Читать книгу The Puzzle of Ethics - Peter Vardy, Peter Vardy - Страница 12

FOUR

Aquinas, Natural Law and Proportionalism

To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to condemning the command of God.

St Thomas Aquinas

The Natural Law approach to morality has a long history. Cicero in De Re Publica describes natural law as follows:

True law is right reason in agreement with nature. It is applied universally and is unchanging and everlasting … there will be no different laws in Rome and in Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God …

However, it was Aristotle who really developed this approach and Aquinas (1225–74) built on his thought. The writings of Aristotle had been lost in the West and preserved amongst the Islamic scholars of the East. They were reintroduced into Western thought shortly before Aquinas took up his position as a professor at the University of Paris.

Aquinas considered that natural law was the moral code which human beings are naturally inclined towards. God reveals specific commands but these do not go against natural law but rather further and develop it. This reflected Aquinas’ approach to theology generally by which natural theology (which was based on human reason) did not go against revealed theology (which was based on revelation by God). Aquinas said that the moral life is the life which is lived ‘according to reason’ and, indeed, acting in accordance with reason was the same as acting as a Christian would act. Aquinas’ main difference from natural law philosophers who did not believe in God was that he considered that human beings were immortal and any moral theory and understanding of natural law had, therefore, to take account of the belief that the purpose of human existence did not lie entirely in this life.

Aquinas argued that the first priority laid down by natural law was that the self had to be preserved not just in this life but beyond the grave. If the self gave in to non-rational desires, then it became enslaved. It was possible to arrive at the natural or cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, taken from Aristotle) by the use of reason alone. The Ten Commandments (with the exception of the command to keep the Sabbath day holy) were held to be examples of natural virtues. These natural virtues are expanded by the revealed virtues (of faith, hope and charity – derived from St Paul, cf. 1 Corinthians 13:13) and Aquinas held that the greater the extent to which these are developed by the individual, the greater will be the obedience to natural law.

The starting point for all advocates of natural law is to work out the purpose of human life. For Aquinas, this purpose included to live, to reproduce, to learn, to have an ordered society and to worship God. Reason is used to find out God’s intention and the purpose of human existence and this will enable one to arrive at the principles of natural law.

Unlike Augustine and some of the later Christian reformers such as Calvin, Aquinas did not consider that human nature was totally corrupted. He considered that human nature, even though imperfect, was a reasonable guide to what human nature should be – since it was created by God. For Aquinas, there is no category of human beings that are in some way enslaved by a depraved nature – there is an equality of all human beings and in all human beings there is a necessary link between their happiness and their virtuous behaviour. Aquinas therefore starts from his experience of people and he expects to find natural law at work in every society in the world since all societies are made up of human beings who share a common nature. Natural law can be deduced from an examination of human nature and the ends for which human beings are created.

When we term God as good from our human perspective, Aquinas maintained that we name him as the goal of all desires or that to which all desires tend. Natural law can show all human beings what is good – religion is not needed for this and this is similar to St Paul’s claim that the law is written in the hearts of all men (Romans 2:14ff). Reason can bring people to act rationally to develop the virtues. For Aquinas, ‘God is good’ is analytic in that it expresses a truth about God (that God is fully whatever it is to be God), but it is also synthetic as God represents the goal and destiny of all human beings, even though human beings may not recognise this. Aquinas based this idea on ‘fitness for purpose’ – since he held that humans were made by God for fellowship with God it follows that God, as their creator, must be the means by which human happiness will be found. Aquinas did not consider that morality was based on commands from God – a position which William of Ockham held as he considered that morality was based on revelation – Ockham held that if God commanded adultery then this would be right because of the command. Aquinas considered that if this was the case then God’s commands could be irrational and arbitrary. Instead God makes human beings with a certain nature and this nature enables human beings to use their reason and their experience to understand what is right.

Aquinas considered, following Aristotle, that all men will the good. Human beings may seek some apparent good, but this is not a true good – it is only an apparent good because it does not conform to the perfection of the human nature which all human beings share. Aquinas considered that there is an ‘ideal’ human nature which we all have the potential to live up to or to fall away from and our moral actions are crucial in determining where we stand in this respect. If a person does something that is morally wrong, he or she will do this because they consider this to be a good although the possibility of the individual being mistaken certainly exists (examples might include smoking, drinking too much or even taking drugs). Aquinas says that: ‘A fornicator seeks a pleasure which involves him in moral guilt’ (Summa Theologica 1a, 19, 9). The fornicator seeks a pleasure which he thinks is a good, but this is only an apparent good as it diminishes a human being’s nature.

