Natural Law Theory: Crash Course Philosophy #34

Spread The Viralist



Our exploration of ethical theories continues with another theistic answer to the grounding problem: natural law theory. Thomas Aquinas’s version of this theory says that we all seek out what’s known as the basic goods and argued that instinct and reason come together to point us to the natural law. There are, of course, objections to this theory – in particular, the is-ought problem advanced by David Hume.

Get your own Crash Course Philosophy mug or Chom Chom shirt from DFTBA: https://store.dftba.com/collections/crashcourse

The Latest from PBS Digital Studios: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1mtdjDVOoOqJzeaJAV15Tq0tZ1vKj7ZV

Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios

Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashC…
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse
Tumblr – http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com
Support CrashCourse on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse

CC Kids: http://www.youtube.com/crashcoursekids

source

Recommended For You

About the Author: CrashCourse

46 Comments

  1. Natural law is meant to be considered from a religious perspective. If you do not believe in a God who gives traits by intention there is little point in addressing this law in the first place. Another thing this video ignores is that in addition to the reproductive good suggested by natural law, celibacy, among other forms of self restraint, have long been considered good by the Catholics for an entirely separate reason; Christian morality has layers to it.

  2. your argument that Natural Law depends on god is a fallacy. Protect ALL Life.
    This includes Earth itself.
    Mans relegation of Living Systems (Life itself) are part and parcel the property or absolute Dominion of Individuals is immoral,
    elevating the provision of Humans to exceptionalism at the expense, or detriment of all living systems , as the Earth itself is the Greater living system that all life as we know it .
    Mans Laws , including the UCC should be subject to Natural Law rights of NATURE.

  3. The fact that humans survived, functioned and founded civilizations long before the bible was even written is a good indication that the logic and reasoning always existed within the world and us, we never needed religion to tell us how to understand the real world.

  4. I think it is immoral to act or think immorally. I also think that I am and therefore think that I am, but not because I think so but rather because I am I am capable of thought; for if I am not then how can I think I am?

  5. God is but a name for the Law. You don't have to believe in God to believe in Natural Law. All you have to do is watch the Laws working. It is not a sin to do something against Natural Law. It is just a matter of cause and effect. No judgement here, just if this then that.

  6. Well if according to the chart earlier in the video, you shouldn't kill your friend for your own survival because as you both value life his is just as important as yours, and you would search for another way for life preservation. I don't find that as a very good argument against Natural Law Theory. In fact, you could use that same line of thinking for the other scenarios as well.

  7. The "Is-ought" objection fails to recognize the inseparability of being with goodness. Something is good insofar as it has being. An action is good insofar as it has being. But something cannot have being if it does not exist. And just because something "is" does not mean it conforms to Natural Law. It can be a fact that something lacks something it ought to possess. This does not put the Natural Law Theory into doubt. Because the Natural Theory is not dependent on agents actualizing it for its existence.

  8. when you struggle to understand the first course of law school on origins of western legal system that you have to look up on YouTube

  9. 6:16 Sums basically the left in 2020.
    I was in class when a mob tried to jump Kaitlyn Bennett, later I went to say thanks for her support of freedom of speech, but most students were like "muh emotions" "trump bad hombre".
    Really, as Latino, I laugh at white leftists.
    Now doctors say do marijuana, even when it's known to block acetylcholine synapses and in long term bring up psychosis and deficiency in cognitive thought.

  10. Natural law wasn't so much proposed by St Thomas Aquinas as it was adopted and explained by him. The concept of natural law is known as far back as the Vedic period in India.

  11. All these philosophical theories look only at the morality on "Earth". They fail to look at the morality of the universe, or do they? (correct me if I am wrong) We know that universe is full of violent processes, even the birth of a star/planet/satellites/black holes/neutron star/white dwarf/ and so many more are nothing but violent processes. If Earth in all didn't exist, what kind of morality does the universe deal with? We are here on "this" planet by sheer luck and when we look at sky or at fundamental particles there is no such morality present which particles/celestial objects follow. So is it that morality just comes from the social nature of our being and no morality exists in nature inherently? We can do whatever the hell we want and die just to be dispersed into those fundamental particles which with we are made up of!

  12. The only philosophy that matters. Natural Law > The Constitution. Soon, we will replace RBG and Breyer with Justices that believe in Natural Law, Judge Barrett and Judge Grant. God wills it!

  13. Love your videos but I wish you had also introduced philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes- he actually influenced a lot of Aquinas' work), and Al-Ghazali.

  14. So basicly our emotion paralyze us from seeing what are our real i stincts .. but why don't we consider our emotions as our instincts
    And what make you think that all human beings have the same instincts ? like there are some anti-natalists that are against production

Comments are closed.