Natural law

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For other uses, see Natural law (disambiguation).

Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic philosopher of the Middle Ages, revived and developed natural law from
ancient Greek philosophy.

Natural law (Latin: ius naturale, lex naturalis) is a philosophy asserting that certain rights are inherent
by virtue of human nature, endowed by nature—traditionally by God or a transcendent source—and
that these can be understood universally through human reason. As determined by nature, the law of
nature is implied to be universal,[1] existing independently of the positive law of a given state, political
order, legislature or society at large.

Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature to deduce binding rules of
moral behavior from nature's or God's creation of reality and mankind. The concept of natural law was
first documented in ancient Greek philosophy, including Aristotle,[2] and was referred to in Roman
philosophy by Cicero. It was then alluded to in the Bible, from which it was subsequently developed in
the Middle Ages by Catholic philosophers such as Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. In the
Renaissance, notably the School of Salamanca further contributed. During the Age of Enlightenment,
modern era natural law theories were further developed, combining inspiration from Roman law, and
alongside philosophies like social contract theory. It featured greatly in the works of Alberico Gentili,
Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Matthew
Hale, John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, Emmerich de Vattel, Cesare Beccaria
and Francesco Mario Pagano. It was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an
alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government—and
thus legal rights—in the form of classical republicanism. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is
used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.

Contemporarily, the concept of natural law is closely related to the concept of natural rights. Indeed,
many philosophers, jurists and scholars use natural law synonymously with natural rights (Latin: ius
naturale), or natural justice.[3] while others distinguish between natural law and natural right.[1]

Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights, natural law has been cited as a
component in the United States Declaration of Independence, and claimed by natural law proponents
thus to be incorporated into its constitution, as well as in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen (1789). (See: "Laws of Nature" First Paragraph Declaration of Independence[4])

Although natural law is often confused with common law, the two are distinct. Even though natural law
theories have exercised a profound influence on the development of English common law,[5] the latter
is not based on inherent rights, but is the legal tradition whereby certain rights or values are legally
recognized by virtue of already having judicial recognition or articulation.[6] Natural law is often
contrasted with the human-made laws (positive law) of a given state, political entity or society.[7] In
legal theory, the interpretation of a human-made law requires some reference to natural law. On this
understanding of natural law, natural law can be invoked to criticize judicial decisions about what the
law says, but not to criticize the best interpretation of the law itself.
Contents
• 1 History
o 1.1 Plato
o 1.2 Aristotle
o 1.3 Stoic natural law
o 1.4 Cicero
o 1.5 Christianity
o 1.6 English jurisprudence
o 1.7 American jurisprudence
o 1.8 Hobbes
o 1.9 Cumberland's rebuttal of Hobbes
o 1.10 Liberal natural law
o 1.11 Islamic natural law
o 1.12 Brehon law
• 2 Catholic natural law jurisprudence
• 3 Contemporary jurisprudence
• 4 See also
• 5 Notes
• 6 References
• 7 External links

History
The use of natural law, in its various incarnations, has varied widely throughout history. There are a
number of theories of natural law, that differ from each other with respect to the role that morality
plays in determining the authority of legal norms. This article deals with its usages separately rather
than attempt to unify them into a single theory.

Plato

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Although Plato did not have an explicit theory of natural law (he rarely used 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.[8] According to Plato, we live in an orderly
universe.[9] 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".[10] The Form of the Good is the
cause of all things, and when it is seen it leads a person to act wisely.[11] In the Symposium, the Good is
closely identified with the Beautiful.[12] In the Symposium, Plato describes how the experience of the
Beautiful by Socrates enabled him to resist the temptations of wealth and sex.[13] In the Republic, the
ideal community is, "...a city which would be established in accordance with nature."[14]

Aristotle
See also: Treatise on Law

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael.