Sin, for Aquinas, involves a falling short from the good – it means a human being becoming less than he or she is intended by God for him or her to be. To pursue an apparent good rather than the real good is to fall short of our real potential – it is to ‘get it wrong’ and to be mistaken. No one seeks evil for itself, it is only sought as an apparent good and therefore rests on a mistake. Hitler and Stalin did not seek to do evil – they sought what they thought were goods but they were mistaken – they strove for apparent rather than real goods. Sin is a theological word but there is no real difference between this theological idea and acting against reason. Aquinas says: ‘the theologian considers sin principally as an offence against God, whereas the moral philosopher considers it as being contrary to reason’ (S. T. 1a, 11ae, 71, 6, ad 5).

Since Aquinas argued that it is possible to be mistaken in which goods are chosen, it is obviously necessary to determine what is the right thing for a person to aim for. In essence, this is what discussion of natural law is about – seeking to explore what is the right good to aim for. Human beings have the ability, using their will and reason, to make deliberate moral choices (S. T. 1a, 11ae, 1, 1) which Aquinas terms ‘human acts’ to distinguish them from those acts performed by a person which are based on instinct. However, human reason must be used correctly, which leads Aquinas to talk of the ‘right use of reason’ – reason may be used to plan a murder or to decide to be virtuous, but only in the second case is reason being used ‘rightly’. This obviously raises the problem of how one determines what is the ‘right’ use of reason when there are genuine differences of opinion as to what is good in a particular situation. A person’s reason and their will both work together to help determine the choice they will make – if a person uses their reason correctly to determine what is right and then wills to do it this is, according to Aquinas, a free choice.

A person may will to make a morally wrong choice which he or she does not carry through – perhaps because the choice is not available. A man may, for instance, decide to defraud his employer of a substantial sum of money but he never gets the chance because he is moved to a new job.

Aquinas distinguished ‘interior acts’ and ‘exterior acts’ and is clear that the former are the most important – indeed morally good or bad acts are generally interior acts. An act may be good in itself but done for a wrong intention – for instance giving to charity may be good in itself but if it is done in order to attract praise then there is a bad intention (‘for instance, we say that to give alms for the sake of vainglory is bad’ (S.T., 1a, 11ae, 20, 1)). This does not entail that intention alone is decisive. As Copleston says in his book Thomas Aquinas:

As Aquinas says, there are some things which cannot be justified by any alleged good intention … If I steal money from a man in order to give it to someone else, my action is not justified by my good intention … It is not possible to father on Aquinas the view that the end justifies the means … (p. 207).

In every act or proposed act, Aquinas considers that the will aims towards some end – in other words there is something which is considered to be a good (whether it is, in fact, a good or not). Aquinas needs, therefore, to establish the aim or end towards which human actions are to be directed.

Aquinas’ answer is, perhaps, not unexpected. Considering that he was a Christian theologian writing from a world that was steeped in Christian thought only one final end could possibly be posited – and that is God. This raises the obvious question of those people who do not accept the existence of God and it might seem that their ends or aims would be different from those of the believer. Aquinas is by no means the only advocate of a natural law approach to morality and his understanding differs from others such as Aristotle due to his belief in a personal God. This leads Aquinas to maintain that not only do human beings in general have a purpose beyond death, but each individual also has a particular purpose which is directly related to each person’s talents and abilities. Hugo Grotius claimed in 1625 (in Prolegomena II) that the foundations of natural law would be valid even if there was no God and Aristotle would have agreed with this, but in the absence of God the understanding of natural law would be significantly different as there would then be no life after death and thus the purpose of human existence would be changed. In addition, if God did not implant natural law in human beings then it might be argued that there was no reason why an individual should obey natural law.

