Natural Law

[Horizon]

SeattlePioneer has brought up Aquinas' Natural Law in a few recent threads in regards to the gay issue- I thought that I would spin off that concept into a new thread to avoid hijacking others, and also because it interests me (what can I say - I took a lot of Philosophy courses in my undergraduate years).

 

To help others, here is the wiki link:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

 

And here is how the introduce it:

 

"Natural law, or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis), is a system of law that is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal.[1] Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature -- both social and personal -- and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law (meaning "man-made law", not "good law"; cf. posit) of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus serves as a standard by which to critique said positive law.[2] According to natural law theory, which holds that morality is a function of human nature and reason can discover valid moral principles by looking at the nature of humanity in society, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to natural law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale)["

 

While I vehemently disagree with SeattlePioneer on the issue of the morality of homosexuality, anyone willing to cite Aquinas deserves a modicum of respect - and I thought I would give him a chance to further explain his use of this philosophical concept as part of his justification.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Horizon,

 

 

I'm not an Xpert on natural law.

 

As I understand it, Thomas Aquinas was responsible for bringing the concept of natural law philosophy into the heart of Christian teachings and the western tradition in the late Roman Empire, where it has been ever since until the past few decades.

 

Natural law examines human behavior with the use of reason, not faith, to identify right rules of conduct and behavior. Many different religions have arrived at similar conclusions because most religions are looking for practical ways for people to survive and thrive.

 

Intolerant atheists like to sneer at religion and say "just which God should I worship, since every religion has different deities?" But natural law finds many common ethical behaviors between religions, contradicting this kind of snide criticism. For example, the idea of treating your neighbor as you wish to be treated has a lot of commonality between religions.

 

Speaking sexually, natural law looks at human sexuality and human genitalia and reasons that there are quite obvious correct way to use those appendages which lead to human reproduction and human families as ways for society to survive and replicate itself.

 

Those means are deemed to be "good" and ethical, and other methods of sexual gratification are pretty much all deemed to be bad and immoral.

 

 

There were LOTS of reasons why this morality was necessary and worked. The concept of sexual liberation isn't new --- it's been tried repeatedly --- and by and large it has repeatedly failed when children weren't cared for, disease spread, women were abandoned to starve or whatever.

 

The sexual liberation movement of the past half century or so is only practical because science and government keep propping it up. Without artificial contraception, sexual freedom would be a joke for most women, just as one example.

 

Homosexuals of the 1980s had sexual freedom, but very soon became hagridden with AIDS, which is only kept from continued massacre of that population by the most sophisticated medical research, treatment and medication.

 

Indeed, sexual liberation works poorly for much of the poor and working class. It really only works pretty well for the upper middle and upper classes, who don't care about the lower social classes as long as they can gratify their various lusts.

 

In short, I think there are very good reasons to continue the morality of natural law, and to resist the morality of the sexual liberation movement. Those reasons are independent of religion, although many religions have reached similar conclusions.

(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[perdidochas]

Seattle,

 

I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Wish that I could explain the idea half as well as you did.

[CalicoPenn]

I'm going to go against centuries of thought and writing on "natural law" and suggest that mankind took a wrong turn on this a very long time ago. I think they started on the right track when they began to refer the Law of Nature as Natural Law but veered off when they brought Human Reason into the equation.

 

I believe that true natural laws are the things we cannot change through the use of human reason (internal willfullness is how I would define reason as opposed to inventiveness which can create artificial constructs to at least temporarily defeat some natural laws). I also believe that human natural law is quite different from non-human natural law in that non-human natural law takes includes everything in human natural law but human natural law does not take in everything in non-human natural law. For instance - the law of gravity is a natural law - we can not defeat it by pure reason alone (we can temporarily defeat it through inventiveness, but even then we're still subject to it) and both humans and non-humans are subject to the law of gravity. On the other hand, a natural law for non-humans might include killing ones offspring by instinct because of birth defects or conditions that would make survival unlikely while this wouldn't be a natural law for humans as humans can use reason to overcome such an instinct.

