Student Name: Celeste Jackson
Project Title: Compare/Contrast: The Characteristics of Natural Law According to Thomas Aquinas And Mencius: A brief Comparison of “Precepts” and “Seeds”
Celeste Jackson 5/5/22
REL 230 - Research Project #2: Compare and Contrast
The Characteristics of Natural Law According to Thomas Aquinas And Mencius:
A brief Comparison of “Precepts” and “Seeds”
One of the elements that make up a religion is its beliefs regarding the nature of man and the ethics that govern its followers lives. A common question in religions asks if humans are born naturally good, evil, or otherwise. One of the answers to this question can be found in natural law ethics. Natural law ethics asserts that “human moral action is grounded in the essential structure of reality itself (Livingston, 263)”. In other words, there are certain morals that every human is born knowing. I will show the elements of natural law according to Mencius and Aquinas and how Mencius’ “seeds” and Aquinas’ “precepts” describe both similar and differing characteristics of human nature and its origin.
Thomas Aquinas, born in 1225, was a Roman Catholic priest and philosopher. He died in 1274 and continues to be a highly influential philosopher. He was inspired by Aristotle, St. Augustine, and other philosophers before him. Aquinas believed that “good is to be done and evil is to be avoided” (Floyd). Mencius was born in 372 BCE and died in 289 BCE. He was a Confusian philosopher and considered the “Second Sage” of Confucianism. He is best known for his claim that “human nature is good” (Van Norden). Although he was born years after Confuscius’ death, he made significant contributions to the religion.
According to Thomas Aquinas, natural law refers to “ethical precepts that reflect eternal law (‘pure rationality of God and the universe’), directing human beings to their earthly ends” (Johnson, 101). In his book Summa Theologica, Aquinas gives his reasoning for the natural goodness of man, which he describes as precepts:
“Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law. Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances: inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being... Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially,... such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society...” (Aquinas, Q.94, A.3).
Here we see Aquinas’ primary precepts: preserving life, reproduction, educating offspring, worshiping God, and living in a society. For Aquinas these laws are primary because they apply to all people and are not conditional. He believed “these laws are imprinted on the human heart, and can be known apart from revelation and therefore apply to all humanity, not just Christians” (Johnson, 101). Although Mencius was alive hundreds of years before Aquinas, we can see how they shared threads of the same idea on the natural inclinations of humans.
The book Mencius contains Mencius’ ideas of natural law. His understanding can be found in his example of a man seeing a child in harm's way:
All people possess within them a moral sense that cannot bear the suffering of others... Imagine now a person who, all of a sudden, sees a small child on the verge of falling down into a well. Any such person would experience a sudden sense of fright and dismay. This feeling would not be something he summoned up in order to establish good relations with the child’s parents. He would not purposefully feel this way in order to win the praise of their friends and neighbors. Nor would he feel this way because the screams of the child would be unpleasant (Mencius, 2A.6).
He goes on to say that anyone who would not feel “commiseration” in that situation could not be a person. Mencius further shows his idea of the four “seeds” he believes humans are born with, stating, “The sense of commiseration is the seed of humanity, the sense of shame is the seed of righteousness, the sense of deference is the seed of ritual, and the sense of right and wrong is the seed of wisdom. Everyone possesses these four moral senses just as they possess their four limbs” (Mencius, 2A.6). In this example the seed is commiseration which sprouts into humanness, the second is shame which sprouts into righteousness, the third is deference that sprouts into ritual and the sense of right and wrong sprouts into wisdom. Between Aquinas’ precepts and Mencius’ sprouts, we can find similarities between the two.
Aquinas' “preservation of human life” and Mencius’ “commiseration” show that both philosophers agree that humans naturally try to preserve life and have care and concern for others. Aquinas’ “inclination to good” and Confucius’ “sense of shame is the seed of righteousness” can be viewed as two sides of the same coin, a righteous person who aims to do good would feel shame when they encounter situations contrary to their good nature. In these two examples we see the similarities between their ideals of natural human inclinations. In contrast, there is a difference between Mencius and Aquinas regarding their understanding of how humans receive these natural laws.
As a follower of Confucius, Mencius attributes natural law to the Tian which expresses itself through Dao. The Tian, sometimes referred to as Heaven, was believed to be “the source of all things in the universe and the ultimate divine entity that provided order throughout the universe” (Brodd, 273). The dao, or the way or path, is how the Tian enacts it will through people. To Aquinas, the natural laws of humans come from what he calls God's eternal law. “Whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law” (Aquinas, Q.91 A.2). The difference lies in Aquinas’ belief in a physical God and Mencius’ belief in a guiding force. Although they differ regarding where our natural laws come from, they both see God and Tian working their wills through separate entities, eternal law and dao.
I described the elements of natural law according to Mencius and Aquinas and how Mencius’ “sprouts” and Aquinas’ “precepts” share similar and differing characteristics of human nature and its origin. Both see humans as being born with a will and inclination toward good, preserving life, and avoiding anything in opposition to good, whether these “precepts” or “seeds” are directed through eternal law or dao. Although they were born over a thousand years apart, it is interesting to see how philosophers continued to wrestle with the questions of human nature. Additionally, despite coming from two very different religions, they arrive at similar answers to the question of whether humans are born good, evil, or otherwise.
When I picked this topic I didn’t quite know what I was getting into. I discovered that Thomas Aquinas was a very prolific writer and Mencius also had a lot to say. This was my first look into their works, and I appreciate their contributions to law and ethics. I also have a lot of respect for anyone who has read all of Aquinas’ Summa Theologia, as well as the translators of Aquinas’ and Mencius’ books. As a religion major, their writings have helped me better understand Confucianism and Roman Catholic Christianity, and see how their writings have impacted philosophical thought, religion, and society.
Works Cited
Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa Theologiae: The various kinds of law (Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 91).” New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2091.htm. Accessed 3 May 2022.
Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa Theologica: The natural law (Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 94).” New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2094.htm#article2. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Brodd, Jeffrey. Invitation to World Religions. Fourth ed., Oxford University Press, 2022.
Floyd, Shawn. “Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/thomasaquinas-moral-philosophy/. Accessed 4 May 2022.
Johnson, Marshall D. The evolution of Christianity: Twelve Crises that Shaped the Church. Bloomsbury Academic, 2005.
Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion. Sixth ed., Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009.
Mencius. Mencius: An Online Teaching Translation. Translated by Robert Eno. 1, May 2016. IUScholarWorks, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/23421/Mengzi.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y. Accessed 3 May 2022.
Van Norden, Bryan. “Mencius.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), 16 October 2004, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/mencius/. Accessed 30 April 2022.
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