Natural law or the law of nature (Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin, while: lex naturalis) has been described as a law whose content is set by nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic and that therefore has validity everywhere.^[1] As classically used, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law In the strictest sense, it is law made by human beings, that is, "Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society." This term is also sometimes used to refer to the legal philosophy, legal positivism, as distinct from the schools of natural law and legal realism (meaning "man-made law", not "good law"; cf. posit) of a given political community, society A Society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of, or nation-state The nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and, and thus can function as a standard by which to criticize that law.^[2] In natural law jurisprudence Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first principles of the natural law, civil law, and the law, on the other hand, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to the natural law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law synonymously with natural justice Natural justice or procedural fairness is a legal philosophy used in some jurisdictions in the determination of just, or fair, processes in legal proceedings. The concept is very closely related to the principle of natural law which has been applied as a philosophical and practical principle in the law in several common law jurisdictions, or natural right (Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many ius naturale), although most contemporary political and legal theorists separate the two.

Natural law theories have exercised a profound influence on the development of English English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countriesand the United States . It was exported to Commonwealth countries while the British Empire was established and maintained, and it forms the basis of the jurisprudence of most of those countries. English law prior to common law Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different,^[3] and have featured greatly in the philosophies Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the of Thomas Aquinas Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was an Italian priest of the Catholic Church in the Dominican Order, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis. He is frequently referred to as Thomas because "Aquinas" refers to his residence rather than his surname, Francisco Suárez Francisco Suárez was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded as having been the greatest scholastic after Thomas Aquinas.[dubious – discuss], Richard Hooker Richard Hooker was an Anglican priest and an influential theologian. Hooker's emphases on reason, tolerance and the value of tradition considerably influenced the development of Anglicanism. He was the co-founder[citation needed] (with Thomas Cranmer and Matthew Parker) of Anglican theological thought, Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory, Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot or Hugo de Groot, worked as a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet, Samuel von Pufendorf Baron Samuel von Pufendorf was a German jurist, political philosopher, economist, statesman, and historian. His name was just Samuel Pufendorf until he was ennobled in 1684; he was made a Freiherr (baron) a few months before his death in 1694. Among his achievements are his commentaries and revisions of the natural law theories of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke John Locke , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the, Francis Hutcheson, Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, and Emmerich de Vattel Emer de Vattel (April 25, 1714 – December 28, 1767) was a Swiss philosopher, diplomat, and legal expert whose theories laid the foundation of modern international law and political philosophy. He was born in Couvet in Neuchatel, Switzerland in 1714 and died in 1767 of edema. He was largely influenced in his philosophy by Gottfried Leibniz and. Because of the intersection between natural law and natural rights Legal rights are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statutes by some form of legislature (or unenumerated but implied from enumerated rights), and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs, it has been cited as a component in United States Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal and the Constitution of the United States The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the. The essence of Declarationism Declarationism is a legal philosophy that incorporates the United States Declaration of Independence into the body of case law on level with the United States Constitution. Its main proponents include Harry V. Jaffa and other members of the Claremont Institute is that the founding of the United States is based on Natural law.

History

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

Aristotle

Greek philosophy Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and logic. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception. As Alfred Whitehead once noted, with some exaggeration, "Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato." Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from 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 varied from place to place, but what was "by nature" should be the same everywhere. A "law of nature" would therefore have had the flavor more of a paradox than something which obviously existed.^[1] Against the conventionalism Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on agreements in society, rather than on external reality.[citation needed] Although this attitude is commonly held with respect to the rules of grammar, its application to the propositions of ethics, law, science, mathematics, and logic is that the distinction between nature and custom could engender, Socrates Socrates was a Classical Greek philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most and his philosophic heirs, Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a and Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most, posited the existence of natural justice Natural justice or procedural fairness is a legal philosophy used in some jurisdictions in the determination of just, or fair, processes in legal proceedings. The concept is very closely related to the principle of natural law which has been applied as a philosophical and practical principle in the law in several common law jurisdictions, or natural right (dikaion physikon, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many ius naturale). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law.^[4]

