Natural law, or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis), is a system of law that is determined by nature, and so

is universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature both social and
personal and deduce binding rules of moral behavior from it. Natural law is often compared with the positive
law of a given political community, society, or state. In legal theory, on the other hand, the interpretation of
positive law requires some reference to natural law. On this understanding of natural law, natural law can be
invoked to criticize judicial decisions about what the law says but not to criticize the best interpretation of the
law itself. Some scholars use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale),
while others distinguish between natural law and natural right.
Although natural law is often conflated with common law, the two are distinct in that natural law is a view that
certain rights or values are inherent in or universally cognizable by virtue of human reason or human nature,
while common law is the legal tradition whereby certain rights or values are legally cognizable by virtue of
judicial recognition or articulation. Natural law theories have, however, exercised a profound influence on the
development of English common law,[5][full citation needed] and have featured greatly in the philosophies of
Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Surez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf,
John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, and Emmerich de Vattel. Because of the
intersection between natural law and natural rights, it has been cited as a component in the United States
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as in the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Declarationism states that the founding of the United States is based on
Natural law.
History
The use of natural law, in its various incarnations, has varied widely through its history. There are a number of
different theories of natural law, differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in
determining the authority of legal norms. This article deals with its usages separately rather than attempt to
unify them into a single theory.
Plato
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Although Plato does not have an explicit theory of natural law (he almost never uses the phrase natural law
except in Gorgias 484 and Timaeus 83e), his concept of nature, according to John Wild, contains some of the
elements found in many natural law theories.[6] According to Plato we live in an orderly universe. At the basis
of this orderly universe or nature are the forms, most fundamentally the Form of the Good, which Plato
describes as "the brightest region of Being". The Form of the Good is the cause of all things and when it is
seen it leads a person to act wisely. In the Symposium, the Good is closely identified with the Beautiful. Also in
the Symposium, Plato describes how the experience of the Beautiful by Socrates enables him to resist the
temptations of wealth and sex. In the Republic, the ideal community is, "...a city which would be established in
accordance with nature."
Aristotle

Greek philosophy emphasized the distinction between "nature" (physis, ) on the one hand and "law",
"custom", or "convention" (nomos, ) on the other. What the law commanded varied from place to place,
but what was "by nature" should be the same everywhere. A "law of nature" would therefore have had the
flavor more of a paradox than something that obviously existed. Against the conventionalism that the
distinction between nature and custom could engender, Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotle,
posited the existence of natural justice or natural right (dikaion physikon, , Latin ius naturale).
Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law.
Aristotle's association with natural law may be due to the interpretation given to his works by Thomas Aquinas.
But whether Aquinas correctly read Aristotle is a disputed question. According to some, Aquinas conflates the
natural law and natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics (Book IV
of the Eudemian Ethics). According to this interpretation, Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of
early translations of these passages in an unfortunate manner, though more recent translations render them
more literally. Aristotle notes that natural justice is a species of political justice, viz. the scheme of distributive
and corrective justice that would be established under the best political community; were this to take the form
of law, this could be called a natural law, though Aristotle does not discuss this and suggests in the Politics that
the best regime may not rule by law at all.
The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from the Rhetoric, where
Aristotle notes that, aside from the "particular" laws that each people has set up for itself, there is a "common"
law that is according to nature. Specifically, he quotes Sophocles and Empedocles:
Universal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as everyone to some extent divines, a natural justice and
injustice that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each other. It is
this that Sophocles' Antigone clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in spite
of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature:
"Not of to-day or yesterday it is, But lives eternal: none can date its birth."
And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature, says that doing this is not just for some people
while unjust for others:
"Nay, but, an all-embracing law, through the realms of the sky Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth's
immensity."
Some critics believe that the context of this remark suggests only that Aristotle advised that it could be
rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the "particular" law of one's own city was
averse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law; Moreover, they claim that Aristotle
considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid, natural law provided in this passage to be wrong.
Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed.
