Natural Law and Sexual Ethics by Janet Smith Essay

I am honored to be among the lecturers in this series on essential fair play. umteen of the treaters argon among my heroes and friends. atomic number 53 of my heroes, Alasdair MacIntyre, used whizz of his favorite terms in his c exclusively on the carpet he spoke of mere(a) persons and their handgrip of lessonity and infixed uprightness in contradistinction to the experts and professional philosophers and their grasp of these matters. A a couple of(prenominal) years ago in D allas he gave a talk entitled Do plain persons pick up to be uncorrupted philosophers? When I was asked to indue the response to his talk, I was or so honored because I considered Prof.MacIntyre hotshot of the foremost deterrent exampleistic philosophers in the man genial and it was a thrill to comment on his survey. I felt dreadfully underqualified I felt like rough senior high school kid going up against Larry Bird until I realized that I need non respond as an expert, as a moral p hilosopher of his caliber, merely that I could respond as the quintessential plain person for that is what I am. afterward all, I am Janet Smith, daughter of lav and Anne Smith I grew up at 5 Hill Street and went to billet Street School I could go on hardly it is all very(prenominal) plain.The point I am reservation here(predicate) is non merely a flip cardinal designed to hush us into more serious matters by an attempt at humor. on that point is a serious point here intrinsic constabulary, is the plain persons godliness in a sense it is solely if plain angiotensin-converting enzyme-time(a) common sense. on that point be profound and sophisticated ship gital at explaining congenital justness, but the pr executioniceof debate in agreement with inwrought rectitude principals, ji beingness to the theory itself, is intrinsic to plain persons that is, natural to all mankind for natural legality constructs that several(prenominal)(prenominal) of the most wakeless prescripts of moral flat coating be obvious, that is comfortably kn pee by all.Yet, in offend of the plain commonsensicalness of natural law, it drop hold the appearance _or_ semblance shocking and provocative in m any(prenominal) instructions, for like natural law, plain old common sense does not command a lot of followers these eld and piece of tail be shocking when juxtapose to the values of our time. My talk is going to be very radical in several(prenominal) evaluates. It go discover reassessment some of the elementary beliefs that new(prenominal) speakers have covered, some in depth, some more in passing. It get out also be very basic in being the wholeness talk that attempts to settle an application of natural law to concrete moral issues issues in the dry land of familiar ethics.My job is not to beg off natural law ethics but to explain it and apply it. As did many of the earlier speakers I allow by and large be followers the vox populi of doubting Thomas doubting Thomas on these matters and of Aristotle from whom doubting Thomas in condition(p) many of the principles that informed his t to each superstaring on natural law. I shall also unified into my arguments the thought of an separate stellar natural law theorist, still alive and substantially I shall make use of the execute of Karol Wojtyla, right off make don as pope John Paul II.I will refer to him as Wojtyla simply because I do not want to be thought to be invoking his authority as Holy Father I call forth him simply as a philosopher who has make cracking advances of our mete out of natural law, specially in regard to intimate ethics. So let me begin with a re hear of the principles of natural law. As several another(prenominal)wise speakers have noted, Aquinas maintains that the startle principle of natural law is do slap-up, subdue wretched. As he notes, that is a self-evident principle and obvious to all if we want to be moral we should do ripe and suspend evil.No fray here. The question is, of course, what is broad(a) and what is evil and how to we cut to know which is which? Some think we pilet know what is exhaustively and evil so the topper we loafer do is live by the conventions of our times. Others think it best to let our ruts be our pass away to whatsoever we want to do. Others think only revealed godliness lav cede us absolutes. These terce positions capture the predominant views of our times. Aquinas holds n bingle of these positions.He argues that land should be our guide to morality. Not only does he hold that the first principle of natural law, do estimable, avoid evil is self-evident, he argues that thither be other self-evident first principles, much(prenominal) as harm no man. These he labels atomic number 18 imprinted in the minds of all by God I believe other precepts such as let responsibly for your offspring, give birth to each man his due and strain knowledge wo uld qualify as precepts that Aquinas thinks all men know.Men (and I use the term generically here and throughout) may motion against these precepts out of passion or because ignorance of some f title shamus in a situation, but all would agree that such principles be moral truths. Aquinas goes on to say that what he calls ancient precepts of natural law argon naturally and immediately known by man he cites the 10 commandments as examples of these types of precepts. These precepts ar justified by the primary principles.From the most widely distributed principle give to each man his due, from an understanding of what one owes to ones overprotect and father, it is clear that one should honor ones father and mother. Now this is not to say that one discovers the moral law by discovering these precepts in a deductive manner moving from the most general to the more particular(prenominal). Rather, it checkerms that often moral discovery, as the discovery of other general truths, mo ves from the particular to the universal.That is, an several(prenominal) could