Natural Law

The term "natural law" is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as
to a type of legal theory, but the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically
independent. It does not refer to the laws of nature, the laws that science aims to
describe. According to natural law moral theory, the moral standards that govern
human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human
beings and the nature of the world. While being logically independent of natural
law legal theory, the two theories intersect. However, the majority of the article will
focus on natural law legal theory.
According to natural law legal theory, the authority of legal standards necessarily
derives, at least in part, from considerations having to do with the moral merit of
those standards. There are a number of different kinds of natural law legal theories,
differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in determining
the authority of legal norms. The conceptual jurisprudence of John Austin provides
a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of law that
distinguishes law from non-law in every possible world. Classical natural law
theory such as the theory of Thomas Aquinas focuses on the overlap between
natural law moral and legal theories. Similarly, the neo-naturalism of John Finnis
is a development of classical natural law theory. In contrast, the procedural
naturalism of Lon L. Fuller is a rejection of the conceptual naturalist idea that there
are necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law. Lastly, Ronald
Dworkins theory is a response and critique of legal positivism. All of these theories
subscribe to one or more basic tenets of natural law legal theory and are important
to its development and influence.

Greek period
Natural law theory firstly intrudesed by greek people. But there is no any written
evidence of his theory.
Aristotl-1
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.[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,

1
John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Positive Law (St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly
Press, 1977)
, Latin ius naturale). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of
natural law.[4]
Aristotle's association with natural law may be due to the interpretation given to his
works by Thomas Aquinas.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16]
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.[17] Specifically, he quotes Sophocles and Empedocles:
Universal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as every one 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."[18]
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;[4] Moreover, they claim that Aristotle 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.

Roman period
 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.[22] For Cicero, natural
law obliges us to contribute to the general good of the larger society.[23] 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."[24] 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."[23]
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."[26] 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. Roman people explain hie theory by
1) Jus civil Law for citizens only
2) Jus jentum law for non citezans
3) Jus natural aply to whole.

Chirstian period
Thomas Aquinas2
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father
of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much
of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of
ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike many currents in the
Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle
whom he called "the Philosopher"and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian
philosophy with the principles of Christianity.[7]The works for which he is best
known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles. His
commentaries on Sacred Scripture and on Aristotle form an important part of his

2
Thomas Aquinas, On Law, Morality and Politics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1988)
 body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns,
which form a part of the Church's liturgy.
The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the
model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest
expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under
papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required
program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for
those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines.
Thomas Aquinas
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father
of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much
of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of
ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike many currents in the
Church of the time,[6] Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle
whom he called "the Philosopher"and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian
philosophy with the principles of Christianity.[7]The works for which he is best
known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles. His
commentaries on Sacred Scripture and on Aristotle form an important part of his
body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns,
which form a part of the Church's liturgy.
The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the
model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest
expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under
papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required
program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for
those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines.

Medival period
Hobbes-3
By the 17th Century, the Medieval teleological view came under intense criticism
from some quarters. Thomas Hobbes instead founded acontractualist
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
3
http://catalog.com/jamesd/rights.htm
 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.
Contemporary Christian understanding.
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.here 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.
Modern period
The Substantive Neo-Naturalism of John Finnis4
John Finnis takes himself to be explicating and developing the views of Aquinas
and Blackstone. Like Bix, Finnis believes that the naturalism of Aquinas and
Blackstone should not be construed as a conceptual account of the existence
conditions for law. According to Finnis, the classical naturalists were not concerned
with giving a conceptual account of legal validity; rather they were concerned with
explaining the moral force of law: "the principles of natural law explain the
obligatory force (in the fullest sense of 'obligation') of positive laws, even when
those laws cannot be deduced from those principles" (Finnis 1980, 23-24). On
Finnis's view of the Overlap Thesis, the essential function of law is to provide a
justification for state coercion (a view he shares with Ronald Dworkin).
Accordingly, an unjust law can be legally valid, but it cannot provide an adequate
justification for use of the state coercive power and is hence not obligatory in the
fullest sense; thus, an unjust law fails to realize the moral ideals implicit in the
concept of law.
An Finnis's theory is certainly more plausible as a theory of law than the traditional
interpretation of classical naturalism, but such plausibility comes, for better or
worse, at the expense of naturalism's identity as a distinct theory of law. Indeed, it
appears that Finnis's natural law theory is compatible with naturalism's historical
adversary, legal positivism, inasmuch as Finnis's view is compatible with a source-
based theory of legal validity; laws that are technically valid in virtue of source but
unjust do not, according to Finnis, fully obligate the citizen. Indeed, Finnis (1996)
believes that Aquinas's classical naturalism fully affirms the notion that human laws
are "posited."njust law, on this view, is legally binding, but is not fully law.

The Procedural Naturalism of Lon L. Fuller5

4
John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)

5
Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law,
Like Finnis, Lon Fuller (1964) rejects the conceptual naturalist idea that there are
necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law. But Fuller, unlike
Finnis, believes that law is necessarily subject to a procedural morality. On Fuller's
view, human activity is necessarily goal-oriented or purposive in the sense that
people engage in a particular activity because it helps them to achieve some end.
Insofar as human activity is essentially purposive, according to Fuller, particular
human activities can be understood only in terms that make reference to their
purposes and ends. Thus, since lawmaking is essentially purposive activity, it can
be understood only in terms that explicitly acknowledge its essential values and
purposes:
(P1) the rules must be expressed in general terms;
(P2) the rules must be publicly promulgated;
(P3) the rules must be prospective in effect;
(P4) the rules must be expressed in understandable terms;
(P5) the rules must be consistent with one another;
(P6) the rules must not require conduct beyond the powers of the affected
parties;
(P7) the rules must not be changed so frequently that the subject cannot rely
on them; and
(P8) the rules must be administered in a manner consistent with their
wording.

