by living beings
• The inclination to pursue these goods shows the imprint of eternal law on minds

Rational Goods

• They require reason for acquisition and enjoyment
• They include living in complex societies
• They include knowing truths about God
• Seeking these reflects eternal law's effects

Precepts of Natural Law

• They guide pursuing and maintaining all goods
• First precepts of natural law relate to practical reason, parallel to demonstration principles in speculative reason
• There are several indemonstrable first principles
• The first precepts and principles are fundamental, serving as the foundation for others

Demonstrating Claims

• It involves constructing a logical proof
• First principles are fundamental, requiring presupposition for logical proof
• First principles are indemonstrable, as attempts to prove them assume their truth

Speculative Reason

• The distinction between speculative and practical reason involves the object of rational inquiry
• It focuses on being and truth
• First principles of demonstration involve being and truth

Practical Reason

• This involves how to live
• The central concept in practical reason is goodness
• The first precept in practical reason is: “Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided”

Self-Evident Principles

• According to Aquinas, principles are self-evident when their predicate is contained in the subject
• For example, "Triangles have three angles"
• Understanding "triangle" means knowing it has three angles

First Principles of Demonstration

• Denying them leads to contradiction
• The first precept is self-evident to those understanding "good" and "evil"

Natural Law

• Aquinas makes distinctions regarding natural law and its understanding
• Distinguishes general principles from particular conclusions
• Considers the difference between knowing and being true for all

General Principles

• General principles are true for all
• Particular conclusions are true for all in most cases
• Situations may alter application of general principles

Changing Natural Law

• Aquinas identifies two possible ways natural law can be changed: addition and subtraction
• Adding involves establishing precepts without altering existing laws
• God and humans change natural law by adding to it

Changing Natural Law Through Subtraction

• It involves falsifying aspects
• General principles cannot be subtracted, while particular conclusions can be altered
• An example includes the shotgun scenario

Strengths of Natural Law Theory

• Every version provides objective basis for morality by appealing to nature
• Claims about natural inclinations can be verified, grounding moral facts

Criticisms of Natural Law Theory

• It does not always provide a clear definition of “nature.”
• Ambiguity in "nature" results in ambiguity regarding good
• Condemning behaviors that do not seem immoral, like walking on the moon
• Proponents associate “natural” with “purpose”

Actions

• Actions that fulfill purpose are good
• Actions opposing purpose are bad
• “Unnatural” opposes purpose
• Artificial things help daily life but are not unnatural in the morally important sense

Revised Understanding of “Natural” and “Unnatural”

• It leads to difficulties
• Many activities intentionally oppose natural purpose but are morally good such as modern medicine
• One severe epilepsy treatment is slicing the corpus callosum

Slicing the Corpus Callosum

• The procedure can improve patient health

Common Objection to Natural Law Theory

• It attempts to derive "ought" from "is"
• This is the naturalistic fallacy
• This error makes ethical claims from facts

Jeremy Bentham

• He supports utilitarianism, a version of consequentialism
• Consequentialism states that only the consequences of an act are morally relevant

Bentham's Moral Theory

• The fundamental principle is the principle of utility, approving actions increasing happiness and disapproving those diminishing it
• Utility equates to pleasure or happiness
• Opponents either misapply utility or reject its implications
• The principle is needed to prove other moral claims

Opposing Principles

• The principle of asceticism and the principle of sympathy and antipathy oppose the principle of utility.
• Asceticism approves actions that diminish happiness
• Sympathy and antipathy align with utility, occasionally leading to actions maximizing or not maximizing happiness
• They are similar to subjectivism, not grounded in objective standards

Pleasure & Pain Dependance

• According to Bentham, the value of a pleasure or a pain depends upon: Its intensity, Its duration, Its certainty or uncertainty & Its nearness or remoteness

Bentham's Procedure

• His procedure determines moral status from pleasure/pain affected by the act, fecundity, purity, and extent

Utilitarianism – John Stuart Mill

• The excerpt begins with 2nd chapter of Mill's Utilitarianism "What utilitarianism is."
• The foundation of morals is the Principle of Utility i.e. Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP): actions promote happiness, wrong actions promote unhappiness
• Happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain
• All the things that are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain

