How to defend natural law?

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Midwest88

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theamericanconservative.com/the-problem-with-natural-law/

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Lots of crazy ideas come from academia. most of they from the left are quickly rejected by socety. Natrual law comes from the right. But it has no application in everyday life. Except as an excuse to reject homosexuality.
Some give me a rational use for natural law that does not include gay people? There is no basis in nature for man’s morality. None! There is no Murder, No rape. cannibalism is normal for many species. Lions are polyimist. Bees are polyandry. Alpha male can kill a smaller male and take his mate. Homosexuality is rare in nature but so is monogmy.
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or natural law philosophy to work in political and social discourse, there needs to be a philosophical background in place that allows it. This depends upon a somewhat philosophically homogenous society. And more basically, it depends upon a widely shared agreement on first principles.
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Lacking these, natural law arguments end up preaching to the choir.
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Furthermore, at its most basic, natural law philosophies depend upon an agreed-upon adequation between the human intellect and the surrounding world. But when the human intellect’s abilities have been reduced to rational instrumentality, which has no possible access to what Plato or Aristotle would consider true knowledge, you can’t even begin to argue about such things; it’s pointless.
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Natural law arguments suffer the same vulnerability to circular reasoning fallacies as doctrinal religious arguments: It always starts and ends with a belief in a Primary Source.
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Too many people who bloviate on ‘nature’ know nothing about it. Murder, rape, and cannibalism are all rife in nature.

But I guess so’s conservative-bashing.
 
Also marriages between people of different ethnic backgrounds were illegal and/or frowned upon in the western world with claims that such unions violated natural law.
 
Yeah, I’ve always found “natural law” arguments to be quite weak myself, simply because nature itself doesn’t pose a morality, whatever secular morality in pre-christian times (and since in many countries like Japan with little to no Abrahamic religious influence) developed with a system of trial, error and experience. People stopped killing each other, because they quickly realized they could get more done as a team. People stopped stealing, because they eventually realized that could lead to violent responses.

That and it’s just…Too easy to bat away with rather flippant comparisons to what is unnatural but accepted. Say a mans dying of cancer, should we not give him drugs because it’s natural to die or because “God wants” him to die now. Some religious groups like Jehova’s witnesses would say yes to this, I very much doubt a Catholic would. But by saying yes, your conceding to something unatural.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
Also marriages between people of different ethnic backgrounds were illegal and/or frowned upon in the western world with claims that such unions violated natural law.
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It is not clear to me that melding races into each other and ending up with a homogeneous human culture is a good thing, either. There is something to be said for keeping races pure and distinct from each other - diversity being a good thing since it adds richness to the cultural world of humanity.

The most atrocious result of the imposition of modern western ideology and consumerism on diverse cultures will be the loss of the cultural heritage of humanity. It will no longer be a lived heritage, but rather an artifactual one, at least where some move is made to “preserve” it.

It is possible to “frown upon” mixed marriages from the point of view of appreciation of cultural distinctions rather than from your assumed premise of bigotry.
 
Peter_Plato said:
It is possible to “frown upon” mixed marriages from the point of view of appreciation of cultural distinctions rather than from your assumed premise of bigotry.
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That’s a rather ugly and unjustified assumption to make 😦
 
Peter_Plato said:
It is not clear to me that melding races into each other and ending up with a homogeneous human culture is a good thing, either.
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Don’t worry, I doubt that the revocation of laws prohibiting interracial marriages will result in the homogenous culture that you are picturing. But I do think you have an interesting perspective.
Peter_Plato said:
It is possible to “frown upon” mixed marriages from the point of view of appreciation of cultural distinctions rather than from your assumed premise of bigotry.
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There’s no premise of bigotry. On a side note, this forum is the only place that I can recall encountering that word since I was a small child. I think I encountered it more back then because the KKK used to frequently show up in their usual attire around the Atlanta area for demonstrations back then. They seemed to have gone out of public view in this area within the last few decades.
 
