Natural law is the understanding of a moral law that is either given with nature and

known through reason or given with moral reason independently of nature. Natural law is
universal and common to all humanity. It transcends differences in culture, religion, and
various formulations of moral law. It is often understood as the fundamental source of
normativity from which positively formulated moral norms must be derived if morally
justifiable. As the counterpoint to positive laws, natural law is the criterion of justification
for political and biblical law.
Historical overview
The notion of natural law can be traced to the stoic understanding of the common law
(Greek: nomos koinos), which permeates being and constitutes a cosmopolis in which the
human being as a rational being participates. On the basis of a monistic metaphysics, the
Stoics argued that there was a similarity between the law of the universe and the law of
reason. The right action is that which is in accordance with nature, the cosmic law of
reason. The influence from the Stoics was quite clear in the works of early Christian
leader Augustine of Hippo and especially the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas argued in Summa Theologica that "the participation of the eternal law by
rational creatures is called the law of nature" (I, II, 91, 2). Natural law (lex naturalis) was
understood as a reflection in reason of the eternal law (lex aeterna), which was the
constitutive law of being. As an eternal law it was a metaphysical explanation of divine
reason. Divine reason was the source of the perfect order of being. Due to the
Aristotelian influence, Aquinas also argued that the natural world would strive for its
perfection, which ultimately was defined according to the eternal law. In natural law this
good was reflected as a natural good, the basic reason why natural beings would strive
for perfection.
This close link between physical nature and natural law as a law of reason became
increasingly problematic, even if one still finds many advocates of this view. For
Protestant reformers natural law is often endorsed as a law of reason because the
depravity of nature makes it impossible to let nature serve as the basis of moral
normativity. Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century English political theorist and
philosopher, further lessened the link between nature and reason. Hobbes developed an
understanding of natural law on the basis of a contractarian scheme of thought, where
natural law was to be conceived of as articles of peace decided upon by the parties of the
contract. The contractarian basis of natural law thought furthered the dissolution of the
close link between nature and reason as the basis of natural law. By the time of the
Enlightenment, natural law had become a law of reason. The German philosopher
Immanuel Kant is the leading proponent of this understanding of natural law. In his major
work, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Kant made extensive use of natural law thought,
but natural law in a normative sense was now understood as a law of reason.
Contemporary reformulations
In a contemporary setting various attempts are made to reformulate the notion of natural
law. If one could point to a common feature for most of these attempts, it would be a
tendency to move beyond a metaphysical basis of natural law. Most can also be seen in
the light of the impious hypothesis of seventeenth-century Dutch statesman Hugo
Grotius: the endorsement that the normativity of natural law is valid, even if God does
not exist. However, this does not necessitate a rejection of the existence of God. It
merely stresses the independent normative basis of natural law.

