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Locke’s Moral Philosophy

Locke’s greatest philosophical work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , is generally seen as a defining work of seventeenth-century empiricist epistemology and metaphysics. The moral philosophy developed in this work is rarely taken up for critical analysis, considered by many scholars of Locke’s thought to be too obscure and confusing to be taken too seriously. The view is not only seen by many commentators as incomplete, but it carries a degree of rationalism that cannot be made consistent with our picture of Locke as the arch-empiricist of his period. While it is true that Locke’s discussion of morality in the Essay is not as well-developed as many of his other views, there is reason to think that morality was the driving concern of this great work. For Locke, morality is the one area apart from mathematics wherein human reasoning can attain a level of rational certitude. For Locke, human reason may be weak with regards to our understanding of the natural world and the workings of the human mind, but it is exactly suited for the job of figuring out human moral duty. By looking at Locke’s moral philosophy, as it is developed in the Essay and some of his earlier writings, we gain a heightened appreciation for Locke’s motivations in the Essay , as well as a more nuanced understanding of the degree of Locke’s empiricism. Further than this, Locke’s moral philosophy offers us an important exemplar of seventeenth-century natural law theory, probably the predominant moral view of the period.

1.1 The puzzle of Locke’s moral philosophy

1.2 critical interpretations of locke’s moral philosophy, 2.1 morality as natural law, 2.2 morality and teleology, 2.3 morality as a deductive science, 3.1 locke’s general theory of motivation, 3.2 locke’s theory of moral motivation, 4.1 locke’s ethics of belief, 4.2 the special role of sanctions, other internet resources, related entries, 1. introduction.

There are two main stumbling blocks to the study of Locke’s moral philosophy. The first regards the singular lack of attention the subject receives in Locke’s most important and influential published works; not only did Locke never publish a work devoted to moral philosophy, but he dedicates little space to its discussion in the works he did publish. The traditional moral concept of natural law arises in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1690) serving as a major plank in his argument regarding the basis for civil law and the protection of individual liberty, but he does not go into any detail regarding how we come to know natural law nor how we might be obligated, or even motivated, to obey it. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (first edition 1690; fourth edition 1700, hereafter referred to as the Essay ) Locke spends little time discussing morality, and what he does provide in the way of a moral epistemology seems underdeveloped, offering, at best, the suggestion of what a moral system might look like rather than a fully-realized positive moral position. This brings us to the second major stumbling block: What Locke does provide us by way of moral theory in these works is diffuse, with the air of being what J.B. Schneewind has characterized as “brief, scattered and sometimes puzzling” (Schneewind 1994, 200). This is not to suggest that Locke says nothing specific or concrete about morality. Locke makes references, throughout his works, to morality and moral obligation. However, two quite distinct positions on morality seem to emerge from Locke’s works and it is this dichotomous aspect of Locke’s view that has generated the greatest degree of controversy. The first is a natural law position, which Locke refers to in the Essay , but which finds its clearest articulation in an early work from the 1660s, entitled Essays on the Law of Nature . In this work, we find Locke espousing a fairly traditional rationalistic natural law position, which consists broadly in the following three propositions: first, that moral rules are founded on divine, universal and absolute laws; second, that these divine moral laws are discernible by human reason; and third, that by dint of their divine authorship these rules are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. On the other hand, Locke also espouses a hedonistic moral theory, in evidence in his early work, but developed most fully in the Essay . This latter view holds that all goods and evils reduce to specific kinds of pleasures and pains. The emphasis here is on sanctions, and how rewards and punishments serve to provide morality with its normative force. Both elements find their way into Locke’s published works, and, as a result, Locke seems to be holding what seem to be incommensurable views. The trick for Locke scholars has been to figure out how, or even if, they can be made to cohere. The question is not easily settled by looking to Locke’s unpublished works, either, since Locke also seems to hold a natural law view at some times and a hedonistic view at others.

One might conclude, with J.B. Schneewind, among others, that Locke’s attempts at constructing a morality were unsuccessful. Schneewind does not mince words when he writes the following: “Locke’s failures are sometimes as significant as his successes. His views on morality are a case in point” (Schneewind 1994, 199). Schneewind argues that the two strands of Locke’s moral theory are irreconcilable, and that this is a fact Locke must have realized. This view is indeed an apt representation of the frustration many readers have felt with Locke’s moral theory. Locke’s eighteenth-century apologist, Catharine Trotter Cockburn thought Locke provided a promising, but incomplete, starting point for a positive moral system, imploring, in her work “A Defense of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding ,”

I wish, Sir, you may only find it enough worth your notice, to incite you to show the world, how far it falls short of doing justice to your principles; which you may do without interrupting the great business of your life, by a work, that will be an universal benefit, and which you have given the world some right to exact of you. Who is there so capable of pursuing to a demonstration those reflections on the grounds of morality , which you have already made? (Cockburn 1702, 36)

Locke’s friend William Molyneux similarly implored Locke to make good on the promise found in the Essay . In a letter written to Locke on September 16 th , 1693, Molyneux presses Locke to work on a moral treatise once he has finished editing the second edition of his Essay , writing as follows:

I am very sensible how closely you are engaged, till you have discharged this Work off your Hands; and therefore will not venture, till it be over, to press you again to what you have promis’d in the Business of Man’s Life, Morality . (Locke 1742, 53)

Several months later, in December of the same year, Molyneux concludes a letter by asking Locke about what other projects he currently has on the go “amongst which, I hope you will not forget your Thoughts on Morality ” (Locke 1742, 54).

Locke never did produce such a work, and we might well wonder if he himself ever considered the project a “failure”. There is no doubt that morality was of central importance to Locke, a fact we can discern from the Essay itself; there are two important features of the Essay that serve to enlighten us regarding the significance of this work in the development of Locke’s moral views. First of all, morality seems to have inspired Locke to write the Essay in the first place. In recounting his original inclination to embark on the project, he recalls a discussion with “five or six friends”, at which they discoursed “on a Subject very remote from this” (Locke 1700, 7). According to Locke, the discussion eventually hit a standstill, at which point it was agreed that in order to settle the issue at hand it would first be necessary to, as Locke puts it, “examine our own Abilities, and see, what Objects our Understandings were, or were not fitted to deal with” (Locke 1700, 7). This was, he explains, his first entrance into the problems that inspired the Essay itself. But, what is most interesting for our purposes is just what the remote subject was that first got Locke and his friends thinking about fundamental questions of epistemology. James Tyrell, one of those who attended that evening, is a source of enlightenment on this matter—he later recalled that the discussion concerned morality and revealed religion. But, Locke himself refers to the subjects they discussed that fateful evening as ‘very remote’ from the matters of the Essay . That may well be, but it is also true that Locke, in the Essay , identifies morality as a central feature of human intellectual and practical life, which brings us to the second important fact about Locke’s view of morality. Locke writes, in the Essay , that “Morality is the proper Science, and Business of Mankind in general” ( Essay , 4.12.11; these number are, book, chapter and section, respectively, from Locke’s Essay ). For a book aiming to set out the limits and extent of human knowledge, this comes as no small claim. We must, Locke writes, “know our own Strength” ( Essay , 1.1.6) and turn our attention to those areas in which we can have certainty, i.e., “those [things] which concern our Conduct” ( Essay , 1.1.6). The amount of attention given to the question of morality itself would seem to belie its primacy for Locke. The Essay is certainly not intended as a work of moral philosophy; it is a work of epistemology, laying the foundations for knowledge. However, a very big part of the programme involves identifying what true knowledge is and what it is we as humans can have knowledge about, and morality is accorded a distinctive and fairly exclusive status in Locke’s epistemology as one of “the Sciences capable of Demonstration” ( Essay , 4.3.18). The only other area of inquiry accorded this status is mathematics; clearly, for Locke, morality represents a unique and defining aspect of what it means to be human. We have to conclude, then, that the Essay is strongly motivated by an interest in establishing the groundwork for moral reasoning. However, while morality clearly has a position of the highest regard in his epistemological system, his promise of a demonstrable moral science is never realized here, or in later works.

It seems we can safely say that the subject of morality was a weighty one for Locke. However, just what Locke takes morality to involve is substantially more complicated an issue. There are two broad lines of interpretation of Locke’s moral views, which I will briefly outline here.

The first interpretation of Locke’s moral theory is what we might call an incompatibility thesis: Locke scholars Laslett, Aaron, von Leyden, among others, hold that Locke’s natural law theory is nothing more than a relic from Locke’s early years, when he wrote the Essays on the Law of Nature , and represents a rogue element in the mature empiricist framework of the Essay . For these commentators, the two elements found in the Essay seem not only incommensurable, but the hedonism seems the obvious and straightforward fit with Locke’s generally empiricist epistemology. The general view is that Locke’s rationalism seems, for all intents and purposes, to have no significant role to play, either in the acquisition of moral knowledge or in the recognition of the obligatory force of moral rules. These fundamental aspects of morality seem to be taken care of by Locke’s hedonism. Worse than this, however, is that the two views rely on radically different epistemological principles. The conclusion tends to be that Locke is holding on to moral rationalism in the face of serious incoherence. The incompatibility thesis is supported by the fact that Locke seems to emphasize the role of pleasure and pain in moral decision-making, however it has difficulty making sense of the presence of Locke’s moral rationalism in the Essay and other of Locke’s later works (not to mention the exalted role he gives to rationally-deduced moral law). Added to this, even in Locke’s early work, he seems to hold both positions simultaneously. Aaron and von Leyden both throw up their hands. According to von Leyden, in the introduction to his 1954 edition of Locke’s Essays on the Law of Nature ,

the development of [Locke’s] hedonism and certain other views held by him in later years made it indeed difficult for him to adhere whole-heartedly to his doctrine of natural law. (Locke 1954, 14)

In a similar vein, Aaron writes:

Two theories compete with each other in [Locke’s] mind. Both are retained; yet their retention means that a consistent moral theory becomes difficult to find. (Aaron 1971, 257)

Yet, it is curious that Locke neither claimed to find these strands incompatible, nor ever abandoned his rationalistic natural law view. It seems unlikely that this view would be nothing more than a confusing hangover from earlier days. Taking seriously Locke’s commitment to both is therefore a much more charitable approach, and one that takes seriously Locke’s clear commitment to the benefits of rationally-apprehending our moral duties. An approach along these lines is one we might call a compatibility approach to the question of Locke’s moral commitments. John Colman and Stephen Darwall are two Locke scholars who have argued that Locke’s view is neither plagued with tensions nor incoherent. Their common view is that the two elements of Locke’s theory are doing different work. Locke’s hedonism, on this compatibility account, is intended as a theory of moral motivation, and serves to fill a motivational gap between knowing moral law and having reasons to obey moral law. Locke introduces hedonism in order to account for the practical force of the obligations arising from natural law. As Darwall writes,

what makes God’s commands morally obligatory [i.e., God’s authority] appears…to have nothing intrinsically to do with what makes them rationally compelling. (Darwall 1995, 37).

Thus, on this account, reason deduces natural law, but it is hedonistic considerations alone that offer agents the motivating reasons to act in accordance with its dictates.

This interpretation convincingly makes room for both elements in Locke’s view. A central feature of this interpretation is its attention to the legalistic aspect of Locke’s natural law theory. For Locke, the very notion of law presupposes an authority structure as the basis for its institution and its enforcement. The law carries obligatory weight by virtue of its reflecting the will of a rightful superior. That it also carries the threat of sanctions lends motivational force to the law.

A slight modification of the compatibility account, however, better captures the motivational aspect of Locke’s rationalistic account: Locke does, at times suggest that rational agents are not only obligated, but motivated, by sheer recognition of the divine authority of moral law. It is helpful to think of morality as carrying both intrinsic and extrinsic obligatory force for Locke. On the one hand moral rules obligate by dint of their divine righteousness, and on the other hand by the threat of rewards and punishments. The suggestion that morality has an intrinsic motivational force appears in the Essays on the Law of Nature and is retained by Locke in some of his final published works. It is, however, a feature of his view that gets somewhat underappreciated in the secondary literature, and for understandable reasons—Locke tends to emphasize hedonistic motivations. Why this is will be discussed in section 4 . At this point, however, it suffices to say that Locke’s theory does not have the motivational gap that the compatibility thesis suggests—hedonism serves as a ‘back-up’ motivational tool in the absence of the right degree of rational intuition of one’s moral duty.