Stoic natural law
The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics. The
rise of natural law as a universal system coincided with the rise of large empires and kingdoms in the Greek
world.[full citation needed] Whereas the "higher" law Aristotle suggested one could appeal to was emphatically
natural, in contradistinction to being the result of divine positive legislation, the Stoic natural law was indifferent
to the divine or natural source of the law: the Stoics asserted the existence of a rational and purposeful order to
the universe (a divine or eternal law), and the means by which a rational being lived in accordance with this
order was the natural law, which spelled out action that accorded with virtue.
As the English historian A. J. Carlyle (18611943) notes:
There is no change in political theory so startling in its completeness as the change from the theory of Aristotle
to the later philosophical view represented by Cicero and Seneca.... We think that this cannot be better
exemplified than with regard to the theory of the equality of human nature." Charles H. McIlwain likewise
observes that "the idea of the equality of men is the profoundest contribution of the Stoics to political thought"
and that "its greatest influence is in the changed conception of law that in part resulted from it.
Natural law first appeared among the stoics who believed that God is everywhere and in everyone. Within
humans is a "divine spark" which helps them to live in accordance with nature. The stoics felt that there was a
way in which the universe had been designed and natural law helped us to harmonise with this.
Cicero - Marcus Tullius Cicero
Cicero wrote in his De Legibus that both justice and law derive their origin from what nature has given to man,
from what the human mind embraces, from the function of man, and from what serves to unite humanity. For
Cicero, natural law obliges us to contribute to the general good of the larger society. The purpose of positive
laws is to provide for "the safety of citizens, the preservation of states, and the tranquility and happiness of
human life." In this view, "wicked and unjust statutes" are "anything but 'laws,'" because "in the very definition
of the term 'law' there inheres the idea and principle of choosing what is just and true." Law, for Cicero, "ought
to be a reformer of vice and an incentive to virtue." Cicero expressed the view that "the virtues which we ought
to cultivate, always tend to our own happiness, and that the best means of promoting them consists in living
with men in that perfect union and charity which are cemented by mutual benefits."
Cicero influenced the discussion of natural law for many centuries to come, up through the era of the American
Revolution. The jurisprudence of the Roman Empire was rooted in Cicero, who held "an extraordinary grip ...
upon the imagination of posterity" as "the medium for the propagation of those ideas which informed the law
and institutions of the empire." Cicero's conception of natural law "found its way to later centuries notably
through the writings of Saint Isidore of Seville and the Decretum of Gratian." Thomas Aquinas, in his summary
of medieval natural law, quoted Cicero's statement that "nature" and "custom" were the sources of a society's
laws.
The Renaissance Florentine chancellor Leonardo Bruni praised Cicero as the man "who carried philosophy
from Greece to Italy, and nourished it with the golden river of his eloquence."[28] The legal culture of
Elizabethan England, exemplified by Sir Edward Coke, was "steeped in Ciceronian rhetoric." The Scottish
moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson, as a student at Glasgow, "was attracted most by Cicero, for whom he
always professed the greatest admiration." More generally in eighteenth-century Great Britain, Cicero's name
was a household word among educated people.[30] Likewise, "in the admiration of early Americans Cicero
took pride of place as orator, political theorist, stylist, and moralist."
The British polemicist Thomas Gordon "incorporated Cicero into the radical ideological tradition that travelled
from the mother country to the colonies in the course of the eighteenth century and decisively shaped early
American political culture." Cicero's description of the immutable, eternal, and universal natural law was quoted
by Burlamaqui and later by the American revolutionary legal scholar James Wilson. Cicero became John
Adams's "foremost model of public service, republican virtue, and forensic eloquence." Adams wrote of Cicero
that "as all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same
character, his authority should have great weight." Thomas Jefferson "first encountered Cicero as a schoolboy
learning Latin, and continued to read his letters and discourses as long as he lived. He admired him as a
patriot, valued his opinions as a moral philosopher, and there is little doubt that he looked upon Cicero's life,
with his love of study and aristocratic country life, as a model for his own." Jefferson described Cicero as "the
father of eloquence and philosophy."