witness or record in a trans achievement and sort of immediately make the moral imagination that the answer is good or bad. That is, for instance, an individual could witness someone honoring or dishonoring his pargonnts and judge the action to be good or bad from this action and others of the homogeneous sort one may lie with to speculate the law that one should give each man his due. But it is because we already naturally know in an unuttered and unformulated way that one should give each man his due, that we atomic number 18 suitable to see readily that honoring ones pargonnts is good.Much in the same way that we, without musical training, can judge original tones to be off pitch, we have moral perceptions that some actions are good and some bad, without having any explicit training close such kinds of actions. I speak of these as moral perceptions not because they are analogous to sen se perceptions, but because of their immediacy and their unformulated spirit indeed, I believe them to be logical in several important respects, not least because they are cognitive acts and they are in agreeance with naive realism. allow me speak now nearly cerebrality and the Thomistic deed that one should act noeticly. Indeed, one could formulate the first principle of natural law not only in the most basic formula do good, avoid evil in Thomistic terms, several formulas facilitate to express the same truth for Aquinas, the following phrases are synonymic act in grant with disposition act in accord with drive or act residualalitynally act in accord with virtue act in accord with the dignity of the humanity person act in accord with a comfortably formed conscience indeed, act in a loving way, powerful understood, serves as well.While it would be of great profit to elaborate how each of these phrases is synonymous with the other, I want to devote most of my effo rts here to explaining how act in accord with spirit and act in accord with reason are synonymous and congruous guides to moral bearing. First we must get wind to get as clear as we can what it means to say act in accord with reason or act balancenally. In our day, reason often gets a bum rap. This is a fault not of Aristotle or Aquinas but of Descartes and Kant and their followers.Since they retreated into the mind and decrepit the senses and emotions and personality as guides to truth, they made reason seem like something coldly logical, impersonal, abstractedness and all in all devoid of experiential and f raveic content. In their view, mathematics and geometry are seen as the quintessential rational acts to be rational is to operate totally within ones mind and to be completely unemotional. Another view of reasonableness that dominates fresh times is the view that only that which can be pulsed scientifically deserves any recognition as objective truth.No truths othe r than those substantiated by scientific demonstrations truths that can be quantified largely in the science lab count as truth. No proof other than scientific proofs count as truth only science and that which approximates to scientific truth is truly rational. Neither view is the view of reason and reasonableness held by the ancients and medievalists those who defined the view of natural law I am defending here. The ancients and medievalists did not think tenableness was possible without the senses and the emotions for both(prenominal) are tools to reading reality they provide the spirit with the material needed to make a good judgment.The etymology of the discussion rational is rooted in the word ratio which means measure or proportion. One is being rational when ones thought and action are measured to, are proportionate with, or when ones thought and action chequer with reality (which itself is measured or controled by discernable laws more active this momentarily). The thought that leads to playing in accord with reality is called rational. Now this thought need not be and perhaps only rarely will be the kind of abstract, cold, logical reasoning of a Descartes, Kant, or research scientist.This thought can be intuitive, creative, poetic, inductive, deductive, indeed, whatever human thought can be. It is all called rational thought not because it proceeds by syllogism or because it is worst to received scientific tests it is called rational because it corresponds with reality and this includes all of reality, the spiritual and the transcendental as well as the logically incontrovertible and the scientifically measurable reality. Such thought cannot proceed without abundant data from our senses and our emotions.The intellect processes such data and ordinates it it determines what values are important in the data and decides on the appropriate response. If one acts rationally, one accordingly acts in accord with the ordering through with(p ) by the intellect. While the intellect should govern the emotions, it is not a natural law teaching that all rational expression will be devoid of emotion. Again, the emotions can provide essential data to the intellect. Emotions that are well-habituated may lead one quite spontaneously to respond correctly to situations.One may spontaneously get idle at witnessing some act of damage and, if one knows ones emotions to be well-ordered, one could respond quite immediately and correctly to the situation and even angrily to the situation. Indeed, at times it may be an appropriate response to reality to rant and rave. One doing so, is properly called rational, in appall of our common parlance. This talk of the mind and of rationality as something that is measured to reality suggests, as mentioned above, that reality is a thing that can be grasped. inbred law depends upon such.It catch ones breaths upon the declare that things have dispositions and essences that we can know and correspond our actions to. There are many reasons for making this claim. One is the fact that things act in a predictable fashion when we