Greek philosophy emphasized the distinction between "nature" (physis, φúσις) on the one hand and
"law", "custom", or "convention" (nomos, νóµος) on the other. What the law commanded would be
expected to vary from place to place, but what was "by nature" should be the same everywhere. A "law
of nature" would therefore have 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, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin ius naturale). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father
of natural law.[3]

Aristotle's association with natural law may be due to the interpretation given to his works by Thomas
Aquinas.[15] But whether Aquinas correctly read Aristotle is in dispute. According to some, Aquinas
conflates 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 those more literally.[16] Aristotle notes that natural
justice is a species of political justice, specifically 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.[17]

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.[18] 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, he is saying that to do 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."[19]

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;[3] 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 paternity of natural law tradition is consequently disputed.

Stoic natural law

The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the
Stoics. The rise of natural law as a universal system coincided with the rise of large empires and
kingdoms in the Greek world.[20][full citation needed] Whereas the "higher" law that Aristotle suggested one
could appeal to was emphatically natural, in contradistinction to being the result of divine positive
legislation, the Stoic natural law was indifferent to either the natural or divine 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
inspired actions that accorded with virtue.[1]

As the English historian A. J. Carlyle (1861–1943) 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."[21]
Charles H. McIlwain likewise observes that "the idea of the equality of men is the most profound
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.[22]

Natural law first appeared among the stoics who believed that God is everywhere and in everyone (see
classical pantheism). According to this belief, within humans there is a "divine spark" which helps
them to live in accordance with nature. The stoics felt that there was a way in which the universe had
been designed, and that natural law helped us to harmonise with this.

Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero wrote in his De Legibus that both justice and law originate 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.[23] For Cicero, natural law obliges us to contribute to the general good of the larger
society.[24] 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."[25] Law, for Cicero, "ought to be a reformer of vice and an
incentive to virtue."[26] 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."[24]

In De Re Publica, he writes:

There is indeed a law, right reason, which is in accordance with nature ; existing in all, unchangeable,
eternal. Commanding us to do what is right, forbidding us to do what is wrong. It has dominion over
good men, but possesses no influence over bad ones. No other law can be substituted for it, no part of it
can be taken away, nor can it be abrogated altogether. Neither the people or the senate can absolve
from it. It is not I one thing at Rome, and another thing at Athens : one thing to-day, and another thing
to-morrow ; but it is eternal and immutable for all nations and for all time.[27]

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."[28] 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."[29] 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.[30]

The Renaissance Italian historian Leonardo Bruni praised Cicero as the man "who carried philosophy
from Greece to Italy, and nourished it with the golden river of his eloquence."[31] The legal culture of
Elizabethan England, exemplified by Sir Edward Coke, was "steeped in Ciceronian rhetoric."[32] The
Scottish moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson, as a student at Glasgow, "was attracted most by Cicero,
for whom he always professed the greatest admiration."[33] More generally in eighteenth-century Great
Britain, Cicero's name was a household word among educated people.[33] Likewise, "in the admiration
of early Americans Cicero took pride of place as orator, political theorist, stylist, and moralist."[34]

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."[35] Cicero's description of the immutable, eternal, and
universal natural law was quoted by Burlamaqui[36] and later by the American revolutionary legal
scholar James Wilson.[37] Cicero became John Adams's "foremost model of public service, republican
virtue, and forensic eloquence."[38] 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."[39] Thomas Jefferson "first encountered Cicero as a schoolboy while learning Latin, and
continued to read his letters and discourses throughout his life.
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."[40] Jefferson described Cicero as "the father of eloquence and philosophy."[41]

Christianity
Those who see biblical support for the doctrine of natural law often point to Abraham's interrogation of
God on behalf of the iniquitous city of Sodom. Abraham even dares to tell the Most High that his plan
to destroy the city (Genesis 18:25) would violate God’s own justice: “Can the judge of the whole earth
not himself do justice?” This almost Socratic reply became for later writers the beginnings of natural
rights theory. In this respect, natural law as described in the interaction between Abraham and God
predates the later Greek exposition of it by Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. The New Testament carries a
further exposition on the Abrahamic dialogue and links to the later Greek exposition on the subject,
when Paul's Epistle to the Romans states: "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature
the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the
work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the
meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.[42] The intellectual historian A. J. Carlyle has
commented on this passage, "There can be little doubt that St Paul's words imply some conception
analogous to the 'natural law' in Cicero, a law written in men's hearts, recognized by man's reason, a
law distinct from the positive law of any State, or from what St Paul recognized as the revealed law of
God. It is in this sense that St Paul's words are taken by the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries like
St Hilary of Poitiers, St Ambrose, and St Augustine, and there seems no reason to doubt the correctness
of their interpretation."[43]