Hugo Grotius -
It is thought that Hugo Grotius was not the first to formulate the international
society doctrine, but he was one of the first to define expressly the idea of one
society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual
agreement to enforce those laws. As Hedley Bull (Hugo Grotius and International
Relations, 1992) declared: "The idea of international society which Grotius
propounded was given concrete expression in the Peace of Westphalia, and Grotius
may be considered the intellectual father of this first general peace settlement of
modern times."
Additionally, his contributions to Arminian theology provided the seeds for later
Arminian-based movements, such as Methodism and Pentecostalism and he is
acknowledged as a significant figure in the Arminianism-Calvinism debate.
Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is also considered an
"economic theologist
 John Austin-6
The distinguishing feature of a legal system is the existence of a sovereign whose
authority is recognized by most members of a society, the authority of which is
enforced by the use of sanctions, but which is not bound by any human superior.
The criterion for validity of a legal rule in such a society is that it has the warrant
of the sovereign and will be enforced by the sovereign power and its agents.
The three basic tenets of Austin's positivism are:
laws are commands issued by the uncommanded commander, i.e. the
sovereign;
such commands are enforced by sanctions; and
a sovereign is one who is obeyed by the majority.
Austin considered the law as commands from a sovereign that are enforced by
threat of sanction. In determining 'a sovereign', Austin recognized it is one whom
society obeys habitually. This sovereign can be a single person or a collective
sovereign such as Parliament, with a number of individuals, with each having
various authoritative powers. Austin's theory is also somewhat brief in his
explanations of Constitutions, International Law, non-sanctioned rules, or law
that gives rights. Insofar as non-sanctioned rules and laws that allow persons to do
things, such as contract law, Austin said that failure to obey the rules does result in
sanctions; however, such sanctions are in the form of "the sanction of nullity."
Austin was greatly influenced in his philosophy by Jeremy Bentham.

Hans Kelsen- 7
Kelsen's is considered a very strict and scientifically understood type of legal
positivism. It is based on the idea of a Grundnorm, a hypothetical norm on which
all subsequent levels of a legal system such as constitutional law and "simple" law
are based. For Kelsen, "sovereignty" was a loaded concept: "We can derive from
the concept of sovereignty nothing else other than what we have purposely put into
its definition."
His theory has disciples among scholars of public law worldwide. His disciples
developed "schools" of thought to extend his theories, such as the Vienna School
in Austria and the Brno School in Czechoslovakia. In English-speaking countries,
H. L. A. Hart and Joseph Raz are perhaps the most well-known authors who were
influenced by Kelsen, though both differed from Kelsen's theories in several
respects.

6
http://www.orst.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/grotius.html
7
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=005F7000
 H. L. A. Hart - 8
H. L. A. Hart later addressed Austin. Hart liked Austin's theory of a sovereign, but
claimed that Austin's Command Theory failed in several important respects. In the
book The Concept of Law, Hart outlined several key points: Among the many ideas
developed in this book are:
A critique of John Austin's theory that law is the command of the sovereign
enforced by the threat of punishment.
A distinction between the internal and external considerations of law and
rules, close to (and influenced by) Max Weber's distinction between the
sociological and the legal perspectives of law.
A distinction between primary and secondary legal rules, such that a
primary rule governs conduct, such as criminal law and a secondary rules govern
the procedural methods by which primary rules are enforced, prosecuted and so on.
Hart specifically enumerates three secondary rules; they are:
The Rule of Recognition, the rule by which any member of society may
check to discover what the primary rules of the society are. In a simple society, Hart
states, the recognition rule might only be what is written in a sacred book or what
is said by a ruler. Hart claimed the concept of rule of recognition as an evolution
from Hans Kelsen's "Grundnorm", or "basic norm."
The Rule of Change, the rule by which existing primary rules might be
created, altered or deleted.
The Rule of Adjudication, the rule by which the society might determine
when a rule has been violated and prescribe a remedy.
A late reply (1994 Edition) to Ronald Dworkin, who criticized legal
positivism in general and especially Hart's account of law in Taking Rights
Seriously (1977), A Matter of Principle (1985) and Law's Empire (1986).

Conlusion

The centre of theological ethics is God-the (ineffable one', (the nameless one', and
(holy mystery', who remains always incomprehensible to human reason (see
Rahner 1985: 46-7, 65-6). The conclusions reached through exercising the powers
of human intelligence will therefore have a secondary significance to the kind of
knowledge communicated in revelation and experienced in faith. The God of
Christian theological ethics, the concern of this essay, is revealed as Creator and
Redeemer. Faith in this God leads one to affirm that an ordering wisdom lies behind

8
H.L.A. Hart, "Book Review of The Morality of Law"
both the inherent logos of the natural world and the explicit revelation
communicated in Scripture and the Christian tradition.
The doctrine of (natural law' constitutes a particular subset ofthe larger question
of the place of reason and philosophy in theological ethics. Its adherents tend to be
Roman Catholic, but not always so. Its meaning is anything but unproblematic and
obvious. In spite of having been subject to wave after wave of criticism in the
history of philosophy and theology, natural law continues to appeal to those who
believe that ethics must be grounded in being and the moral life based on what is
good for human beings.

Bibliography

Aquinas, Thomas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Cited as Commentary.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
H. L. A. Hart The Concept of Law
Philip Anthony. 2002. The Distinction Between Law and Ethics in Natural Law
Theory.
Weinreb, Lloyd. 1987. Natural Law and Justice.

Webolography
Lawcommission of indi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/natlaw.htm.