Can The Natural Law Be Violated?
That's obviously a matter of philosophy but these argumentations aren't so far from everyday life. How many times have you heard that you were violating the natural law?
One of my goals, when I decided to start this gay blog, was to stimulate reflection, and these lines seem particularly suitable to my intentions.
The whole text can be found on the Internet, its author is Burton Leiser.
Theologians and other moralists have said that ... [homosexual acts] violate the 'natural law': and that they are therefore immoral and ought to be prohibited by the state. [...]
The laws of nature, as these are understood by the scientist, differ from the laws of man. The former are purely descriptive, whereas the latter are prescriptive. When a scientist says that water boils at 212° Fahrenheit [...] he means merely that as a matter of recorded and observable fact, pure water under standard conditions always boils at precisely 212° Fahrenheit [...] They differ from municipal and federal laws in that they do not prescribe behaviour [...] their "violation" entails no penalty [...] When a scientist says that the air in a tire "obeys" the laws of nature that "govern" gases, he does not mean that the air, having been informed that it ought to behave in a certain way, behaves appropriately under the right conditions [...] in fact, according to the scientist, it does not make sense to speak of a natural law being violated. For if there were a true exception to a so called law of nature, the exception would require a change in the description of those phenomena, and the "law" would have been shown to be no law at all. The laws of nature are revised as scientists discover new phenomena that require new refinements in their descriptions of the way things actually happen. [...]
My two cents on this issue: so, is everything allowed since it can't violate the natural law?
No, it isn't at all. But this hasn't to do with nature, it's just a moral question...
One of my goals, when I decided to start this gay blog, was to stimulate reflection, and these lines seem particularly suitable to my intentions.
The whole text can be found on the Internet, its author is Burton Leiser.
Theologians and other moralists have said that ... [homosexual acts] violate the 'natural law': and that they are therefore immoral and ought to be prohibited by the state. [...]
The laws of nature, as these are understood by the scientist, differ from the laws of man. The former are purely descriptive, whereas the latter are prescriptive. When a scientist says that water boils at 212° Fahrenheit [...] he means merely that as a matter of recorded and observable fact, pure water under standard conditions always boils at precisely 212° Fahrenheit [...] They differ from municipal and federal laws in that they do not prescribe behaviour [...] their "violation" entails no penalty [...] When a scientist says that the air in a tire "obeys" the laws of nature that "govern" gases, he does not mean that the air, having been informed that it ought to behave in a certain way, behaves appropriately under the right conditions [...] in fact, according to the scientist, it does not make sense to speak of a natural law being violated. For if there were a true exception to a so called law of nature, the exception would require a change in the description of those phenomena, and the "law" would have been shown to be no law at all. The laws of nature are revised as scientists discover new phenomena that require new refinements in their descriptions of the way things actually happen. [...]
My two cents on this issue: so, is everything allowed since it can't violate the natural law?
No, it isn't at all. But this hasn't to do with nature, it's just a moral question...
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