Aquinas’ approach is sophisticated and he seeks to address the problem of those who do not believe in God. Even such an individual would seek to fulfil his or her nature and to make the most of individual potentialities – it will therefore follow that such individuals would still incline to obey natural law, as it is in obeying this natural law that human potential is fulfilled. However, the ends that people seek are different and it may be possible to tell what ends they seek by looking at how they live – they may, for instance, look for money, power or reputation as ends in themselves and, if they do so, they will be making a mistake as to where their true happiness lies.

Aquinas does not simply assert that God is the final end for human beings – he considers alternatives. If, for instance, it is suggested that some form of sensual pleasure should be the final aim or end in life, Aquinas would reject this as it is then only the body’s appetites and potentialities that are being satisfied and animals can seek the same thing. Similarly scientific knowledge cannot be the end as this good could only be sought by a small number of people who have the academic ability. Having said this, Aquinas’ view that God is the final end for human beings may be regarded as an assumption and it can, of course, be challenged. However, if the assumption is accepted and if there is, indeed, a God who created the world and human beings, then it is perfectly sensible to claim (although, of course, not necessarily true) that human beings were created for fellowship with this God.

It is interesting and important that Aquinas considers that all human beings share a single nature and, therefore, there should be a single aim or objective for all human beings – this justifies him in rejecting knowledge as an aim (as only some people have the ability to seek this knowledge). The one thing that every person can desire is the vision of God which is promised for the next life. It is only this beatific vision which will be fully and completely satisfying for every human being and humans can choose to seek this or to turn away from it.

The power of reason is vital for Aquinas – reason can determine what acts are necessary for the good of a human being whether this is taking food or drink or acting morally. Any act that furthers the end for human beings is morally good (whether this is eating or giving to charity). However, this is not to say that the acts are ends in themselves because means and ends are not separable. As Copleston says:

… in the teleological ethic of Aristotle morally obligatory acts are not means to an end which is simply external to these acts, since they are a partial fulfilment of it; nor is the end something external to the agent … Aquinas followed Aristotle in holding that the final end of man consists in activity, and activity is obviously not external to the human agent in the sense that a picture is external to the artist … God is glorified by the highest possible development of man’s potentialities as a rational being, and every moral act of man therefore has an intrinsic value (p. 211).

Both Aquinas and Aristotle maintained that a person can acquire a habit or disposition to either vice or virtue. Virtuous habits should be fostered by repeated acts of virtue and human beings should live without excess, according to the ‘mean’ (which can broadly be defined as that which is in accordance with right reason). Aquinas and Aristotle both deplored excess in any form – the classic example from Aristotle is that the brave man is neither cowardly (one example of excess) nor foolhardy (another example of excess). It might seem difficult to fit this Aristotelian notion with Christian figures such as Mother Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Lisieux or Teresa of Calcutta, and Aquinas does consider this point as he does ask whether giving one’s goods away to the poor might be considered excess. His conclusion is that it would not if this action was inspired by Christ (S.T. 1a, 11ae, 64, 1, obj. 3) although it is hard to see how Aquinas could then resist a similar argument by many fanatical religious figures who claimed loyalty to Christ.

We have seen that Aquinas considers that natural law can be deduced by experience from looking at human nature and its purposes. Human beings have a duty to preserve themselves in existence (by, for instance, eating and drinking), to be rational and even to preserve the species. The last may seem self-evident, but it does not appear to fit well with the celibacy of priests in the Roman Catholic Church and, of course, Aquinas was himself a priest. Aquinas meets this point by saying that the need to propagate the race applies to the race as a whole:

The natural precept about taking nourishment must necessarily be fulfilled by every individual; for otherwise he could not be preserved. But the precept about generation applies to the whole community, which not only must be multiplied corporeally but also make spiritual progress. And so sufficient progress is made if some only attend to generation, while others give themselves to the contemplation of divine things … (S.T. 1a, 11ae, 152, 2, ad 1).

This is a neat way of overcoming the problem, but it is not clear which ‘ends’ must be fulfilled by the individual and which by the group and there could be debate about the allocation between these headings. Also if only some attend to spiritual progress, does this help only those individuals or the community as a whole? This might also open debate about the possibility of only a number of individuals being homosexually inclined since only some need to be heterosexual in order to propagate the human race.

