natural laws and how they can negatively impact society

natural laws and how they can negatively impact society

Introduction

The natural law theory depends on human nature, dictated by what humans perceive is right or wrong. However, in today’s world, such laws can cause social problems instead of holding society together. Also, globalization has made the world more connected, and applying the laws would be catastrophic. Natural laws had their place in the world. Still, the constant changes in today’s world, especially in technology, interacting with other cultures and religions, make natural laws unpractical and sometimes irrelevant. This essay discusses natural laws and how they can negatively impact society.

Natural laws in Today’s World

In today’s world, changes are happening too fast that having natural laws dictate what is right or wrong would not apply. With a change in technology, people have to make decisions quickly and wait for the consequences, since there are no ways to know how a new concept will turn our and no evidence in nature to use. For instance, using robots to operate on a human being is a new concept being developed. Saving a life is morally right, but using a machine to operate on a human raises questions on its morality, and since humans can do the work, the use of robots to do such a job is subject to interpretation. Gene editing is a new concept that is raising a lot of moral and ethical questions. Everyone wants to have healthy children without any deformities, and gene editing can remove any deformities before people have a child. Such actions make sure that children born will not have deformities or genetic health problems. Morally, gene editing is playing the role of God and should not be used. People should be happy that God blessed them with any baby they get, even the deformed one. This creates a lot of problems in using technology.

The ethical issues in natural law theory are many and subjective, contradicting the natural law itself, which is not subjective. Killing a person is morally and ethically wrong. When people die during the war, we accept it as casualties of war, which morally and ethically is right.  The Rwandan genocide was wrong since many innocent people died.  In the Philippines, the current president ordered the mass murder of all drug traders in the country after he took office. This led to mass murder that made the president a suspect in mass murder under international laws. According to natural laws, the president was wrong. Considering that Philippines have been trying to fight the vice for decades without any success, there are questions about the decision of the president. Also, drug dealers had destroyed the country, making young men work as drug dealers, destroying the economy and security of the nation. The police department was under drug lords, and they followed orders from the drug leaders, not the government. Eliminating the drug lords thus helped the country, but to many, the president was wrong.  In Libya, before the overthrowing of Ghaddafi, the country was under a dictator who suppressed opposition and democracy. According to natural laws, Ghaddafi was wrong in suppressing other people expressing their opinions. Ever since he died, the country has had the democracy they wanted and expressed their views the way they wanted. The downside of their freedom is that the country has never been stable ever since. This raises the question of what is freedoms and right according to natural laws. Is it about giving people the freedom to express their opinions and freedom and, at the same time, destroy the country or stay under a dictator who suppresses the same freedom but keeps the country together? There are many dilemmas under natural laws.

There are questions about whether natural laws can apply in the 21^st century. With globalization, having one standard of moral standing is practically impossible. People have different believes and cultures which do not match. Using one standard of measuring morals and justness would create more conflict and war instead of cohesion. For instance, some veats snakes, bats, and reptiles, while in other cultures, the snakes and reptiles are believed to be evil and should be killed when seen.  Such a culture would view eating snakes as allowing evil in their bodies and societies. Using the same natural laws in the two societies would thus be detrimental since the two cultures would collide.

Also, natural laws are seen to come from moral and religious laws. But religion and morality differs from one society to another. Natural laws, when used universally in different religions would create a religious war. There are religion that sacrifices human beings, terming the act as pleasing their ‘gods.’ The people practicing such a religion do not see anything wrong in taking another person’s life. In Christianity, human sacrifice today is seen a devil worshiping, since, according to Christianity, Jesus sacrificed his life for humanity and there is no need for anther human sacrifice. Using natual laws in the two religions would create a war that would not have a winning side.

Natural laws can also be against the moral and human nature that they are derived from. In some traditional African settings, a giving birth to twins was considered as an omen and the twins were supposed to be taken to the forest to be eaten by wild animals. With people having no power in determining if the pregnancy would result in twins in such cultures, giving birth to twins is thus a natural event that people are powerless about. It is also not morally wrong to have twins, since the act itself is natural. But according to the society the laws or nature according to them dictates that such children are outcasts and not supposed to live. Such contradictions make natural laws contradict themselves. History is full of such stories that have natural laws contradiction themselves.