The best known attempts at reformulation have their roots within a Thomistic tradition.
The works of John Finnis and Germain Grisez during the 1980s have been the most
influential from this train of thought. The common feature for Grisez and Finnis is an
attempt to develop a normative moral theory based on a notion of basic human goods.
Certain goods, such as life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, and religion, are
derived from human nature. Moral life is to further these goods. Jean Porter argues in
Natural and Divine Law (1999) that the normativity of nature can be endorsed in a
contemporary setting on the basis of an evolutionistic explanation of the genesis of
morality. Furthermore, metaethical naturalism also supports such a reformulation. The
normative concept of nature is, therefore, quite plausible in a contemporary setting.
Apart from the Thomistic reformulations of natural law one also finds a few attempts of
reformulation within a Protestant tradition by, for example Ian Ramsey and David Little.
In addition to these theories with a religious basis, one may also point to various theories
of moral philosophy, which may be seen as contributing to the reformulation of natural
law. If one is only concerned with explicit natural law thought, the philosophical attempts
at reformulation are relatively few. However, if one takes more indirect uses of natural
law thought into consideration, one can find various attempts to reformulate the idea of
natural law in either a more rational or naturalistic sense. In the more rational sense, one
can point to the political theory of John Rawls. Rawls's theory of political justice, which is
based upon the contractual agreement of parties may be seen as a theory where the
notion of reason holds a normative implication in the constructive sense. The Kantian
influence in this theory is evident in the focus on reason as the source of normativity.
More naturalistic reformulations include, for example, Holmes Rolston's theories of
environmental ethics. Rolston argues that values are given in nature, moral values are
independent of the moral valuer, and nature is the source of moral values. This applies to
human as well as nonhuman nature. Every natural organism has a natural good that
serves as the source of the moral good. The moral good is defined as being in
accordance with nature. The theories of Rawls and Rolston are both examples of theories
where the primary attempt is not to reformulate natural law theory. Both of these
theories, however, demonstrate important similarities to this classical concept.
The basis of the Natural Law Theory is that there exist laws above man which can be
discovered through reason and which are derived from objective moral principles and the
essential nature of the world. The term natural law has, however, been
interpreted differently at different times. Early Christian writers scoured the scriptures to
find these laws. However, in the 17th century, Grotius significantly secularised the
concept of natural law by bringing reason into the picture.
What has always been agreed though is that it is not the creation of a temporal political
authority. Other characteristics of natural law are that:
1. It is binding on all men everywhere at all times.
2. It is not written.
3. It advocates the equality of men.
4. The rule of law can be studied on an a priori basis.
Further, unlike other laws:
1. It is rigid, immutable, eternal and unalterable.
2. It is not enforceable by an external agency; there is no coercive sanction which backs
it.
3. It is not the creation of an act of legislature, it is the result of the teachings of various

philosophers.
4. It is unwritten and has not been made by men; all men have done is discover it.
Human law was considered to truly be law only insofar as it conformed to the principles
of natural law on one hand. And on the other, law was considered to be law only if it was
obligatory. Since natural law was considered higher than human law, any human law
contrary to (the principles of justice and morality which are inseparably entwined with)
natural law was not really considered to be law at all.
The problem, however, was discovering natural law itself. Enquiries into the realm of
natural law began with the Greek philosophers as a challenge to the arbitrariness and the
obligatory nature of law itself.
The Ancient Period
Socrates examined key moral concepts such as the Good and Justice. He said that
virtue was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was spent in search of
the Good. Truth lies beneath the shadows of existence, and that it is the job of the
philosopher to show the rest how little they really know. His pupil, Plato, said that
justice lies in integrating reason and wisdom in mans life.
It was noticed that while there are some occurrences, like the movements of heavenly
bodies, were regulated by nature while others, like human etiquette, depended entirely
on human choice and were arbitrary. This arbitrariness encouraged philosophers to
question why law should be obeyed at all. However, Aristotle pointed out that there were
some human laws which were common to all human States (such as the inviolability of
heralds) and therefore, by extension, it was natural for humans to have those human
laws.
The theory was further developed by the Stoic Philosophers.
Later, the Roman lawyer, Cicero, said that true law is right reason in agreement with
nature, it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting. It is created by the
reason of intelligence of man whose ability to reason enables him to stand highest in
creation.
The Medieval Period
The Medieval Period began around the 11th century and continued till the 13th century. It
boasted mainly Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Gregory and Ambrose.
St Thomas Aquinas divided law into:
1. The Law of God
2. Natural Law Natural law is created by mans reason the sole repository of
mans social life and governs human relations; his approach was empirical.
3. Divine/Scriptural law The church if the supreme authority to interpret divine law
4. Human Law It must be based on natural law and aim to do good.