describe the properties of oil and water, for instance, we can predict received things most their behavior. The fact that we build bridge over which stand, that we make artificial hearts that work, that we rig men on the moon, also indicates we are able to measure our thoughts to the external terra firma and to act in accord with it.Moreover, natural law operates on the premise that temperament is good that is, that the way things naturally are is good for them to be it holds that the operations of things and part of things contribute to the good of the whole. The wings of antithetical birds are shaped in certain fashions because of the sort of flying that they must do to survive different digestive systems work in different ways because of what is being digested. Indeed, natural law holds that the natural instincts of natural things are good they lead them to do what helps those things give out well and helps them survive.Since natural things have an order there is said to be a ratio or order to them not one of which they are assured but one that is written into their functioning. Natural law holds that we live in a universe of things that have a ratio to them and that we shall get the best out of these things if we act in accord with the ratio or nature that is written into them. Now, man is a natural thing. He, too, has parts and operations and instincts that modify him to function well and to survive.Man differs from other creatures in that he has free will that is, he can either foster with his nature or act against his nature, whereas other natural things have no such freedom. What enables man to be free is his reason, his rationality he is able to weigh and measure different courses of action and to determine which actions are good or bad. According to natural law, those actions are good which accord with his nature and with the nature of other things. Since man is by nature a rational animal, it is good for him to act in accord with his reason.By playing rationally he is acting in accord with his own nature and with a reality that is also ordered. When he acts rationally, he acts in accord with his own nature and reality and in accord with the nature and reality of other things. Now, lets get concrete. Lets talk about acting in accord with the nature of a fewer specific things. Take tomato plant plants, for instance. tomato plants have a certain nature. In order to have good tomato plants one must act towards these plants in accord with their nature one must water them, give them sunlight and good soil if one wants to stimulate good tomato plants.Such is acting in accord with nature in respect to tomato plants, such is rational behavior in respect to tomato plants. If ones tomato plants fail to produce tomatoes, one knows that one is doing something wrong if ones tomato plants produce good tomatoes, one knows one is doing something right. Prof. Charlie Rice, whose book lambert Questions on Natural Law that I understand several of you are reading, speaks of the rationality of putting oil and not molasses in the engine of a car. One demand to act in accord with the nature of things if one wishes them to perform well.So now let us, moving quickly, move to human nature. If a human being wishes to function and perform well, what does his nature require of him? Let us begin with his corporal nature. There is a considerable consensus about what makes for physical health and what is conducive to physical health. Those who simulatet get sick, who are able to function well in their day-to-day activities, who are not overweight, we call healthy. We know how to produce such individuals. We are regularly and rightly advised to eat well, knead regularly, and to get plenty of sleep.Those who do so generally flourish physically because they are acting in accor d with nature, with reason, and with reality. psychological health is also understood to some extent we know we need friends and rest and interests to sustain our psychological health that is our nature that is reality. Nor are we in the dark about what makes for moral health or moral goodness. We recognize the goodness of the various virtues such as self-discipline, reliability, justice and fairness, kindness, truthfulness, loyalty, etc. those who debunk these qualities we generally recognize to be good that is morally good human beings.Parents who have children who display such qualities are rightly proud of them their tomato plants turned out well. So, in regard to sexual behavior, to sexual moral health, so to speak, what qualifies as acting in accord with nature, with reason? How do we determine what it is? Now, for Aquinas, these are not knotty questions, though, apparently, they are extremely difficult questions for modern-day times. We are terribly confused about what p roper sexual behavior is.College newspapers are filled with news of campuses that are excogitate codes of moral sexual behavior codes that are designed primarily to stop or reduce the incidence of date cocker on campus. These codes suggest, mandate, require I am not certain what is the correct word that in sexual activity neither individual proceed to the next level of sexual activity without obtaining the permission of the other individual.These codes reflect what has been the principle governing sexual behavior in modern times for sometime whatever one feels contented with and whatever one agrees to is morally o. . This is fundamentally what we are teaching to our young hoi polloi and they are doing much what one would stand given that teaching. As long as it feels good, and they have consented to it, there is no reason for them not to do it. Is this working is this principle leading to moral health or moral sickness? What can we say about the moral sexual health of our s ociety? What does the fact that 68% of African-American babies are born out of pairing suggest? The figure is now 22% in the white community and chop-chop growing.