INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS

CONTRACTARIAN THEORY (SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY OR HOBBESIAN THEORY)
This theory was championed by Hobbes and Thomas Moore. According to the two, initially people lived in a situation which they described as “War of all against all”. This was undesirable. Then they decided to enter into a pact with each other where they surrendered all the powers they used against each other to a sovereign who would use it to punish or reward good behavior. The only right they remained with was that of individual freedom. But the sovereign should use the powers rationally. When the sovereign becomes less rational, he will be forced to give way to another more rational sovereign. This is what is termed as regime change.
Therefore, according to this theory, what is moral is that which is agreed upon. If one does what is not agreed upon, then he is being immoral. What is moral is a matter of consensus.
NATURAL LAW THEORY
Nature may mean several of the following: The corporeal being (in the physical or cosmological sense) or the existent thing. This implies that nature is not something spiritual. It is corporeal and not free. It may also mean those processes which arise directly and entirely from the constitutive structure of a being in so far as that being is an individual active principle ( as opposed to what is inactive or artificial). Nature can be equated to essence or what constitutes a being universally considered or it is the usual thing in a thing or the essential requirement of a being.
Natural are therefore all the spontaneous activities with an “ad unum” or fixed direction or determination by which they achieve their objects necessarily. This is in the individual sense not in the general sense.
Law is equivalent of the Latin word “Norma” which means rule. Law therefore means the rule by which man orders or organizes his actions as dictated by reason or it is a measure of acts where by one is either induced to act or is restrained from acting. According to Thomas Aquinas, law is the ordering of reason towards attainment of a good. (this therefore implies that there must be prior knowledge of the good, there must be the capacity for reasoning and ordering one’s action).
Natural law came to find its fulfillment in St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine when they talked about the four types of law:
Eternal law: Law in so far as it is in the mind of God and is only known to Him and Him alone. This is the law which God used to create and order the world.
Divine Law: Eternal law in so far as it is communicated to us through the scriptures, holy men and women, holy places, holy objects, dreams, events etc.
Natural law: Eternal law in so far as it is communicated to humans through nature. (or participation of eternal law in nature or natural inclination/ directedness towards the teleological end which creates in man a way of being/ ethos).
Characteristics of natural law
It is not written (but in our hearts), it is immutable, it is spiritual, it is permanent, it is invisible, it is incorruptible, it is universal
Critiques of Natural Law:
- It is not easily verifiable
- It is not written, hence easily lost/ forgotten
- It has no specific originator
- It has no specific sanction
- The immutability and universality of natural law are considered to be mere myths than real.
- Freedom versus determinism. If there is natural law, then we are not free.
- It there is natural law, then where does the notion of evil come from
Common law: Eternal law in so far as it is communicated to humans through reason. (or it is the eternal law as participated by creatures or by various beings who make up the universe/ or participation of rational being/ creatures in the eternal law.
NB. All the above laws must be in line with the eternal law; otherwise they will cease to be laws especially the common law.
Natural law theory is therefore based on nature and it was propounded by naturalists. According to this theory what is natural is what is good/ moral and vice versa. What artificial is what is not good.