Reading: Aquinas, "Ethics and Natural Law", pp. 619-621. This reading consists of two excerpts from Aquinas. The first excerpt is from The Summa Theologica Question 94, Article 2. Your text has omitted a couple of paragraphs from the beginning of Q94, Article 2, but otherwise, the excerpt is intact. Please go to www.newadvent.org/summa/2094.htm to read Article 2 of Question 94 in its entirety. When I printed it out, it was 2 full pages. I presume that the second excerpt is also from The Summa, but I could not find the exact reference (googling key phrases didn't help, probably because this is an updated translation). It doesn't appear to be from Q94.
Reading Guide: First Excerpt: The question of Article 2 is "Whether the natural law contains several precepts, or only one?". Aquinas begins, as is his wont, by stating 3 objections (see online text). He then indicates his own position ("On the contrary"). Finally, he begins to explain his position beginning at "I answer that". (If you're reading in your textbook, the words "I answer that" are deleted, but everything that follows those words is included in your text. However, the 3 objections and the "On the contrary" that precede "I answer that" are not included.) He invokes a distinction between practical reason and speculative or theoretical/demonstrative reason. He notes that both practical reason and speculative reason start from first principles, principles that are self-evidently true and are not subject to demonstration. Propositions (statements) may be self-evidently true in themselves, but not self-evidently true to us. (I think our earlier reading on Aquinas explained this.) Some propositions that are self-evidently true (or "self-known") are self-evident to all. Others are self-evident only to the wise. Aquinas gives examples of each of these. The first principle of speculative reason is the principle of noncontradiction, "It is not proper at once to affirm and to deny". The first principle of practical (action-guiding reason) is "The good is what all desire". From this principle, it is a short step to the first principle of natural law. I'll let you read it for yourself. Aquinas then tells us that reason helps us determine what things are goods and what things are evils (things to be avoided) -- see the text for the criteria. Having articulated the standard of goods and evils, he examines our natural inclinations, which he divides into 3 sources: inclinations we share with all substances, inclinations we "share with other animals", and inclinations that have their source in our rational and social nature. (You may recognize Aristotle's influence here.) This marks the end of Article 2.
Second Excerpt: This excerpt begins at the bottom of p. 620 in your book (right after the ...). In this excerpt, Aquinas reminds us that "every judgment of practical reason issue(s) from certain naturally known principles". He then says that although "all moral rules belong to the law of nature", they do not "all" belong to the law of nature "in the same way" (621). He divides moral rules into 3 types, based on how accessible they are. The most accessible moral rules "belong in an unqualified way to the law of nature".
5 comments:
I hate this Aquinas style of writing. Objection 1. Objection 2. I respond... Who thinks of these objections anyway? Are these actual thing that people have said to him or is he just making them up. If it is the latter then I think Aquinas is absolute buttocks. He could just list objections that he can respond to, not because they are actual objections. I'm sure there are other objections that people have that he doesnt address.
I am a little confused with this article... Is Aquinas saying that because I am a rational being I can know truths about God? I dont think that is a very sound argument. also, I dont think his "moral inclinations" are very acurate.
yeah for being the only bloger!
I like Aquinas’ position that because we are created in the image of God that we have an innate understanding ethical standards. I think that in general most people have a sense of right and wrong but then I started to think about hot button moral issues and then Aquinas’s idea did not seem as relevant. For example, what about abortion or euthanasia? People do not really seem to be on the same basic page as each other, so does that mean we don’t have an innate sense of morals? Hmmm.
I thought Aquinas' article was pretty convincing, but it did get a bit wordy at times causing me to read certain passages over a few times. His stance on how something self evident to a human might now be self evident to some other being made sense to me. He then distinguishes that it could be the same being, but something may only be self evident to the wiser one. I do however object somewhat to what seems to be his stating that it is obvious that there are natural tendancies, I think many things he speaks about such as birth and search for good are things that are heavily taught in most societies, so it cannot be said that it is purely a natural happening.
I do not object to the first two of Aquinas' three inclinations of man. They seem plausible, justifiable. However, I do not completely understand his rationale behind the third. Man has an inclination toward the good that is in accord with the nature of reason and therefore has an incliniation to discover the truth about God. I do not get the connection here. But if I may speculate nonetheless, I would say that the opposite is true. Man is has an inclination toward selfishness, not good... But I may be off the mark.
I agree with the part where Aquinas says that there are certain things that people just know, i.e. every whole is greater than its part. However, it can be argued that it is because of someone (who some may say God) that we know these actions are wrong. Somewhere something or someone had to establish the right and wrong.
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