Three Concepts of Natural Law

Miroslav Vacura

doi:10.2298/FID2203601V

Authors

Miroslav Vacura Prague University of Economics and Business, Department of Philosophy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2203601V

Keywords:

natural law, right of the strongest, self-preservation

Abstract

The concept of natural law is fundamental to political philosophy, ethics, and legal thought. The present article shows that as early as the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, three main ideas of natural law existed, which run in parallel through the philosophical works of many authors in the course of history. The first two approaches are based on the understanding that although equipped with reason, humans are nevertheless still essentially animals subject to biological instincts. The first approach defines natural law as the law of the strongest, which can be observed to hold among all members of the animal kingdom. The second conception presents natural law as the principle of self-preservation, inherent as an instinct in all living beings. The third approach, also developed in antiquity, shifts the focus to our rationality and develops the idea of natural law as the law of reason within us. Some Christian thinkers who consider the origin of reason in us to be divine, identify the law of reason inherent in us with God’s will. This paper gives a brief exposition of the development of these three concepts of natural law in philosophy, with emphasis on the intertwining of these three concepts, which we, however, understand as primarily and essentially independent. The paper concludes with an overview of twentieth-century authors who exclusively focus on only one of the three concepts. The aim of this article is to argue against these one-sided interpretations and to uphold the independence and distinctness of the three historical conceptions of natural law.

References

Adams, James Luther (1945), “The Law of Nature in Greco-Roman Thought”, The Journal of Religion 25 (2): 97–118.

Aquinas, Thomas (1920), The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas, Second and Revised Edition, London: Burns Oates & Washbourne.

Aristotle (1926a), Nicomachean Ethics, Harris Rackham (transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

—. (1926b), The Works of Aristotle, William D. Ross, A. J. Jenkinson (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Barker, Ernest (2011), Traditions of Civility: Eight essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Boyle, Joseph M. (2020), Natural Law Ethics in Theory and Practice: A Joseph Boyle Reader, John J. Liptay, Christopher Tollefsen (eds.), Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

Brower, René (2008), “On the Ancient Background of Grotius’s Notion of Natural Law”, Grotiana 29 (1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1163/187607508X384661

Chotaš, Jiří (2019), “Justification of the State: Kant and Hegel”, in Christian Krijnen (ed.), Concepts of Normativity: Kant or Hegel?, Leiden: pp. 157–176.

Cicero (1999), On the Commonwealth: And, On the Laws, James E. G. Zetzel (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—. (2001), On Moral Ends, Julia Annas, Raphael Woolf (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Colman, John (1972), “Bernard Mandeville and the Reality of Virtue”, Philosophy 47 (180): 125–139.

D’Entreves, Alessandro Passerin (1951), Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy, Plymouth: The Mayflower Press.

Dworkin, Ronald (1977), Taking Rights Seriously: New Impression with a Reply to Critics, London: Duckworth.

Finnis, John (2011), Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Freeman, Kathleen (1983), Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Walther Kranz, Herman Diels, (eds.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fuller, Lon L. (1964), The Morality of Law, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

George, Robert P. (2001), In Defense of Natural Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gotthelf, Allan S. (2000), On Ayn Rand, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.

Grant, Frederick C. (1915), “St. Paul and Stoicism”, The Biblical World 45 (5): 268–281. Grisez, Germain G. (1969), “The First Principle of Practical Reason”, in Anthony Kenny (ed.), Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 340–382. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15356-5_16

Grisez, Germain G.; Ford, John C. (1978), “Contraception and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium”, Theological Studies 39 (2): 258–312. https://doi. org/10.1177/004056397803900202

Grotius, Hugo (1625), De Iure Belli ac Pacis, Jean Barbeyrac.

—. (2005), The Rights of War and Peace, Jean Barbeyrac, Richard Tuck (eds.), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Haakonssen, Knud (1996), Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hart, Herbert Lionel Adolphus (1961), The Concept of Law, London: Clarendon Press. Henderson, T. Y. (1970) “In Defense of Thrasymachus”, American Philosophical Quarterly 7 (3): 218–228.

Himma, Kenneth E. (1998), “Functionalism and Legal Theory: The Hart/Fuller Debate Revisited”, De Philosophia 14 (2): pp. 211–232.

Hittinger, Russell (2008), A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Hobbes, Thomas (1994), Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668, Edwin M. Curley (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co.

Jaeger, Werner (1939), Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Volume I: Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens, Gilbert Highet (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kahn, Charles H. (1974), “Anaximander’s Fragment: The Universe Governed by Law”, in Alexander P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, Norwell, MA: Anchor Press, pp. 99–117.

