whether this is taking food or drink or acting morally. Any act that furthers the end for human beings is morally good (whether this is eating or giving to charity). However, this is not to say that the acts are ends in themselves because means and ends are not separable. As Copleston says:
… in the teleological ethic of Aristotle morally obligatory acts are not means to an end which is simply external to these acts, since they are a partial fulfilment of it; nor is the end something external to the agent … Aquinas followed Aristotle in holding that the final end of man consists in activity, and activity is obviously not external to the human agent in the sense that a picture is external to the artist … God is glorified by the highest possible development of man’s potentialities as a rational being, and every moral act of man therefore has an intrinsic value (p. 211).
Both Aquinas and Aristotle maintained that a person can acquire a habit or disposition to either vice or virtue. Virtuous habits should be fostered by repeated acts of virtue and human beings should live without excess, according to the ‘mean’ (which can broadly be defined as that which is in accordance with right reason). Aquinas and Aristotle both deplored excess in any form – the classic example from Aristotle is that the brave man is neither cowardly (one example of excess) nor foolhardy (another example of excess). It might seem difficult to fit this Aristotelian notion with Christian figures such as Mother Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Lisieux or Teresa of Calcutta, and Aquinas does consider this point as he does ask whether giving one’s goods away to the poor might be considered excess. His conclusion is that it would not if this action was inspired by Christ (S.T. 1a, 11ae, 64, 1, obj. 3) although it is hard to see how Aquinas could then resist a similar argument by many fanatical religious figures who claimed loyalty to Christ.
We have seen that Aquinas considers that natural law can be deduced by experience from looking at human nature and its purposes. Human beings have a duty to preserve themselves in existence (by, for instance, eating and drinking), to be rational and even to preserve the species. The last may seem self-evident, but it does not appear to fit well with the celibacy of priests in the Roman Catholic Church and, of course, Aquinas was himself a priest. Aquinas meets this point by saying that the need to propagate the race applies to the race as a whole:
The natural precept about taking nourishment must necessarily be fulfilled by every individual; for otherwise he could not be preserved. But the precept about generation applies to the whole community, which not only must be multiplied corporeally but also make spiritual progress. And so sufficient progress is made if some only attend to generation, while others give themselves to the contemplation of divine things … (S.T. 1a, 11ae, 152, 2, ad 1).
This is a neat way of overcoming the problem, but it is not clear which ‘ends’ must be fulfilled by the individual and which by the group and there could be debate about the allocation between these headings. Also if only some attend to spiritual progress, does this help only those individuals or the community as a whole? This might also open debate about the possibility of only a number of individuals being homosexually inclined since only some need to be heterosexual in order to propagate the human race.
Aquinas considered that from a general principle, such as the need to propagate the species, detailed rules can be deduced such as the need for monogamy and the education of children. However, it would be possible to challenge Aquinas on the first of these – by saying that, for instance, it is not self-evident that monogamy is the best way of propagating the species. Aquinas’ method is to begin with a general injunction that good is to be sought and evil avoided and then to unpack these by means of subsidiary principles (or perhaps assumptions would be a better word – although some might challenge this) that become more and more specific. It is not, however, a mere deduction of specific principles from general ones – at each stage Aquinas considers that the contemplation of human nature and its ends is required.
The problem is that at every stage the judgements being made may be challenged and there may be assumptions that govern the law that is deduced which may not be generally accepted. As an example, one might start with the general principle of propagation and then move to monogamy (although even this step might be challenged). One could then look at genital organs and consider their purpose – if their purpose is decided to be for procreation, then any use of these organs for other purposes such as pleasure (through masturbation, genital homosexuality or conventional sex using contraception) would be held to be wrong because they go against the intended purpose for these organs. However, who is to define the purpose? If, as part of the function of genital organs, one included as the purpose ‘that they are intended so that two people who love each other should be able to express their love and obtain pleasure in doing so and that propagation might, when appropriate, thereby take place’ then one might rule out masturbation and homosexuality, but not sexual foreplay or even adultery. Other functions might give different purposes. For instance is the purpose of a mouth for eating or for kissing or for both? Who is to decide? If kissing is part of the function of mouths, then kissing would become a good rather than, arguably, an evil. The need to make assumptions which may be challenged is, therefore, implicit in Aquinas’ whole approach and weakens its effectiveness.
It may also be argued that Aquinas’ approach is not holistic – it fails to consider the human being as a psycho-physical unit. To separate, for instance, genitalia out as having a particular purpose on their own without considering the whole complexity of a person’s relationship to his or her body, psychology, sexuality in general, the ability of human beings as embodied persons to express and receive love and to come to their full humanity may be a diminution of human beings as people. We are not an accumulation of ‘bits’ – we are whole human persons and all moral judgements must take our complexity as human persons into account.
Aquinas considered that the feudal order of society of his time – with Kings, barons, knights, freemen and serfs – was the natural order. He was conditioned by his culture just as we may be conditioned by ours. It is far from easy to determine the function or purpose of different human organs or of society without being influenced by one’s own preconceptions.
Aquinas believed that all human beings have a fixed, uniform human nature – this led him to maintain that there was a fixed natural law (subject to the differentiation between primary and secondary precepts above) for human beings. It may be argued that human beings do not have a single human nature and that the moral law may vary over time – in this case the whole idea of natural law may be challenged (this goes against the quote from Cicero at the beginning of this chapter). As an example, if there is held to be a single human nature then all human beings ‘should’ (according to their nature if it is ‘correctly’ ordered) be heterosexually inclined. If, therefore, someone was homosexually inclined (say due to a difference in genetic make-up) then this would be a disorder in their nature – their nature would be ‘faulty’ in that it was not what it ‘should’ be. This is one reason why Roman Catholic approaches to homosexuality tend to be clear cut – although Catholic theologians draw a distinction between an inclination which may be due to faulty genetic make-up and practising homosexuality which is due to a free decision and is therefore morally blameworthy. Against this it may be held that there is no single human nature – that some people are, for instance, homosexually inclined and others are not and this in itself is neither right nor wrong. In this case the issue may be more about how individuals should use their sexuality given their make-up rather than conformity to a specific human nature. Recent scientific studies have shown that homosexual tendencies may well be genetic. It could be (and there is no evidence for this) that in the face of an overcrowded world, nature produces an increase in those genes which direct sexual activity away from procreation. Aquinas would have difficulty coping with such a possibility.
The natural law approach to morality is much more flexible than is generally supposed. M. J. Longford (The Good and the True – An introduction to Christian ethics, SCM Press, 1985, p. 204) puts it like this:
It is true that Aquinas did also appear to hold some absolute moral rules, such as the one that disallowed lying … but this is not