Because of its origins in the Old Testament, early Church Fathers, especially those in the West, saw
natural law as part of the natural foundation of 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
unbroken human nature was no longer possible and men needed instead to seek healing and salvation
through the divine law and grace of Jesus Christ.

In the twelfth century, Gratian equated the natural law with divine law. Albertus Magnus would
address the subject a century later, and his pupil St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica 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.[44] 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.'[45] 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 those laws meant in the first place. This
principle laid the seed for possible societal tension with reference to tyrants.[46]

The natural law was inherently teleological, however, it is most assuredly not deontological. For
Christians, natural law is how man manifests the divine image in his life. This mimicry of God's own
life is impossible to accomplish except by means of the power of grace. Thus, whereas deontological
systems merely require certain duties be performed, Christianity explicitly states that no one can, in
fact, perform any duties if grace is lacking. For Christians, natural law flows not from divine
commands, but from the fact that man is made in God's image, man is empowered by God's grace.
Living the natural law is how man displays the gifts of life and grace, the gifts of all that is good.
Consequences are in God's hands, consequences are generally not within man's control, thus in natural
law, actions are judged by three things: (1) the person's intent, (2) the circumstances of the act and (3)
the nature of the act. The apparent good or evil consequence resulting from the moral act is not relevant
to the act itself. The specific content of the natural law is therefore determined by how each person's
acts mirror God's internal life of love. Insofar as one lives the natural law, temporal satisfaction may or
may not be attained, but salvation will be attained. The state, in being bound by the natural law, is
conceived as an institution whose purpose is to assist in bringing its subjects to true happiness. True
happiness derives from living in harmony with the mind of God as an image of the living God.
In the 16th century, the School of Salamanca (Francisco Suárez, Francisco de Vitoria, etc.) further
developed a philosophy of natural law.

After the Protestant Reformation, some Protestant denominations maintained parts of the Catholic
concept of natural law. The English theologian Richard Hooker from the Church of England adapted
Thomistic notions of natural law to Anglicanism five principles: to live, to learn, to reproduce, to
worship God, and to live in an ordered society.[47]

English jurisprudence
Heinrich A. Rommen remarked upon "the tenacity with which the spirit of the English common law
retained the conceptions of natural law and equity which it had assimilated during the Catholic Middle
Ages, thanks especially to the influence of Henry de Bracton (d. 1268) and Sir John Fortescue (d. cir.
1476)."[48] 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.[49] 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.[50] 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."[51] Bracton considered justice to be the "fountain-head" from which "all
rights arise."[52] 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.'"[53] Bracton's work was the second
legal treatise studied by the young apprentice lawyer Thomas Jefferson.[54]

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."[55] 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."[56] 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.'"[57] Fortescue
cited the great Italian Leonardo Bruni for his statement that "virtue alone produces happiness."[58]

Christopher St. Germain's Doctor and Student was a classic of English jurisprudence,[59] and it was
thoroughly annotated by Thomas Jefferson.[60] 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.[61][62]
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".[63]

Sir Edward Coke was the preeminent jurist of his time.[64] Coke's preeminence extended across the
ocean: "For the American revolutionary leaders, 'law' meant Sir Edward Coke's custom and right
reason."[65][66] Coke defined law as "perfect reason, which commands those things that are proper and
necessary and which prohibits contrary things".[67] For Coke, human nature determined the purpose of
law; and law was superior to any one man's reason or will.[68] 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.[69]