Aristotle's association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to his works by Thomas Aquinas Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was an Italian priest of the Catholic Church in the Dominican Order, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis. He is frequently referred to as Thomas because "Aquinas" refers to his residence rather than his surname.^[5] This was based on Aquinas's conflation of natural law and natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's most well-known work on ethics (Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics The Eudemian Ethics is a work of philosophy by Aristotle. Its primary focus is on Ethics. It is named for Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil of Aristotle who may also have had a hand in editing the final work. Unlike the Magna Moralia, also called the Great Ethics, thought to be a summation written by Aristotle's followers, the Eudemian Ethics is). Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of early translations of these passages,^[6] though more recent translations render them more literally.^[7] Aristotle notes that natural justice Natural justice or procedural fairness is a legal philosophy used in some jurisdictions in the determination of just, or fair, processes in legal proceedings. The concept is very closely related to the principle of natural law which has been applied as a philosophical and practical principle in the law in several common law jurisdictions, is a species of political justice, viz. the scheme of distributive Distributive justice concerns what some consider to be socially just with respect to the allocation of goods in a society. Thus, a community in which incidental inequalities in outcome do not arise would be considered a society guided by the principles of distributive justice. Allocation of goods takes into thought the total amount of goods to be and corrective justice Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders, instead of the need to satisfy the abstract principles of law or the need of the community to exact punishment. Victims are given an active role in a dispute and offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the 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 Aristotle's Politics is a work of political philosophy. The end of the Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the "philosophy of human affairs." The title of the that the best regime may not rule by law at all.^[8]

The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from the Rhetoric Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the fourth century BC. In Greek, it is titled ΤΕΧΝΗΣ ΡΗΤΟΡΙΚΗΣ, in Latin Ars Rhetorica. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled the Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on 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. The context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle advised that it could be rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the "particular" law of one's own city was averse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law;^[9] Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid, natural law provided in this passage to be wrong.^[1] Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed.

Stoic natural law

The development of this tradition of natural justice Natural justice or procedural fairness is a legal philosophy used in some jurisdictions in the determination of just, or fair, processes in legal proceedings. The concept is very closely related to the principle of natural law which has been applied as a philosophical and practical principle in the law in several common law jurisdictions, into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions. Stoics were concerned with the active. The rise of natural law as a universal system coincided with the rise of large empires and kingdoms in the Greek world.^[10] Whereas the "higher" law to which Aristotle suggested one could appeal was emphatically natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic, in contradistinction to being the result of divine Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world. The root of the words is literally "godlike" ( positive In the strictest sense, it is law made by human beings, that is, "Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society." This term is also sometimes used to refer to the legal philosophy, legal positivism, as distinct from the schools of natural law and legal realism legislation Legislation is law which has been promulgated (or "enacted") by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it. (Another source of law is judge-made law or case law.) Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under, the Stoic natural law was indifferent to the divine or natural source of the law: the Stoics asserted the existence of a rational and purposeful order to the universe (a divine Divine law is any law that in the opinion of believers, comes directly from the will of God (or a god). Like natural law (which may be seen as a manifestation of divine law) it is independent of the will of man, who cannot change it. However it may be revealed or not, so it may change in human perception in time through new revelation or eternal law Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis. He is frequently referred to as Thomas because "Aquinas" refers to his residence rather than his), and the means by which a rational being lived in accordance with this order was the natural law, which spelled out action that accorded with virtue.^[1]

As the historian A.J. Carlyle notes: "There is no change in political theory so startling in its completeness as the change from the theory of Aristotle to the later philosophical view represented by Cicero and Seneca.... We think that this cannot be better exemplified than with regard to the theory of the equality of human nature." ^[11] Charles H. McIlwain likewise observes that "the idea of the equality of men is the profoundest contribution of the Stoics to political thought" and that "its greatest influence is in the changed conception of law that in part resulted from it." ^[12]

Cicero

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists wrote in his De Legibus that both justice and law derive their origin from God.^[13] For Cicero, natural law obliges us to contribute to the general good of the larger society.^[14] 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.”^[15] Law, for Cicero, "ought to be a reformer of vice and an incentive to virtue.”^[16] 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."^[14]