2. Locke’s natural law theory: the basis of moral obligation

In order to get a complete understanding of Locke’s moral theory, it is useful to begin with a look at Locke’s natural law view, articulated most fully in his Essays on the Law of Nature (written as series of lectures he delivered as Censor of Moral Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford). Two predominant features of Locke’s natural law theory are already well-developed in this work: the rationalism and the legalism. According to Locke, reason is the primary avenue by which humans come to understand moral rules, and it is via reason we can draw two distinct but related conclusions regarding the grounds for our moral obligations: we can appreciate the divine, and thereby righteous, nature of morality and we can perceive that morality is the expression of a law-making authority.

In the Essays on the Law of Nature , Locke writes that “all the requisites of a law are found in natural law” (Locke 1663–4, 82). But, what, for Locke, is required for something to be a law? Locke takes stock of what constitutes law in order to establish the legalistic framework for morality: First, law must be founded on the will of a superior. Second, it must perform the function of establishing rules of behavior. Third, it must be binding on humans, since there is a duty of compliance owed to the superior authority that institutes the laws (Locke 1663–4, 83). Natural law is rightly called law because it satisfies these conditions. For Locke, the concept of morality is best understood by reference to a law-like authority structure, for without this, he argues, moral rules would be indistinguishable from social conventions. In one his later essays, “Of Ethic in General”, Locke writes

[w]ithout showing a law that commands or forbids [people], moral goodness will be but an empty sound, and those actions which the schools here call virtues or vices may by the same authority be called by contrary names in another country; and if there be nothing more than their decisions and determinations in the case, they will be still nevertheless indifferent as to any man’s practice, which will by such kind of determinations be under no obligation to observe them. (Locke 1687–88, 302)

For Locke, then, moral law is, by definition, an obligatory set of rules, because it reflects the will of a superior authority.

Moral rules are obligatory because of the authority structure out of which they arise. But, this is not the only story Locke has to tell regarding the nature of our obligation to divine moral dictates. The set of moral rules that reason deduces are taken by Locke to be reflective of human nature. The rules that govern human conduct are specifically tailored to human nature, and our duty to God involves realizing our natures to the fullest degree. There is a noticeable degree of teleology in Locke’s theory, which is worth pausing to consider in its content and its implications.

In the Essays on the Law of Nature , Locke draws a connection between the natural law governing human action and the laws of nature that govern all other things in the natural world; just as all natural things seem nomologically determined, so human beings are likewise law-governed. Humans are not determined to the same degree as other physical and biological entities, but we are beholden to God to ensure that our lives follow a certain path. Natural law is, Locke writes, a “plan, rule, or … pattern” of life (Locke 1663–64, 81). Locke’s early view has a teleological strain typical of the Aquinian (and thus Aristotelian) tradition. In fact, Locke does not shy away from this teleological angle, acknowledging this inheritance when he writes of Aristotle’s that he

rightly concludes that the proper function of man is acting in conformity with reason, so much so that man must of necessity perform what reason prescribes. (Locke 1663–64, 83)

Locke considers moral duty to be tailored to human nature, a set of laws specific to humanity and governing our actions according to God’s will. These laws are not only discoverable by reason, but in order to fulfill our function, humans are required to make use of reason to this very end. This view resurfaces in the Essay , where Locke writes the following:

it will become us, as rational Creatures, to imploy those Faculties we have about what they are most adapted to, and follow the direction of Nature, where it seems to point us out the way. ( Essay , 4.12.11)

The way it points us, he goes on to explain, is in the direction of our “greatest interests, i.e., the Condition of our eternal Estate” ( Essay , 4.12.11). The greater effort we each make in refining our rational faculty, the more clearly each of us will discern the proper path to eternal salvation.

This teleological element may seem somewhat out of step with Locke’s unqualified empiricist rejection of teleological metaphysics in the Essay . However, it is important to bear in mind that the teleological aspects of Locke’s moral theory do seem to be serving a very specific purpose. Locke seems to be aiming to establish a natural-theological basis for natural law. Why would this be so crucial for Locke?

Locke is grounding human conduct within a general framework of laws originating in God’s divine command. This is not just a nomologically-ordered universe, but one, as we have seen, that reflects the interests of “a powerful and wise creator…who has made and built this whole universe and us mortals” (Locke 1663–64, 103). Humans are obligated to obey God’s laws since God is a superior to whom we owe “both our being and our work” (Locke 1663–64, 105). As such, we are obligated to show obedience to the “limits he prescribes” (Locke 1663–64, 105). The laws governing our nature are discovered by reason and their content is specifically suited to human nature. Thus, for Locke morality is clearly and necessarily anthropocentric, understood by reference to human nature. But moral rules are, above all, an expression of God’s will. It is this latter aspect of morality that binds us to abide by the dictates of morality. Moral obligation is a matter, for Locke, of obedience to the rightful authority of God.

There are two baseline assumptions of Locke’s moral thinking: morality is universal and it is something that can be understood clearly and unequivocally by human reason—when Locke imagines us rationally-discovering natural law, he envisions us applying a rigorous set of logical principles to a set of clear and well-defined ideas about human nature, God, and society. But, how exactly is this done?

For one thing, this process looks a great deal like mathematical reasoning. For Locke, moral rules are founded on a fundamental set of principles, much like mathematical axioms. The fundamental principles can be deduced rationally, and it is from these that we can further derive all of our moral duties. Morality is, therefore, demonstrable, a term indicating mathematical-style proofs wherein conclusions are derived from axiomatic foundations. The moral status of any action is then determined by comparing our behaviour against these demonstrated rules. But, we might ask, what kinds of ideas are moral ideas, and what sort of rationalist could Locke possibly be? Locke is a well-known empiricist; for Locke, the mind is a blank slate, the content of which is supplied exclusively from sensory or reflective experience. Locke famously espouses this empiricist view in the Essay , but holds it quite clearly also in the Essays on the Law of Nature . In fact, however, Locke’s moral rationalism takes this empiricist theory of ideas as its starting point. Moral ideas, for Locke, are fundamentally experiential in origin. They are not directly so, of course, since we do not perceive something like justice or honesty directly. Moral ideas are experiential, in the special Lockean sense that they are complex ideas—products of the mind’s ability to form complex constructions from its simple directly-experiential contents. For Locke, the interplay of reason and sensation works as follows:

reason is … taken to mean the discursive faculty of the mind, which advances from things known to things unknown and argues from one thing to another in a definite and fixed order of propositions… The foundations, however, on which rests the whole of that knowledge which reason builds … are the objects of sense-experience; for the senses primarily supply the entire as well as the chief subject-matter of discourse and introduce it into the deep recesses of the mind. (Locke 1663–64, 101)

From perceptual simple ideas, we can generate complex moral propositions. This seems like a tall order, and Locke offers very little, in any of his works, by way of actually putting this moral reasoning process to work. However, that is not to say that Locke is silent in this regard. There are places in his writings where Locke takes us through some moral demonstrations.

In the Essays on the Law of Nature , for example, Locke claims that, based on sensory experience, we can assert the extra-mental existence of perceptible objects and all their perceptible qualities. All such qualities can be explained by reference to matter in motion. What is also clear to the senses, Locke argues, is that this world of moving objects exhibits a nomological regularity, or as Locke puts it, a “wonderful art and regularity” (Locke 1663–64, 103). Such regularity and beauty leads the contemplative mind to consider how such a world could have come about. Such contemplation would lead any rational being to the conclusion that the world cannot be the result of chance, and must therefore be the product of a creative will. Note that Locke is here trying to demonstrate for us just how sensation and reason work together. The mind moves from ideas of sensation to what Locke considers logical conclusions regarding the creative force behind the world we experience. But, our understanding of natural law is not founded solely in sensory experience. Through reflection, which is an introspective kind of perceptual experience for Locke, humans can gain ideas of our own nature and faculties that serve to complete our understanding both of God and of God’s creative will. This reasoning goes as follows—the creative being, which sensation indicates must exist, cannot be less perfect than human will, nor can it be human, because our ideas of reflection tell us that humans are not, and cannot be, self-causing. Reason must conclude, then, that the world is created by a divine will—a superior power, which can bring us into existence, maintain us, or take us away, give us great joy or render us in great pain. Locke concludes as follows:

with sense-perception showing the way, reason can lead us to knowledge of a lawmaker or of some superior power to which we are necessarily subject. (Locke 1663–4, 104)

From this deduction regarding divine purpose and authority, humans can conclude that they are obligated to render “praise, honour, and glory” to God. Beyond this, the rational agent can deduce, through reflection upon her own constitution and faculties, that her natural impulses to protect and preserve her life, and to enter into society with others are faculties with which she has been uniquely equipped by God and by which she is considered specifically human. These must constitute the basis of the principles and duties governing her conduct—her “function appears to be that which nature has prepared … [her] to perform” (Locke 1663–64, 105). Thus, by a series of steps from perception to reasoning about that perceptual experience, we are, Locke concludes, able to define our moral duties and regulate our conduct accordingly.

In the Essay , Locke develops this idea of the rational deduction of natural law somewhat further, setting it in the context of a more mature and coherent theory of ideas than we find in the Essays on the Law of Nature . In the Essay , moral ideas assume a particular significance owing to their place in Locke’s general taxonomy of ideas. For Locke, all the basic contents of the mind are simple ideas. These are formed by the mind into what Locke terms complex ideas, which are combinations of simple ideas made in the pattern of our perceptions of things in the extra mental world, or according to a pattern created by reason alone. Moral ideas fall into the second category of complex idea, falling under the technical heading complex ideas of modes . Modes are a specific kind of complex ideas, created by the mind from simple ideas of sensation or reflection, but referring to no extra-mental reality. They are not intended as natural kinds, but are products of the mind alone, referring to purely conceptual archetypes. They are best understood in contradistinction to ideas of substances, which are created by the mind but aim to mirror the real essences of extra-mental things—for example, the idea cat is intended to capture a kind of thing in the world that has a specific set of perceivable characteristics. Ideas of substances fail in mirroring reality, however, as they can never be complete representations of the world outside the mind. Modal ideas, on the other hand, are a special kind of idea for Locke, and actually hold out the promise for real knowledge. Modal ideas are ideas by which we fully grasp the real essence of things, because the mind, in some sense, is the originator of them (I will return to this in the next paragraph). The idea of a triangle is a modal idea, made by reason and knowable in its essence with complete accuracy. The idea of a triangle is a product of the mind, and does not refer to anything outside the mind—i.e., any external archetype. The kinds of ideas that fall into this category are the idea of God, mathematical concepts, and, most importantly for our present purposes, moral concepts. Locke writes,

I am bold to think, that Morality is capable of Demonstration , as well as Mathematicks: since the precise real Essence of the things moral Words stand for, may be perfectly known; and so the Congruity, or Incongruity of the Things themselves, be certainly discovered, in which consists perfect knowledge. ( Essay , 3.11.16)

Moral rules, for Locke, are knowable with the same degree of certainty as “any Demonstration in Euclid” ( Essay , 4.3.18).

