natural law

a principle or body of laws considered as derived from nature, right reason, or religion and as ethically binding in human society. Cf. positive law.

[1350-1400; ME]

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In jurisprudence and political philosophy, a system of right or justice common to all humankind and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.

The concept can be traced to Aristotle, who held that what was "just by nature" was not always the same as what was "just by law." In one form or another, the existence of natural law was asserted by the Stoics (see Stoicism), Cicero, the Roman jurists, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Gratian, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Francisco Suárez. In the modern period, Hugo Grotius insisted on the validity of natural law even on the assumption that God does not exist, and Thomas Hobbes defined a law of nature as "a precept of general rule found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life." Hobbes attempted to construct an edifice of law by rational deduction from a hypothetical "state of nature" and a social contract of consent between rulers and subjects. John Locke departed from Hobbes in describing the state of nature as an early society in which free and equal men observe the natural law. Jean-Jacques Rousseau postulated a savage who was virtuous in isolation and actuated by two principles "prior to reason": self-preservation and compassion. The authors of the U.S. Declaration of Independence refer only briefly to "the Laws of Nature" before citing equality and other "unalienable" rights as "self-evident." The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen asserts liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression as "imprescriptible natural rights." Interest in the concept of natural law declined dramatically in the 19th century, partly as a result of skeptical attacks by Jeremy Bentham and other proponents of utilitarianism; it was revived in the mid-20th century in light of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime during World War II. Skepticism of natural law and natural rights remained strong, however, and later writers almost invariably talked of human rights rather than natural rights.

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      in philosophy, a system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.

      There have been several disagreements over the meaning of natural law and its relation to positive law. Aristotle (384–322 BC) held that what was “just by nature” was not always the same as what was “just by law,” that there was a natural justice valid everywhere with the same force and “not existing by people's thinking this or that,” and that appeal could be made to it from positive law. However, he drew his examples of natural law primarily from his observation of the Greeks in their city-states, who subordinated women to men, slaves to citizens, and “barbarians” to Hellenes. In contrast, the Stoics (Stoicism) conceived of an entirely egalitarian law of nature in conformity with the logos (reason) inherent in the human mind. Roman jurists paid lip service to this notion, which was reflected in the writings of St. Paul (Paul, the Apostle, Saint) (c. AD 10–67), who described a law “written in the hearts” of the Gentiles (Romans 2:14–15).

      St. Augustine (Augustine, Saint) of Hippo (354–430) embraced Paul's notion and developed the idea of man's having lived freely under natural law before his fall and subsequent bondage under sin and positive law. In the 12th century, Gratian, an Italian monk and father of the study of canon law, equated natural law with divine law—that is, with the revealed law of the Old and the New Testament, in particular the Christian version of the Golden Rule.

 St. Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas, Thomas, Saint) (c. 1224/25–1274) propounded an influential systematization, maintaining that, though the eternal law of divine reason is unknowable to us in its perfection as it exists in God's mind, it is known to us in part not only by revelation but also by the operations of our reason. The law of nature, which is “nothing else than the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature,” thus comprises those precepts that humankind is able to formulate—namely, the preservation of one's own good, the fulfillment of “those inclinations which nature has taught to all animals,” and the pursuit of the knowledge of God. Human law must be the particular application of natural law.

      Other scholastic thinkers, including the Franciscan philosophers John Duns Scotus (Duns Scotus, John) (1266–1308) and William of Ockham (Ockham, William of) (c. 1285–1347/49) and the Spanish theologian Francisco Suárez (Suárez, Francisco) (1548–1617), emphasized divine will instead of divine reason as the source of law. This “ voluntarism” influenced the Roman Catholic jurisprudence of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but the Thomistic (Thomism) doctrine was later revived and reinforced to become the main philosophical ground for the papal exposition of natural right in the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) and his successors.

 In an epoch-making appeal, Hugo Grotius (Grotius, Hugo) (1583–1645) claimed that nations were subject to natural law. Whereas his fellow Calvinist Johannes Althusius (Althusius, Johannes) (1557–1638) had proceeded from theological doctrines of predestination to elaborate his theory of a universally binding law, Grotius insisted on the validity of the natural law “even if we were to suppose…that God does not exist or is not concerned with human affairs.” A few years later Thomas Hobbes (Hobbes, Thomas) (1588–1679), starting from the assumption of a savage “state of nature” in which each man was at war with every other—rather than from the “state of innocence” in which man had lived in the biblical Garden of Eden (Eden, Garden of)—defined the right of nature (jus naturale) to be “the liberty each man hath to use his own power for the preservation of his own nature, that is to say, of life,” and a law of nature (lex naturalis) as “a precept of general rule found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life.” He then enumerated the elementary rules on which peace and society could be established. Thus, Grotius and Hobbes stand together at the head of that “school of natural law” that, in accordance with the tendencies of the Enlightenment, tried to construct a whole edifice of law by rational deduction from a hypothetical “state of nature” and a “ social contract” of consent between rulers and subjects. John Locke (Locke, John) (1632–1704) departed from Hobbesian pessimism to the extent of describing the state of nature as a state of society, with free and equal men already observing the natural law. In France Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de) (1689–1755) argued that natural laws were presocial and superior to those of religion and the state, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Rousseau, Jean-Jacques) (1712–78) postulated a savage who was virtuous in isolation and actuated by two principles “prior to reason”: self-preservation and compassion (innate repugnance to the sufferings of others).

      The confidence in appeals to natural law displayed by 17th- and 18th-century writers such as Locke and the authors of the American Declaration of Independence evaporated in the early 19th century. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Kant, Immanuel) (1724–1804), as well as the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham (Bentham, Jeremy) (1748–1832), served to weaken the belief that “nature” could be the source of moral or legal norms. In the mid-20th century, however, there was a revival of interest in natural law, sparked by the widespread belief that the Nazi (Nazi Party) regime of Adolf Hitler (Hitler, Adolf), which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, had been essentially lawless, even though it also had been the source of a significant amount of positive law. As in previous centuries, the need to challenge the unjust laws of particular states inspired the desire to invoke rules of right and justice held to be natural rather than merely conventional. However, the 19th century's skepticism about invoking nature as a source of moral and legal norms remained powerful, and contemporary writers almost invariably talked of human rights rather than natural rights.

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