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 The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus 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.”^[17] Cicero's conception of natural law "found its way to later centuries notably through the writings of Saint Isidore of Seville Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 4 April 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (the and the Decretum of Gratian The Decretum Gratiani or Concordia discordantium canonum is a collection of Canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It retained legal force in the Roman Catholic."^[18] 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.^[19]

The Renaissance Florentine chancellor Leonardo Bruni praised Cicero as the man “who carried philosophy from Greece to Italy, and nourished it with the golden river of his eloquence.”^[20] The legal culture of Elizabethan England, exemplified by Sir Edward Coke, was "steeped in Ciceronian rhetoric."^[21] The Scottish moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson, as a student at Glasgow, “was attracted most by Cicero, for whom he always professed the greatest admiration.”^[22] More generally in eighteenth-century Great Britain, Cicero's name was a household word among educated people.^[23] Likewise, "in the admiration of early Americans Cicero took pride of place as orator, political theorist, stylist, and moralist."^[24]

The libertarian English 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."^[25] Cicero's description of the immutable, eternal, and universal natural law was quoted by Burlamaqui^[26] and later by the American revolutionary legal scholar James Wilson.^[27] Cicero became John Adams’s "foremost model of public service, republican virtue, and forensic eloquence."^[28] 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."^[29] Thomas Jefferson "first encountered Cicero as a schoolboy learning Latin, and continued to read his letters and discourses as long as he lived. He admired him as a patriot, valued his opinions as a moral philosopher, and there is little doubt that he looked upon Cicero’s life, with his love of study and aristocratic country life, as a model for his own."^[30] Jefferson described Cicero as "the father of eloquence and philosophy."^[31]

Christian natural law

Paul of Tarsus wrote in his Epistle to the Romans: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, their conscience also bearing witness."^[32] The intellectual historian A.J. Carlyle has commented on this passage as follows:

"There can be little doubt that St Paul's words imply some conception analogous to the 'natural law' in Cicero, a law written in men's hearts, recognized by man's reason, a law distinct from the positive law of any State, or from what St Paul recognized as the revealed law of God. It is in this sense that St Paul's words are taken by the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries like St Hilary of Poitiers, St Ambrose, and St Augustine, and there seems no reason to doubt the correctness of their interpretation."^[33]

Some early Church Fathers, especially those in the West, sought to incorporate natural law into Christianity. The most notable among these was Augustine of Hippo, who equated natural law with man's prelapsarian state; as such, a life according to nature was no longer possible and men needed instead to seek salvation through the divine law and grace of Jesus Christ.

In the Twelfth Century, Gratian equated the natural law with and divine law. A century later, St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae I-II qq. 90-106, restored Natural Law to its independent state, asserting natural law as the rational creature's participation in the eternal law. 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.'^[34] At this point, the natural law was not only used to pass judgment on the moral worth of various laws, but also to determine what the law said in the first place. This principle laid the seed for possible societal tension with reference to tyrannts.^[35]

The natural law was inherently teleological and deontological in that although it is aimed at goodness, it is entirely focused on the ethicalness of actions, rather than the consequence. The specific content of the natural law was therefore determined by a conception of what things constituted happiness, be they temporal satisfaction or salvation. The state, in being bound by the natural law, was conceived as an institution directed at bringing its subjects to true happiness.

In the 16th century, the School of Salamanca (Francisco Suárez, Francisco de Vitoria, etc.) further developed a philosophy of natural law. After the Church of England broke from Rome, the English theologian Richard Hooker adapted Thomistic notions of natural law to Anglicanism.

