Natural Law Theory

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin of Divine Command Theory is the authority St. Thomas Aquinas brings to bear in abandoning it. Aquinas, of course, 'got' the Euthyphro Argument and understood that moral theology requires much more subtley and sophistication than Divine Command Theory's "do it because I said so!" approach.

Natural Law Theory is a fascinating alternative to Divine Command Theory. It assumes the Teleological World View, which is the view that the world and each thing in the world has a purpose or function. A teleological explanation necessarily mentions the purpose or function of whatever is being explained. I find it is easiest to understand the concept of a teleological explanation if we use human artifacts as examples.

What is a watch? It is a device for keeping track of time. If you want an explanation of what a watch is, you refer to its purpose or function. Of course human artifacts have functions or purposes; these are the functions or purposes we humans give them.

According to the Teleological World View, every object in the world has a function or purpose. Thus a tree, a rock, a river, and each granule of sand on the river's bank has a purpose or function.

To modern ears this is a peculiar World View. It just seems odd to say that the rock in the field has a purpose. Certainly we might put it to some purpose or other. But that is not to say that the rock itself has a purpose. The rock itself is just the result of perfectly impersonal geological forces which have nothing to do with intentions or purposes. Similarly, Darwin has taught us that flora and fauna, ourselves included, are the result of environmental factors which have nothing whatsoever to do with purposes.

On the other hand, the teleological world view can be appealing, particularly when we are confronted with tragedy or discomfort which we have a difficult time rationalizing or understanding. For example, one frequently hears phrases like

There's always a reason...

It happened for a reason...

Who knows why it happened, but someday we'll understand...

There's a purpose to this, we just may not know what as yet...

To be sure, these and proclamations like them are most often heard in our hours of desperation. Somehow it is supposed to comfort us that there is a purpose. Taking the Teleological World View seriously thus presents the framework for an interesting alternative to Divine Command Theory.

The Principle of NLT

An action X is morally right iff X is consistent with all relevant proper purposes in a world of proper purpose.

The Standard of Clarity

Are there any unintelligible concepts? Well, what is a proper purpose? As with the concept of a culture, the concept of a proper purpose is deeply problematic.

Can we determine the implications for action from this statement of the theory? Presumably we can, but only if we first know what the proper purposes are.

The Standard of Coherence

Are there any contradictions? It seems plausible to argue that the proper purpose of sex contradicts the proper purpose of contraception under the Catholic Church's interpretation of NLT. However, I think there is a straightforward answer to these kinds of contradictions. Contraception is an artificial device, whereas sex is natural. Hence the contradiction is not genuine.

On the other hand, NLT clearly fails Coherence because it assumes the Teleological World View. To put it bluntly, the Teleological World View is false. All of our advances in science have been made by rejecting the Teleological World View.

The Standard of Reflective Equilibrium

Consider the following arguments:

It's a simple matter to generate these kinds of arguments. But since many Catholics would no doubt object to the second premise in each case, we can only say that NLT arguably fails the Standard of Reflective Equilibrium.