Aquinas spoke of Eternal Law which, for all practical purposes, was the same as natural
law. He said that everything is governed by Gods eternal law but man can choose
whether or not to follow the law.
Christian theologians also managed to combine pre-Christian philosophy into their own
theology with the aid of St Paul who had said that the conscience could arrive at moral
truth unaided. For example, Aquinas wrote thirteen commentaries on Aristotle and
resolved conflicts by assigning two different meanings a Christian one and an
Aristotelian one to the same term and saying that such differences evidence true
philosophical inquiry.
The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment
The Renaissance began around the 14th century and continued till the end of the 16th
century. It was followed by The Age of Enlightenment. The dependence on God waned
during this time and the authority of the Church diminished. By the 17 th century, thanks
to the work of scholars like Grotius, philosophers like Hobbes and Locke spoke of
mans rights and natural law in the same breath.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) said that law is the dictate of right reason.
John Locke (1632-1704) said that natural law supported the individual against the
absolute power of the sovereign. All government is a fiduciary trust which is dissolved
when law is violated or power is abused. In his version of the social contract theory,
individuals have inalienable natural rights and their duties are defined in terms of
protecting their own rights and respecting those of others. They may revolt against the
government if the government betrays its trust. Sovereigns are bound by natural law
which Locke described as reason.
Jean Rousseau (1712-1778) published The Social Contract in 1762. He said that man was
forced to adopt institutions of law to survive because the state of nature degenerated.
Individuals therefore collectively parted with their natural rights to preserve themselves
and remain free; they received civil liberties in exchange of natural rights. The State and
law are therefore both the result of and subject to the General Will of the people.
None of this established what natural law is though.
The Modern Period
The 19th century saw a decline in the influence of the natural law theory and an increase
in the influence of theories put forward by various other schools such as the analytical,
sociological and historical schools.
Bentham called natural law nonsense on stilts though and said that it was the result of
confusing scientific laws from moral and legal laws. To the Greeks, watching the
movements of heavenly bodies and other natural phenomena, it seemed that every
object had a purpose. There is a defence to this: it could be argued that scientific laws

too merely describe the way in which things should occur, the way in which they have
been pre-ordained to occur. The question then, of course, would be pre-ordained by
whom? A Creator? God? The result would be that one would have to prove the existence
of God no easy task.
Auguste Comte said that the natural law theory was false, non-scientific and based on a
belief in the supernatural.
David Hume used analytical positivism to destroy the theoretical basis of the natural law
theory which he said was vague and obscure.
The 20th century, however, saw a revival in the natural law theory. This was mainly
because people did not want to divorce law from morality, customs and religion. In any
case, concepts like those of equality and justice which were inherent in the natural law
theory were also the foundation of positivism. In addition to this, after the devastation
caused by the two World Wars, the West wanted a value-conscious theory of law.
The obvious advantages of the natural law theory are that it links law to justice
and morality. The problem with that is that and questions of morality are not open to
adjudication. Also, law, as we know it today, relies heavily on precedent and on Statutes.
Courts generally do not decide disputes ex aequo et bono and if they did, the result
would be that it would be impossible to predict a legal decision.

Its essence
In English this term is frequently employed as equivalent to the laws of nature, meaning
the order which governs the activities of the material universe. Among the Roman jurists
natural law designated those instincts and emotions common to man and the lower
animals, such as the instinct of self-preservation and love of offspring. In its strictly
ethical applicationthe sense in which this article treats itthe natural law is the rule of
conduct which is prescribed to us by the Creator in the constitution of the nature with
which He has endowed us.
According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's
participation in the eternal law" (I-II.94). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it
is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to
creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things,
this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them
determinism reigns. Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and
receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in
harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is
master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his
action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an
ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for
him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The
rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. Those
actions which conform with its tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby
constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and
immoral.