Some early Church Fathers, especially those in the West, sought to incorporate natural law into Christianity.
The most notable among these was Augustine of Hippo, who equated natural law with man's prelapsarian
state; as such, a life according to nature was no longer possible and men needed instead to seek salvation
through the divine law and grace of Jesus Christ.
In the twelfth century, Gratian equated the natural law with divine law. A century later, St. Thomas Aquinas in
his Summa Theologica I-II qq. 90106, restored Natural Law to its independent state, asserting natural law as
the rational creature's participation in the eternal law. Yet, since human reason could not fully comprehend the
Eternal law, it needed to be supplemented by revealed Divine law. (See also Biblical law in Christianity.)
Meanwhile, Aquinas taught that all human or positive laws were to be judged by their conformity to the natural
law. An unjust law is not a law, in the full sense of the word. It retains merely the 'appearance' of law insofar as
it is duly constituted and enforced in the same way a just law is, but is itself a 'perversion of law.' At this point,
the natural law was not only used to pass judgment on the moral worth of various laws, but also to determine
what the law said in the first place. This principle laid the seed for possible societal tension with reference to
tyrants.
The natural law was inherently teleological and deontological in that although it is aimed at goodness, it is
entirely focused on the ethicalness of actions, rather than the consequence. The specific content of the natural
law was therefore determined by a conception of what things constituted happiness, be they temporal
satisfaction or salvation. The state, in being bound by the natural law, was conceived as an institution directed
at bringing its subjects to true happiness.
In the 16th century, the School of Salamanca (Francisco Surez, Francisco de Vitoria, etc.) further developed
a philosophy of natural law. After the Church of England broke from Rome, the English theologian Richard
Hooker adapted Thomistic notions of natural law to Anglicanism. There are five important principles: to live, to
learn, to reproduce, to worship God, and to live in an ordered society.
Those who see biblical support for the doctrine of natural law often point to Paul's Epistle to the Romans: "For
when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the
law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also
bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. (Romans 2:1415).
The intellectual historian A. J. Carlyle has commented on this passage, "There can be little doubt that St Paul's
words imply some conception analogous to the 'natural law' in Cicero, a law written in men's hearts,
recognized by man's reason, a law distinct from the positive law of any State, or from what St Paul recognized
as the revealed law of God. It is in this sense that St Paul's words are taken by the Fathers of the fourth and
fifth centuries like St Hilary of Poitiers, St Ambrose, and St Augustine, and there seems no reason to doubt the
correctness of their interpretation."
English jurisprudence
Heinrich A. Rommen remarked upon "the tenacity with which the spirit of the English common law retained the
conceptions of natural law and equity which it had assimilated during the Catholic Middle Ages, thanks
especially to the influence of Henry de Bracton (d. 1268) and Sir John Fortescue (d. cir. 1476)." Bracton's
translator notes that Bracton "was a trained jurist with the principles and distinctions of Roman jurisprudence
firmly in mind"; but Bracton adapted such principles to English purposes rather than copying slavishly. In
particular, Bracton turned the imperial Roman maxim that "the will of the prince is law" on its head, insisting
that the king is under the law.[46] The legal historian Charles F. Mullett has noted Bracton's "ethical definition
of law, his recognition of justice, and finally his devotion to natural rights." Bracton considered justice to be the
"fountain-head" from which "all rights arise." For his definition of justice, Bracton quoted the twelfth-century
Italian jurist Azo: "'Justice is the constant and unfailing will to give to each his right.'" Bracton's work was the
second legal treatise studied by the young apprentice lawyer Thomas Jefferson.