This might seem to be a tall order when considering the controversy generated by beliefs about moral rules, yet Locke clearly believes that moral rules can, with the right mental effort, yield indisputable universal laws. Locke offers an example of how this might work, by analyzing the moral proposition Where there is no property, there is no injustice . In order to see the demonstrable certainty of this claim, we have to examine the composite ideas and how those agree or disagree with one another. The idea of property, first of all, is a right to something. The idea of injustice, considered next, is a violation of that right. Given these definitions, which Locke thinks are arrived at by careful attention to definition, it is a rational deduction that injustice cannot exist if there is no property to be violated. Injustice and property must, by definition agree. This is a clearly demonstrable rule, according to Locke, deduced from clear and adequately conceived ideas. The only other example Locke offers is the proposition No Government allows absolute Liberty . Government, according to Locke, is the establishment of society upon certain laws, requiring conformity. Absolute liberty is allowing anyone to do as they please. These are modal ideas, according to Locke, and thus known with complete adequacy. As such, it is possible for the rational individual to see clearly that the ideas of absolute liberty and government cannot agree. Of course, most people will argue that these rational deductions rely upon definitions that are debatable. This would not seem to be helped by the fact that, for Locke, modal ideas, like all complex ideas, are put together by the mind; while complex ideas of substance are constructed on the pattern of perceivable objects, modal ideas are, Locke explains, “put together at the pleasure of our Thoughts, without any real pattern they were taken from” ( Essay , 4.4.12). This might seem to pose a problem for Locke’s moral theory, according to which moral laws are just as necessary as mathematical principles. However, Locke is not worried about any relativistic implications. For Locke, any disagreement about definitions of concepts like property, justice or murder, result from insufficient reasoning about the simple ideas that comprise our moral ideas, as well as bias, prejudice and other irrational influences. For Locke, it is precisely because these ideas refer to nothing outside the mind that they can be universally-conceived and adequately understood. Just as the notion of triangularity is known perfectly because it does not depend upon the existence of triangles outside the mind, so justice is understood perfectly because it is not using some extramental archetype as its inspiration. He writes,

the Truth and Certainty of moral Discourses abstracts from the Lives of Men, and the Existence of those Vertues in the World whereof they treat. ( Essay , 4.4.8)

Mathematical concepts are impervious to bias, prejudice or otherwise-idiosyncratic definitions and their relative properties are clear to anyone who understands them perfectly. While many would contend that moral ideas are simply too controversial to fit a proto-mathematical picture, Locke would respond that they seem controversial only because many of us have not taken the time to consider moral ideas in an objective and analytical light. If we were to do so, he argues, we could come to know moral rules with certainty.

Locke, in fact, adds something of a meta-moral dimension to this epistemological point by suggesting that as rational beings it is our “proper Imployment” to contemplate morality. In Book IV of the Essay , where Locke concludes that morality is, like mathematics, a human science (and, properly-speaking, knowledge), Locke draws a teleological lesson—since we are clearly fitted with the capacity for discerning our moral duty, then that is what we ought to do: “I think I may conclude, that Morality is the proper Science and Business of Mankind in general .” ( Essay , 4.12.11) Humans must, he argues, employ reason in the pursuit of that which “they are most adapted to, and follow the direction of Nature, where it seems to point us out the way” ( Essay , 4.12.11). The fact that many people do not or cannot devote contemplative hours to their moral duties is something Locke will consider in his account of moral motivation, however, the key point here is that humans have a teleological makeup that allows for rational certainty with regard to divine moral law.

Is having this degree of knowledge enough to motivate humans to act accordingly—that is, does the sheer recognition of one’s duty have any sway in one’s practical deliberations?

3. Moral motivation 1: reward and punishment

Locke’s hedonism has a dual function in Locke’s moral theory. It accounts both for how we acquire the ideas of moral good and evil that lie at the root of moral law and for the motivation to comply with moral rules. A prominent feature of Locke’s moral legalism is his view that a law needs to carry the threat of sanctions for it to have normative force. Locke holds this view on the basis of his hedonistic theory of human motivation.

Locke develops his hedonistic account most extensively in the Essay . According to this account, pleasure and pain are the primary motivating factors for all human action and human thought. Feelings of pleasure and pain accompany all our ideas, for Locke, prompting us to act in response to our perceptual experiences, and to move, in thought, from one idea to another. If we had no accompanying feeling of delight or pain in the face of certain stimuli we would be unmoved to create music, eat when hungry, or even shift our attention from one idea to any other—the perception of rain would raise in us no different response than a sunny day, the idea of one’s children would inspire no related thoughts of home or family, nor any discernibly different response from the idea of children one does not know. Locke writes,

we should have no reason to preferr [sic] one Thought or Action, to another; Negligence, to Attention; or Motion, to Rest. And so we should neither stir our Bodies, nor employ our Minds; but let our thoughts (if I may so call it) run a drift, without any direction or design; and suffer the Ideas of our Minds, like unregarded shadows to make their appearances there, as it happen’d, without attending to them. ( Essay , 2.7.3)

Pleasure and pain are the engines that make decisions, thoughts, and actions happen. This is not merely coincidence, or chance, for Locke, but yet another example of God’s divine design. God has attached feelings of pleasure and pain to our ideas, so the natural faculties with which humans are endowed “might not remain wholly idle, and unemploy’d by us” ( Essay , 2.7.3).

Pleasure and pain form the basis of Locke’s general theory of motivation, but they are also the bedrock upon which our moral ideas, and the motivation to moral goodness arise. Good and evil reduce, for Locke, to “nothing but Pleasure or Pain, or that which occasions or procures Pleasure and Pain to us” ( Essay , 2.28.5). A flower is good, because its beauty raises feelings of affection or pleasure in us. Illness, on the other hand, is an evil since it raises feelings of aversion in those who have experienced illness in any of its many forms. A good is whatever produces pleasure in us, or diminishes evil, and an evil is whatever produces pain or diminishes pleasure. In this way, for Locke, the ideas of good and evil arise from natural emotive responses to our various ideas. Now, these are not moral goods and evils, but for Locke moral ideas are founded in the general ideas we have of natural pleasures and pains. Locke designates no special faculty by which we acquire the basic moral concepts of good and evil, since these are merely a modification of our ideas of natural good and evil; moral good and evil gain their special significance from considering ideas of pleasure and pain in specific contexts.

Our ideas of moral good and evil do not, therefore, differ qualitatively from natural good or evil. If this is the case, however, one might ask what makes smelling a rose different from helping those in need. For Locke, the answer lies in the different context for pleasures and pains that distinguishes the moral from the natural. While a natural good involves the physical pleasure that arises from the scent of a rose, moral good is a pleasure arising from one’s conformity to moral dictates, and moral evil is pain arising from the failure to conform. The pleasure and pain are not qualitatively distinct, in these cases, but they take on a special significance as a result of the considerations that bring them about. Locke explains this in the Essay , making sure to emphasize the purely contextual distinction between moral and natural feelings:

Morally Good and Evil then, is only the Conformity or Disagreement of our voluntary Actions to some Law, whereby Good and Evil is drawn on us, from the Will and Power of the Law-maker; which Good and Evil, Pleasure or Pain, attending our observance or breach of the law, by the Decree of the Law-maker, is that we call Reward or Punishment . ( Essay , 2.28.5)

Reward and punishment are a distinct species of pleasure and pain, specifying the outcomes attending the decrees of a rightful legislator. In this way, Locke’s is a straightforwardly legalistic account of the concepts of moral good and evil. The practical force of moral laws arises when we compare our actions against these laws, determine the degree to which they do or do not conform to the law and consider the pleasure of pain we will privately experience. In fact, for Locke, the very idea that one being has rightful legislative power over another is predicated on the degree to which the former being can effectively impose sanctions on the latter:

It would be in vain for one intelligent Being, to set a Rule to the Actions of another, if he had not in his Power, to reward the compliance with, and punish deviation from his Rule, by some Good and Evil, that is not the natural product and consequence of the action itself. ( Essay , 2.28.6)

God, according to Locke, is just such a rightful superior with the

Goodness and Wisdom to direct our Actions to that which is best: and he has the Power to enforce it by Rewards and Punishments, of infinite weight and duration, in another Life. ( Essay , 2.28.8)

Locke is clearly committed to the idea that hedonistically-construed outcomes are a necessary condition of any system of law and of legislative authority itself. In this regard, Locke’s views are consistent throughout his corpus. It is worth noting that Locke holds the same view in the early work, the Essays on the Law of Nature , as he does in the more mature works quoted above. In the Essays on the Law of Nature , Essay V , Locke asserts that both God and the soul’s immortality “must necessarily be presupposed if natural law is to exist” (Locke 1663–64, 113). The inclusion of the immortality of the soul would seem to suggest the centrality of rewards and punishments in the afterlife. Locke continues by asserting that “law is to no purpose without punishment” (Locke 1663–64, 113). For Locke, then, an agent may well know the moral law, and that they are obligated to a superior authority, but the obligatory force—i.e., what gives the agent a reason for acting—is the structure of rewards and punishments built into the system.

The question that has plagued Locke scholarship has been how, if at all, the hedonistic elements of Locke’s moral philosophy can be reconciled with his rationalistic account, which suggests that reason can discern morality’s inherent righteousness and motivate accordingly. Some scholars have concluded that Locke effectively abandons the rationalism of his earlier writings by the time he is writing the Essay , and that any such elements found therein are mere holdovers of an earlier position. Von Leyden expresses this view when he writes,

the development of [Locke’s] hedonism and certain other views held by him in later years make it indeed difficult for him to adhere whole-heartedly to his doctrine of natural law. (von Leyden, 1954, 14)

But does it? What I earlier called the compatibilist thesis is held most prominently by scholars John Colman and Stephen Darwall, according to whom Locke’s hedonism does not supplant the rationalist account of natural law and moral obligation, but is, rather, intended to account for the motivational force of moral law. In this way, the two views work together for a complete moral picture. Darwall identifies the distinction between rationally-derived versus legalistically-construed moral obligation when he writes

what makes God’s commands morally obligatory [i.e., God’s authority] appears…to have nothing intrinsically to do with what makes them rationally compelling. (Darwall 1995, 37)

Colman makes a similar point:

Right is the central concept in Locke’s natural law doctrine, but the law could have no purchase on human conduct unless doing that which is right were in some way productive of good. ‘Good’ is the central concept in his moral psychology. (Colman 1983, 49)

Both Darwall and Colman understand Locke as equating moral good and evil with rewards and punishments, such that good and evil are the operative notions that turn moral rules into moral imperatives for rational agents. Agents do not have reasons for acting until they are aware of the rewards and punishments that accompany natural law. On this interpretation, rational insight regarding the righteousness of morality cannot, on its own, motivate humans to act.

Divine sanctions are a constant feature of Locke’s moral philosophy, as we’ve seen, and the compatibilist interpretation goes much further than the incompatibilist interpretation in capturing the nuances in Locke’s moral philosophy. However, there are passages in Locke’s work that suggest that moral rules carry an obligatory force that can motivate rational agents irrespective of rewards and punishments. When this further aspect of Locke’s view is taken into account, we can see that, for Locke, rewards and punishments do not exhaust our reasons for obeying divine moral rules.

4. Moral motivation 2: the righteousness of morality

In the Essays on the Law of Nature , Locke argues that there are two different kinds of obedience to the law of a superior authority, and that these are founded upon two distinct kinds of obligation. The example is as follows:

Anyone would easily … perceive that there was one ground of his obedience when as a captive he was constrained to the service of a pirate, and that there was another ground when as a subject he was giving obedience to a ruler; he would judge in one way about disregarding allegiance to a king, in another about wittingly transgressing the orders of a pirate or robber. (Locke 1663–64, 118)

At this point, Locke might be understood to be distinguishing laws backed by a rightful authority and laws that are not, in which the point is simply that there is no obligation to the pirate, since his are not strictly laws at all on Locke’s definition of the term. However, Locke continues this passage as follows:

in the latter case [subject to a pirate or robber], with the approval of conscience, he rightly had regard only for his well-being, but in the former [subject to a king], though conscience condemned him, he would violate the right of another. (Locke 1663–64, 118)

Locke identifies two distinct grounds of obedience. Recognizing that one’s obligation to the king arises from his rightful authority provides a grounds for obedience that is absent in the case of obeying the pirate. My reasons for obeying the pirate are hedonistic, but my reasons for obeying the king involve my recognition of his rightful authority. Further on in the same Essay , Locke explains that

We should not obey a king just out of fear, because, being more powerful he can constrain (this in fact would be to establish firmly the authority of tyrants, robbers, and pirates), but for conscience’ sake, because a king has command over us by right; that is to say, because the law of nature decrees that princes and a lawmaker, or a superior by whatever name you call him, should be obeyed. (Locke 1663–64, 120)

Thus, sanctions are not the sole motivating factor for Locke. The contrast Locke draws here is an important but commonly underappreciated one; that is, acting for “conscience’ sake” versus acting ‘out of fear’ as two quite distinct grounds for obedience.