Aquinas considered that from a general principle, such as the need to propagate the species, detailed rules can be deduced such as the need for monogamy and the education of children. However, it would be possible to challenge Aquinas on the first of these – by saying that, for instance, it is not self-evident that monogamy is the best way of propagating the species. Aquinas’ method is to begin with a general injunction that good is to be sought and evil avoided and then to unpack these by means of subsidiary principles (or perhaps assumptions would be a better word – although some might challenge this) that become more and more specific. It is not, however, a mere deduction of specific principles from general ones – at each stage Aquinas considers that the contemplation of human nature and its ends is required.

The problem is that at every stage the judgements being made may be challenged and there may be assumptions that govern the law that is deduced which may not be generally accepted. As an example, one might start with the general principle of propagation and then move to monogamy (although even this step might be challenged). One could then look at genital organs and consider their purpose – if their purpose is decided to be for procreation, then any use of these organs for other purposes such as pleasure (through masturbation, genital homosexuality or conventional sex using contraception) would be held to be wrong because they go against the intended purpose for these organs. However, who is to define the purpose? If, as part of the function of genital organs, one included as the purpose ‘that they are intended so that two people who love each other should be able to express their love and obtain pleasure in doing so and that propagation might, when appropriate, thereby take place’ then one might rule out masturbation and homosexuality, but not sexual foreplay or even adultery. Other functions might give different purposes. For instance is the purpose of a mouth for eating or for kissing or for both? Who is to decide? If kissing is part of the function of mouths, then kissing would become a good rather than, arguably, an evil. The need to make assumptions which may be challenged is, therefore, implicit in Aquinas’ whole approach and weakens its effectiveness.

It may also be argued that Aquinas’ approach is not holistic – it fails to consider the human being as a psycho-physical unit. To separate, for instance, genitalia out as having a particular purpose on their own without considering the whole complexity of a person’s relationship to his or her body, psychology, sexuality in general, the ability of human beings as embodied persons to express and receive love and to come to their full humanity may be a diminution of human beings as people. We are not an accumulation of ‘bits’ – we are whole human persons and all moral judgements must take our complexity as human persons into account.

Aquinas considered that the feudal order of society of his time – with Kings, barons, knights, freemen and serfs – was the natural order. He was conditioned by his culture just as we may be conditioned by ours. It is far from easy to determine the function or purpose of different human organs or of society without being influenced by one’s own preconceptions.

Aquinas believed that all human beings have a fixed, uniform human nature – this led him to maintain that there was a fixed natural law (subject to the differentiation between primary and secondary precepts above) for human beings. It may be argued that human beings do not have a single human nature and that the moral law may vary over time – in this case the whole idea of natural law may be challenged (this goes against the quote from Cicero at the beginning of this chapter). As an example, if there is held to be a single human nature then all human beings ‘should’ (according to their nature if it is ‘correctly’ ordered) be heterosexually inclined. If, therefore, someone was homosexually inclined (say due to a difference in genetic make-up) then this would be a disorder in their nature – their nature would be ‘faulty’ in that it was not what it ‘should’ be. This is one reason why Roman Catholic approaches to homosexuality tend to be clear cut – although Catholic theologians draw a distinction between an inclination which may be due to faulty genetic make-up and practising homosexuality which is due to a free decision and is therefore morally blameworthy. Against this it may be held that there is no single human nature – that some people are, for instance, homosexually inclined and others are not and this in itself is neither right nor wrong. In this case the issue may be more about how individuals should use their sexuality given their make-up rather than conformity to a specific human nature. Recent scientific studies have shown that homosexual tendencies may well be genetic. It could be (and there is no evidence for this) that in the face of an overcrowded world, nature produces an increase in those genes which direct sexual activity away from procreation. Aquinas would have difficulty coping with such a possibility.

The natural law approach to morality is much more flexible than is generally supposed. M. J. Longford (The Good and the True – An introduction to Christian ethics, SCM Press, 1985, p. 204) puts it like this:

It is true that Aquinas did also appear to hold some absolute moral rules, such as the one that disallowed lying … but this is not what is stressed in the account of natural law … His overall position is that there are what are called ‘primary precepts’ which are exceedingly general (such as the duty to worship God, and to love one’s neighbour) and ‘secondary precepts’ which are more specific, such as the duty to have only one husband or wife. However, the secondary precepts all have to be interpreted in the context of the situation, and it is here that the flexibility of natural law arises. At one point [Aquinas] argues as follows: ‘The first principles of natural law are altogether unalterable. But its secondary precepts … though they are unalterable in the majority of cases … can nevertheless be changed on some particular and rare occasions …’ … Aquinas argues, ‘The more you descend into the details the more it appears how the general rule admits of exceptions, so that you have to hedge it with cautions and qualifications.’