Fortescue stressed "the supreme importance of the law of God and of nature" in works that "profoundly
influenced the course of legal development in the following centuries." The legal scholar Ellis Sandoz has
noted that "the historically ancient and the ontologically higher laweternal, divine, naturalare woven
together to compose a single harmonious texture in Fortescue's account of English law." As the legal historian
Norman Doe explains: "Fortescue follows the general pattern set by Aquinas. The objective of every legislator
is to dispose people to virtue. It is by means of law that this is accomplished. Fortescue's definition of law (also
found in Accursius and Bracton), after all, was 'a sacred sanction commanding what is virtuous [honesta] and
forbidding the contrary.'" Fortescue cited Leonardo Bruni for his statement that "virtue alone produces
happiness."
Christopher St. Germain's Doctor and Student was a classic of English jurisprudence, and it was thoroughly
annotated by Thomas Jefferson. St. Germain informs his readers that English lawyers generally don't use the
phrase "law of nature," but rather use "reason" as the preferred synonym. Norman Doe notes that St.
Germain's view "is essentially Thomist," quoting Thomas Aquinas's definition of law as "an ordinance of reason
made for the common good by him who has charge of the community, and promulgated."
Sir Edward Coke was the preeminent jurist of his time. Coke's preeminence extended across the ocean: "For
the American revolutionary leaders, 'law' meant Sir Edward Coke's custom and right reason." Coke defined law
as "perfect reason, which commands those things that are proper and necessary and which prohibits contrary
things." For Coke, human nature determined the purpose of law; and law was superior to any one man's
reason or will. Coke's discussion of natural law appears in his report of Calvin's Case (1608): "The law of
nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation
and direction." In this case the judges found that "the ligeance or faith of the subject is due unto the King by the
law of nature: secondly, that the law of nature is part of the law of England: thirdly, that the law of nature was
before any judicial or municipal law: fourthly, that the law of nature is immutable." To support these findings,
the assembled judges (as reported by Coke, who was one of them) cited as authorities Aristotle, Cicero, and
the Apostle Paul; as well as Bracton, Fortescue, and St. Germain.
As early as the thirteenth century, it was held that "the law of nature...is the ground of all laws" and by the
Chancellor and Judges that "it is required by the law of nature that every person, before he can be punish'd,
ought to be present; and if absent by contumacy, he ought to be summoned and make default.". Further, in
1824, we find it held that "proceedings in our Courts are founded upon the law of England, and that law is
again founded upon the law of nature and the revealed law of God. If the right sought to be enforced is
inconsistent with either of these, the English municipal courts cannot recognize it."
American jurisprudence
The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that it has become necessary for the people of the United States
to assume "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them".
Some early American lawyers and judges perceived natural law as too tenuous, amorphous and evanescent a
legal basis for grounding concrete rights and governmental limitations. Natural law did, however, serve as
authority for legal claims and rights in some judicial decisions, legislative acts, and legal pronouncements.
Robert Lowry Clinton argues that the U.S. Constitution rests on a common law foundation and the common
law, in turn, rests on a classical natural law foundation.
Islamic natural law
Ab Rayhn al-Brn, an Islamic scholar and polymath scientist, understood natural law as the survival of the
fittest. He argued that the antagonism between human beings can only be overcome through a divine law,
which he believed to have been sent through prophets. This is also the position of the Ashari school, the
largest school of Sunni theology. Averroes (Ibn Rushd), in his treatise on Justice and Jihad and his
commentary on Plato's Republic, writes that the human mind can know of the unlawfulness of killing and
stealing and thus of the five maqasid or higher intents of the Islamic sharia or to protect religion, life, property,
offspring, and reason. The concept of natural law entered the mainstream of Western culture through his
Aristotelian commentaries, influencing the subsequent Averroist movement and the writings of Thomas
Aquinas.
The Maturidi school, the second largest school of Sunni theology, posits the existence of a form of natural law.
