2. Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
• Recognize the meaning of natural law and its relation to ethics;
• Explain how natural law is an imprint of the Divine Will on the free
person;
• Appreciate and articulate the role of natural law in crafting an ethical
life; and
• Discuss conscience and how this is defined by natural law.
4. ALBERT CAMUS
French philosopher, writer, playwright, and journalist. He was the
second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957
when he received it at the age of 44. The Stranger, The Plague, The
Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel are some of his published
works.
His work The Myth of Sisyphus: 1942 serves as an example of his
philosophy of absurdism. The ridiculous, according to Camus, is the
foolishness of looking for meaning in a reality devoid of God or
purpose.
5. ALBERT CAMUS
• Camus lived through two world wars (1914-1918; 1939-1945)and thus
highlights the bitterness of his time and the task of man to live in
sincerity, moderation, and justice even while confronted with utter
meaningless in life.
What is absurdism?
Absurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find
meaning in the universe ultimately fail (and hence are absurd),
because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to the individual.
6. RITA JIMENEZ-DAVID
• On October 25, 2003, a local columnist in the Philippine Daily Inquirer,
Rina Jimenez-David recognized the sorry condition of the world and
asked the question “Why would we not just close down the
Philippines?”.
• Upon witnessing two Philippine power revolutions (February 22-25,
1986; January 17-20, 2001), she got frustrated and wanted to ask
every Filipino to live elsewhere.
8. St. Thomas Aquinas
• Born January 28, 1225 at
Roccasecca, Italy.
• Italian Catholic priest who
belongs to the religious Order of
Preachers or Dominicans.
• born to an affluent and influential
family; his father was recognized
as the count of Aquino, which
was the origin of his title
“Aquinas”.
9. St. Thomas Aquinas
• He took his early studies under the Benedictine Abbot of Monte
Cassino.
• At the age of 14, he enrolled at the University of Naples.
• At 19, he decided to join the Order of Preachers instead of the
Benedictines who were his first teacher.
• On 1248, he studied with Albert the Great, wherein he was recognized
as a genius and Albert took him at the University of Paris, where he
became the master of Theology (1256) and spent his next 18 years on
lectures, instructions, writings, and quodlibets.
10. St. Thomas Aquinas
• He died on March 7, 1274 leaving behind him notable works like
Summa Contra, Summa Thelogiae, and De Veritate.
• The Catholic Church honors him as a Doctor, a title given to saints
who are recognized as giver of particularly important insights in the
understanding of Christian doctrine or faith.
11. St. Thomas Aquinas
• Such outbursts of absurdity, frustration, and almost hopelessness are
not uncommon in our day. History, on the other hand, is fortunately rich
with people who have worked hard to figure out an alternative route out
of such darkness and confusion.
• The ethics of natural law refers to Thomas' methodical approach to
guiding human activity. While his metaphysis dates back to medieval
ages of religious belief in God, his ethical system lives on in the moral
rules accepted and acted out by Catholic religious believers.
12. Etsi Deus non daretur
• Even if there is no God.
• Thomas Aquinas perspective presupposes the existence of a God who is the
author (source) and the goal (end) of all reality.
• The human person can choose to act in accordance with his/her dignity.
• Freedom here is knowing the best goal and being able to reach for it through
decisive action. This is expressed as the dictate of “doing good and avoiding
evil”.
• Human freedom for St. Thomas Aquinas is an imprint of the divine will in the
very being of the human person. And the Divine Will, according to him, can
be understood as governing all that is; man’s task is to act in such a way that
his/her participation in the full unfolding of nature directs to its fulfillment.
13. Conscience and Natural Law
• The ability of man to know is important in his/her acting ethically.
• it is the proper functioning of reason in moving the human person towards an
end goal that id fitting of his/her dignity.
• One cannot do the right thing if one does not know what it is. Not knowing is
not an excuse.