This is an important qualification and shows that there may be more flexibility in the natural law approach than is often supposed. It may also open the door to a natural law approach to morality coming together with situation ethics (see ch. 10) – for instance through a form of proportionalism. Whereas Aquinas is firm in his insistence on the primary precepts of natural law, he seems to show more flexibility when discussing the secondary precepts which ‘unpack’ these and sometimes modern supporters of a natural law approach to ethics do not sufficiently recognise this.

It is, perhaps, important to recognise that although many Catholic theologians today tend to support Aquinas’ natural law approach, in the Middle Ages his was not the only view in the Church. It would be wrong to think, even today, that all Catholic moral theologians are Thomists – there is a real debate in the life of the Roman Catholic Church and this debate is an on-going process, although it is, perhaps, fair to say that Aquinas’ legacy of the view that there is a single moral law and later theologians’ opinions that the Church represents this view is still the orthodox Catholic position (put forward most strongly in recent Vatican documents such as Veritatis Splendor [October 1993]) – even if there is, arguably, no requirement to accept Aquinas’ philosophic position if one is a Catholic.

Aquinas is suitably modest when making claims about the ability of moral philosophers to determine which actions should be performed in particular situations. He was a philosopher as well as a theologian and recognised the need for reflection. Aquinas did not think moral problems could simply be settled, a priori, by deduction – ultimately each individual has to make his or her own decision (Ethics, 2, c.2, lectio 2) and the place of conscience will be vital in this. An action is either right or wrong in so far as it fosters or undermines the good for man and Aquinas would be the first to recognise that there may be disagreements as to what behaviour will foster this ‘good’. However, in spite of these disagreements Aquinas is firm in the view that there is an absolute natural law: Disagreements occur because of the difficulty of determining this.

At the end of the Second World War, Nazi war criminals were tried at Nuremberg according to what were claimed as universal moral laws which were closely modelled on natural law thinking. The phrase ‘natural law’ was avoided – instead reference was made to ‘crimes against humanity’, but the thinking behind the legal actions was clearly based on natural law. It is possible to develop a natural law approach to ethics which does not depend on the existence of God, but any such approach is inevitably going to involve the notion of purpose and this, in turn, is going to depend on particular metaphysical claims. Aquinas has to make assumptions at key points when developing his approach and any humanistic natural law alternative will have to make alternative assumptions (such as that there is no God or life after death) against which the purpose of human life should be measured.

Proportionalism

Proportionalism holds that there are certain moral rules and that it can never be right to go against these rules unless there is a proportionate reason which would justify it. The proportionate reason is based on the context or situation but this situation must be sufficiently unusual and of sufficient magnitude to provide a reason which would overturn what would otherwise be a firm rule. On this basis, moral laws derived from natural law or similar approaches can provide firm moral guidelines which should never be ignored unless it is absolutely clear that, in the particular situation, this is justified by a proportionate reason.

The position of proportionalism is well put in John Macquarrie’s A New Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Blackwell, 1991, p. 392):

Perhaps the most divisive debate in contemporary Catholic moral theology concerns the existence and grounding of universally binding moral norms. The Scholastic moral theology of the manuals held that certain acts were intrinsically evil on the basis of the act itself, independent of the intention, circumstances and consequences. Revisionists maintain that the evil in acts such as contraception or even direct killing is not moral evil but pre-moral evil which can be justified for a proportionate reason.

The distinction between pre-moral and moral evil is central to the proportionalist position. Bernard Hoose, the leading British advocate, in his book Proportionalism (Georgetown University Press, 1987, p. 51), says that:

An evil like pain, death or mutilation is, in itself, pre-moral or non-moral, and should never be described as ‘moral’. It is the act as a whole which is either right or wrong, and it is the person, or the person in his or her acting, who is morally good or morally bad.

