The lack of proper moral insight may be one of the explanations for the social upheavals and crisis that are
prevalent in our societies today. This is because moral issues have been seriously neglected, and such neglect has had a tragic
effect on the life of man and also his welfare. However, one thing that is basic to human relationships and on which human
relationships thrive, is the idea of performing morally right actions or doing those things which are good, to all men. But then,
the questions we need to ask are these: what is the motive behind our actions? Do we perform an action for the sake of an
ultimate goal or because the society expects our actions to follow a particular pattern? Or do we simply act because the law
obliges us to do so? What is the yardstick for distinguishing right from wrong? To answer these questions, Aquinas posited
“right reason†as the measure or standard for determining a right action. This paper critically examines Aquinas’ natural law
theory with regards to his notion of what constitutes a morally right and a morally wrong action. The paper’s position is that
though Aquinas presented an adequate picture of the natural law theory, he however, committed a fundamental error or a
categorical mistake when he took animal behvaiour to be the norm or standard for measuring human behaviour.
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