 

If we used reason to create a law - such as a law against murder, or a law against same-sex marriage - these aren't natural laws. We may think they mimic natural laws, but they're human laws.

 

Just a thought.

[NJCubScouter]

I think "natural law" is one of those things that you can use to make just about any argument you wish.

 

On the issue of homosexuality, for example, some people look at homosexual acts and say that "natural law" suggests that procreation is a good thing and homosexual acts don't result in procreation, so that's bad.

 

But then others can look at it and say that the human race has done a pretty good job reproducing itself with only 95 to 97 percent, rather than 100 percent, participating in the reproductive process. In some places and at some times, way too good a job. Maybe God (or whoever or whatever entity or process or whatever you believe is responsible for how things work, if any) designed things in such a way that a small percentage would not be interested in the opposite gender, and another small percentage would be heterosexual but physically unable to reproduce, and another small percentage would be heterosexual but uninterested in reproducing, and so on... until the percentage of people actually reproducing somewhat matched the capacity of the land and resources to accommodate the resulting population. I don't know. I'm not a scientist and I've never really studied the subject. Maybe someone else here has. But it just sort of has a logic to me. When I look around and ask why some people are gay, I figure it can't be because they wanted to choose an easy or pleasant life for themselves. It must be because this is just the way they are. And maybe this does, as suggested above, fit in with "natural law."

[Trevorum]

NJ, I have posted before about the hypothesis in evolutionary anthropology that homosexuality is an adaptive mechanism in human band level hunter gatherers, functioning so as to increase the number of effective hunters providing for the band, without further stressing the carrying capacity by creating more mouths to feed.

[Eagledad]

>>I figure it can't be because they wanted to choose an easy or pleasant life for themselves. It must be because this is just the way they are. And maybe this does, as suggested above, fit in with "natural law."

[BDPT00]

"society will eventually get everything it deserves."

 

We're going down the toilet, and these enlightened people declaring all of this open minded (empty minded) societal behavior as normal are leading the charge. The only thing that seems to be taboo anymore is pedophelia. Why don't we just throw that in the open minded bag too? Sounds like we're back in the 'If it feels good, do it' days. Where in the Bible does it condemn pedophelia? Let's just open the doors to whatever anybody wants? Instead, the open minded choose to criticize anyone who wants to draw a line somewhere. Drives me nuts.

BDPT00

 

 

 

[Beavah]

I think "natural law" is one of those things that you can use to make just about any argument you wish.

 

Well, one can make any argument yeh wish about anything, eh? We see climate change deniers in science, Westboro Baptist nutjobs in religion, gold-standard folks in economics. Havin' the form to make an argument is different than actually studyin' the world with an open mind and lettin' it tell yeh what's real. Just because knowledge can be approached and developed with reason doesn't mean everybody is reasonable.

 

Natural law would suggest that there are some behaviors which are to a greater or lesser degree toxic for humans and human society. But just like dumpin' lots of CO2 into the atmosphere may be toxic in the longer term for da world's climate, there are lots of people who are makin' money and feelin' powerful mining coal and sellin' oil. They don't want to change their lifestyle. They don't want to give up their lusts. Drill, baby, drill! Don't tell me what to do. They distrust those liberal science types who have the audacity to call 'em out on Natural Law in public.

 

No different here, eh? Just as SeattlePioneer describes, even though some behaviors are toxic to human society in da longer run, our lusts and our identifyin' only with our social group instead of all of society or humanity cloud reason and our ability to recognize Natural Law. We'll make just about any argument we wish so that we can keep doin' what feels good, what makes us powerful as individuals, or what supports da "tribe" we identify with. Even daffy stuff like Trevorum's hypothesis.

 

Humans are emotional creatures, eh? Not always rational ones. The societal result from such experiments is always the same, though. It conforms to Natural Law.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Horizon]

Very interesting information and thoughts.

 

One issue is whether Natural Law supports the success of the society, or of the individual. For example, monogamous relationships help children, but they can prevent the best genetic material from being maximized. The Stanford men represented on the Olympic Men's Water Polo team are the peak of both intelligence and physical fitness. If we wanted to build a better society, they should be fathering more children. Given the physiological differences between men and women, they should perhaps have multiple wives while lesser intelligent and physically capable males have none. That is what the natural world shows us in Wolf Packs and Lion Prides. That is the society we even see in the Bible as well. So should law reflect that natural world?