The question that remains is how Locke’s notion of acting ‘for conscience’ sake’ can be made sense of within the context of Locke’s general hedonistic account of motivation. It might sound as though we are working with the kind of purely rational motivating factor that Locke’s hedonistic theory clearly rejects; for Locke all human action is motivated by considerations of pleasure and pain.

Recall that for Locke rewards and punishments are specific pleasures and pains. Acting for conscience’ sake will necessarily involve considerations of pleasure and pain, but of a kind quite distinct from sanctions. For Locke, there is a kind of pleasure that attends fulfilling one’s moral duty that is quite distinct from considerations of reward and punishment. In an essay, written in 1692, entitled Ethica A (the first of two essays, the other entitled Ethica B ), Locke appeals to a kind of pleasure that attends the fulfilment of one’s moral duty:

Whoever spared a meal to save the life of a starving man, much more a friend…but had more and much more lasting pleasure in it than he that eat it. The other’s pleasure died as he eat and ended with his meal. But to him that gave it him ‘tis a feast as often as he reflects on it’. (Locke 1692, 319)

The pleasure here is of a special kind. It is not the same as the pleasure we get from satisfying our hunger, nor is it the pleasure that comes with pleasing an authority or earning a reward. In fact, Locke explicitly distinguishes it from the pleasure expected in the afterlife. Fulfilling one’s duty, for Locke, carries its own kind of pleasurable motive—it makes us happy. As Locke writes, further on in Ethica A , “Happiness…is annexed to our loving others and to doing our duty, to acts of love and charity” (Locke 1692, 319). Acting according to moral duty, then, is motivated by feelings of pleasure that attend such acts.

Why, then, does Locke so frequently emphasize the legalistic angle of morality, which depends so heavily on the motivational force of reward and punishment? In Locke’s view, many people fail to acknowledge, or be motivated by, the pleasure inherent to the fulfilment of one’s moral duty, and for these people (which, it turns out, is most of us), God has provided extra incentive—the rewards and punishments God attaches to our actions are a matter of God’s jurisdiction, quite apart from the pleasures of acting dutifully, and in accordance with righteous moral dictates. As Locke explains, God

brings in a necessity of another life…and so enforces morality the stronger, laying a necessity on God’s justice by his rewards and punishments, to make the good the gainers, the wicked losers. (Locke 1692, 319)

Sanctions, therefore, serve to enforce morality ‘the stronger’ but are quite clearly secondary to the intrinsic pleasures motivating dutiful action. So, conscience does not motivate in and of itself, nor does the rational apprehension of one’s moral duty, but Locke identifies a species of pleasure distinct from divine sanctions that makes his notion of acting for conscience’ sake perfectly consistent with his hedonism: to act for conscience’ sake is to be motivated by, and take pleasure in, acting in accordance with one’s moral duty.

Locke’s emphasis can be explained by turning our attention to a view of human nature that lies at the root of Locke’s account. Locke tends to be fairly pessimistic about the degree to which most humans appreciate the inherent righteousness of morality. In fact, Locke maintains a fairly low opinion of the willingness of most people to actually take the time to appreciate the righteousness natural law. If, he writes,

we will not in Civility allow too much Sincerity to the Professions of most Men , but think their Actions to be Interpreters of their Thoughts, we shall find, that they have no such internal Veneration for these Rules, nor so full a Perswasion of their Certainty and obligation. ( Essay , 1.3.7)

Humans are flawed in two respects, according to Locke: we can fail to acknowledge our obligations to natural law, and we can fail to comply even when these obligations are acknowledged.

Locke’s views regarding reason and intellectual duty can be characterized as an ethics of belief, according to which our rational abilities place a responsibility on each of us to examine the beliefs we hold, and to be accountable for those things to which we assent. This is particularly the case with respect to moral rules, themselves, which are the ultimate guidelines for a good human life. As Locke sees it, our capacities as rational agents are insufficiently realized in many, if not most, cases. While the law of nature is knowable by reason for Locke, it is not innately known—Locke does not mean to suggest, as many theologians of his day believed, that it “lies open in our hearts” (Locke 1663–64, 89). This would, he grants, be:

an easy and very convenient way of knowing, and the human race would be very well off if men were so fully informed and so endowed by nature that from birth they were in no doubt as to what is fitting and what is less so. (Locke 1663–64, 90)

For Locke, however, this is just not the case. It is clear, to him, that most people do not understand their moral duty in any deep or robust way. To really know one’s moral duty is to be a moral agent, for Locke—moral knowledge is something gained, by the individual, through rational discovery. Moral truths are attainable with the proper use of reason:

there is some sort of truth to the knowledge of which man can attain by himself and without help of another, if he makes proper use of the faculties he is endowed with by nature. (Locke 1693–94, 89)

For Locke, knowledge, properly-speaking, requires that the individual herself perceives the truth or falsity of any claim to which she grants or withholds assent. An individual agent must perform the intellectual analysis and demonstration herself in order to truly know her moral duty. As it turns out, however, the greatest number of people (particularly in Locke’s day), are, he acknowledges

given up to Labour, and enslaved to the Necessity of their mean Condition; whose lives are worn out, only in the Provisions of Living. ( Essay , 4.20.2)

For these people, the opportunity for gaining a clear perception of their moral duty is very narrow. Worse than this, there are people who have the means and the leisure, but “satisfy themselves with a lazy ignorance” ( Essay , 4.20.6). These latter, Locke asserts, have a “low Opinion of their Souls” ( Essay , 4.20.6). But, in neither case are people entirely off the hook, according to Locke, who argues that no matter how busy one is, there should always be time for thinking about our souls and matters of religion. If one fails to do this, then one is relying for one’s salvation and self-realization upon the mere current of opinion or the untrustworthy word of others. Locke asks if this can provide

sufficient Evidence and Security to every Man, to venture his greatest Concernments on; nay, his everlasting Happiness, or Misery. ( Essay , 4.20.3)

The failure to do so is a kind of moral failing for Locke, one that gains its normative force from the teleogical imperative attending our rational natures:

God has furnished Men with Faculties sufficient to direct them in the Way they should take, if they will but seriously employ them that Way, when their ordinary Vocations allow them the Leisure. ( Essay , 4.20.3)

Again, Locke is not suggesting that we do this from considerations of rewards and punishments, but because it is the fulfillment of our divinely-created natures. Despite failures to comply, the normative force of morality is undeniable, for Locke, on these teleogical grounds. Though Locke seems to believe that our failings with regards to moral knowledge result from a failure to engage our minds in the right direction, he does however acknowledge that the discovery of moral truths is difficult and laborious. And this is where sanctions come into play.

Sanctions are not necessary to natural law if we consider it strictly as a system of divine rules. However, sanctions are necessary when morality functions as law . Sanctions are mechanisms for enforcement, where inherent motivating factors are either absent or underappreciated. Consider, as an example, the moral duty to care for one’s children. For most people, this carries inherent obligatory force arising from its being obviously good and necessary. Where a person fails to appreciate the inherent force of this duty, however, laws exist that require parents to provide the means of life and education for their children, and such laws stipulate compliance under threat of sanctions. To call the first instance a law seems unnecessary, but we can clearly see how the concept of a rule of law distinguishes the latter case. Sanctions provide motives when individuals fail to act on the responsibilities reason should on its own reveal and thereby compel. In the Essays on the Law of Nature , Locke writes,

Those who refuse to be led by reason and to own that in the matter of morals and right conduct they are subject to a superior authority may recognise that they are constrained by force and punishment to be submissive to that authority and feel the strength of him whose will they refuse to follow. (Locke 1663–64, 117)

Sanctions thus ensure that people who ‘refuse to be led’ by reason abide by the dictates of natural law; in this way, sanctions ensure that divine moral rules function as a system of law.

When Locke speaks of moral law, he frequently alludes to sanctions. Morality can motivate without sanctions, but it cannot ensure general compliance in the way that a system of law can. God’s imposition of sanctions is thus strictly instrumental. They are not intrinsic to a system of morality, but they are necessary when the obligatory force of moral rules is not adequately understood. The special role of sanctions as a means of shoring up moral compliance is articulated by Locke in several of his writings. In the 1680 essay Of God’s Justice , he writes

though justice be also a perfection which we must necessarily ascribe to the supreme being, yet we cannot suppose the exercise of it should extend further than his goodness has need of it for the preservation of his creatures in the order and beauty of the state that he has placed each of them in. (Locke 1680, 278)

God metes out justice in the form of sanctions as a means of ensuring social order and peace; sanctions ensure social good:

[God’s] justice is nothing but a branch of his goodness, which is fain by severity to restrain the irregular and destructive parts from doing harm; for to imagine God under a necessity of punishing for any other reason but this, is to make his justice a great imperfection. (Locke 1680, 278)

In one of his more mature works, The Reasonableness of Christianity , Locke makes the point several times, that moral law, with its attendant rewards and punishments, was articulated as a means of ensuring obedience. Humans appreciate the intrinsic righteousness of virtuous acts, which are generally granted the highest degree of approbation. However, virtuous behaviour is assured only when it is in an agent’s interests to comply. It is clear to reason that we ought to act virtuously, but it is easy enough for many of us to eschew virtuous actions when they either present hardships or sacrifice of any kind or when they will not clearly benefit our own interests:

The generality could not refuse [virtue] their esteem and commendation; but still turned their backs on her, and forsook her, as a match not for their turn. That she is the perfection and excellency of our nature; that she is herself a reward, and will recommend our names to future ages, is not all that can now be said of her. (Locke 1736, 247)

In order to remedy this problem, Locke explains, God attached clear and explicit sanctions (made plain through revelation) to ensure that the virtuous course of action will always be the more attractive option:

[Virtue] has another relish and efficacy to persuade men, that if they live well here, they shall be happy hereafter. Open their eyes upon the endless, unspeakable joys of another life, and their hearts will find something solid and powerful to move them. The view of heaven and hell will cast a slight upon the short pleasures and pains of this present state, and give attractions and encouragements to virtue which reason and interest, and the care of ourselves, cannot but allow and prefer. Upon this foundation, and upon this only, morality stands firm, and may defy all competition. This makes it more than a name; a substantial good, worth all our aims and endeavours; and thus the gospel of Jesus Christ has delivered it to us. (Locke 1736, 247)

Primary Literature: Works by Locke

Some of the works by Locke listed below can be found in Mark Goldie (ed.), Political Essays , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

1663–64, Essays on the Law of Nature , in Goldie (ed.) 1997, 79–133.
1680, “Of God’s Justice,” in Goldie (ed.) 1997, 277–278.
1686–88, “Of Ethic in General,” in Goldie (ed.) 1997, 297–304.
1690, Two Treatises of Government , edited by Peter Laslett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
1692, “Ethica A,” in Goldie (ed.) 1997, 318–319.
1700, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , in P.H. Nidditch (ed.), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , based on the fourth edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
1736, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, As deliver’d in the scriptures , London: printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, in Paternoster-Row.
1742, Familiar Letters between Mr. Locke and Several of his Friends , London: printed for F. Noble, T. Wright and J. Duncan in St. Martin’s Court.

Secondary Literature

Aaron, Richard I., 1971, John Locke , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chappell, Vere, 1994, The Cambridge Companion to Locke , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cockburn, Catharine Trotter, 1702, “A Defense of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding ,” in Catharine Trotter Cockburn: Philosophical Writings , P. Sheridan (ed.), Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006.
Colman, John, 1983, John Locke’s Moral Philosophy , Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Darwall, Stephen, 1995, The British Moralists and the Internal Ought: 1640–1740 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dunn, John, 1969, The Political Thought of John Locke , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jolley, Nicholas, 2002, Locke: His Philosophical Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
LoLordo, Antonia, 2012, Locke’s Moral Man , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rossiter, Elliot, 2016, “Hedonism and Natural Law in Locke’s Moral Philosophy,” in Journal of the History of Philosophy , 54(2): 203–255.
Schneewind, J.B., 1994, “Locke’s Moral Philosophy,” in Chappell (1994).
Sheridan, Patricia, 2007, “Pirates, Kings, and Reasons to Act: Moral Motivation and the Role of Sanctions in Locke’s Moral Theory” in Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 37(1): 35–48.
–––, 2010, Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed , London: Continuum Publishing Group.
–––, 2015, “Locke’s Latitudinarian Sympathies: an exploration of sentiment in Locke’s moral theory” in Locke Studies , 15: 131–162.
von Leyden, W., 1954, “Introduction,” in John Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature , W. von Leyden (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Texts by Locke , at earlymoderntexts.com.