After Coke, the most famous common law jurist of the seventeenth century is Sir Matthew Hale. Hale
wrote a treatise on natural law that circulated among English lawyers in the eighteenth century and
survives in three manuscript copies.[70] This natural-law treatise has been published as Of the Law of
Nature (2015).[71]
Hale's definition of the natural law reads: "It is the Law of Almighty God given by him to Man with his
Nature discovering the morall good and moral evill of Moral Actions, commanding the former, and
forbidding the latter by the secret voice or dictate of his implanted nature, his reason, and his
concience."[72] He viewed natural law as antecedent, preparatory, and subsequent to civil
government,[73] and stated that human law "cannot forbid what the Law of Nature injoins, nor
Command what the Law of Nature prohibits."[74] He cited as authorities Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
Seneca, Epictetus, and the Apostle Paul.[75] He was critical of Hobbes's reduction of natural law to self-
preservation and Hobbes's account of the state of nature,[76] but drew positively on Hugo Grotius's De
jure belli ac pacis, Francisco Suárez's Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore, and John Selden's De
jure naturali et gentium juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum.[77]

As early as the thirteenth century, it was held that "the law of nature...is the ground of all laws"[78] and
by the Chancellor and Judges that "it is required by the law of nature that every person, before he can
be punish'd, ought to be present; and if absent by contumacy, he ought to be summoned and make
default".[79][80] 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."[81]

American jurisprudence
The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that it has become necessary for the people of the United
States to assume "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them". Some early American lawyers and judges perceived natural law as too tenuous,
amorphous and evanescent a legal basis for grounding concrete rights and governmental limitations.[6]
Natural law did, however, serve as authority for legal claims and rights in some judicial decisions,
legislative acts, and legal pronouncements.[82] 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.[83]

Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes

By the 17th century, the medieval teleological view came under intense criticism from some quarters.
Thomas Hobbes instead founded a contractarian theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree
upon: what they sought (happiness) was subject to contention, but a broad consensus could form
around what they feared (violent death at the hands of another). The natural law was how a rational
human being, seeking to survive and prosper, would act. Natural law, therefore, was discovered by
considering humankind's natural rights, whereas previously it could be said that natural rights were
discovered by considering the natural law. In Hobbes' opinion, the only way natural law could prevail
was for men to submit to the commands of the sovereign. Because the ultimate source of law now
comes from the sovereign, and the sovereign's decisions need not be grounded in morality, legal
positivism is born. Jeremy Bentham's modifications on legal positivism further developed the theory.

As used by Thomas Hobbes in his treatises Leviathan and De Cive, natural law is "a precept, or general
rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or
takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be
preserved."[84]

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, forward,
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,[85] disregarding the traditional association of virtue with happiness,[86] and likewise re-
defining "law" to remove any notion of the promotion of the common good.[87] 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";[88] 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."[89] Rejecting Cicero's view that men join in society primarily through "a certain
social spirit which nature has implanted in man,"[90]
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."[91] 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."[92]

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 Alberico Gentili,
Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf "in the triumvirate of seventeenth-century founders of the
'modern' school of natural law."[93] The eighteenth-century philosophers Shaftesbury and Hutcheson
"were obviously inspired in part by Cumberland."[94] Historian Jon Parkin likewise describes
Cumberland's work as "one of the most important works of ethical and political theory of the
seventeenth century."[95] 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."[96] In doing so, Cumberland de-emphasized the overlay of Christian dogma (in particular,
the doctrine of "original sin" and the corresponding presumption that humans are incapable of
"perfecting" themselves without divine intervention) that had accreted to natural law in the Middle
Ages.

By way of contrast to Hobbes's multiplicity of laws, Cumberland states in the very first sentence of his
Treatise of the Laws of Nature that "all the Laws of Nature are reduc'd to that one, of Benevolence
toward all Rationals."[97] 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.[98] 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."[99]
Cumberland concludes that actions "principally conducive to our Happiness" are those that promote
"the Honour and Glory of God" and also "Charity and Justice towards men."[100] Cumberland
emphasizes that desiring the well-being of our fellow humans is essential to the "pursuit of our own
Happiness."[101] 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."[102]

Liberal natural law

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Dr Alberico Gentili, the founder of the science of international 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.