 

We don't follow that model anymore, and for many good reasons. We have adjusted our perspective. We have evolved.

 

The education of women leads to smaller families, as more opportunities become available to them. It also leads to women being able to be pickier about their choice of a mate, to later marriage, and to the ability of the women to financially support single motherhood. Should we close to the universities to women so that they will stay home with the kids? Perhaps only allow women to go to university after they are past child bearing and child rearing years?

 

Divorce and marriage are both arguable too easy to engage in. The loosening, however, was in part a response to the entrapment of people in unhappy relationships. The modeling of poor relationships is ALSO something that is emulated by children. A husband who beats his wife will beget a son who beats his wife, and a daughter who will marry an abuser. I would rather those children be raised by a single mother than by an abusive father. FInding the balance is tough. I like it that my church requires pre-marital counseling before the Minister will officiate, for example.

 

Another comments is that we all approach morality from a different perspective. A recommend this TED talk from Jon Haidt:

 

[BSA24]

Anyone who grew up on a farm knows that homosexuality is natural. It exists among animals and serves multiple evolutionary purposes. Homosexuality limits procreation while providing sexual outlet in crowded or undernourished conditions. It produces individuals who sport unique characteristics blending the two sex roles allowing for different and creative perspectives among humans.

 

There is no evidence that any natural law says homosexuality is not natural. Anything that happens in nature is natural.

 

Man flying doesn't happen in nature. We should ban airline tickets to scouts based on natural law. And tents. And clothes. And houses. And air conditioning. And cars.

 

This is an illogical and poorly thought out argument.

[Beavah]

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

I would bet that farmers breed for animals that maximize fecundity and weed out anything getting in the way of that fecundity.

 

For example, I suspect that a horse breeder would take steps to prevent a stallion he wants to breed from engaging in masturbation, despite the fact that the horse might have learned how to entertain itself in that way.

 

There are certain easily identified purposes for which genetalia are intended by nature to be used. Those are the healthy and natural uses for those bodily parts.

 

I suspect that the farmers you refer to can figure those out for their animals even if you might be unable to do that for human beings.

 

It's really quite simple. It's just that in recent years people have decided that their lusts should be allowed to rule their behavior.

 

The purposes of human sexuality revolves around reproduction. Anything else is unnatural and therefore perverted and is properly discouraged by society.

 

This is the basic tenant of the natural law argument that has ruled western civilization for the past oh, 1500 years or so, and is reflected in many other civilizations as well.

 

It's a perfectly legitimate and reasonable point of view.

 

In recent decades we have had a competing value system promoted by advocates of the sexual liberation movement, whose purpose is to gratify pretty much any kind of human sexual lust.

 

Everyone gets to choose which scheme of values they wish to support.

 

 

 

[Horizon]

Yep - we would castrate the lesser bulls, and make a roast of the lesser roosters. The good ones got the rest of the herd and the hens.

 

Shall we implement that natural law again in America? Do some genetic, IQ and physical testing and only let the top of the scores be allowed to breed?

 

That would be the natural way.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Horizon,

 

Human beings are different than other animals because human beings can reason. So they are treated differently than other animals.

 

Still, making gratifying our animal lusts isn't a suitable cornerstone for organizing society, although that is what the sexual liberation movement has been doing the past half century or so.

 

People have two basic moral choices they can make these days:

 

1) support the principles of natural law which makes the right and natural use of human genitalia for procreation the cornerstone of human sexuality.

 

2) support the principles of the sexual liberation movement, which makes gratifying sexual lust the cornerstone of human society

 

You'll notice that the goal of the sexual liberation movement is far more ambitious than that of the natural law agenda. Basically nothing is allowed to get in the way of gratifying sexual lust. Divorce, sex between children, polygamy, adultery, incest. The arguments are the same to support all of them and a lot more.

 

Take your pick.