Abu Mansur al-Maturidi stated that the human mind could know of the existence of God and the major forms of
'good' and 'evil' without the help of revelation. Al-Maturidi gives the example of stealing, which is known to be
evil by reason alone due to man's working hard for his property. Killing, fornication, and drinking alcohol were
all 'evils' the human mind could know of according to al-Maturidi. The concept of Istislah in Islamic law bears
some similarities to the natural law tradition in the West, as exemplified by Thomas Aquinas. However,
whereas natural law deems good what is self-evidently good, according as it tends towards the fulfilment of the
person, istislah calls good whatever is connected to one of five "basic goods". Al-Ghazali abstracted these
"basic goods" from the legal precepts in the Qur'an and Sunnah: they are religion, life, reason, lineage and
property. Some add also "honour". Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya also posited that human reason could discern
between 'great sins' and good deeds.[citation needed]
Hobbes - Thomas Hobbes
By the 17th Century, the Medieval teleological view came under intense criticism from some quarters. Thomas
Hobbes instead founded a contractualist theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree upon: what
they sought (happiness) was subject to contention, but a broad consensus could form around what they feared
(violent death at the hands of another). The natural law was how a rational human being, seeking to survive
and prosper, would act. Natural law, therefore, was discovered by considering humankind's natural rights,
whereas previously it could be said that natural rights were discovered by considering the natural law. In
Hobbes' opinion, the only way natural law could prevail was for men to submit to the commands of the
sovereign. Because the ultimate source of law now comes from the sovereign, and the sovereign's decisions
need not be grounded in morality, legal positivism is born. Jeremy Bentham's modifications on legal positivism
further developed the theory.
As used by Thomas Hobbes in his treatises Leviathan and De Cive, natural law is "a precept, or general rule,
found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the
means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved."
According to Hobbes, there are nineteen Laws. The first two are expounded in chapter XIV of Leviathan ("of
the first and second natural laws; and of contracts"); the others in chapter XV ("of other laws of nature").
The first Law of nature is that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and
when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.
The second Law of nature is that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth, as for peace, and
defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so
much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.
The third Law is that men perform their covenants made. In this law of nature consisteth the fountain and
original of justice... when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust and the definition of injustice is no other
than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just.
The fourth Law is that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace, endeavour that he which
giveth it, have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will. Breach of this law is called ingratitude.
The fifth Law is complaisance: that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest. The observers of this
law may be called sociable; the contrary, stubborn, insociable, froward, intractable.
The sixth Law is that upon caution of the future time, a man ought to pardon the offences past of them that
repenting, desire it.
The seventh Law is that in revenges, men look not at the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the
good to follow.
The eighth Law is that no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture, declare hatred or contempt of another.
The breach of which law is commonly called contumely.
The ninth Law is that every man acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is
pride.
The tenth law is that at the entrance into the conditions of peace, no man require to reserve to himself any
right, which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest. The breach of this precept is
arrogance, and observers of the precept are called modest.
The eleventh law is that if a man be trusted to judge between man and man, that he deal equally between
them.
The twelfth law is that such things as cannot be divided, be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity
of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right.
The thirteenth law is the entire right, or else...the first possession (in the case of alternating use), of a thing that
can neither be divided nor enjoyed in common should be determined by lottery.
The fourteenth law is that those things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be adjudged
to the first possessor; and in some cases to the first born, as acquired by lot.
The fifteenth law is that all men that mediate peace be allowed safe conduct.
The sixteenth law is that they that are at controversie, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator.
The seventeenth law is that no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause.
The eighteenth law is that no man should serve as a judge in a case if greater profit, or honour, or pleasure
apparently ariseth [for him] out of the victory of one party, than of the other.
The nineteenth law is that in a disagreement of fact, the judge should not give more weight to the testimony of
one party than another, and absent other evidence, should give credit to the testimony of other witnesses.