English jurisprudence

Heinrich A. Rommen has observed “the tenacity with which the spirit of the English common law retained the conceptions of natural law and equity which it had assimilated during the Catholic Middle Ages, thanks especially to the influence of Henry de Bracton (d. 1268) and Sir John Fortescue (d. cir. 1476).^[36]

Charles H. McIlwain has referred to Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (On the Laws and Customs of England), as “the most important law-book of medieval England.”^[37] 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.^[38] 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.^[39] Sir Edward Coke famously quoted this point from Bracton in a face-to-face dispute with King James I.^[40][41] 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."^[42] Bracton considered justice to be the “fountain-head” from which “all rights arise.”^[43] 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.’”^[44] Bracton's work was the second legal treatise studied by the young apprentice lawyer Thomas Jefferson.^[45]

Sir John Fortescue stressed "the supreme importance of the law of God and of nature" in works that "profoundly influenced the course of legal development in the following centuries."^[46] 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."^[47] 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.’"^[48] Fortescue cited Leonardo Bruni for his statement that "virtue alone produces happiness."^[49] The prosecutor in the seventeenth-century trial of King Charles I cited Fortescue as “the most famous authority” for the doctrine that “the Kings of England are trusted with a limited power to govern by law,” and that “the King is not above the law, but the law above the King.”^[50]

Christopher St. Germain's Doctor and Student was a classic of English jurisprudence,^[51] and it was thoroughly annotated by Thomas Jefferson.^[52] 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.^[53][54] 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.”^[55]

St. Germain summarizes the law of reason as follows: "The law of reason teacheth, that good is to be loved, and evil is to be fled: also that thou shalt do to another, that thou wouldest another should do unto thee; and that we may do nothing against truth; and that a man must live peacefully with others; that justice is to be done to every man; and also that wrong is not to be done to any man; and that also a trespasser is worthy to be punished...[and that] it is lawful to put away force with force; and that it is lawful for every man to defend himself and his goods against an unlawful power."^[56] Property is an important consideration for St. Germain: "The law of secondary reason general is grounded and derived of the general law, or general custom of property… all things that be derived by reason out of the said law of property, be called the law of reason secondary general, for the law of property is generally kept in all countries."^[53]

Sir Edward Coke was the preeminent jurist of his time. As his recent editor has written, once Coke said that something was the law, almost everyone agreed.^[57] Coke's preeminence extended across the ocean: "For the American revolutionary leaders, 'law' meant Sir Edward Coke’s custom and right reason."^[58] Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison 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." ^[59]

Coke defined law as "perfect reason, which commands those things that are proper and necessary and which prohibits contrary things.”^[60] For Coke, human nature determined the purpose of law; and law was superior to any one man's reason or will.^[61] 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.^[62]

Islamic natural law

Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, an Islamic scholar and polymath scientist, understood natural law as the law of the jungle. 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.^[63] 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.^[64]

The Maturidi school, the second largest school of Sunni theology, posits the existence of a form of natural law. Abu Mansur al-Maturidi stated that the human mind could know of the existence of God and the major forms of 'good' and 'evil' without the help of revelation. Al-Maturidi gives the example of stealing which is known to be evil by reason alone due to man's working hard for his property. Killing, fornication, and drinking alcohol were all 'evils' which the human mind could know of according to al-Maturidi. The concept of Istislah in Islamic law bears some similarities to the natural law tradition in the West, as exemplified by Thomas Aquinas. However, whereas natural law deems good that which is known self-evidently to be good, according as it tends towards the fulfilment of the person, istislah calls good whatever is connected to one of five "basic goods". 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]}

Hobbes

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

As used by Thomas Hobbes in his treatises Leviathan and De Cive, natural law is "a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved."^[65]

According to Hobbes, there are nineteen Laws. The first two are expounded in chapter XIV of Leviathan ("of the first and second natural laws; and of contracts"); the others in chapter XV ("of other laws of nature").