The norm, however, of conduct is not some particular element or aspect of our nature.
The standard is our whole human nature with its manifold relationships, considered as a
creature destined to a special end. Actions are wrong if, though subserving the
satisfaction of some particular need or tendency, they are at the same time incompatible
with that rational harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher which reason
should maintain among our conflicting tendencies and desires (see GOOD). For example,
to nourish our bodies is right; but to indulge our appetite for food to the detriment of our
corporal or spiritual life is wrong. Self-preservation is right, but to refuse to expose our
life when the well-being of society requires it, is wrong. It is wrong to drink to
intoxication, for, besides being injurious to health, such indulgence deprives one of the
use of reason, which is intended by God to be the guide and dictator of conduct. Theft is
wrong, because it subverts the basis of social life; and man's nature requires for its
proper development that he live in a state of society. There is, then, a double reason for
calling this law of conduct natural: first, because it is set up concretely in our very nature
itself, and second, because it is manifested to us by the purely natural medium of reason.
In both respects it is distinguished from the Divine positive law, which contains precepts
not arising from the nature of things as God has constituted them by the creative act, but
from the arbitrary will of God. This law we learn not through the unaided operation of
reason, but through the light of supernatural revelation.
We may now analyse the natural law into three constituents: the discriminating norm, the
binding norm (norma obligans), and the manifesting norm. The discriminating norm is, as
we have just seen, human nature itself, objectively considered. It is, so to speak, the
book in which is written the text of the law, and the classification of human actions into
good and bad. Strictly speaking, our nature is the proximate discriminating norm or
standard. The remote and ultimate norm, of which it is the partial reflection and
application, is the Divine nature itself, the ultimate groundwork of the created order. The
binding or obligatory norm is the Divine authority, imposing upon the rational creature
the obligation of living in conformity with his nature, and thus with the universal order
established by the Creator. Contrary to the Kantian theory that we must not acknowledge
any other lawgiver than conscience, the truth is that reason as conscience is only
immediate moral authority which we are called upon to obey, and conscience itself owes
its authority to the fact that it is the mouthpiece of the Divine will and imperium. The
manifesting norm (norma denuntians), which determines the moral quality of actions
tried by the discriminating norm, is reason. Through this faculty we perceive what is the
moral constitution of our nature, what kind of action it calls for, and whether a particular
action possesses this requisite character.
The contents of the natural law
Radically, the natural law consists of one supreme and universal principle, from which are
derived all our natural moral obligations or duties. We cannot discuss here the many
erroneous opinions regarding the fundamental rule of life. Some of them are utterly false
for instance, that of Bentham, who made the pursuit of utility or temporal pleasure the
foundation of the moral code, and that of Fichte, who taught that the supreme obligation
is to love self above everything and all others on account of self. Others present the true
idea in an imperfect or one-sided fashion. Epicurus, for example, held the supreme
principle to be, "Follow nature"; the Stoics inculcated living according to reason. But
these philosophers interpreted their principles in a manner less in conformity with our
doctrine than the tenor of their words suggests. Catholic moralists, though agreeing upon
the underlying conception of the Natural Law, have differed more or less in their
expression of its fundamental formula. Among many others we find the following: "Love
God as the end and everything on account of Him"; "Live conformably to human nature