Locke, John | nature of law: natural law theories

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Sally Ferguson for carefully reading this entry and pointing out a number of typographic and other infelicitous errors.

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Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

Reason and Meaning

Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, natural law ethics (part 2–conclusion).

(continued from yesterday’s post. )

3. St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas (12251274) synthesized Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Christianity to give the natural law its classic formulation. In addition to Aristotle’s natural virtues, he added the theological virtues faith, hope, and charity. And to earthly happiness he added eternal beatitude. For Thomas, action in accordance with human nature fulfills God’s eternal plan, and Scripture’s commandments. Thus, the natural law is God’s law known to human reason . Unlike the lower animals, we have the ability to understand the laws of our nature, and the free will to follow or disregard these laws. But how do we attain knowledge of the natural law? It is not innate, intuited, or easily derived from sense experience. Instead, we use reason to determine the conformity of moral conduct and nature. Since fulfilling natural needs makes us happy, the natural is the good. What then constitutes the law? While all mature individuals know its most general principles like do not kill the innocent, controversy surrounds reasoned conclusions about its specific applications.

The fundamental principle of natural law ethics is that good should be done and evil avoided . This general principle may be specified into moral axioms like: “Do not kill!” “Be faithful!” “Preserve your life!” “Care for you children!” “Do not lie or steal!” “Life is a universal human good!” All of these axioms are both natural and good. We further specify these axioms by rational analysis and by reliance on Church, scripture, or revelation. As Aristotle pointed out, natural inclinations and tendencies are good, and we fulfill them by acquiring the elements which constitute human happiness such as: life, procreation, friendship, and knowledge. Nevertheless, within the boundaries set by human nature, the specific way one satisfies natural inclinations may differ. So a range of activities might satisfy, for instance, our aesthetic or intellectual needs. However, we all need the universal human goods. Thus, morality demands that we follow the laws of our nature which are the same for all on the basis of our shared humanity.

Still, we need not satisfy all of our natural tendencies. For instance, we must curb aggression and dishonesty, so that friendship and society thrive. In this way, we see how reason makes value judgments and imposes moral obligations upon us. The moral law demands that we develop our reason, and act in accordance with reason’s imperatives. As we have seen, nature directs us to live well, flourish in human communities, and, finally, to experience the beatific vision. Therefore, beginning with human nature and using reason to determine the goals nature sets for us, we determine what we ought to do.

Perhaps a simple illustration may help. If we want to become nurses, then we ought to go to college and study nursing. Employing our rational faculties, we impose a non-moral obligation upon ourselves, given an antecedent goal or purpose. Analogously, reason imposes moral obligations upon us. If we want friends and friendship demands justice, then we ought to be just. Of course, the examples are very different. Moral obligations may not depend upon self-interest in the same way that non-moral obligations do. But the basic idea is the same, without goals nothing is obligatory. If we don’t want to be nurses or don’t want friends, then we probably have no obligation to study nursing or be just. And if there are no ultimate purposes in human life, then there probably are no moral obligations either. On the other hand, according to the natural law, the complete actualization of human potential demands that we develop our talents and be just. If we fail to do this, we violate the natural law.

4. Some Philosophical Difficulties

Natural law theory derives values about what we ought to do from facts about our human nature. This is a major philosophical difficulty. When we derive what we ought to do from what is the case, we commit what philosophers call the naturalistic fallacy . This fallacy involves the derivation of ethical conclusions from nonethical facts. Isn’t there a logical gap between what is the case and what ought to be the case? Even if it is true, for instance, that humans are naturally aggressive, does that mean they should be? Though a conception of human nature is relevant to morality, it seems unlikely that one could explain morality by appealing to human nature. Yet, if values don’t come from facts, where do they come from?

A second difficulty with the theory is that modern science rejects teleology. Explanations in science don’t refer to goals, values, or purposes. Rocks don’t fall because they desire the earth’s center, as Aristotle thought, nor does it rain in order to make plants grow. Rather, physical reality operates according to impersonal laws of cause and effect. Evolutionary theory rejects teleology and all of cosmic evolution results from a series of fortuitous occurrences. This brings to light another difficulty. Natural law theory traditionally maintains the immutability of human nature, which contradicts modern biology. Furthermore, technology transforms human human nature. What happens when gene splicing, recombinant DNA, and genetic engineering become normal? For various reasons then, natural law as traditionally conceived and modern science are at odds.

5. Final thoughts

Of course the fact that, with the exception of the Catholic Church, the theory of natural law has fallen into disfavor doesn’t mean it is mistaken. If we believe that we can philosophically demonstrate the existence of a source of values and purposes for human beingsand believe also that knowledge of this source is accessible to human reasonthen one may rationally defend the theory. Furthermore, without such presuppositions, moral thinking is likely futile. A number of contemporary philosophers suggest that without some ultimate, objective source for morality, notions like obligation, duty, right, and good make no sense.

Nevertheless, natural law theory does rest upon a number of dubious philosophical propositions. We should not forget that, at least in the formulation of the Catholic Church, the natural law ultimately comes from God. Like the divine command theory, natural law ethics is open to all of the objections of philosophical theology. Is there a God? Are there any significant proofs for God’s existence? Why is God so “hidden?” How do we know our reason is sufficient to understand God’s natural moral laws? Moreover, a nontheistic natural law ethics must answer the challenge of the naturalistic fallacy. Why is the natural, good?

Whatever the conclusion, the gap between a nonteleological, factual, and scientific account of human nature and a teleological, ethical, and religious conception constitutes the central dispute in contemporary culture. We do not know how to reconcile the two poles, or if one or the other is bankrupt. But, as the historian of philosophy W.T. Jones asserts: “The whole history of philosophy since the seventeenth century is in fact hardly more than a series of variations on this central theme.”

Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality: Contemporary Essays

McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence

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This book brings together leading defenders of natural law and liberalism for a series of frank and lively exchanges touching upon critical issues of contemporary moral and political theory. The book is an example of the fruitful engagement of traditions of thought about fundamental matters of ethics and justice.

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Natural Law: Definition and Application

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B.S., Texas A&M University

Natural law is a theory that says all humans inherit—perhaps through a divine presence—a universal set of moral rules that govern human conduct.

Key Takeaways: Natural Law

Natural law theory holds that all human conduct is governed by an inherited set of universal moral rules. These rules apply to everyone, everywhere, in the same way.
As a philosophy, natural law deals with moral questions of “right vs. wrong,” and assumes that all people want to live “good and innocent” lives.
Natural law is the opposite of “man-made” or “positive” law enacted by courts or governments.
Under natural law, taking another life is forbidden, no matter the circumstances involved, including self-defense.

Natural law exists independently of regular or “positive” laws—laws enacted by courts or governments. Historically, the philosophy of natural law has dealt with the timeless question of “right vs. wrong” in determining the proper human behavior. First referred to in the Bible, the concept of natural law was later addressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and Roman philosopher Cicero .

What Is Natural Law?

Natural law is a philosophy based on the idea that everyone in a given society shares the same idea of what constitutes “right” and “wrong.” Further, natural law assumes that all people want to live “good and innocent” lives. Thus, natural law can also be thought of as the basis of “morality.”

Natural law is the opposite of “man-made” or “positive” law. While positive law may be inspired by natural law, natural law may not be inspired by positive law. For example, laws against impaired driving are positive laws inspired by natural laws.

Unlike laws enacted by governments to address specific needs or behaviors, natural law is universal, applying to everyone, everywhere, in the same way. For example, natural law assumes that everyone believes killing another person is wrong and that punishment for killing another person is right.

Natural Law and Self Defense

In regular law, the concept of self-defense is often used as justification for killing an aggressor. Under natural law, however, self-defense has no place. Taking another life is forbidden under natural law, no matter the circumstances involved. Even in the case of an armed person breaking into another person’s home, natural law still forbids the homeowner from killing that person in self-defense. In this way, natural law differs from government-enacted self-defense laws like so-called “ Castle Doctrine ” laws.

Natural Rights vs. Human Rights

Integral to the theory of natural law, natural rights are rights endowed by birth and not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government. As stated in the United States Declaration of Independence , for example, the natural rights mentioned are “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In this manner, natural rights are considered universal and inalienable, meaning they cannot be repealed by human laws.

Human rights, in contrast, are rights endowed by society, such as the right to live in safe dwellings in safe communities, the right to healthy food and water, and the right to receive healthcare. In many modern countries, citizens believe the government should help provide these basic needs to people who have difficulty obtaining them on their own. In mainly socialist societies , citizens believe the government should provide such needs to all people, regardless of their ability to obtain them.

Natural Law in the US Legal System

The American legal system is based on the theory of natural law holding that the main goal of all people is to live a “good, peaceful, and happy” life, and that circumstances preventing them from doing so are “immoral” and should be eliminated. In this context, natural law, human rights, and morality are inseparably intertwined in the American legal system.

Natural law theorists contend that laws created by the government should be motivated by morality. In asking the government to enact laws, the people strive to enforce their collective concept of what is right and wrong. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted to right what the people considered to be a moral wrong—racial discrimination. Similarly, the peoples’ view of enslavement as being a denial of human rights led to ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

Natural Law in the Foundations of American Justice

Governments do not grant natural rights. Instead, through covenants like the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution , governments create a legal framework under which the people are permitted to exercise their natural rights. In return, people are expected to live according to that framework.

In his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed the widely shared belief that the Supreme Court should refer to natural law in interpreting the Constitution. “We look at natural law beliefs of the Founders as a background to our Constitution,” he stated.

Among the Founders who inspired Justice Thomas in considering natural law to be an integral part of the American justice system, Thomas Jefferson referred to it when he wrote in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Jefferson then reinforced the concept that governments cannot deny rights granted by natural law in the famous phrase:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Natural Law in Practice: Hobby Lobby vs. Obamacare

Deeply rooted in the Bible, natural law theory often influences actual legal cases involving religion. An example can be found in the 2014 case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores , in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that for-profit companies are not legally obligated to provide employee health care insurance that covers expenses for services that go against their religious beliefs.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 —better known as “Obamacare”—requires employer-provided group health care plans to cover certain types of preventative care, including FDA-approved contraceptive methods. This requirement conflicted with the religious beliefs of the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a nationwide chain of arts and crafts stores. The Green family had organized Hobby Lobby around their Christian principles and had repeatedly stated their desire to operate the business according to Biblical doctrine, including the belief that any use of contraception is immoral.

In 2012, the Greens sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employment-based group health care plans cover contraception violated the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), that “ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected.” Under the Affordable Care Act, Hobby Lobby faced significant fines if its employee health care plan failed to pay for contraceptive services.

In considering the case, the Supreme Court was asked to decide if the RFRA allowed closely held, for-profit companies to refuse to provide its employees with health insurance coverage for contraception based on the religious objections of the company’s owners.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that by forcing religion-based companies to fund what they consider the immoral act of abortion, the Affordable Care Act placed an unconstitutionally “substantial burden” on those companies. The court further ruled that an existing provision in the Affordable Care Act exempting non-profit religious organizations from providing contraception coverage should also apply to for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby.

The landmark Hobby Lobby decision marked the first time the Supreme Court had recognized and upheld a for-profit corporation’s natural law claim of protection based on a religious belief.

