Terms Aquinas Uses for the Hierarchy of God’s Laws The “Eternal Law”

(The supreme wisdom, or God’s wise plan, that governs the universe, which exists within the mind of God himself.)

Laws* of Nature (The fixed order by which God commands all of

nature.)

Examples: ○ Laws of physics ○ Laws of chemistry ○ Laws of biology ○ Laws of thermodynamics ○ Laws of gravitation

The “Moral Law” (The divine rules of right and wrong governing Man’s free choice.)

“Divine Law” (also called “God’s Law,” which is given to Man by God himself and recorded

in Holy Scripture)

Includes the Ten Commandments

* However, these are nonetheless not “laws” in the strictest sense, but only by analogy, because there is no freedom to disobey.

“Human Law” and other social norms** (The rules of right and wrong Man imposes on himself.)

“Natural Law” (also called “the law in us

by nature,” which is written on the hearts of

all Human Beings)

Made “self-evident” through proper

reasoning

Designed by God to

be identical

** If Man is conforming to God’s order, human law and norms should reflect the Natural and Divine Law.

The Problems of Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is both a system of ethics and a method of moral reasoning which many people find attractive. Its appeal lies, in part, in its simplicity. Utilitarianism distills moral decision making into a simple formula, where the “morally correct” decision is essentially guided by the question 'Which option will bring about the best outcome?' This short primer will explain utilitarian reasoning and point out some of its problems, including the way it finds itself in tension with the Moral Law. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is generally considered the “father” of utilitarianism, since it was his writings that first gave voice to what became known as the “principle of utility.” All moral decision making, he thought, could be guided by a single principle. The supreme principle of ethics, he argued, required a moral calculation focused on what would tend to bring about the most happiness and avoid the most amount of suffering. Since utilitarian decision making implies there is only one option that would bring about the most happiness, it suggests there is a single option I should choose, which is the “right” action. All others are “wrong.” Therefore, the rightness and wrongness of every act, Bentham would say, depends upon whether or not it promises to bring about the best outcome.

A follower of Bentham, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), added to the principle the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. The “right” thing to do, Mill claimed, will always create the greatest overall state of happiness, which likewise involves a minimal amount of suffering for the most people. In this way, the utilitarian principle seems to have benevolence, or a concern for all mankind, built into its basic formula. For the utilitarian, this simple principle unlocks the secret of morality.

The main problem with utilitarianism is not so much its concern for the happiness of all people (ie. the common good) or the high regard it places on the consequences of actions. It's clear both have an important role to play in moral reasoning. The main problem occurs when the utilitarian calculus comes in conflict with the Moral Law. Here's an example. The Ten Commandments say that murder, the deliberate killing of an innocent person, is evil and should never be done. Imagine a situation in which a government might think that by killing one, innocent person, a whole nation could be saved. Following the principle of utility, the right thing to do would be to sacrifice one person for the good of the whole, provided this were to bring about the most happiness or best outcome for the most amount of people.

While this example might seem a bit far-fetched, it is the exact line of reasoning Caiaphas used to justify the death of Jesus Christ: “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50). Utilitarian reasoning, in this case, would not necessarily consider the murder of Jesus, an innocent man, wrong or evil. Instead, to not kill Christ might in this case seem the wrong thing to do, since to let him live, according to Caiaphas, would result in the destruction of Israel and the misery of tens of thousands of people. It seems that Christ, by the way his own death came about, perhaps teaches us something about the moral danger present in all utilitarian calculations. Caiaphas’s utilitarian justification, rather ironically, provided the moral encouragement needed for man to kill God.

There are obvious problems with this method of reasoning. First, the principle of utility relies entirely on a future prediction of “the most happiness” or “the best outcome” as foreseen by the person making the decision. Caiaphas, in this example, arguably had no way of reliably knowing whether or not Jesus would cause the Romans to destroy Israel, but he did know, because of the natural law, that he was calling for the death of an innocent man. Future suppositions are inherently uncertain, whereas knowing which human acts are evil is, for most people, as St. Paul says, “written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15). The second source of moral error is that the utilitarian principle allows evil to be done so that some greater good might come about. The ends, then, justify the means. According to the principle of utility, murder, then, is not always evil, because the principle says the only measures of right and wrong or good versus evil are the consequences. In contrast, a person using natural law reasoning would say that even if the death of Christ could save Israel from destruction, it would still be wrong. Murder, because it is contrary to the supreme wisdom that is written into the Moral Law of God, is always prohibited.

The main difference between natural law and utilitarian reasoning is that according to the natural law, there are some human acts that are, in and of themselves, always evil, regardless of the good consequences they might seemingly bring about. Because of this tension, many Christian philosophers maintain that utilitarian reasoning is, in itself, not compatible with the Moral Law of God, the law revealed in Holy Scripture and made self-evident through the proper exercise of human reason.

Jeremy Bentham Excerpt from An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780)

Chapter I I. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.

But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved.

II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever. according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.

III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.

IV. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this. The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what is it?— the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

V. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual. A thing is said to promote the interest, or to be for the interest, of an individual, when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures: or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains.

VI. An action then may be said to be conformable to then principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is generally regarded as the founder of Utilitarianism, the moral doctrine which justifies those actions, based upon the anticipated or foreseen consequences, that maximize the greatest amount of good or happiness.