Sir Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius based their philosophies of international law on natural law. In
particular, his writings on freedom of the seas and just war theory directly appealed to natural law.
About natural law itself, he wrote that "even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or
abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the
impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." (De iure belli ac pacis,
Prolegomeni XI).
This is the famous argument etiamsi daremus (non esse Deum), that made natural law no longer
dependent on theology. However, German church-historians Ernst Wolf and M. Elze disagreed and
claimed that Grotius' concept of natural law did have a theological basis.[103] In Grotius' view, the Old
Testament contained moral precepts (e.g. the Decalogue) which Christ confirmed and therefore were
still valid. Moreover, they were useful in explaining the content of natural law. Both biblical revelation
and natural law originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other.[104]

In a similar way, Samuel Pufendorf gave natural law a theological foundation and applied it to his
concepts of government and international law.[105]

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
Hobbesian contractarian 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.[106]

While Locke spoke in the language of natural law, the content of this law was by and large protective
of natural rights, and it was this language that later liberal thinkers preferred. Political philosopher
Jeremy Waldron has pointed out that Locke's political thought was based on "a particular set of
Protestant Christian assumptions."[107] To Locke, the content of natural law was identical with biblical
ethics as laid down especially in the Decalogue, Christ's teaching and exemplary life, and St. Paul's
admonitions.[108] Locke derived the concept of basic human equality, including the equality of the sexes
("Adam and Eve"), from Genesis 1, 26–28, the starting-point of the theological doctrine of Imago
Dei.[109] One of the consequences is that as all humans are created equally free, governments need the
consent of the governed.[110] 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."[111] The Lockean idea that governments need the consent of
the governed was also fundamental to the Declaration of Independence, as the American
Revolutionaries used it as justification for their separation from the British crown.[112]

The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular
conception[113] 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."[114] 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."[115] Murray Rothbard,
however, says that Gonce makes a lot of errors and distortions in the analysis of Mises's works,
including making confusions about the term which Mises uses to refer to scientific laws, "laws of
nature", saying it characterizes Mises as a natural law philosopher.[116] 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)."[117]

Economist and philosopher F. A. Hayek said that, originally, "the term 'natural' was used to describe an
orderliness or regularity that was not the product of deliberate human will. Together with 'organism' it
was one of the two terms generally understood to refer to the spontaneously grown in contrast to the
invented or designed. Its use in this sense had been inherited from the stoic philosophy, had been
revived in the twelfth century, and it was finally under its flag that the late Spanish Schoolmen
developed the foundations of the genesis and functioning of spontaneously formed social
institutions."[118] The idea that 'natural' was "the product of designing reason" is a product of a
seventeenth century rationalist reinterpretation of the law of nature. Luis Molina, for example, when
referred to the 'natural' price, explained that it is "so called because 'it results from the thing itself
without regard to laws and decrees, but is dependent on many circumstances which alter it, such as the
sentiments of men, their estimation of different uses, often even in consequence of whims and
pleasures".[119]
And even John Locke, when talking about the foundations of natural law and explaining what he
thought when citing "reason", said: "By reason, however, I do not think is meant here that faculty of
the understanding which forms traint of thought and deduces proofs, but certain definite principles of
action from which spring all virtues and whatever is necessary for the proper moulding of morals."[120]

This anti-rationalist approach to human affairs, for Hayek, was the same which guided Scottish
enlightenment thinkers, such as Adam Smith, David Hume and Adam Ferguson, to make their case for
liberty.[121] For them, no one can have the knowledge necessary to plan society, and this "natural" or
"spontaneous" order of society shows how it can efficiently "plan" bottom-up.[122] Also, the idea that
law is just a product of deliberate design, denied by natural law and linked to legal positivism, can
easily generate totalitarianism: "If law is wholly the product of deliberate design, whatever the designer
decrees to be law is just by definition and unjust law becomes a contradiction in terms. The will of the
duly authorized legislator is then wholly unfettered and guided solely by his concrete interests".[123]
This idea is wrong because law cannot be just a product of "reason": "no system of articulated law can
be applied except within a framework of generally recognized but often unarticulated rules of
justice".[124]

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."