Sources and Further Reference

“ Natural Law .” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
“ The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics .” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2002-2019)
“Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 .” U.S. Government Publishing Office.
What Are Natural Rights?
National Supremacy and the Constitution as Law of the Land
What Is the "Necessary and Proper" Clause in the US Constitution?
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
The Health Care System In The US
Conservative Perspectives on Health Care Reform
Supreme Court Decisions - Everson v. Board of Education
Moral Philosophy According to Immanuel Kant
Executive Orders Definition and Application
Is Medical Help for Illegal Immigrants Covered Under Obamacare?
Where Did the Right to Privacy Come From?
Biography of John G. Roberts, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Due Process of Law in the US Constitution
What Is Judicial Review?
Meet the Female Supreme Court Justices
Separation of Powers: A System of Checks and Balances

A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies

Natural Law ethics

This page: full notes a* summary notes c/b summary notes, introduction.

Natural law ethics goes back to Aristotle and his theory of telos; that everything has a nature which directs it towards a particular end goal. Aquinas Christianised this idea, adding that it is the Christian God who set a thing’s telos according to his omnibenevolent plan for the universe.

Christian ethics is most associated with the commands and precepts found in the Bible. Aquinas’ contribution was to argue that telos is also a source of Christian moral principles. Human nature has the God given ability to reason which comes with the ability both to intuitively know primary moral precepts and to apply them to moral situations and actions. Following this ‘natural law’ is thus also an essential element of living a moral life.

Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle’s views that there is a natural end to all beings. Everything has a purpose ( telos ) built into it by its nature. The nature of a thing determines the behaviours that are ‘natural’ to it. An acorn naturally grows into an oak tree, because of its inherent nature. Whereas Aristotle thought the final cause of all things was the prime mover, Aquinas claimed that it was the Christian God. The telos/end/goal of rational beings is the goodness of God, which for us involves glorifying God by following God’s moral law.

Ethics is therefore about using reason to discover the natural law within our nature and conforming our actions to it. God designed the universe to operate according to his divine plan by instilling telos in every being, to direct it towards its good end. Human beings are unique in that we have free will and are thus capable of either following or rebelling against the divine plan. Following God’s natural law results in flourishing (eudaimonia) both for individuals and society. Disobeying what is naturally good for us has the opposite effect.

“the light of reason is placed by nature in every man, to guide him in his acts towards his end”. – Aquinas.

The four tiers of law

The ultimate source of moral goodness and thus law is God’s omnibenevolent nature, which created and ordered the universe with a divine plan, known as the eternal law. However, that is beyond our understanding. We only have access to lesser laws that derive from the eternal law.

The eternal Law . God’s plan, built into the nature of everything which exists, according to his omnibenevolent nature.

The divine law – God’s revelation to humans in the Bible.

The natural law – The moral law God created in human nature, discoverable by human reason.

Human law – The laws humans make which should be based on the natural and divine law. Human law gains its authority by deriving from the natural and divine law which themselves ultimately derive authority from God’s nature.

“Participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law”. – Aquinas

The Primary Precepts & Synderesis

Reason is a power of the human soul. Synderesis is the habit or ability of reason to discover foundational ‘first principles’ of God’s natural moral law.

“the first practical principles … [belong to] a special natural habit … which we call “synderesis” … is said to incite to good, and to murmur at evil, inasmuch as through first principles we proceed to discover, and judge of what we have discovered.” – Aquinas

The first principle synderesis tells us is called the synderesis rule: that the good is what all things seek as their end/goal (telos). This means that human nature has an innate orientation to the good.

“This therefore is the principle of law: that good must be done and evil avoided. ” – Aquinas

Further to this, through synderesis we learn the primary precepts: worship God, live in an orderly society, reproduce, educate, protect and preserve human life and defend the innocent. These primary precepts are the articulation of the orientations in our nature toward the good; the natural inclinations of our God-designed human nature, put into the form of ethical principles by human reason. Simply having reason allows a being to intuitively know these precepts. We are all born with the ability to know them.

Secondary precepts & conscientia

“there belongs to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly, certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions following closely from first principles.” – Aquinas.

Conscientia is the ability of reason to apply he primary precepts to situations or types of actions. The judgement we then acquire is a secondary precept. E.g euthanasia: the primary precepts don’t say anything about euthanasia exactly, but we can use our reason to apply the primary precepts to euthanasia, and realise that it goes against the primary precept of protecting and preserving human life. Arguably it even disrupts the functioning of society too. Therefore, we can conclude the secondary precept that euthanasia is wrong.

Interior & exterior acts

A physical action itself is an exterior act because it occurs outside of our mind. Our intention; what we deliberately choose to do, is the interior act because it occurs inside our mind.

The point of natural law ethics is to figure out what fulfils the telos of our nature and act on that. By doing so, we glorify God. This cannot be done without intending to do it. A good exterior act without a good interior act does not glorify God because it is not done with the intention of fulfilling the God-given goal/telos of our nature.

The act of giving money to charity is an example of a good exterior act, but is only morally good when combined with the right kind of intention, which would be an interior act. If the intention was only to be thought of as a good person, which is not the right kind of intention, then the action is not truly morally good.

Whether telos exists

It is a strength of telos-based ethics that they are empirical, i.e., based on evidence. Aristotle observed that everything has a nature which inclines it towards a certain goal which he and Aquinas called its telos. It is a biological fact that certain behaviours cause an organism to flourish. Telos thus seems an empirically valid concept.

Weakness: Modern science’s rejection of final causation. Francis Bacon, called the father of empiricism, argued that only material and efficient causation were valid scientific concepts, not formal and final causation. The idea of telos is unscientific.

Aquinas and Aristotle claim every being has a unique essence which gives it a particular end/purpose. The issue is, modern science tells us that things are merely atoms moving in fields of force – i.e., material and efficient causation. The idea that entities have an ‘essence’ and thus a telos is unscientific. Physicist Sean Carroll concludes that purpose is not built into the “architecture” of the universe.

All supposed telos of a thing can be reduced to non-teleological concepts regarding its material structure and forces operating on it (material & efficient causation). There is no basis for grounding telos in God like Aquinas did, or as a required explanation of change like Aristotle did. For example, Aristotle would regard the telos of a seed as growing into a tree/bush. However, we now understand that change as resulting from the seed’s material structure which was itself caused by evolution, not anything like telos. Similarly, if there is anything in human nature which orients us towards certain behaviours, it is only because evolution programmed them into us because they happened to enable survival in our environment, not because of telos. So, Modern science can explain the world without telos. Telos is an unnecessary explanation.

Evaluation defending telos:

Polkinghorne, a modern Christian philosopher and physicist, argued that science is limited and cannot answer all questions. It can tell us the what but not the why . Science can tell us what the universe is like, but it cannot tell us why it is this way, nor why it exists. It cannot answer questions about purpose.

Polkinghorne’s argument is successful because science is limited. It cannot rule out something like a prime mover or God which could provide some kind of telos. If purpose existed, science would not be able to discover it. So, science cannot be used to dismiss the existence of purpose.

Evaluation critiquing telos:

Dawkins responds that it’s not valid to simply assume that there actually is a ‘why’. He makes an analogy: ‘what is the color of jealousy?’ That question is assuming that jealousy has a color. Similarly, just because we can ask why we and the universe exist, that doesn’t mean there actually is a purpose for it.

Dawkins’ argument is successful because it makes use of the burden of proof. Those who claim purpose exists have the burden of providing a reason to think it exists. There is no scientific basis for thinking anything other than material and efficient causation exists. Furthermore, scientists may one day actually explain ‘why’ the universe exists, but even if they don’t, that doesn’t justify a non-scientific explanation of purpose such as telos.

Universal human nature & moral dis/agreement

A strength of Natural law is that it is based on universal human nature. The primary precepts are found in the morality of all societies. For example, not killing for no reason and rules about stealing are universal. Valuing reproduction and education are also universal. Moral thinkers from different cultures came up with similar moral prescriptions such as the golden rule; to treat others as you would like to be treated, which can be found in ancient Chinese Philosophy, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. This suggests that moral views are influenced by a universal human moral nature. This is good evidence that we are all born with a moral orientation towards the good (telos), which is the foundation of Aquinas’ theory.

Weakness: If all humans were really born with the ability to know the primary precepts, we should expect to find more moral agreement than we do. In fact, we find vastly different moral beliefs. Furthermore, the disagreement is not random but tends to fall along cultural lines. This suggests that it is actually social conditioning which causes our moral views, not a supposed natural law in human nature. This has been argued by psychologists like Freud. Fletcher argues this shows there is not an innate God-given ability of reason to discover a natural law. He concludes that ethics must be based on faith, not reason (Fletcher’s positivism).

Evaluation defending Aquinas:

Aquinas’ claim is merely that human nature contains an orientation towards the good, it doesn’t involve a commitment to humans actually doing more good than evil, nor to incredibly evil acts or cultures occurring infrequently. Aquinas acknowledges that there are many reasons we might fail to do good despite having an orientation towards it. These include original sin, mistakes in conscientia, lacking virtue and a corrupt culture. So, the fact that there is a core set of moral views found cross-culturally shows his theory is correct.

Evaluation critiquing Aquinas:

Furthermore, cross-cultural morality might result merely from the basic requirement of a society to function. If anyone could kill or steal from anyone else for no reason whenever they wanted, it’s hard to see how a society could exist. That might create an existential pressure which influences the moral thinkers of a society, yielding prescriptions such as the golden rule. Cross-cultural ethics therefore has a practical reality as its basis, not God.

Alternatively, some of the cross-cultural similarities in moral codes might also have resulted from a biologically evolved moral sense rather than one designed by a God, which would mean they are not related to morality or telos at all.

Aquinas’ Natural theology vs Augustine & Karl Barth

A strength of Aquinas’ ethics is its basis in what seems like a realistic and balanced view of human nature as containing both good (reason & telos) but also bad (original sin). Natural law adds an engagement with autonomy to Christian ethics. Sola scriptura protestants like Calvin regard humans as mere passive receptacles for a set of biblical commands. However, Aquinas argues that God presumably gave humans reason so that they may use it.

Natural theology is the view that human reason is capable of knowing God, in this case God’s moral law. Aquinas defends this by first accepting that original sin destroyed original righteousness, meaning perfect rational self-control. However, it did not destroy our reason itself and its accompanying telos inclining us towards the good.

Only rational beings can sin. It makes no sense to say that animals could sin. Original sin made us sinners, but human nature was not reduced to the level of animals. We still have the ability to reason. Furthermore, Aquinas diverges from Augustine, claiming that concupiscence can sometimes be natural to humans, in those cases where our passions are governed by our reason. So, a comprehensive approach to Christian morality must include the use of reason to discover and act on the telos of our nature.

Weakness: Natural theology places a dangerous overreliance on human reason. Karl Barth was influenced by Augustine, who claimed that after the Fall our ability to reason become corrupted by original sin. Barth’s argument is that is therefore dangerous to rely on human reason to know anything of God, including God’s morality. “the finite has no capacity for the infinite” – Karl Barth. Our finite minds cannot grasp God’s infinite being. Whatever humans discover through reason is not divine, so to think it is divine is idolatry – believing earthly things are God. Idolatry can lead to worship of nations and even to movements like the Nazis. After the corruption of the fall, human reason cannot reach God or God’s morality. That is not our telos. Only faith in God’s revelation in the bible is valid.

Final judgement defending Aquinas: Barth’s argument fails because it does not address Aquinas’ point that our reason is not always corrupted and original sin has not destroyed our natural orientation towards the good. Original sin can at most diminish our inclination towards goodness by creating a habit of acting against it. Sometimes, with God’s grace, our reason can discover knowledge of God’s existence and natural moral law. So, natural moral law and natural theology is valid.

Arguably Aquinas has a balanced and realistic view, that our nature contains both good and bad and it is up to us to choose rightly.

Final judgement critiquing Aquinas: Barth still seems correct that being corrupted by original sin makes our reasoning about God’s existence and morality also corrupted. Even if there is a natural law, we are unable to discover it reliably. The bad in our nature unfortunately means we cannot rely on the good. Whatever a weak and misled conscience discovers is too unreliable.

