Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Natural Law Theory Shows Killing Animals and Plants is Wrong?

**Posted by musiclover** 7/22/2015 11:58 pm

If anything counts as frustrating an organism's telos, surely killing it does. But this means that, if frustrating an organism's telos is wrong, then killing animals and plants is wrong.

**Posted by DanielCC** 7/23/2015 4:54 am

musiclover wrote:
If anything counts as frustrating an organism's telos, surely killing it does. But this means that, if frustrating an organism's telos is wrong, then killing animals and plants is wrong.

No, frustrating one's own telos is wrong; though there are cases when frustrating another's organism's telos is wrong it follow from the former point that it is de facto wrong.

A polite note: with all due respect you are welcome to criticise Natural Law theory all you like but if you are planning on doing so then you ought at least to have a clear understanding of what you criticise. You have started two threads on these lines, both of which contain simplistic assertions without development or argument to back them up.

**Posted by musiclover** 7/23/2015 9:48 am

DanielCC - I'm actually sympathetic to natural law theory. I just don't understand it fully, which is precisely why I'm asking these questions - I want to learn more about it

**Posted by musiclover** 7/23/2015 10:43 am

Alexander - That seems implausible. Doesn't that mean that it's OK for one to murder another since doing so doesn't frustrate one's own natural ends?

**Posted by GeorgiusThomas** 7/23/2015 1:20 pm

Pardon my laziness, but this topic has been discussed in this thread.

As to the supposed weakness of natural law, I find remarks like that rather odd. I suppose topics like sexual morality (and abortion) do receive a lot of attention among natural lawyers, but surely that's understandable. One should not mistake this emphasis for inability to provide ethical analysis of other items.
Even today natural lawyers provide in depth treatments of topics like the common good, just war, distributive justice...
I think it generally gets more complicated when it comes to various accidental arrangements (property titles included). But questions of this sort were and still are being considered by natural moralists.

On the subject of selfishness, I recommend reading this post:
https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/thomism-happiness-and-selfishness/

The recommendation extends to the blog generally, esp. on the subject of good, common or otherwise.

Last edited by GeorgiusThomas (7/23/2015 5:25 pm)