Islamic natural law

Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, 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.[125] 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.[126]

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 (for certain Muslims) drinking alcohol were all 'evils' the human mind could
know of according to al-Maturidi. The concept of Istislah in Islamic law bears some similarities to the
natural law tradition in the West, as exemplified by Thomas Aquinas. However, whereas natural law
deems good what is self-evidently good, according as it tends towards the fulfilment of the person,
istislah calls good whatever is connected to one of five "basic goods". Al-Ghazali abstracted these
"basic goods" from the legal precepts in the Qur'an and Sunnah: they are religion, life, reason, lineage
and property. Some add also "honour". Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya also posited that human reason could
discern between 'great sins' and good deeds.[citation needed]

Brehon law
Early Irish law, An Senchus Mor (The Great Tradition) mentions in a number of places recht aicned or
natural law. This is a concept predating European legal theory, and reflects a type of law that is
universal and may be determined by reason and observation of natural action. Neil McLeod identifies
concepts that law must accord with: fír (truth) and dliged (right or entitlement). These two terms occur
frequently, though Irish law never strictly defines them. Similarly, the term córus (law in accordance
with proper order) occurs in some places, and even in the titles of certain texts.
These were two very real concepts to the jurists and the value of a given judgment with respect to them
was apparently ascertainable. McLeod has also suggested that most of the specific laws mentioned
have passed the test of time and thus their truth has been confirmed, while other provisions are justified
in other ways because they are younger and have not been tested over time[127] The laws were written
in the oldest dialect of the Irish language, called Bérla Féini [Bairla-faina], which even at the time was
so difficult that persons about to become brehons had to be specially instructed in it, the length of time
from beginning to becoming a learned Brehon was usually 20 years. Although under the law any third
person could fulfill the duty if both parties agreed, and both were sane.[128] It has been included in an
Ethno-Celtic breakaway subculture, as it has religious undertones and freedom of religious expression
allows it to once again be used as a valid system in Western Europe.[129]

Catholic natural law jurisprudence

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The Catholic Church holds the view of natural law introduced by Albertus Magnus and elaborated by
Thomas Aquinas,[130] particularly in his Summa Theologiae, and often as filtered through the School of
Salamanca. This view is also shared by some Protestants,[131] and was delineated by Anglican writer
C.S. Lewis in his works Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man.[132]

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.[133] Humans are capable of
discerning the difference between good and evil because they have a conscience.[134] 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.[135]

To know what is right, one must use one's reason and apply it to Thomas 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."[136] 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.[137]

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.

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 norm. 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 and Brazil
Emídio Brasileiro. All have tried to construct a new version of natural law. The 19th-century anarchist
and legal theorist, Lysander Spooner, was also a figure in the expression of modern natural law.

"New Natural Law" as it is sometimes called, originated with Grisez. It focuses on "basic human
goods," such as human life, knowledge, and aesthetic experience, which are self-evidently and
intrinsically worthwhile, and states that these goods reveal themselves as being incommensurable with
one another.

The tensions between the natural law and the positive law have played, and continue to play a key role
in the development of international law.[138]