considered in all its essential respects"; "Observe the rational order established and
sanctioned by God"; "Manifest in your life the image of God impressed on your rational
nature." The exposition of St. Thomas is at once the most simple and philosophic.
Starting from the premise that good is what primarily falls under the apprehension of the
practical reasonthat is of reason acting as the dictator of conductand that,
consequently, the supreme principle of moral action must have the good as its central
idea, he holds that the supreme principle, from which all the other principles and
precepts are derived, is that good is to be done, and evil avoided (I-II, Q, xciv, a. 2).
Passing from the primary principle to the subordinate principles and conclusions,
moralists divide these into two classes: (1) those dictates of reason which flow so directly
from the primary principle that they hold in practical reason the same place as evident
propositions in the speculative sphere, or are at least easily deducible from the primary
principle. Such, for instance, are "Adore God"; "Honour your parents"; "Do not steal"; (2)
those other conclusions and precepts which are reached only through a more or less
complex course of inference. It is this difficulty and uncertainty that requires the natural
law to be supplemented by positive law, human and Divine. As regards the vigour and
binding force of these precepts and conclusions, theologians divide them into two
classes, primary and secondary. To the first class belong those which must, under all
circumstances, be observed if the essential moral order is to be maintained. The
secondary precepts are those whose observance contributes to the public and private
good and is required for the perfection of moral development, but is not so absolutely
necessary to the rationality of conduct that it may not be lawfully omitted under some
special conditions. For example, under no circumstances is polyandry compatible with
the moral order, while polygamy, though inconsistent with human relations in their
proper moral and social development, is not absolutely incompatible with them under
less civilized conditions.
The qualities of the natural law
(a) The natural law is universal, that is to say, it applies to the entire human race, and is
in itself the same for all. Every man, because he is a man, is bound, if he will conform to
the universal order willed by the Creator, to live conformably to his own rational nature,
and to be guided by reason. However, infants and insane persons, who have not the
actual use of their reason and cannot therefore know the law, are not responsible for that
failure to comply with its demands. (b) The natural law is immutable in itself and also
extrinsically. Since it is founded in the very nature of man and his destination to his end
two bases which rest upon the immutable ground of the eternal lawit follows that,
assuming the continued existence of human nature, it cannot cease to exist. The natural
law commands and forbids in the same tenor everywhere and always. We must,
however, remember that this immutability pertains not to those abstract imperfect
formul in which the law is commonly expressed, but to the moral standard as it applies
to action in the concrete, surrounded with all its determinate conditions. We enunciate,
for instance, one of the leading precepts in the words: "Thou shalt not kill"; yet the taking
of human life is sometimes a lawful, and even an obligatory act. Herein exists no
variation in the law; what the law forbids is not all taking of life, but all unjust taking of
life.
With regard to the possibility of any change by abrogation or dispensation, there can be
no question of such being introduced by any authority except that of God Himself. But
reason forbids us to think that even He could exercise such power, because, given the
hypothesis that He wills man to exist, He wills him necessarily to live conformably to the
eternal law, by observing in his conduct the law of reason. The Almighty, then, cannot be

conceived as willing this and simultaneously willing the contradictory, that man should
be set free from the law entirely through its abrogation, or partially through dispensation
from it. It is true that some of the older theologians, followed or copied by some later
ones, hold that God can dispense, and, in fact in some instances, has dispensed from the
secondary precepts of the natural law, while others maintain that the bearing of the
natural law is changed by the operation of positive law. However, an examination of the
arguments offered in support of these opinions shows that the alleged examples of
dispensation are: (a) cases where a change of conditions modifies the application of the
law, or (b) cases concerning obligations not imposed as absolutely essential to the moral
order, though their fulfillment is necessary for the full perfection of conduct, or (c)
instances of addition made to the law.
As examples of the first category are cited God's permission to the Hebrews to despoil
the Egyptians, and His command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But it is not necessary to
see in these cases a dispensation from the precepts forbidding theft and murder. As the
Sovereign Lord of all things, He could withdraw from Isaac his right to life, and from the
Egyptians their right of ownership, with the result that neither would the killing of Isaac
be an unjust destruction of life, nor the appropriation of the Egyptians' goods the unjust
taking of another's property. The classic instance alleged as an example of (b) is the
legalization of polygamy among the Hebrews. Polygamy, however, is not under all
circumstances incompatible with the essential principles of a rationally ordered life, since
the chief ends prescribed by nature for the marital unionthe propagation of the race
and the due care and education of offspringmay, in certain states of society, be
attained in a polygamous union. The theory that God can dispense from any part of the
law, even from the secondary precepts, is scarcely compatible with the doctrine, which is
the common teaching of the School, that the natural law is founded on the eternal law,
and, therefore, has for its ultimate ground the immutable essence of God himself. As
regards (c), when positive law, human or Divine, imposes obligations which only modify
the bearing of the natural law, it cannot correctly be said to change it. Positive law may
not ordain anything contrary to the natural law, from which it draws its authority; but it
mayand this is one of its functionsdetermine with more precision the bearing of the
natural law, and for good reasons, supplement its conclusions. For example, in the eyes
of the natural law mutual verbal agreement to a contract is sufficient; yet, in many kinds
of contract, the civil law declares that no agreement shall be valid, unless it be expressed
in writing and signed by the parties before witnesses. In establishing this rule the civil
authority merely exercises the power which it derives from the natural law to add to the
operation of the natural law such conditions as the common good may call for. Contrary
to the almost universally received doctrine, a few theologians held erroneously that the
natural law depends not on the essential necessary will of God, but upon His arbitrary
positive will, and taught consistently with this view, that the natural law may be
dispensed from or even abrogated by God. The conception, however, that the moral law
is but an arbitrary enactment of the Creator, involves the denial of any absolute
distinction between right and wronga denial which, of course, sweeps away the very
foundation of the entire moral order.
Our knowledge of the law
Founded in our nature and revealed to us by our reason, the moral law is known to us in
the measure that reason brings a knowledge of it home to our understanding. The
question arises: How far can man be ignorant of the natural law, which, as St. Paul says,
is written in the human heart (Romans 2:14)? The general teaching of theologians is that
the supreme and primary principles are necessarily known to every one having the actual
use of reason. These principles are really reducible to the primary principle which is

