Analysis Of St. Thomas Aquinas Acceptance Of Ethics

on feelings, and whether one viewpoint is ethically valid or not. People believe some feelings are unethical and that there is a standard by which some feelings can be judged unethical. According to philosophers such as; Callicles, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Emmanuel Kant and Mill, there is a standard for which some feelings can be judged unethical, but they all have different reasoning and viewpoints. Callicles, in Plato’s Gorgias believes that in nature it is a greater disgrace to suffer injustice, because of the greater evil, but some people believe doing evil is the greater disgrace. In nature the strong are the ones that are at the top of the hierarchy, the weak are at the bottom, when an animal wants something they take it, …show more content…
Thomas Aquinas believes that good should done and pursued, and evil should be avoided. Something that is good is anything that we naturally incline towards, reason believes it as good for us, and whatever we avoid reason apprehends as bad. It is not only humans but also animals that incline towards preserving their existence, all living things incline towards things that will do them good, and avoid evil. Although all living things incline towards things that benefit them, humans are the only ones that have reason so we naturally incline towards knowledge and living in a society. Since we naturally incline towards knowledge and society, natural law makes us avoid ignorance and offending other people in our society. Aquinas also states nature has taught all animals that sexual intercourse and the education of offspring or our children is good. Although, all animals incline towards creating offspring, not all incline towards parenting and teaching their children. Some species do not need to have both parents for them to be correctly nurtured and brought up, and example of this would be dogs. In other species, like birds, the offspring has more needs than a dog, so both parents will stay together to raise the offspring until they are mature enough to move on with their life alone. However, humans have many more needs than any other species, they have emotional and psychological needs on top of those biological needs other species have. Since humans have more needs, parents by nature should stay together to nurture and raise their offspring. If two parents cannot stay together and raise a child, they should have never participated in sex to create an offspring. St. Thomas Aquinas also talks about law, murder, and war, and many peoples feelings go against his beliefs. Law according to Aquinas is directed to the common good, and that the lawmakers should be the whole people or their representative. The representative would make laws for what is best