See also
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most relevant links are given, that they are not red links, and that any links are not already in this
article. (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• Antigone
• Hadley Arkes
• Jean Barbeyrac
• J. Budziszewski
• Classical liberalism
• Richard Cumberland
• Francisco Elias de Tejada y Spinola
• Henry George
• Enrique Gil Robles
• International legal theory
• Land Value Taxation
• Law of the jungle
• Legal positivism
• Liberalism
• Libertarianism
• Moral realism
• Natural order
• Naturalistic fallacy
• Neo-Scholasticism
• Non-aggression principle
• Norm of reciprocity
• Objectivism (philosophy)
• Orders of creation
• Philosophy of law
• Purposive theory
• Rule of law
• Rule according to higher law
• Spontaneous order
• Substantive due process
• Thomism
• Tit for tat
• Unenumerated rights
• Universality (philosophy)
• Emerich de Vattel
• White Rose Society
• Xeer
Notes
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• • Plato, Gorgias 508a.
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• • Fortescue, John (1949). Chrimes, S. B., ed. De Laudibus Legum Anglie. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. p. l1.
• • Vinogradoff, Paul (Oct 1908). "Reason and Conscience in Sixteenth-Century Jurisprudence". The
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• • Mullett, Charles F. (1966) [1933]. Fundamental Law and the American Revolution, 1760–1776.
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• • Doctor and Student, bk. 1, ch. 5.
• • Doe, Norman (1990). Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law. Cambridge
University Press. pp. 112–13.
• • Doe, Norman (1990). Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law. Cambridge
University Press. p. 113., note 23, citing Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a, 2ae, 90, 4.
• • Sir Edward Coke, The Selected Writings and Speeches of Sir Edward Coke, ed. Steve Sheppard
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), vol. 1, p. xxvii.
• • John Phillip Reid, In a Defiant Stance: The Conditions of Law in Massachusetts Bay, The Irish
Comparison, and the Coming of the American Revolution (University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1977), 71.
• • Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1826 that before the Revolution, the first volume of
Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England "was the universal elementary book of law students, and a
sounder Whig never wrote, nor of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British
constitution, or in what were called English liberties." See The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 16,
p. 155.
• • John Underwood Lewis, "Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634): His Theory of 'Artificial Reason' as a
Context for Modern Basic Legal Theory," in Law, Liberty, and Parliament: Selected Essays on the
Writings of Sir Edward Coke, ed. Allen D. Boyer (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), pp. 108–09;
citing Edward Coke, First Part of the Institutes, 319b.
• • Lewis, "Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634): His Theory of 'Artificial Reason' as a Context for Modern
Basic Legal Theory", p. 120.
• • Sir Edward Coke, The Selected Writings and Speeches of Sir Edward Coke, ed. Steve Sheppard
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 195–97.
• • British Library, London, Add. MS 18235, fols. 41–147 [1693]; Harley MS 7159, fols. 1–266
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• • Matthew Hale, Of the Law of Nature Archived 2016-05-14 at the Wayback Machine., ed. David S.
Sytsma (CLP Academic, 2015).
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 41.
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 85–106.
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 194.
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 41, 52, 64, 150–51.
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 43, 86, 94.
• • Hale, Of the Law of Nature, 7–8, 17, 49, 63, 111–19, 192.
• • 8 Edw 4 fol. 12
• • 9 Ed. 4 fol. 14
• • Fort. 206
• • 2 B. & C. 471
• • Reid, John Phillip (1986). Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority of
Rights. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 90–91.
• • Clinton, Robert Lowry (1997). God and Man in the Law: The Foundations of Anglo-American
Constitutionalism. University Press of Kansas.
• • Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 14 (p. 64)
• • Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American
Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1992), pp. 372–73
• • A Hobbes Dictionary: "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-01-11. Retrieved
2010-05-23.
• • James R. Stoner, Jr., Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of
American Constitutionalism (Lawrence, Kansas, 1992), 71; see also John Phillip Reid, "In the Taught
Tradition: The Meaning of Law in Massachusetts-Bay Two-Hundred Years Ago," Suffolk University
Law Review 14 (1980), 938–40.
• • Thomas Hobbes, De Cive (The Citizen), ed. Sterling P. Lamprecht (New York, 1949; orig. 1642),
ch. 2, sec. 2 (p. 29).
• • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall
and Civill (Mineola, N.Y., 2006; orig. 1651), pt. 1, ch. 14 (p. 72); p. 1, ch. 13 (pp. 21, 70).