expressed by St. Thomas in the form: "Do good and avoid evil". Wherever we find man
we find him with a moral code, which is founded on the first principle that good is to be
done and evil avoided. When we pass from the universal to more particular conclusions,
the case is different. Some follow immediately from the primary, and are so self-evident
that they are reached without any complex course of reasoning. Such are, for example:
"Do not commit adultery"; "Honour your parents". No person whose reason and moral
nature is ever so little developed can remain in ignorance of such precepts except
through his own fault. Another class of conclusions comprises those which are reached
only by a more or less complex course of reasoning. These may remain unknown to, or
be misinterpreted even by persons whose intellectual development is considerable. To
reach these more remote precepts, many facts and minor conclusions must be correctly
appreciated, and, in estimating their value, a person may easily err, and consequently,
without moral fault, come to a false conclusion.
A few theologians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, following some older
ones, maintained that there cannot exist in anyone practical ignorance of the natural law.
This opinion however has no weight (for the controversy see Bouquillon, "Theologia
Fundamentalis", n. 74). Theoretically speaking, man is capable of acquiring a full
kowledge of the moral law, which is, as we have seen, nothing but the dictates of reason
properly exercised. Actually, taking into consideration the power of passion, prejudice,
and other influences which cloud the understanding or pervert the will, one can safely
say that man, unaided by supernatural revelation, would not acquire a full and correct
knowledge of the contents of the natural law (cf. Vatican Council, Sess. III, cap. ii). In
proof we need but recall that the noblest ethical teaching of pagans, such as the systems
of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, was disfigured by its approbation of shockingly immoral
actions and practices.
As the fundamental and all-embracing obligation imposed upon man by the Creator, the
natural law is the one to which all his other obligations are attached. The duties imposed
on us in the supernatural law come home to us, because the natural law and its
exponent, conscience, tell us that, if God has vouchsafed to us a supernatural revelation
with a series of precepts, we are bound to accept and obey it. The natural law is the
foundation of all human law inasmuch as it ordains that man shall live in society, and
society for its constitution requires the existence of an authority, which shall possess the
moral power necessary to control the members and direct them to the common good.
Human laws are valid and equitable only in so far as they correspond with, and enforce or
supplement the natural law; they are null and void when they conflict with it. The United
States system of equity courts, as distinguished from those engaged in the
administration of the common law, are founded on the principle that, when the law of the
legislator is not in harmony with the dictates of the natural law, equity (quitas, epikeia)
demands that it be set aside or corrected. St. Thomas explains the lawfulness of this
procedure. Because human actions, which are the subject of laws are individual and
innumerable, it is not possible to establish any law that may not sometimes work out
unjustly. Legislators, however, in passing laws attend to what commonly happens,
though to apply the common rule will sometimes work injustice and defeat the intention
of the law itself. In such cases it is bad to follow the law; it is good to set aside its letter
and follow the dictates of justice and the common good (II-II.120.1). Logically,
chronologically, and ontologically antecedent to all human society for which it provides
the indispensable basis, the natural or moral law is neitheras Hobbes, in anticipation of
the modern positivistic school, taughta product of social agreement or convention, nor
a mere congeries of the actions, customs, and ways of man, as claimed by the ethicists
who, refusing to acknowledge the First Cause as a Personality with whom one entertains

personal relations, deprive the law of its obligatory basis. It is a true law, for through it
the Divine Mind imposes on the subject minds of His rational creatures their obligations
and prescribes their duties.