• The first Law of nature is that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.
• The second Law of nature is that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth, as for peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.
• The third Law is that men perform their covenants made. In this law of nature consisteth the fountain and original of justice... when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust and the definition of injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust is just.
• The fourth Law is that a man which receiveth benefit from another of mere grace, endeavour that he which giveth it, have no reasonable cause to repent him of his good will. Breach of this law is called ingratitude.
• The fifth Law is complaisance: that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest. The observers of this law may be called sociable; the contrary, stubborn, insociable, froward, intractable.
• The sixth Law is that upon caution of the future time, a man ought to pardon the offences past of them that repenting, desire it.
• The seventh Law is that in revenges, men look not at the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow.
• The eighth Law is that no man by deed, word, countenance, or gesture, declare hatred or contempt of another. The breach of which law is commonly called contumely.
• The ninth Law is that every man acknowledge another for his equal by nature. The breach of this precept is pride.
• The tenth law is that at the entrance into the conditions of peace, no man require to reserve to himself any right, which he is not content should be reserved to every one of the rest. The breach of this precept is arrogance, and observers of the precept are called modest.
• The eleventh law is that if a man be trusted to judge between man and man, that he deal equally between them.
• The twelfth law is that such things as cannot be divided, be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right.
• The thirteenth law is the entire right, or else...the first possession (in the case of alternating use), of a thing that can neither be divided nor enjoyed in common should be determined by lottery.
• The fourteenth law is that those things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be adjudged to the first possessor; and in some cases to the first born, as acquired by lot.
• The fifteenth law is that all men that mediate peace be allowed safe conduct.
• The sixteenth law is that they that are at controversie, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator.
• The seventeenth law is that no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause.
• The eighteenth law is that no man should serve as a judge in a case if greater profit, or honour, or pleasure apparently ariseth [for him] out of the victory of one party, than of the other.
• The nineteenth law is that in a disagreement of fact, the judge should not give more weight to the testimony of one party than another, and absent other evidence, should give credit to the testimony of other witnesses.

Hobbes's philosophy includes a frontal assault on the founding principles of the earlier natural legal tradition,^[66] disregarding the traditional association of virtue with happiness,^[67] and likewise re-defining "law" to remove any notion of the promotion of the common good.^[68] 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"^[69]; 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."^[70] Rejecting Cicero's view that men join in society primarily through "a certain social spirit which nature has implanted in man,"^[71] 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."^[72] 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."^[73]

Cumberland's rebuttal of Hobbes

The English cleric Richard Cumberland wrote a lengthy and influential attack on Hobbes's depiction of individual self-interest as the essential feature of human motivation. Historian Knud Haakonssen has noted that in the eighteenth century, Cumberland was commonly placed alongside Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf "in the triumvirate of seventeenth-century founders of the 'modern' school of natural law."^[74] The eighteenth-century philosophers Shaftesbury and Hutcheson "were obviously inspired in part by Cumberland."^[75] Historian Jon Parkin likewise describes Cumberland's work as "one of the most important works of ethical and political theory of the seventeenth century."^[76] 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." ^[77] 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." ^[78] 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.^[79] 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."^[80] Cumberland concludes that actions "principally conducive to our Happiness" are those which promote "the Honour and Glory of God" and also "Charity and Justice towards men."^[81] Cumberland emphasizes that desiring the well-being of our fellow humans is essential to the "pursuit of our own Happiness."^[82] 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."^[83]

Liberal natural law

Liberal natural law grew out of the medieval Christian natural law theories and out of Hobbes' revision of natural law, sometimes in an uneasy balance of the two.

Hugo Grotius based his philosophy of international law on natural law. In particular, his writings on freedom of the seas and just war theory directly appealed to natural law. About natural law itself, he wrote that "even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." (De iure belli ac pacis, Prolegomeni XI). This is the famous argument etiamsi daremus (non esse Deum), that made natural law no longer dependent on theology.