• • Cicero, De re publica (Keyes translation), bk. 1, ch. 25, sec. 39
• • Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 2, ch. 17 (p. 93)
• • Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 15 (p. 79)(emphasis in original). See also Rahe, Republics Ancient
and Modern, p. 387.
• • Knud Haakonssen, "The Character and Obligation of Natural Law according to Richard
Cumberland," in English Philosophy in the Age of Locke, ed. M.A. Stewart (Oxford, 2000), 29.
• • Haakonssen, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment
(Cambridge, 1996), 51.
• • Jon Parkin, Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland's De
Legibus Naturae (Bury St. Edmunds, United Kingdom, 1999), 8.
• • Parkin, 8.
• • Richard Cumberland, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, trans. John Maxwell (Indianapolis, 2005;
orig. 1727), "Contents" (p. 237). Cumberland's treatise was originally published in Latin in 1672. A
Latin edition was published in Germany in 1684.
• • Cumberland, ch. 1, sec. 33 (p. 356)
• • Haakonssen, "The Character and Obligation of Natural Law according to Richard Cumberland,"
pp. 34, 35.
• • Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 13 (pp. 523–24).
• • Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 12 (p. 525)
• • Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 15 (pp. 527–28).
• • Ernst Wolf, Naturrecht, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band IV
(1960), Tübingen (Germany), col. 1357
• • M. Elze, Grotius, Hugo, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3. Auflage, Band II
(1958), col. 1885
• • H. Hohlwein, Pufendorf, Samuel Freiherr von, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3.
Auflage, Band V (1961), col. 721
• • John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Second Treatise, Chapter 13, §149
• • Jeremy Waldron (2002), God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political
Thought. Cambridge University Press, p. 13
• • Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 12–15, 45–46, 95–97, 195–98, 230
• • Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 21–43
• • Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, p. 136
• • Pangle, The Spirit of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 209.
• • Cf. Robert Middlekauff (2005),The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789,
Revised and Expanded Edition, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-531588-2, pp. 49–52, 136
• • "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-12-13. Retrieved 2007-12-28.
• • Rothbard, Murray. "Natural Law Versus Positive Law". The Ethics of Liberty (PDF). p. 17.
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-11-26.
• • R. A. Gonce (Apr 1973). "Natural Law and Ludwig von Mises' Praxeology and Economic
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• • Rothbard, Murray (Summer 1980). "Ludwig von Mises and Natural Law: A Comment on
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• • Hayek, Friedrich. Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PDF). pp. 97–98. Archived from
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• • Hayek, Friedrich. Law, Legislation and Liberty (PDF). p. 21. Archived from the original (PDF) on
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• • Locke, John (1954). Essays Concerning the Law of Nature. Oxford: W. von Leyden. p. 111.
• • Hayek, Friedrich. Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PDF). pp. 98–99. Archived from
the original (PDF) on 2016-10-11.
• • Hayek, Friedrich (1991). The Trend of Economic Thinking (PDF). Routledge. pp. 22–24. Archived
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• • Hayek, Friedrich (1978). The Constitution of Liberty (PDF). The University of Chicago Press.
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• • Hayek, Friedrich. Studies In Philosophy, Politics And Economics (PDF). p. 102. Archived from the
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• • Corbin, Henry (1993) [1964]. History of Islamic Philosophy. Translated by Liadain Sherrard and
Philip Sherrard. London; Kegan Paul International in association with Islamic Publications for The
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• • Roeber, A. G. (October 2001). "What the Law Requires Is Written on Their Hearts: Noachic and
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• • Neil McLeod, The Concept of Law in Ancient Irish Jurisprudence, in "Irish Jurist" 17 (1982)
• • https://archive.org/details/ancientlaws01hancuoft
• • "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-08-24. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
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• • Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor Archived 2014-10-27 at the Wayback Machine., n. 48.
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• • International Theological Commission, The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at the
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• • Summa Theologica I–II, Q. 94, A. 2.
• • Summa Theologica I–II, Q. 94, A. 6.

138. • Prabhakar Singh, "From 'narcissistic' positive international law to 'universal' natural
international law: the dialectics of 'absentee colonialism'", African Journal of International
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External links

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