Kainz, Howard P. (2004), Natural Law: An Introduction and Re-Examination, Chicago: Open Court.

Kassel, Rudolf; Austin, Colin (1984), Poetae Comici Graeci III.2: Aristophanes Testimonia et Fragmenta, Berlin: De Gruyter, (internet) available at: http:// public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4001865 (viewed 28 April, 2022).

Klosko, George (1984), “Thrasymachos’ Eristikos: The Agon Logon in ‘Republic’ I”, Polity 17 (1): 5–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/3234477

Lisska, Anthony J. (2002), Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Locke, John (1979), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—. (2008), Questions Concerning the Law of Nature, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

—. (2012), Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mandeville, Bernard (1988), The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Frederick Benjamin Kaye (ed.), Indianapolis: Liberty Classics.

McInerny, Ralph (1997), Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

—. (2012), Aquinas on Human Action: A Theory of Practice, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

Montague, William P. (1950), Great Visions of Philosophy: Varieties of Speculative Thought in the West from the Greeks to Bergson, Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing Company.

Nederman, Cary J. (2017), “Introduction”, in Alexander Passerin d’Entreves, Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy, Cary J. Nederman (ed.), New Jersey, Transaction Publishers, pp. 13–21.

Nietzsche, Friedrich W. (1996), “The Wanderer and His Shadow”, in Reginald J. Hollingdale (ed.), Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 301–395. https://doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9780511812057.018

—. (1997), Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, Maudemarie Clark, Brian Leiter (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi. org/10.1017/CBO9780511812040

—. (2007). On the Genealogy of Morality, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Carol Diethe (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—. (2021). The Case of Wagner, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Dionysus Dithyrambs, Nietzsche contra Wagner, Alan Del Caro et al. (eds.), Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.

Plato (1966a), “Gorgias”, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Robert G. Bury (transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. III, pp. 247–533.

—. (1966b), “Laws”, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Robert G. Bury (transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. IX, pp. 3-501, vol. X, pp. 3–569.

—. (1966c), “Republic”, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Robert G. Bury (transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. V, pp. 2-535, vol. VI, pp. 2–522.

Plutarch (1936), Moralia, Volume IV, Frank C. Babbitt (transl.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

—. (2000), Moralia. Volume XIII, Pt. 1. Platonic Essays, Harold Cherniss (ed.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Polansky, David (2015), “Nietzsche on Thucydidean Realism”, The Review of Politics 77 (3): 425–448.

Pollock, Frederick (1900), “The History of the Law of Nature: A Preliminary Study”, Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation 2 (3): 418–433.

Pufendorf, Samuel (1934), De jure naturae et gentium libri octo, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—. (1994), The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf, Craig Carr (ed.), Michael J. Seidler (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—. (2009), Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, Thomas Behme (ed.), William A. Oldfather (trans.), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Rand, Ayn (1964), “The Objectivist Ethics”, in Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, New York: New American Library, pp. 13–39.

Sensen, Oliver (2013), Kant on Moral Autonomy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Storey, Ian C. (1988), “Thrasymachos at Athens: Aristophanes fr. 205 (‘Daitales’)”, Phoenix 42 (3): 212–218. https://doi.org/10.2307/1088344

Suárez, Francisco (1872), De legibus, ac Deo legislatore, Neapoli: Ex Typis Fibrenianis.

Thucydides (1919), History of the Peloponnesian War, Charles F. Smith (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tolonen, Mikko (2013), Mandeville and Hume: Anatomists of Civil Society, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

Vacura, Miroslav (2011), “Přirozený zákon ve filosofii 20. Století a jeho zdroje”, E-Logos – Electronic Journal for Philosophy, 17 (23).

—. (2020), “Theory of Pride in Mandeville’s Philosophy”, in Miroslav Vacura (ed.), Beyond the State and the Citizen, Prague: Prague University of Economics and Business, Oeconomica Publishing House, pp. 260–276.

Veatch, Henry B. (1990), Swimming Against the Current in Contemporary Philosophy: Occasional Essays and Papers, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

Wassermann, Felix M. (1947), “The Melian Dialogue”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 78: 18–36. https://doi. org/10.2307/283480.

Weinreb, Lloyd L. (1987), Natural Law and Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Westerman, Pauline C. (1998), The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory: Aquinas to Finnis, Leiden: Brill.

Young, John D. (1959), “Mandeville: A Popularizer of Hobbes”, Modern Language Notes, 74 (1): 10–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/3040096.