Aristotelian Ethics and Politics: Natural and Divine Law
Ethics and Politics
Ethics and politics are framed within fundamental ethical concepts of Aristotelian influence. The ethics that should govern the lives of men have a natural basis, and in turn, this natural law is related to political law.
Ethics
Supported by several concepts proposed by Aristotle, including:
- Ethics is grounded in nature: Aristotle’s ethics is eudaimonic (considering human happiness the aim and object of ethical and political science). For Aristotle, happiness is consistent with the activity most characteristic of the human, an idea that is maintained by St. Thomas Aquinas but given a transcendent, supernatural foundation.
- While Aristotle considered only the natural end of human life, coming to say it was the contemplation of God, Christianity teaches that the purpose of human life is something supernatural because God raises human nature with grace, as man is destined to be forever in heaven. Thomas tried to explain what a blessed life is, which is obtained when the soul reaches its supernatural end. The essence of happiness is the beatific vision, which is the direct contemplation of God. Nothing and nobody can see God, except that this act on the understanding, elevating it to the light of glory.
- Moral virtue: For Aristotle, good operative habits are essential for good performance and lead to a happy life. It is a rational middle ground between two opposite vices, which are acquired through repeated good acts. This point is developed by St. Thomas, complemented by the supernatural virtues. Within these, the most important are the theological, which view God as an object, and are faith, hope, and charity, which is the main and necessary virtue for salvation.
- Moral conscience and synthesis: Reason can be considered from a theoretical or speculative use, where the first notion is being, and all the shows depend, as regards the truth, on the principle of non-contradiction, the first obvious principle. This principle was first formulated by Aristotle: “cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same direction,” similar to “being is not non-being.”
- Or a practical use, responsible for planning and regulating action. The first concept is good, which means the same reality as being but adds the relationship to the will; the good is being seen as desirable or undesirable.
- All laws and precepts of this right are under the first practical principle, which is obvious and is based on the notion of good. It is called synderesis and is formulated as “one should do good and avoid evil.”
Human nature is the mode of being of man, his essence.
As well consist in the perfection of human nature, practical reason is ordered to the essential inclinations of nature.
The human essence is characterized significantly in (as a substance, men tend to self-preservation), the animals (as an animal, the human being is endowed with sexual orientation and also cares for the offspring), and rationality (as rational, man has to know the truth about everything related to God and interacting with other rational beings, so that ethics and politics cannot be separated).
Our natural reason knows immediately that it is necessary to do good and avoid evil.
Natural Law and Political Law
Although it is a view of human nature, because human nature is social, it also involves the principle that society is the sphere in which human beings can achieve happiness. So it is necessary to distinguish between the right of each person and the common good of a community or social policy.
The common good is above the individual good, as it includes the separate property of all individuals in the community.
The common good is all the means by which human beings can satisfy their material needs and all the goods needed for intellectual growth, both emotional and religious.
In addition, the law is defined as the ordering of reason to the common good by the competent authority. It distinguishes between three types of legislation: the eternal order of divine intelligence, according to which God rules all creation; the natural, the divine order which is inscribed in human nature; and positive law, which is the specific law or policy that determines the natural law and that is promulgated by the competent authority on behalf of God.