Hobbes's philosophy includes a frontal assault on the founding principles of the earlier natural legal tradition,
disregarding the traditional association of virtue with happiness, and likewise re-defining "law" to remove any
notion of the promotion of the common good. Hobbes has no use for Aristotle's association of nature with
human perfection, inverting Aristotle's use of the word "nature." Hobbes posits a primitive, unconnected state
of nature in which men, having a "natural proclivity...to hurt each other" also have "a Right to every thing, even
to one anothers body"; and "nothing can be Unjust" in this "warre of every man against every man" in which
human life is "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." Rejecting Cicero's view that men join in society
primarily through "a certain social spirit which nature has implanted in man," Hobbes declares that men join in
society simply for the purpose of "getting themselves out from that miserable condition of Warre, which is
necessarily consequent...to the naturall Passions of men, when there is no visible Power to keep them in awe."
As part of his campaign against the classical idea of natural human sociability, Hobbes inverts that
fundamental natural legal maxim, the Golden Rule. Hobbes's version is "Do not that to another, which thou
wouldst not have done to thy selfe."
Cumberland's rebuttal of Hobbes
The English cleric Richard Cumberland wrote a lengthy and influential attack on Hobbes's depiction of
individual self-interest as the essential feature of human motivation. Historian Knud Haakonssen has noted that
in the eighteenth century, Cumberland was commonly placed alongside Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf
"in the triumvirate of seventeenth-century founders of the 'modern' school of natural law." The eighteenth-
century philosophers Shaftesbury and Hutcheson "were obviously inspired in part by Cumberland." Historian
Jon Parkin likewise describes Cumberland's work as "one of the most important works of ethical and political
theory of the seventeenth century." Parkin observes that much of Cumberland's material "is derived from
Roman Stoicism, particularly from the work of Cicero, as "Cumberland deliberately cast his engagement with
Hobbes in the mould of Cicero's debate between the Stoics, who believed that nature could provide an
objective morality, and Epicureans, who argued that morality was human, conventional and self-interested." In
doing so, Cumberland de-emphasized the overlay of Christian dogma (in particular, the doctrine of "original
sin" and the corresponding presumption that humans are incapable of "perfecting" themselves without divine
intervention) that had accreted to natural law in the Middle Ages.
By way of contrast to Hobbes's multiplicity of laws, Cumberland states in the very first sentence of his Treatise
of the Laws of Nature that "all the Laws of Nature are reduc'd to that one, of Benevolence toward all
Rationals." He later clarifies: "By the name Rationals I beg leave to understand, as well God as Man; and I do it
upon the Authority of Cicero." Cumberland argues that the mature development ("perfection") of human nature
involves the individual human willing and acting for the common good. For Cumberland, human
interdependence precludes Hobbes's natural right of each individual to wage war against all the rest for
personal survival. However, Haakonssen warns against reading Cumberland as a proponent of "enlightened
self-interest." Rather, the "proper moral love of humanity" is "a disinterested love of God through love of
humanity in ourselves as well as others." Cumberland concludes that actions "principally conducive to our
Happiness" are those that promote "the Honour and Glory of God" and also "Charity and Justice towards men."
Cumberland emphasizes that desiring the well-being of our fellow humans is essential to the "pursuit of our
own Happiness." He cites "reason" as the authority for his conclusion that happiness consists in "the most
extensive Benevolence," but he also mentions as "Essential Ingredients of Happiness" the "Benevolent
Affections," meaning "Love and Benevolence towards others," as well as "that Joy, which arises from their
Happiness."
Liberal natural law - Hugo Grotius
Liberal natural law grew out of the medieval Christian natural law theories and out of Hobbes' revision of
natural law, sometimes in an uneasy balance of the two.
Hugo Grotius based his philosophy of international law on natural law. In particular, his writings on freedom of
the seas and just war theory directly appealed to natural law. About natural law itself, he wrote that "even the
will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity
even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." (De
iure belli ac pacis, Prolegomeni XI). This is the famous argument etiamsi daremus (non esse Deum), that
made natural law no longer dependent on theology. However, German church-historians Ernst Wolf and M.