Hierarchy of Pleasures

• Mill argues that there is a hierarchy of pleasures:
  • Humans have reason & can experience more advanced forms of pleasure that are inaccessible to animals
  • Rational beings have a higher capacity to suffer , but for the same reason, they have a higher capacity to experience joy
  • The higher pleasures are more intense, and more pleasurable, than the more vulgar pleasures
• People who have experienced both almost always prefer the higher pleasures

Common Utilitarian Misconceptions

• Mill's responses solve common 19th century objections that correct misconceptions of his version of utilitarianism
• Objection: It encourages people to indulge in base, animalistic pleasures
  • Claims that people who consistently make choices that impair their ability to enjoy higher pleasures i.e. losing their high aspirations or their intellectual tastes/opportunity, they addict themselves to inferior pleasures
• Objection: Impossible goal! The greatest happiness for the greatest number of people
  • Response: Even if happiness is unattainable, we can still do a great deal to mitigate and the elimination of suffering is one of utilitarianism's goals

GHP Misconeptions

• Objection: Utilitarianism is too demanding.
  • Response: It is not interested in motives; it does not require people to act from the motive of satisfying GHP, all that matters is that their actions do satisfy GHP
• Objection: It cares only about consequences, and not enough about individuals and their characters
  • Response: Moral theories (in Mill's opinion) should be concerned with evaluating actions, not character traits
• Objection: It is atheistic because it does not recognize the will of God or revelation as the ultimate standard of morality
  • Response: If God exists, then God would want people to be happy and would give them commands to accomplish this purpose.
  • The fourth chapter of Utilitarianism, titled: “Of what sort of proof the principle of utility is susceptible."

Objection: The GHP

• It substitutes morality for expediency i.e. concern for self-interest, encourages people to be self-centered and selfish
  • Response: The GHP involves "not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned

Mill's Goals & Objections

• Mill's main goal argues for three claims:
  • Happiness is desirable
  • Happiness is the only thing desirable
  • Everything else is desirable only as a means of acquiring happiness.
• Objection: Utilitarians make themselves exceptions to the GHP
  • Reply: Making oneself an exception to the rules is a flaw of human nature and is not unique to utilitarianism

Contemporary Objections to Utilitarianism

• Some contemporary Objections to Utilitarianism, and Possible Utilitarian Replies
• Objection: Incompatible with justice
  • Philosopher H.J. McCloskey published a hypothetical scenario to prove that utilitarianism has no room for justice
  • His example describes a utilitarian accused of of falsely accuses innocent man

Response To Utilitarianism

• The most common utilitarian response is to provide utilitarian reasons for refusing to punish the innocent person
• Suppose in McCloskey's example somehow discovered that authorities knowingly and willingly punished an innocent person as well. It will lead to far less happiness, than simply refusing to punish the innocent person

Utilitarianism

• A book with Against developed a famous objection by Bernard Williams to utilitarianism that involved a concept called negative responsibility.
  • An objection to utilitarianism that states: you are just as responsible for acts that you allow or fail to prevent as you are for acts that you directly perform yourself
• Negative responsibility is the notion that you are just as responsible for acts that you allow or fail to prevent as you are for acts that you directly perform yourself

Act-Utilitarianism (AU)

• It is the belief that the rightness/wrongness depends entirely upon the total goodness or badness of its consequences
• It explores the consequences of each act on an individual basis

Rule-Utilitarianism (RU)

• It is the belief that the moral significance of an act depends upon the goodness or badness of the consequences of a rule that everyone should perform the act in like circumstances.

Smart

• He thinks that the vast majority, if not all, of the objections to utilitarianism result from a failure to distinguish between the rightness or wrongness of an action and the utility of praising or blaming that action.
• Smart discusses other examples in which person's motives were good and Praiseworthy, yet that person's act was still wrong because led to bad consequences, these motives are not actions or states of affairs, so a purely consequentialist theory, cannot attribute moral relevance to them