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St.Thomas Aquinas 4 Categories of Law
St. Thomas Aquinas
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Natural law theorist
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Divided into 4 categories
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Lex Aeterna
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Divine reason known only to God and the
blessed who sees his existence would achieve eternal happiness but to achieve
that would need divine guidance and protection.
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Lex Divina
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Law of god revealed in Christian Scriptures
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Lex Naturalis
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Participation of external law in rational
creatures
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This law is the same for all men because it is
right tha tman should be inclined to act according to reason. (more of common
sense)
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Lex Humana
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Positive law
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Both lex naturalis and lex humana are
secondary to natural law and don’t provide solutions for people to act justly
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Must be virtuous, clear and for common good
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Look into Aristotle’s teleological approach of
acorn and oak. Acorn is the fruit form an oak tree. This is to demonstrate
internal causality, so the question of which comes prior logically. In the case
of oak tree its final cause causes the development of the acorn into the oak
tree. To be compared with Augustine theology theory only the elect are chosen
by God to see the truth.
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Aquinas says this would only apply to the first
and second principles only because on the Lex naturalis and Lex Humana could be
different as a result of different habit and custom including temperaments.
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Spinoza:
theory of sub specie aeternitatis and sub specie durationis. Sub specie
aeternitatis = under the aspect of eternity what is universally and externally
without any reference to or dependence upon the merely temporal portions of
reality. Believe in nature and to Spinoza, nature is God.
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Difference is that Aquinas God is Christian God
while Spinoza’s is the God at large. God is not separated from nature because
nature is God.
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Aquinas
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Spinoza
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Needs divine help to
see the divine reason and that is only to those who are blessed are capable
to access to divine reason.
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Can use human reason
to develop the ability to look into things from eternity and that only a few
could obtain such ability.
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Look into John Rawls veil of ignorance theory
and determine if all men are rational (biasness issue) because all humans
according to Rawls would act in their self-interest.
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Lloyd commented that it is not always correct to
distinguish the primary and secondary principles because the secondary one
would have derived from the first. For example the primary principle is usury
is contrary to natural law but later it developed out of this principle and
provided that since there has been growth of commerce and industry, this
principle has changed.
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He also gave the example on nuclear weapon not
to be used in a war and to read together with the concept of Bellum Justum but
can this cannot be applicable already when a country has nuclear weapons to use
as war weapon and that in extreme situation needs it for self-defense.
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Roe v Wade banning of abortion as well.
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Griswold v Connecticut case for banning of
contraception pills.
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Aristotle & Hugo Grotius based on Lex humana
justified slavery
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Can Marxism on economic system for protection of
interest be natural law as well
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Unjust law do not bind men’s morals
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Aquinas says that a law should be obeyed when to
break it would lead or scandal or civic obedience
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Worried for slippery slope where there are those
who disobey the law and others may flout laws which are not morally defective. Example
Ghandi’s civil disobedience & Martin Luther King
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Perversion of law = not law in the fullest sense
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Jus Gentium: more fundamental than positive laws
which gives private property a special sanctity
1 comments:
Thanks for the preparation of Jurisprudence Sasha. Enjoy your work in Singapore.
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