Humanity’s belief that it has the ability to know anything of God is the same arrogance that led Adam and Eve to disobey God. Humanity believing that it has the power to figure out right and wrong is what led to the arrogant certainty of the Nazis in their own superiority. This arrogance of natural theology is evidence of a human inability to be humble enough to solely rely on faith.

Whether Religious & Natural law ethics is outdated

A strength of Natural law ethics is its availability to everyone because all humans are born with the ability to know and apply the primary precepts. Regarding those who do not belong to Abrahamic religion the Bible says: “Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires … God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right” (Romans 2:14-15). So, it is possible to follow the natural law even if you are not Christian and/or have no access to the divine law (Bible).

Weakness: Secularists often argue that biblical morality (divine law) is primitive and barbarous, showing it comes from ancient human minds, not God. J. S. Mill calls the Old Testament “Barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people”. Freud similarly argued that religious morality reflected the “ignorant childhood days of the human race”. Aquinas’ Natural law ethics is criticised as outdated for the same reason. Medieval society was more chaotic. Strict absolutist ethical principles were needed to prevent society from falling apart. This could explain the primary precepts. For example, it was once useful to restrict sexual behaviour to marriage, because of how economically fatal single motherhood tended to be. It was useful to simply ban all killing, because killing was much more common. It was useful to require having lots of children, because most children died. The issue clearly is that all of these socio-economic conditions have changed. So, the primary precepts are no longer useful. Society can now afford to gradually relax the inflexibility of its rules without social order being threatened.

Conservative Catholics often argue that natural law is not outdated because it serves an important function without which society flourishes less. They argue that secular liberal western culture is ethically retrograde because of its abandonment of traditional moral principles like the primary precepts. This shows that we really do need to follow God’s natural law in order to flourish.

Marriages are fewer and less successful. Mental illness increases. Rates of etcetc

People are no longer united by an ethic of devoting our lives to something greater than ourselves. Self-interest and materialistic consumerism is all modern society has to offer by way of meaning and purpose.

“[excluding] God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a ‘reductive vision of the person and his destiny’”. – Pope Benedict XIV.

Here, Benedict XVI references an encyclical called “Caritas in Veritate”, where he argued that while there is indeed religious fanaticism which runs against religious freedom, the promotion of atheism can deprive people of “spiritual and human resources”. The atheist worldview is that we are a “lost atom in a random universe”, in which case we can grow and evolve, but not really develop morally.

“ideological rejection of God and an atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today. A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism. Only a humanism open to the Absolute can guide us in the promotion and building of forms of social and civic life — structures, institutions, culture and ethos — without exposing us to the risk of becoming ensnared by the fashions of the moment.” – Pope Benedict XIV.

So, religious and natural law ethics is not outdated but is a vital societal anchor for morality, meaning and purpose.

Natural law ethics is outdated because Aquinas’ theory was actually a reaction to his socio-economic context and since that has changed, Natural law is no longer relevant.

Aquinas thought that he discovered the primary precepts through human reason, as God designed. However, it’s a simpler explanation that Aquinas was simply intuiting what was good for people in his socio-economic condition. The idea that the resulting principles actually came from God was only in his imagination.

The great strength of religion as a form of social organisation is also its greatest weakness. By telling people that its ethical precepts (such as the primary precepts or sanctity of life) come from God it creates a strong motivation to follow them. Yet, because those precepts are imagined to come from an eternal being, they become inflexible and painstakingly difficult to progress. This makes them increasingly outdated.

The double effect

A single action can have two effects, one in accordance with the primary precepts and one in violation of them. Aquinas claims that such actions can be justified the good effect is intended while the bad effect is “beside the intention”. This is because being a good person involves developing the kind of virtuous character which acts with the intention of following God’s natural law.

Aquinas illustrated this with killing in self-defence. There are two effects; the saving of a life and the killing of a life. Killing someone, which clearly violates the primary precept of preserving human life, can be justified so long as it is an effect which is a secondary effect beside the intention of an action whose other effect was intended and was in accordance with the primary precepts.

There are four generally accepted conditions in modern Catholicism for an action to be justified by the double effect:

The intentionality condition. The good effect must be intended and the bad effect must be ‘besides the intention’. Aquinas illustrated the double effect with the example of killing someone in self-defence. So long as you intended to save your own life, then it is morally permissible to kill someone in self-defence. The bad effect is ‘besides the intention’.

The proportionality condition. The good effect must be at least equivalent to the bad effect. Saving your life is equivalent to ending the life of the attacker. You can’t use more force than is necessary to save your life – there must be proportionality there too.

The means-end condition. The bad effect and the good effect must both be brought about immediately – at the same time. Otherwise, the person would be using a bad effect as a means to bring about a good effect – which is not permissible.

The double effect only applies to actions which have two effects – one good, one bad – where both effects are brought about immediately.

The nature of the act condition. The action must be either morally good, indifferent or neutral. Acts such as lying or killing an innocent person can never be justifiable. An attacker would not count as an innocent person.

Whether the double effect is unbiblical

A strength of the double effect is that it helps to resolve seemingly disparate biblical themes. Jesus’ commands were not merely about following certain rules, but also about having the right moral intention and virtue (E.g. sermon on the mount). The double effect provides important clarity to Christian ethics by showing the relation between the important moral elements of intention and following the moral law. Good intention is important, not to the degree of justifying pure violations of the law, but when involved in an action that has a good effect it can justify permitting a bad side effect.

Weakness: the double effect is unbiblical. Some theologians reject the double effect as unbiblical because God’s commandments are presented as absolute and not dependent on someone’s intention. For those theologians, the distinction between intended effects of actions and merely foreseen effects “beside” the intention has no morally relevant significance. It’s not that intention has no relevance in traditional Christian ethics. Most theologians accept that people are not immoral for consequences of their actions which they could not have foreseen which violate God’s commands. For example if you decide to drive your car at the time a drunk person happened to be out and you ran them over, that would not be considered your fault even through it was an effect of your action. However if you could foresee a bad consequence, the fact that it was a secondary effect beside the effect you did intend doesn’t justify it for theologians who take this view.

Evaluation defending Natural law:

This criticism is unsuccessful because Natural law is different to the Bible. The Bible might be inflexible, but that is the divine law. The natural law in our nature is more flexible because it is in the form of very general precepts which require application and the telos of the natural law is glorifying God, which requires that it be our intention to glorify God – thus showing how intention is relevant.

Evaluation criticising Natural law:

This weakness is successful because it shows natural law is trying to add flexibility to inflexible biblical law – e.g. thou shalt not kill. Self-defence, passive euthanasia, even perhaps abortion could be justified by the double effect. The natural and divine law do not cover separate areas but cross-over and therefore conflict on this point of inflexibility. Christians must choose the Bible over Natural law.

Proportionalism & the double effect

A strength of Natural law is its flexibility due to the doctrine of the double effect.

This has been used by modern Catholics to allow, for example, passive euthanasia, abortion to save the life of the mother (though this is complex and controversial in catholicism), and contraception to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Weakness: B. Hoose’s proportionalism

Hoose developed natural law into what he claimed was a more flexible and coherent form called proportionalism.

Proportionalists agree about following the primary precepts, but argue it is acceptable to go against them if you have a proportionate reason for doing so – i.e., if your action will bring about more good than bad.

The nature of the act condition is invalid because what matters is the proportion of value to disvalue produced by your action. The means-end condition is invalid because what matters is the ultimate value/disvalue proportion.

For proportionalists, the only valid condition in the double effect is proportionality and your intention must be to act with with a proportionate reason.

E.g., Hoose would agree with Fletcher’s example of killing a baby to save the lives of its family. It brings about more value than disvalue, so we have a proportionate reason for breaking the primary precepts in that case.

A resulting strength of proportionalism is it’s far greater flexibility.

Euthanasia, abortion, genetic engineering, anything natural law said to be wrong could in principle be right depending on whether there is a proportionate reason for doing them in a particular situation. There are no intrinsically evil actions. An action can be intrinsically in violation of the principles of natural law, but for proportionalism that doesn’t establish wrongness.

Hoose’s argument for the greater coherence of proportionalism.

Aquinas said it’s bad to go against the primary precepts, but it could overall be justified through the double effect in some cases.

Hoose objects that an overall good act cannot be composed of bad parts (e.g breaking the precepts). Moral evil is moral evil, it could never be a component of moral goodness.

Moral actions are composed of parts like intention and their dis/accordance with the precepts, but those parts cannot be called good or bad in themselves. Only the overall act can be good or bad. So, no part of an action can be morally bad, including what the action itself is and whether it breaks the precepts.

The ‘parts’ of an action are still good/evil, not in a moral sense but in a factual or physical sense, regarding their enabling or disabling of flourishing (eudaimonia).

Factual enabling of flourishing ‘Ontic goods’. These are physical or factual goods, such as health, life and knowledge (these all enable flourishing and are thus ontic goods). ‘Ontic evils’ are the deprivation of such goods. Whatever in an action enables flourishing is an ‘ontic good’, whatever disables it is an ‘ontic evil’.

To decide whether the action is overall morally good however, we need to judge whether the action produced more ontic good compared to ontic evil. If it does, we have a proportionate reason for doing it, even if it goes against the primary precepts.

Aquinas would say killing the baby in Fletcher’s example is just morally evil – but Hoose is saying no, it’s only an ontic evil – which must be measured against the ontic good caused by the action (saving the whole family). If there’s a proportionate reason for doing it, then it is a morally good act to kill the baby.

“An act is either morally right or morally wrong. It cannot be both. If we talk of morally evil (meaning morally wrong) elements in an act that is morally right and is performed by a morally good person, we confuse the whole issue.” – B. Hoose.

Evaluation defending Natural law

John Paul II defends Natural law ethics, arguing that proportionalism is not a valid development because it misunderstands the objective/intention required for ethical action.

“Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man’s true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his ultimate end” – John Paul II

Under natural law, we intentionally act on the moral law discovered in our nature by reason (primary precepts). God designed us to intuitively know these moral laws – so our telos/purpose is to follow them. The goal of natural law is to follow the primary precepts. John Paul II is correct that Proportionalism misdirects our goal/intention towards the balance of ontic goods over evils produced by our action. God has designed us to follow the primary precepts – so that is our ethical purpose. Hoose misdirects us away from that.

“The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the “object” rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas.” – John Paul II.

Evaluation criticising Natural law

Defenders of traditional Natural law like John Paul II assume that our ultimate end is simply to follow the precepts of natural law in a ridged deontological way.

Calculating the ontic goods over evils of our actions could actually be part of our ultimate end.

Even Aquinas accepted that his list of primary precepts was not final but could be added to. The project of understanding the telos of our nature is ongoing. Developments like those of proportionalism cannot be dismissed simply because they differ with the traditional approach.

Whether proportionalism is better suited to our fallen world

A strength of the double effect is that it is pragmatic.

It fits with the reality of moral decision making. Sometimes actions can have two effects and a method is required that makes sense of how to judge them. Aquinas’ self-defence illustration is intuitive.

Proportionalism has the strength of being better suited to moral decision making in our imperfect world.

The Fall destabilised creation, including the moral order. God designed the natural law to perfectly fit following it with human flourishing. In a post-lapsarian world, the presence of ontic evil around acts that follow the natural law sometimes mean they prevent flourishing. Taking a deontological approach to natural law doesn’t make sense.

Ontic goods and evils are defined in relation to whatever enables or disables flourishing. Flourishing is part of our telos. So arguably following proportionalism would successfully orientate us towards our telos.

Weakness: John Paul II argues that although consequences matter, proportionalism takes that too far when it claims that there are no intrinsically evil actions.

It can never enable achievement of our telos to do such acts. Consequences certainly matter, but they can never make an intrinsically evil act acceptable. Such acts disorder us; they can never rightly order us towards our end, even if done with the intention of bringing about a greater balance of ontic goods over ontic evils. It is better to avoid them and bear the consequences, even if it means suffering and dying. JP2 reminds us that early Christians were prepared to be martyred for their faith.

Only intentionally following of the natural law within our nature aims us at our telos of glorifying God. Consequences matter to some degree, but not to the point of justifying intrinsically evil acts.

