Introduction
Thomas Aquinas promulgated natural law as the basic law that should govern the moral conduct of humans. It is a philosophy that puts focus on values and virtues that are inherent to human nature, that do not need judgmental reasoning but should be adhered to as they are a voice from inside a human conscience. Natural law uses social and personal values as the basis of actions and moral values. These laws are universal, although their source was driven from catholic ethics. Theory of value and theory of actions are usually discussed by philosophers in order to understand the value of natural laws. The paper discusses the natural law, nature, and theory of value and action in the light of Stephen Pope’s article on natural law and Robert George’s examples on the topic.
Natural law is often taken in the context of common law, but there is difference between two. Common law is not a law based on the inherent value or natural rights. It is a legally formulated law where law takes into consideration the rights and values to extend legal force to those rights and values. As Robert George in his lecture, clarifies the distinction between the actions and their basis. To him, natural law is a law that appears when an individual ascertains as to what he/she ought to do in a particular situation (YouTube). This can govern our daily life affairs to an extent that the concept of evil will be restricted to those who only inherit evil as their nature. In this regard, philosophers notice that who and what constitutes the nature? How can we term an action and a value as part of our nature? To understand this, we can use the concept of ‘universality’ of actions. Such as, truth is a universal virtue, no matter how harsh the consequences may be. Similarly, telling lies, theft, rape, and robbery are universally acknowledged vices. No one in this world can dare to claim that these actions are virtues or not evil. It is interesting to question the source of this knowledge. Can catholic ethics only help in determining the nature of actions? The answer to this is probably no as there are atheists and people hailing from other religions. How do they confirm the nature of their actions? This further expands the horizon of natural thought and actions, taking us to the only point where one can ultimately say that the source of this knowledge is in human genes or in other words, it is inherited.
Natural law is being challenged by the contemporary philosophers by two schools, naturalism and historicism as explained by Stephen Pope in his article ‘reason and natural law’. He explains that naturalists claim that the claims on the ‘inherent’ nature of natural laws are there are no ‘moral’ purposes of life or any metaphysical base for human action has no reality (Pope and Porter 171). Similarly, historicists consider human history and individuals as the reason behind the force in natural law. To counter this, contemporary philosophers defend natural law in a variety of argument. One school of thought expresses theological importance of the natural law. While another including John Courtney Murray, explain that in modern pluralistic societies and democracies, natural law is adopted as the basic nature of humans that govern their actions.
Despite all the explanations on human nature, nature is a subjective term, which has been defined by renowned philosophers in order to reason for that structure that defines human beings as ‘natural’ and moral beings. The idea of nature derives itself from the basic framework allowing specific actions and deeds. We can assume that human actions are either good or bad, while there is a possibility of actions that cast no bad or good impact on the society, but they are still good or bad for one’s own life. Therefore, when human society acknowledges some of the actions as good and some of the actions as bad, the reason behind this collective conscience can be termed as nature and natural law. Man-made laws in the modern society are dependent upon natural law, to determine the nature of actions and moral values. This gives the power to natural law to even criticize some judicial decisions, but the ‘best interpretation’ of law cannot be judged by any proponent of natural law.
Theory of Value
‘Value’ is an important term in defining natural laws and ethics. We often sue value as a term that defines the character of a person, event or thing. Value Theory assigns the territory of good logic that is worried with hypothetical inquiries concerning quality and integrity of all assortments — the hypothesis of worth. The hypothesis of value, so translated, incorporates axiology, additionally incorporates numerous different inquiries concerning the way of quality and its connection to other good classes. The division of good hypothesis into the hypothesis of quality, as standing out from different territories of examination, cross-cuts the conventional characterization of good hypothesis into standardizing and meta-ethical request, however is a commendable refinement in its own particular right; hypothetical inquiries regarding esteem constitute a center area of enthusiasm for good hypothesis, frequently cross the limits between the regularizing and the meta-ethical, and have a recognized history of examination.
Theory of Action
Action hypothesis ordinarily portrays activity as conduct created by a specialists in a specific circumstance. The operators' yearnings and convictions (e.g. my needing a glass of water and trusting the reasonable fluid in the container before me is water) lead to real conduct (e.g. coming to over for the glass). In the straightforward hypothesis, the longing and conviction mutually cause the activity. While action theorists, for the most part utilize the dialect of causality in their hypotheses of what the way of activity is, the issue of what causal determination comes to has been vital to discussions about the way of unrestrained choice. Calculated discourses additionally rotate around an exact meaning of activity in logic. Researchers might differ on which real developments fall under this classification, e.g. whether deduction ought to be dissected as action, and how complex activities including a few stages to be taken and assorted expected outcomes are to be condensed or decayed. In this way, a natural ethicist will always look into the consequences of an action, not the universality of the action. This is to say that universality of actions and consequences of actions can vary in some cases. Such as, a lie can save many lives or a truth can get many humans killed. A natural ethicist will use his inherent ‘instinct’ to determine the nature of actions.
Conclusion
In the light of above discussion, it is evident that the force or existence of natural law cannot be denied. However, the challenges faced by natural ethicist in the contemporary world should be defended by forming theories and philosophies that match the needs of a modern world. For instance, considering theological basis of nature is irrational to most of the philosophers nowadays. The most appropriate defense of the challenges is to use reason in defining natural law.
WORKS CITED
Pope, Stephen J., and Jean Porter. "Natural And Divine Law: Reclaiming The Tradition For Christian Ethics". Journal of Law and Religion 16.2 (2001): 679. Web.
YouTube,. "Robert George - Natural Law, God, And Human Dignity". N.p., 2016. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
