What Is Natural Law School

The law of nature includes, first, some of the most general commandments known to all; and, secondly, certain secondary and more detailed rules, which are, so to speak, conclusions that flow closely from the first principles. As far as these general principles are concerned, the natural law can now be abstractly extinguished from the hearts of men. However, it is extinguished in the case of a particular action, insofar as reason is prevented from applying the general principle to a particular point of practice, because of desire or another passion, as indicated above (77, 2). But what the others, that is, with regard to the secondary commandments, then the natural law can be erased from the human heart, either by bad persuasion, just as in speculative questions errors occur with regard to the necessary conclusions; or by evil customs and corrupt habits, as in some people, theft and even unnatural vices, as the apostle (Rm. i) says, were not considered sins. [55] In addition to utilitarianism and Kantianism, natural law studies have in common with virtue ethics that it is a living option for an ethical theory of the first principles of analytic philosophy. Natural law is a philosophical theory that asserts that human beings have certain rights, moral values, and responsibilities inherent in human nature. Natural law theory is based on the idea that natural laws are universal concepts and not based on culture or customs. Yet it is a way society acts naturally and naturally as human beings. Hobbes` version is, «Do not do this to others that you would not have done to yourself.» [103] The basis of the philosophy of natural law comes from Heraclitus and it also gives three aspects_ unlimited goals, steps and reason are important for natural law. It is said that the Greeks laid the foundation for the school of natural law.

Greek thinkers developed the idea of natural law and laid down its essential characteristics. In any case, conceptual analysis of law remains an important, albeit controversial, project in contemporary legal theory. Conceptual theories of law have traditionally been characterized in terms of their attitude toward the overlap thesis. Thus, conceptual legal theories have traditionally been divided into two main categories: those such as natural law theory, which claim that there is a conceptual relationship between law and morality, and those such as legal positivism, which deny such a relationship. The second thesis, which is at the heart of the moral theory of natural law, is the assertion that moral norms are somehow derived or implied by the nature of the world and the nature of man. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, identifies the rational nature of man as what defines the moral law: «The domination and measure of human actions is reason, which is the first principle of human action» (Thomas Aquinas, ST. I-II, Q.90, A.I). Since humans are rational beings by nature, it is morally appropriate that they behave in a manner consistent with their rational nature. Thus, Thomas Aquinas draws the moral law from the nature of man (i.e.

from the «natural law»). At that time, there was great political instability in Greece and many thought that the law was only made to serve the interests of the strong, but the same situation made other jurists think in a different way, they saw this as an opportunity to develop new universal principles that would fight and control the tyranny and arbitrariness of government. It is important to emphasize that natural law should not be confused with positive law, as it does not involve judicial decisions or legislative decrees.