Natural law, or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis), is a system of law which is
purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal.[1] Classically, natural law refers to
the use of reason to analyze human nature -- both social and personal -- and deduce
binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law (meaning
"man-made law", not "good law"; cf. posit) of a given political community, society, or
nation-state, and thus serves as a standard by which to critique said positive law. [2]
According to natural law theory, which holds that morality is a function of human nature
and reason can discover valid moral principles by looking at the nature of humanity in
society, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to natural
law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize
decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law
synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale)[citation needed]
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.[3] Natural law theories have, however, exercised a profound influence on the
development of English common law,[4][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 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.
[edit] Plato
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.[5] According to Plato we live in an orderly universe.[6] 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". [7] The Form of the Good is the cause of all
things and when it is seen it leads a person to act wisely. [8] In the Symposium, the Good is
closely identified with the Beautiful.[9] Also in the Symposium, Plato describes how the
experience of the Beautiful by Socrates enables him to resist the temptations of wealth
and sex.[10] In the Republic, the ideal community is a city which would be established in
accordance with nature.[11]

[edit] 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 which obviously existed.[1] 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.[12]
Aristotle's association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to his
works by Thomas Aquinas.[13] This was based on Aquinas's conflation of natural law and
natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics
(Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics). Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of
early translations of these passages, though more recent translations render them more
literally.[14] 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.[15]
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. [16] The context
of this remark, however, 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; [12]
Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid,
natural law provided in this passage to be wrong.[1] Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the
natural law tradition is consequently disputed.
[edit] 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.[17][full citation needed] Whereas the
"higher" law to which Aristotle suggested one could appeal 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. [1]
As the historian A.J. Carlyle 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." [18] 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."[19]

[edit] 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.[20] For Cicero, natural law obliges us to
contribute to the general good of the larger society. [21] 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."[22] Law, for Cicero, "ought to be a reformer of
vice and an incentive to virtue."[23] 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."[21]
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."[24] 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."[25] 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. [26]
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."[27] The legal culture of Elizabethan England, exemplified by Sir Edward Coke,
was "steeped in Ciceronian rhetoric."[28] The Scottish moral philosopher Francis
Hutcheson, as a student at Glasgow, "was attracted most by Cicero, for whom he always
professed the greatest admiration."[29] More generally in eighteenth-century Great Britain,
Cicero's name was a household word among educated people.[29] Likewise, "in the
admiration of early Americans Cicero took pride of place as orator, political theorist,
stylist, and moralist."[30]
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." [31] Cicero's
description of the immutable, eternal, and universal natural law was quoted by
Burlamaqui[32] and later by the American revolutionary legal scholar James Wilson.[33]
Cicero became John Adams's "foremost model of public service, republican virtue, and
forensic eloquence."[34] 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."[35] 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."[36] Jefferson described Cicero as "the father of
eloquence and philosophy."[37]
[edit] Christian natural law
Paul of Tarsus wrote in his Epistle to the Romans:

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the
law, these, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, their conscience also
bearing witness.[38]
The intellectual historian A.J. Carlyle has commented on this passage as follows:
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. [39]
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 Theologiae I-II qq. 90-106, restored Natural Law to its
independent state, asserting natural law as the rational creature's participation in the
eternal law.[40] 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.'[41] 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.[42]
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.[citation needed]
[edit] English jurisprudence
Heinrich A. Rommen has observed "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).[43] 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.[44] 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.[45] 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."[46] Bracton considered justice to be the
"fountain-head" from which "all rights arise."[47] 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.'"[48] Bracton's work was the second legal treatise studied by the
young apprentice lawyer Thomas Jefferson.[49]
Sir John 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."[50] The legal scholar Ellis Sandoz has noted that "the historically ancient and
the ontologically higher law--eternal, divine, natural--are woven together to compose a
single harmonious texture in Fortescue's account of English law." [51] 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.'"[52] Fortescue cited Leonardo Bruni for his statement that "virtue alone
produces happiness."[53]
Christopher St. Germain's Doctor and Student was a classic of English jurisprudence,[54]
and it was thoroughly annotated by Thomas Jefferson.[55] 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.[56][57] 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."[58]
Sir Edward Coke was the preeminent jurist of his time. [59] Coke's preeminence extended
across the ocean: "For the American revolutionary leaders, 'law' meant Sir Edward Coke's
custom and right reason."[60] [61] Coke defined law as "perfect reason, which commands
those things that are proper and necessary and which prohibits contrary things." [62] For
Coke, human nature determined the purpose of law; and law was superior to any one
man's reason or will.[63] 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.[64]
As early as the thirteenth century, it was held that "the law of nature...is the ground of all
laws"[65] and by the Chancellor and Judges that "it is required by the law of nature that
every person, before he can be punishd, ought to be present; and if absent by
contumacy, he ought to be summoned and make default.".[66][67] 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."[68]

[edit] American jurisprudence

The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that it has become necessary for 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.[3] Natural law did, however, serve as authority for
legal claims and rights in some judicial decisions, legislative acts, and legal
pronouncements.[69] 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.[70]
[edit] 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.[71] 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.[72]
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' which 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 that
which is known self-evidently to be good, according as it tends towards the fulfilment of
the person, istislah calls good whatever is connected to one of five "basic goods". AlGhazali 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]
[edit] 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. It 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."[73]
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,[74] disregarding the traditional association of virtue with happiness,
[75]
and likewise re-defining "law" to remove any notion of the promotion of the common
good.[76] 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";[77] 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."[78] Rejecting Cicero's view that men join in society primarily
through "a certain social spirit which nature has implanted in man," [79] 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." [80] 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."[81]
[edit] 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."[82] The eighteenthcentury philosophers Shaftesbury and Hutcheson "were obviously inspired in part by
Cumberland."[83] Historian Jon Parkin likewise describes Cumberland's work as "one of the
most important works of ethical and political theory of the seventeenth century." [84]
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." [85] In doing so, Cumberland deemphasized 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." [86] 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. [87] 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."[88] Cumberland concludes that actions "principally
conducive to our Happiness" are those which promote "the Honour and Glory of God" and
also "Charity and Justice towards men."[89] Cumberland emphasizes that desiring the wellbeing of our fellow humans is essential to the "pursuit of our own Happiness." [90] 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."[91]

Liberal natural law

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.

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.[92]
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. 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." [93]
The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a
secular conception [2] 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." [94] 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." [95] 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)."[96] Hans Hermann Hoppe attempts to ground liberal natural law with
argumentation ethics.
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 Catholic understanding
The Roman Catholic Church holds the view of natural law set forth by Thomas Aquinas,[97]
particularly in his Summa Theologica, and often as filtered through the School of
Salamanca. This view is also shared by some Protestant churches.[98]
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. [99]
Humans are capable of discerning the difference between good and evil because they
have a conscience.[100] 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. [101] Some contemporary

Catholic theologians, such as John Wijngaards, dispute 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.[102]
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."[103] 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.[104]
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:
1. Prudence
2. Justice
3. Temperance
4. Fortitude
The theological virtues are:
1. Faith

2. Hope
3. 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 19thcentury 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 selfevidently and intrinsically worthwhile, and states that these goods reveal themselves as
being incommensurable with one another.
The tensions between natural law and positive law have played, and continue to play a
key role in the development of international law