• While the conscience binds us in doing the good and avoiding evil,
conscience as reason is also absolutely tasked to be given formation. The
conscience, therefore, can be mistaken, and being so does not exempt the
human person from culpability. If he/she knows but fails to act in his/her
obligation to do so, then he/she is not free from blame and responsibility for
what was done.
14. Conscience and Natural Law
There are different kinds of conscience that mat lead to wrongdoing:
• Callous – results in the long time persistence in doing evil that the self
can no longer whether what he/she does is good or bad.
• Perplexed – needs guidance in sorting out one’s confusion.
• Scrupulous – fails to trust one’s ability to do good and, hence, overly
concerns itself with avoiding what is bad to the point of seeing wrong
where there really is none.
• Ignorant – lacks education.
15. Conscience and Natural Law
• Acquisition of knowledge is what ought to be done through education is
critical for ethical living, according to St. Thomas Aquinas.
• Though separated by centuries, the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg
later echoes St. Thomas in insisting that “education is crucial for moral
living”.
16. Three Contemporary Questions
There are three relevant questions that can help the Filipino studentt
appreciate Thomistic Natural Law.
1. Who am I?
• The task of knowing the self is the point of departure for the task of
building up the identity of the human person. Ethics for Aquinas is
primarily a question of human identity.
• “All human acts are moral acts”.
• Through his/her acts that man defines himself/herself, the ethical man
is the task of his/her free acts.
17. Three Contemporary Questions
2. Who do I want to be?
• Defining the self gives one a chance to clarify his/her goal.
• Self-knowledge here is malleable towards self-determination. Ethical
acts gives direction through freedom to build up the self towards a
particular goal.
• Given this knowledge of himself/herself and the ability to evaluate
his/her options and possibilities, the self can also better give direction
to himself/herself.
18. Three Contemporary Questions
3. How can I get there?
• This question also utilizes the sound judgment of human reason and
evaluates the best route to get to the goal decided upon.
• This last question breaks down the task to be done into the particulars
of actions and daily routine.
19. The Relational and Perfection of
Love in Aquinas
• Thomistic ethics is incomplete if it does not end with the love that is
directed towards God. Thomistic Natural Law is not simply Christian
because it is an ethics reconcilable or compatible with faith. It is a
disciplined system that finds ultimate foundation and perfection in the
reality of God.
• The relational that is inherent in the natural order finds value. The
human person is not only bound to find full maximum capacity of one’s
being in a search for self-actualization.
• He/she is not designed to find perfection on his/her own but thoroughly
relates with other human persons and all creations.
20. The Relational and Perfection of
Love in Aquinas
• He/she is not designed to be a Pharisee who is perfect unto
himself/herself. He/she is open to be in all and to exist for all.
• One’s goal, therefore, is not only to be the “self-made ma/woman” but,
in his/her full effort, “be open and available for everything else” and “be
open for the love or fullness that is beyond him/her”.
• Ultimately, as held by St. Thomas himself, the true destiny of man lies
in a gratuitous perfection that is beyond the human person yet relates
with him/her thoroughly in freedom and, therefore, in fullness of love.
21. The Relational and Perfection of
Love in Aquinas
• The highest perfection of man for St. Thomas is in his/her wanting to
be with God. In the words that are used by believers, “The ethical man
is not the perfect man but one who wants to be saved by cooperating
in freedom with what is attainable for him/her”.
23. Conclusion
Thomas Aquinas was influential in his articulation of the theory of
natural law. He showed us that the universe was determined by an order of love
that ought to define the sense of the good of human beings. Whether one
believes in a transcendent, loving God or not, one could see that existed.
Whether one was a believer or not, one could see that there is this order which
is the ground of people’s wholeness and self-realization. Many philosophers up
to this day build upon this idea of a natural order upon which is founded a
natural law. Even in legal theories, this foundational idea is influential. However,
as Western civilization evolved, other theories also evolved which insisted that
the foundation of norms for the good should be rooted in human reason alone.
In this school of thought, Immanuel Kant would be one of the most important
thinkers.