Elze disagreed and claimed that Grotius' concept of natural law did have a theological basis.[93] In Grotius'
view, the Old Testament contained moral precepts (e.g. the Decalogue) which Christ confirmed and therefore
were still valid. Moreover, they were useful in explaining the content of natural law. Both biblical revelation and
natural law originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other.
In a similar way, Samuel Pufendorf gave natural law a theological foundation and applied it to his concepts of
government and international law.
John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy, especially in Two Treatises of
Government. There is considerable debate about whether his conception of natural law was more akin to that
of Aquinas (filtered through Richard Hooker) or Hobbes' radical reinterpretation, though the effect of Locke's
understanding is usually phrased in terms of a revision of Hobbes upon Hobbesean contractualist grounds.
Locke turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect
"life, liberty, and property," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one.
While Locke spoke in the language of natural law, the content of this law was by and large protective of natural
rights, and it was this language that later liberal thinkers preferred. Political philosopher Jeremy Waldron has
pointed out that Locke's political thought was based on "a particular set of Protestant Christian assumptions."
To Locke, the content of natural law was identical with biblical ethics as laid down especially in the Decalogue,
Christ's teaching and exemplary life, and St. Paul's admonitions. Locke derived the concept of basic human
equality, including the equality of the sexes ("Adam and Eve"), from Genesis 1, 2628, the starting-point of the
theological doctrine of Imago Dei. One of the consequences is that as all humans are created equally free,
governments need the consent of the governed. Thomas Jefferson, arguably echoing Locke, appealed to
unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."The Lockean idea that governments need the consent of the
governed was also fundamental to the Declaration of Independence, as the American Revolutionaries used it
as justification for their separation from the British crown.
The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular conception
of natural law in the liberal tradition. Libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard argues that "the very existence of a
natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to
the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus." Ludwig von Mises states that
he relaid the general sociological and economic foundations of the liberal doctrine upon utilitarianism, rather
than natural law, but R.A. Gonce argues that "the reality of the argument constituting his system overwhelms
his denial." David Gordon notes, "When most people speak of natural law, what they have in mind is the
contention that morality can be derived from human nature. If human beings are rational animals of such-and-
such a sort, then the moral virtues are...(filling in the blanks is the difficult part)."
However, a secular critique of the natural law doctrine was stated by Pierre Charron in his De la sagesse
(1601): "The sign of a natural law must be the universal respect in which it is held, for if there was anything that
nature had truly commanded us to do, we would undoubtedly obey it universally: not only would every nation
respect it, but every individual. Instead there is nothing in the world that is not subject to contradiction and
dispute, nothing that is not rejected, not just by one nation, but by many; equally, there is nothing that is
strange and (in the opinion of many) unnatural that is not approved in many countries, and authorized by their
customs."
Contemporary Christian understanding - Thomas Aquinas
The Roman Catholic Church holds the view of natural law provided by St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly in his
Summa Theologiae, and often as filtered through the School of Salamanca. This view is also shared by some
Protestant churches, and was delineated by C.S. Lewis in his works Mere Christianity and The Abolition of
Man.
The Catholic Church understands human beings to consist of body and mind, the physical and the non-
physical (or soul perhaps), and that the two are inextricably linked. Humans are capable of discerning the
difference between good and evil because they have a conscience. There are many manifestations of the good
that we can pursue. Some, like procreation, are common to other animals, while others, like the pursuit of truth,
are inclinations peculiar to the capacities of human beings. John Wijngaards disputes the Magisterium's
interpretation of Natural Law as applied to specific points of sexual ethics, such as in the areas of
contraceptives and homosexual unions.
To know what is right, one must use one's reason and apply it to Aquinas' precepts. This reason is believed to
be embodied, in its most abstract form, in the concept of a primary precept: "Good is to be sought, evil
avoided." St. Thomas explains that:
there belongs to the natural law, first, certain most general precepts, that are known to all; and secondly,
certain secondary and more detailed precepts, which are, as it were, conclusions following closely from first
principles. As to those general principles, the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men's
hearts. But it is blotted out in the case of a particular action, insofar as reason is hindered from applying the
general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of concupiscence or some other passion, as
stated above (77, 2). But as to the other, i.e., the secondary precepts, the natural law can be blotted out from
the human heart, either by evil persuasions, just as in speculative matters errors occur in respect of necessary
conclusions; or by vicious customs and corrupt habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural vices,
as the Apostle states (Rm. i), were not esteemed sinful.