A distinction has to be made between acts which are good and acts which are right – and this distinction, proportionalists maintain, is often not made. A person may have a good intention but may be able to achieve that intention only through an act which is considered to be, in itself, evil. The proportionalists hold that it is possible for an action, in itself, to be wrong, whilst based on the actual situation in which the action is done the action may be morally right.

The American proportionalist, Philip Keane, puts the position clearly:

When a truly proportionate reason is present in an action so that the action is morally good, the human will is clearly not morally intending the pre-moral evil in the action, even if the pre-moral evil must be done as a means to the pre-moral good. Hence proportionate reason is ultimately a more accurate indicator of what the person is actually doing in a complex human action than is the external relationship of the various pre-moral aspects of the action.

A separation is being made distinguishing the different intentions of a human being who acts:

Part of the issue here is whether psychological intention is to be distinguished from moral intention. Surely a doctor who amputates a limb to save a person’s life has to remove the limb. But does he or she morally intend the evil in the amputation? (Theological Studies, 42, 1981, p. 275)

Proportionalists seek the right thing to do in the particular circumstances. Unlike advocates of situation ethics, they affirm that there are non-moral goods and evils, but they maintain that the circumstances need to be taken into account in deciding whether a non-moral evil is also a moral evil. Killing, theft or contraception (if one is a Catholic) may be morally good in certain circumstances. As Bernard Hoose puts it:

If what is morally good is what is morally right and what is morally bad is what is morally wrong, we shall have to revise an awful lot of our thinking in moral matters. Some of the people who burned heretics were probably morally good in such actions. Are we to assume, therefore, that the burning of heretics was morally right? Must rich benefactors seeking admiration stop giving money to the poor? Surely they should change their attitude, but continue to give their money (p. 63).

Those who support situation ethics and proportionalism both maintain that love or agape is the only criterion for moral goodness or badness. However proportionalists refuse to accept the view of situation ethicists that love can make a wrong action right. As Bernard Hoose puts it:

An action born of love can be wrong, while an action not resulting from love can be right (p. 63).

Proportionalists have difficulty in determining how one judges whether a given situation is sufficient to generate a proportionate reason for performing what would otherwise be an evil act. It would appear that what is needed is something like the Utilitarian hedonistic calculus to try to calculate proportionality – yet proportionalists reject this. Nevertheless it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the choice lies between a form of calculus and individual intuition as to the ranking of various goods. Neither position seems satisfactory. Bernard Hoose maintains that the judgement is made taking the consequences into account but without any formal method of calculation; however, this approaches a form of intuitionism which can seem very individualistic. Generally we will know that there is no proportionate reason that will justify lying, theft, etc. and the proportionalist accepts this. However the proportionalist maintains that there may be such reasons and that the individual will recognise the situation when it occurs. He or she weighs up the intrinsic evil of lying, theft, etc. and balances this against the consequences.

Proportionalism has for long been in use in Catholic moral thinking in the issue of Just War, but as long as it remains condemned by the Vatican (as was re-confirmed in the document ‘Veritatis Splendor’ issued in October 1993) it is unlikely to make significant progress within the Church in other areas. However, as has been seen earlier in this chapter, it is clear that Aquinas does allow exceptions to the secondary precepts which are the basis for moral rules in the Catholic tradition, so it may be argued that proportionalism is closer to the mainstream Catholic tradition than the rather more conservative and restrictive view supported by this Church’s Magisterium at the present time.

Questions for discussion

1 What do you understand by the theory of a natural moral law?

2 Can the basis of natural law be located other than in social convention?

3 What are the strengths and weaknesses of basing ethics on natural law?

4 How might natural law be used to deal with the following ethical issues: (a) contraception, (b) abortion or (c) homosexuality?

5 On a natural law approach, how might it be argued that it would be wrong for a woman to make love after she had a hysterectomy or after her ovaries were removed?

6 Would Aquinas support the Divine Command theory of ethics?

7 ‘In the absence of any agreed view of human nature, natural law theory is useless.’ Do you agree with this statement and, if so, why?

8 Would the natural law approach maintain that if one uses reason then one is acting morally? What would be the arguments for or against such a view?

9 Can an action be wrong yet good? How?

10 What philosophic arguments might be used to reject proportionalism?