The natural law is universal law in that it presides in the hearts of men:

Do good and avoid evil.

It is by this universal imperative that all men, even those who have not the law from on high inscribed on tablets of stone, will be held accountable on their judgment day; so that none will escape judgment claiming they never knew right from wrong.

This from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1955 The “divine and natural” law shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:

Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring. The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.
 
A clearer definition of what “natural law” amounts to would help. I haven’t come across a definition yet that I felt wasn’t problematic, vague, or needed further definition of terms.
 
Rhubarb said:
A clearer definition of what “natural law” amounts to would help. I haven’t come across a definition yet that I felt wasn’t problematic, vague, or needed further definition of terms.
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Read the two articles by Edward Feser I quoted earlier in this thread.

A summary paragraph from one of them…
Morally good action thus involves the will to do what is good for us given our nature, while morally bad action involves willing contrary to what is good for us given our nature. And to the extent that the intellect knows what is good for us we are culpable for these good or bad actions. To will to do what is “natural” for us thus means, in classical natural law theory, something like to will to do what tends toward the realization of the ends which, given our nature, define what it is for us to flourish as the kind of things we are. And to will to do what is “unnatural” thus means something like willing to do what tends toward the frustration of the ends which, given our nature, define what it is for us to flourish as the kind of things we are.
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Rhubarb said:
A clearer definition of what “natural law” amounts to would help. I haven’t come across a definition yet that I felt wasn’t problematic, vague, or needed further definition of terms.
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This is exactly what I have thought about this thread,
Their seems to be lots of gobbledygook by well intentioned people,
If it could be explained in less than 20 words that would be great,
But for some folk that in itself would be a challenge
 
Rhubarb said:
A clearer definition of what “natural law” amounts to would help. I haven’t come across a definition yet that I felt wasn’t problematic, vague, or needed further definition of terms.
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I think of ‘natural law’ like ‘common sense’. Everyone agrees that it exists and that it is important, but nobody can agree on any of the details such as: ‘what is it?’ or ‘whether or not it is common?’ or ‘who has it?’.

The term ‘natural law’ as applied to a specific moral code used to make more sense before we became more aware of human nature and of all the wide variety of cultures that exist and have existed. Any modern moral edict based on ‘natural law’ should be re-expressed in terms that our modern culture can understand, therfore. For in today’s language of philosophy, the term is equivalent to saying, ‘I don’t have anything better to appeal too.’ (The same way that ‘it is just common sense’ is used today.)

On the other hand, the idea of ‘natural law’ as sort of the counterpoint to original sin is a very important concept (when applied in a general manner). All humans of every nation and religion were created good. Original sin corrupts but does not destroy that original goodness. By following their own conscience, therefore, which includes both ‘natural law’ (although it is corrupted by sin), a person can be saved provided they try to inform their conscience and they have ‘invincible’ ignorance,

In other words, natural law exists and is shared by everyone of all nations and religions. But, since the corruption of sin has affected every culture and every person differently it is not possible to determine what the natural law is by comparing cultures.
 
phil_at_dayboro said:
This is exactly what I have thought about this thread,
Their seems to be lots of gobbledygook by well intentioned people,
If it could be explained in less than 20 words that would be great,
But for some folk that in itself would be a challenge
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Not for me.

Natural law is the small voice planted inside us by God that tells us to do good and avoid evil.

20 words 😉

Like any other law, you would need more words to find God in the details. 👍
 
Charlemagne_III said:
The natural law is universal law in that it presides in the hearts of men:

Do good and avoid evil.

It is by this universal imperative that all men, even those who have not the law from on high inscribed on tablets of stone, will be held accountable on their judgment day; so that none will escape judgment claiming they never knew right from wrong.

This from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1955 The “divine and natural” law shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:

Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring. The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.

1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:

For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.
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Well said! Truly well said.
 
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