However, while the primary and immediate precepts cannot be "blotted out", the secondary precepts can be.
Therefore, for a deontological ethical theory they are open to a surprisingly large amount of interpretation and
flexibility. Any rule that helps man to live up to the primary or subsidiary precepts can be a secondary precept,
for example:
Drunkenness is wrong because it injures one's health, and worse, destroys one's ability to reason, which is
fundamental to man as a rational animal (i.e., does not support self-preservation).
Theft is wrong because it destroys social relations, and man is by nature a social animal (i.e., does not support
the subsidiary precept of living in society).
Natural moral law is concerned with both exterior and interior acts, also known as action and motive. Simply
doing the right thing is not enough; to be truly moral one's motive must be right as well. For example, helping
an old lady across the road (good exterior act) to impress someone (bad interior act) is wrong. However, good
intentions don't always lead to good actions. The motive must coincide with the cardinal or theological virtues.
Cardinal virtues are acquired through reason applied to nature; they are: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and
Fortitude. The theological virtues are: Faith, Hope, and Charity.
According to Aquinas, to lack any of these virtues is to lack the ability to make a moral choice. For example,
consider a man who possesses the virtues of justice, prudence, and fortitude, yet lacks temperance. Due to his
lack of self-control and desire for pleasure, despite his good intentions, he will find himself swaying from the
moral path.
In contemporary jurisprudence
In jurisprudence, natural law can refer to the several doctrines:
That just laws are immanent in nature; that is, they can be "discovered" or "found" but not "created" by
such things as a bill of rights;
That they can emerge by the natural process of resolving conflicts, as embodied by the evolutionary
process of the common law; or
That the meaning of law is such that its content cannot be determined except by reference to moral
principles. These meanings can either oppose or complement each other, although they share the
common trait that they rely on inherence as opposed to design in finding just laws.
Whereas legal positivism would say that a law can be unjust without it being any less a law, a natural law
jurisprudence would say that there is something legally deficient about an unjust law. Legal interpretivism,
famously defended in the English-speaking world by Ronald Dworkin, claims to have a position different from
both natural law and positivism.
Besides utilitarianism and Kantianism, natural law jurisprudence has in common with virtue ethics that it is a
live option for a first principles ethics theory in analytic philosophy.
The concept of natural law was very important in the development of the English common law. In the struggles
between Parliament and the monarch, Parliament often made reference to the Fundamental Laws of England,
which were at times said to embody natural law principles since time immemorial and set limits on the power of
the monarchy. According to William Blackstone, however, natural law might be useful in determining the
content of the common law and in deciding cases of equity, but was not itself identical with the laws of
England. Nonetheless, the implication of natural law in the common law tradition has meant that the great
opponents of natural law and advocates of legal positivism, like Jeremy Bentham, have also been staunch
critics of the common law.
Natural law jurisprudence is currently undergoing a period of reformulation (as is legal positivism). The most
prominent contemporary natural law jurist, Australian John Finnis, is based in Oxford, but there are also
Americans Germain Grisez, Robert P. George, and Canadian Joseph Boyle. All have tried to construct a new
version of natural law. The 19th-century anarchist and legal theorist, Lysander Spooner, was also a figure in
the expression of modern natural law.
"New Natural Law" as it is sometimes called, originated with Grisez. It focuses on "basic human goods," such
as human life, knowledge, and aesthetic experience, which are self-evidently and intrinsically worthwhile, and
states that these goods reveal themselves as being incommensurable with one another.
The tensions between the natural law and the positive law have played, and continue to play a key role in the
development of international law.