“Christian ethics, which pays particular attention to the moral object, does not refuse to consider the inner ‘teleology’ of acting, inasmuch as it is directed to promoting the true good of the person; but it recognizes that it is really pursued only when the essential elements of human nature are respected. The human act, good according to its object, is also capable of being ordered to its ultimate end … If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it … an intention is good when it has as its aim the true good of the person in view of his ultimate end. But acts whose object is ‘not capable of being ordered’ to God and ‘unworthy of the human person’ are always and in every case in conflict with that good.” – John Paul II.

Evaluation defending proportionalism

John Paul II’s reference to the Christian Martyrs is a self-serving illustration. It’s easy for most people to make sense of sacrificing oneself rather than break the natural law. However, what about cases where if we don’t break the natural law, we will be letting others suffer and die? Euthanasia is a clear example.

Evaluation criticising proportionalism

This is the ultimate argument against all forms of religious consequentialism. They misunderstand the purpose of morality. We are not here on earth to achieve happiness, but to follow God’s moral law. If suffering results from following God’s law due to living in a fallen world, that doesn’t invalidate God’s law. Aristotle and Aquinas both explained that flourishing is not happiness, but cultivating the virtues which rationally order us in our actions towards our end. As JP2’s example of the martyrs shows, if it is virtuous to suffer and die then that is what we should do, technically that is flourishing. Cardinal Newman expressed this sentiment in a poetic if stark manner:

“The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony … than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.” – John Henry Newman.

Natural Law

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Natural and Positive Law Essay

Introduction.

The debate on natural law and positive law has taken different forms in different law and religious forums. There are those who believe that the debate centered on the distinction between morality and law. The connection between law and morality has largely been the main issue that the different types of debates have not been able to address. The meaning attributed by theorists of natural law and positive law is always geared toward supporting their point of argument. From its initial definition, natural law means that there is a force above that has the monopoly of conferring laws to human beings, which include inherent rights (Boyd, 2010).

Natural law is a God-given law that is supposed to be obeyed without any questioning. The early theorists of natural law were of the view that natural law is the command of God and it was to be obeyed even in instances when its obedience caused injustice. Natural law is largely unwritten and does not depend on enforcement mechanisms. Individuals get to understand the command under the law through nature and reason. Natural law has been a major source of debate in legal philosophy. The focus of natural law has been on unchangeable, absolute and universal morals. It is true to assert that natural law has been through a moral fabric, which seems insensitive to the changes in society (Soper, 2001).

From universal morals, there is the development of a mode of dealing with what is considered right or wrong. The moral prepositions are the main tenets of natural law. Positive law mainly means that there is a body entrusted with the powers to make laws for others. This essay will discuss the tenets of natural and positive law, providing in-depth elaboration on the advantages of each.

The moral authority in natural law is derived from religion. It is, in other instances, derived from human beings’ rationality. In medieval ages, the main source of any natural law was religious law and other moral related documentation. Throughout time, the meaning changed to a philosophical basis that has made extensive coverage to other modes of laws. The main attributes of natural law are based on the same form of understanding, which has an appeal to human beings’ reason, intellect, and experience.

The secular perception of the law has been the most recent development of natural law. Natural law has, in many instances, sought to integrate morality with law, thereby making them inseparable. Any legitimate legal system is made up of a morally grounded thread of moral values (Sullivan, 2007).

Moral tenets like justice define the current approach to natural law. In some instances, the words have been used to mean natural law. The law has been questioned on the basis that it is not easy to have a universal law based on morality. On the other hand, the positive law simply implies a law that is made by individuals as opposed to a law from nature, which is known as a reason or God. Positive law is a product of individuals. In democratic regimes, it is the legislature that takes the role of making laws.

The legislature is entrusted with the powers to make the laws that are supposed to govern the entire population. The nineteenth-century natural law was mainly tailored to the tenets of church law. Natural law changed entirely with the consistent questioning of morals and whether a law can be based on morals. It was argued that it was wrong to let a body of law governing individuals of different beliefs to be allowed to impose obedience (Rose, 2010).

Philosophers of the positive law have consistently observed that a law should be created by a legitimate authority composed of the people and which can be questioned. Natural law has been criticized for its lack of sanctions to command obedience. Lawyers in the area of natural law have failed to show the remedy in instances whereby individuals do not obey the law (Boyd, 2010). The positive law ideology is likable since it gives a room for a change of the law in different phases of the community’s life cycle.

Under positive law, the law is perceived as something worth changing due to the changing times. The change may also be engineered by the will of the people. If the people who are governed by a certain law want to change it, it is clear that it should be changed. Positive law plays different roles that are felt at varying levels in society. It creates harmony even in functions that would seem conflicting. It does not peg its validity on the norms as natural law does. Positive law is morally neutral and the law promulgating organ is guided by what the people want. A law that seems immoral from the outset may be accepted by the majority, thus becoming part of the binding law (Robertson, 2007).

Legal systems in the world today have sought to make laws, while at the same time observing positive law, as well as the tenets of natural law. The Bill of Rights in constitutions is a reflection of the natural law. The right to equality, for instance, is a provision that captures the moral element of natural law. The constitution has many elements derived from natural law since it does not change easily like other laws. The rules of natural law have largely remained unwritten. Positive laws have, in several instances, made it possible for functions of government to be realized (Boyd, 2010). Natural law has its merits since it is mainly used as the checking body of law.

For a law to be held to reflect the will of the people, it ought to have an element of natural law. In the modern setting of states whereby the process of lawmaking is inclusive, both natural and positive rules should be considered. Under positive law, the law will be flexible and reflect the will of the people. The nature of the law can be checked by checking whether the law has violations of the norms. The two types of laws agree on the point that laws are formed for a specific reason (Boyd, 2010).

There is an agreement that code is not necessarily the written law. Unwritten law has the same effect as written law provided it is agreed upon. Positive and natural law insist that moral concerns do not form part of the law. Natural law presupposes that the law should be obeyed even when it is wrong. Such a view is irreconcilable with the difference between what the law provides and what individuals do (Kindregan, 2004).

Philosophical theorists on positive law and natural law have appeared to differ vehemently. The main points of contention have been the foundation of the law. There are some who observe that law is supposed to command the subjects to obey. The natural theorists are of the opinion that law does not need to be written to offer the effect of obedience. The main disagreement has been in regard to who is supposed to make the laws. Natural lawyers observe that law is a command from God, which should be obeyed and not questioned. The essence of nature and reason has been illuminated by indicating how natural law exists freely.

Theorists of medieval ages have found it reasonable to obey laws without questioning them. The positive law theorists have opposed the contention that law can operate without the support of the people it seeks to govern. The unwritten nature of the natural rules has rendered the rules questionable. It is the understanding that law is the command of the majority that has persuaded positive law supporters to assert that there must be an authority to make the law.

The existence of both laws in the constitution has been due to the fact that the Bill of Rights is mainly based on morals. The existence of positive law without natural law is not possible. It may not be possible for the parliament to ascertain the extent of the laws they are making. This is due to the fact that some of the unwritten laws are checked by unwritten natural laws. The arguments against natural law have been to the effect that individuals should be left to decide the type of law to govern them. People should take part in the process of making the law in order to know the law they are supposed to obey.

Boyd, N. (2010). Canadian law: An introduction. Toronto: Nelson Education. Web.

Kindregan, C. P., Jr. (2004). Same-sex marriage: The cultural wars and the lessons of legal history. Family Law Quarterly , 38(2), 427–447. Web.

Robertson, M. (2007). Telling the law’s two stories. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 20(2), 429–451. Web.

Rose, J. (2010). Studying the past: The nature and development of legal history as an academic discipline. Journal of Legal History, 31(2), 101–127. Web.

Soper, P. (2001). In defence of classical natural law in legal theory: Why unjust law is no law at all. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 20(1), 201–223. Web.

Sullivan, B. (2007). Rape, prostitution and consent. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 40(2), 127–142. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2020, July 6). Natural and Positive Law. https://ivypanda.com/essays/natural-and-positive-law/

"Natural and Positive Law." IvyPanda , 6 July 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/natural-and-positive-law/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Natural and Positive Law'. 6 July.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Natural and Positive Law." July 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/natural-and-positive-law/.

1. IvyPanda . "Natural and Positive Law." July 6, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/natural-and-positive-law/.

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Reimagining Design with Nature: ecological urbanism in Moscow

Reflective Essay
Published: 10 September 2019
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The twenty-first century is the era when populations of cities will exceed rural communities for the first time in human history. The population growth of cities in many countries, including those in transition from planned to market economies, is putting considerable strain on ecological and natural resources. This paper examines four central issues: (a) the challenges and opportunities presented through working in jurisdictions where there are no official or established methods in place to guide regional, ecological and landscape planning and design; (b) the experience of the author’s practice—Gillespies LLP—in addressing these challenges using techniques and methods inspired by McHarg in Design with Nature in the Russian Federation in the first decade of the twenty-first century; (c) the augmentation of methods derived from Design with Nature in reference to innovations in technology since its publication and the contribution that the art of landscape painters can make to landscape analysis and interpretation; and (d) the application of this experience to the international competition and colloquium for the expansion of Moscow. The text concludes with a comment on how the application of this learning and methodological development to landscape and ecological planning and design was judged to be a central tenant of the winning design. Finally, a concluding section reflects on lessons learned and conclusions drawn.

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The politics of designing with nature: reflections from New Orleans and Dhaka

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The landscape team from Gillespies Glasgow Studio (Steve Nelson, Graeme Pert, Joanne Walker, Rory Wilson and Chris Swan) led by the author and all our collaborators in the Capital Cities Planning Group.

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A. Piazzolla. Libertango Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic

A. Piazzolla. Libertango

So it is probably true that my thoughts do very much influence how I feel and act. I am going to try to reflect about this a bit more. Yes, I think, it is true, I mostly let my thinking determine my feelings and how I act.

I hope I can soon write about this a bit more.

Published by auntyuta

Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Mother and Wife of German Descent I've lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com View all posts by auntyuta

8 thoughts on “ A. Piazzolla. Libertango Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic ”

This is another Tango that I think is very beautiful. 🙂

Bravo Bravo Bravo, excellent examples of the Beautiful Tango. Thanks for sharing the links which led me to other Beautiful examples of Argentinian Tango.

For info Uta, the Milongo

Thanks, Ian, for the link. I like watching these videos. Our two little great-grandsons had a lovely Easter-Egg Hunt yesterday. Lucas called our backyard a “forest”. Happy Easter greetings to you and Ana from Uta and Peter. 🙂

Herrlich, ganz fantastisch! Happy Easter! 🙂

Thank you, Dina. Happy Easter to the 4 of you! 🙂

Liebe Gislinde, ich danke dir herzlichst. Ich wünsche dir und deiner Familie auch recht Frohe Ostern! 🙂

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1.1 The puzzle of Locke’s moral philosophy

2. Locke’s natural law theory: the basis of moral obligation

3. Moral motivation 1: reward and punishment

4. Moral motivation 2: the righteousness of morality

Primary Literature: Works by Locke

Secondary Literature

Acknowledgments

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Reason and Meaning

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Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality: Contemporary Essays

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Natural Law: Definition and Application

Key Takeaways: Natural Law

What Is Natural Law?

Natural Law and Self Defense

Natural Rights vs. Human Rights

Natural Law in the US Legal System

Natural Law in the Foundations of American Justice

Natural Law in Practice: Hobby Lobby vs. Obamacare

Sources and Further Reference

Natural Law ethics

The four tiers of law

The Primary Precepts & Synderesis

Secondary precepts & conscientia

Interior & exterior acts

Whether telos exists

Universal human nature & moral dis/agreement

Aquinas’ Natural theology vs Augustine & Karl Barth

Whether Religious & Natural law ethics is outdated

The double effect

Whether the double effect is unbiblical

Proportionalism & the double effect

Whether proportionalism is better suited to our fallen world

Suggested extra reading and media links

Natural Law

Natural and Positive Law Essay

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A. Piazzolla. Libertango

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The History of Moscow City

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