home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Shareware Overload Trio 2
/
Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO
/
dir33
/
1798_r.zip
/
NAT.LAW
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-12-26
|
4KB
|
75 lines
Natural law is the concept of a body of moral principles--a
system of justice--that is common to all humankind and, as
generally posited, is recognizable by human reason alone.
Natural law is therefore distinguished from--and provides a
standard for--positive law, the formal legal enactments of a
particular society. Derived from the natural-law concept is the
theory that individuals have inalienable natural rights, as
stated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
The concept of natural law has taken several forms. The idea
originated in the ancient Greeks' conception of a universe
governed in every particular by an eternal, immutable law and
in their distinction between what is just by nature and just by
convention.
Stoicism provided the most complete classical formulation of
natural law. The Stoics argued that the universe is governed by
LOGOS, or rational principle; they further argued that all
humans have logos (reason) within them and can therefore know
and obey its law. Because humans have the faculty of choice,
they will not necessarily obey the law; if they act in
accordance with reason, however, they will be "following
nature."
Christian philosophers readily adapted Stoic natural-law
theory, identifying natural law with the law of God. Natural
law can be that part of the eternal law of God ("the reason of
divine wisdom") which is knowable by humans by means of their
powers of reason. Human, or positive, law is the application of
natural law to particular social circumstances. Human law that
violates natural law is not true law.
With the secularization of society resulting from the
Renaissance and Reformation, natural-law theory found a new
basis in human reason. The 17th-century Dutch jurist Hugo
Grotius believed that humans by nature are not only reasonable
but social. Thus the rules that are natural to them--those
dictated by reason alone (whether God exists or not)--are those
which enable them to live in harmony with each other. From this
argument Grotius developed the first comprehensive theory of
international law. Another 17th-century philosopher, Thomas
Hobbes, modified the natural-law tradition in arguing that
there is no justice in nature. Humans are by nature selfish and
aggressive, but self-interest--the need for
self-preservation--guides them to enter into a Social Contract
by which they surrender their freedom of action to an absolute
authority (see STATE, in political philosophy).
Although accepting the idea that self-preservation is the
rational key to human behavior, most philosophers of the period
took a more optimistic view of human nature. John Locke argued
that humans in the state of nature are free and equal, yet
insecure in their freedom. When they enter society they
surrender only such rights as are necessary for their security
and for the common good. Each individual retains fundamental
prerogatives drawn from natural law relating to the integrity
of person and property. This natural-rights theory provided a
philosophical basis for both the American and French
revolutions.
During the 19th century natural-law theory lost influence as
utilitarianism and Benthamism, positivism, materialism, and the
historical school of jurisprudence gained ascendancy. In the
20th century, however, it received new attention, partly in
reaction to totalitarianism. Because the content and
implications of natural law are not entirely determinate and
unequivocal, it has been appealed to in support of many
apparently conflicting ends and ideals. Critics have taken this
ambiguity as a defect; supporters call it flexibility and a
virtue. Such problems have led some recent supporters to speak
of "natural law with changing content" and to think of natural
law as a fixed ideal of justice applicable in differing ways to
different situations.