Also, in the actual essay I do do paragraphs, it's just gets displayed a bit dodgy on TSR lol..
The following is one of my essays for ethics, I would also appreciate it anyone could have a read of it and give me some feedback
a) explain how natural law theory can be used to decide the right moral action. 30/35mins
Natural law has Aristotelian routes, as he influenced Aquinas with his idea of the four causes and how everything has an ultimate purpose, known as Eudaimonia or happiness. Aquinas added a Christian perspective to Natural Law, as he believed that something is good if it achieves it’s final purpose and the final purpose of humans was to be more like God by striving towards perfection. Although he made clear that this was only possible in the afterlife, it is the driving force for humans to follow the NLT, in order to unite with God.
Aquinas’ NLT can be used to decide the right moral action through the idea of the primary precepts. These include: preserving life, ordering society, worshipping God, education and reproduction. A precept is a general moral rule that should be followed by all human beings and the precepts are descriptive, as it gives you a list of what you should do. This can be used to decide the right moral action because it gives you a clear guideline of the main five ideas that moral decisions are based on, which can be easily applied to any situation. It also tells us that an action is bad if it does not agree with any of these precepts. For example, killing will be seen as a bad moral action because it goes against the primary precept of ‘preserving life’, which helps us to decide the right moral action by not killing.
Aquinas portrays the idea of the secondary precepts, which can be derived from the primary. These are prescriptive rules which can be created by the use of reason and expanding on a primary precept. For example, ‘stealing is wrong’ is a secondary precept derived from the primary precept of ‘ordering society’, because if stealing was allowed there would be no order in society and there would be havoc. Therefore, the secondary precepts are used for individuals to make a moral decision that relates to their particular situation by considering which of the primary precepts it relates to, which allows flexibility in the approach. This ultimately allows us to decide the right moral action by the use of reason and judgment of scenarios.
As Aquinas believed that everyone had the natural desire to become perfect and strive towards being like God, no one wants to pursue evil. So, when people do bad actions, they are doing an ‘apparent good’, meaning they thought it was good when in actual fact it wasn’t due to poor use of reason. For example, a fornicator may believe they are doing good because they are receiving pleasure out of the action. So, if individuals use reason and judgment wisely, the primary and secondary precepts allow individuals to decide the right moral actions and avoid apparent goods or bad actions.
b) To what extent is natural law the best approach to ethical decision making? 10/15mins
Natural law is a good approach to ethical decision making because it is an absolute theory, so it is clear cut and actions are either seen as right or wrong. This is good because it means that moral decisions can be made quickly and there can be no disagreement about whether an action is right and wrong, so avoids complication. As well as being fair and equal for everyone in all situations, so there is no discrimination. For example, killing is always wrong because it is against the precept of ‘preservation of life’, so in two situations where people had killed someone, there would be no exceptions due to their intention for example. This ensures that it is a good approach due to it’s just nature and how the same type of crime will always be wrong with no exceptions.
However, some may argue that it is not a good approach because it doesn’t look at situations independently, meaning there is no consideration of the motivation or intention of an action. For example, if a terrorist started shooting people in a public place and someone with access to a gun shot him down which killed the terrorist, people would argue the person who killed him cannot be considered as bad as a murderer. This is because the intention of this person was most likely to save lives by stopping the shooting, rather than killing a man for fun. Either way, NLT has the primary precept of ‘preserving law’ and would see both situations equally as bad.
On the other hand, you could argue that it is good that there is no discrimination between situations, as intention is hard to judge at times. So, maybe the person who killed the terrorist was indeed killing for ‘fun’ and this leads him committing more horrendous killings in the future, because his behaviour was defended.
Many would suggest it being a deontological theory is a bad thing because it is human nature to think about the outcomes of an action. So, following the natural law theory could involve carrying out a good action that results in a bad consequence. Such as, not allowing a woman to have an abortion who is so ill that she will clearly die if she is made to continue with her pregnancy. As a result the woman dies because the preservation of life of the foetus was thought about without any consideration of the outcome, and as a result the baby will grow out without and mother and so a poor quality of life. This portrays how it is not a good approach to ethical decision making because it could lead people making decisions that cause more harm than if they were avoided.
However, you could argue that it is good that the Natural Law theory is deontological because the outcomes are often unpredictable, meaning even human reason can’t predict the future. So it prevents random moral actions being undertaken that could lead to more harm than good.
Also, the NLT in its name itself causes some confusion about the ethical decision making process. As it raises the question, what is natural? For example, should we keep an ill patient alive by hospital treatment, or is this seen as unnatural?
Overall it could be seen as the best approach to ethical decision making because it is simple and easy to apply to all situations, in any place at any time. However, at the same time it causes a lot of conflicting ideas about what is considered natural and how on earth it could be possible to judge two separate situations using the five primary precepts, with no exceptions.