John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy, especially in Two Treatises of Government. There is considerable debate about whether his conception of natural law was more akin to that of Aquinas (filtered through Richard Hooker) or Hobbes' radical reinterpretation, though the effect of Locke's understanding is usually phrased in terms of a revision of Hobbes upon Hobbesean contractualist grounds. Locke turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and property," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one.^[84]

While Locke spoke in the language of natural law, the content of this law was by and large protective of natural rights, and it was this language that later liberal thinkers preferred. Thomas Jefferson, arguably echoing Locke, appealed to unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."^[85]

The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular conception [1] of natural law in the liberal tradition. However, a secular critique of the natural law doctrine was stated by Pierre Charron in his De la sagesse (1601): "The sign of a natural law must be the universal respect in which it is held, for if there was anything that nature had truly commanded us to do, we would undoubtedly obey it universally: not only would every nation respect it, but every individual. Instead there is nothing in the world that is not subject to contradiction and dispute, nothing that is not rejected, not just by one nation, but by many; equally, there is nothing that is strange and (in the opinion of many) unnatural that is not approved in many countries, and authorized by their customs."

Contemporary Catholic understanding

The Roman Catholic Church holds the view of natural law set forth by Thomas Aquinas,^[86] particularly in his Summa Theologica, and often as filtered through the School of Salamanca. This view is also shared by some Protestant churches.^[87]

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.^[88] Humans are capable of discerning the difference between good and evil because they have a conscience.^[89] 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.^[90]

To know what is right, one must use one's reason and apply it to Aquinas' precepts. This reason is believed to be embodied, in its most abstract form, in the concept of a primary precept: "Good is to be sought, evil avoided."^[91] 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.^[92]

However, while the primary and immediate precepts cannot be "blotted out", the secondary precepts can be. Therefore, for a deontological ethical theory they are open to a surprisingly large amount of interpretation and flexibility. Any rule that helps man to live up to the primary or subsidiary precepts can be a secondary precept, for example:

• Drunkenness is wrong because it injures one's health, and worse, destroys one's ability to reason, which is fundamental to man as a rational animal (i.e. does not support self preservation).
• Theft is wrong because it destroys social relations, and man is by nature a social animal (i.e. does not support the subsidiary precept of living in society).

Natural moral law is concerned with both exterior and interior acts, also known as action and motive. Simply doing the right thing is not enough; to be truly moral one's motive must be right as well. For example, helping an old lady across the road (good exterior act) to impress someone (bad interior act) is wrong. However, good intentions don’t always lead to good actions. The motive must coincide with the cardinal or theological virtues. Cardinal virtues are acquired through reason applied to nature; they are:

1. Prudence
2. Justice
3. Temperance
4. Fortitude

The theological virtues are:

1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Charity

According to Aquinas, to lack any of these virtues is to lack the ability to make a moral choice. For example, consider a man who possesses the virtues of justice, prudence, and fortitude, yet lacks temperance. Due to his lack of self control and desire for pleasure, despite his good intentions, he will find himself swaying from the moral path.

In contemporary jurisprudence

In jurisprudence, natural law can refer to the several doctrines:

• That just laws are immanent in nature; that is, they can be "discovered" or "found" but not "created" by such things as a bill of rights;
• That they can emerge by the natural process of resolving conflicts, as embodied by the evolutionary process of the common law; or
• That the meaning of law is such that its content cannot be determined except by reference to moral principles. These meanings can either oppose or complement each other, although they share the common trait that they rely on inherence as opposed to design in finding just laws.

Whereas legal positivism would say that a law can be unjust without it being any less a law, a natural law jurisprudence would say that there is something legally deficient about an unjust law. Legal interpretivism, famously defended in the English speaking world by Ronald Dworkin, claims to have a position different from both natural law and positivism.

Besides utilitarianism and Kantianism, natural law jurisprudence has in common with virtue ethics that it is a live option for a first principles ethics theory in analytic philosophy.

The concept of natural law was very important in the development of the English common law. In the struggles between Parliament and the monarch, Parliament often made reference to the Fundamental Laws of England which were at times said to embody natural law principles since time immemorial and set limits on the power of the monarchy. According to William Blackstone, however, natural law might be useful in determining the content of the common law and in deciding cases of equity, but was not itself identical with the laws of England. Nonetheless, the implication of natural law in the common law tradition has meant that the great opponents of natural law and advocates of legal positivism, like Jeremy Bentham, have also been staunch critics of the common law.

Natural law jurisprudence is currently undergoing a period of reformulation (as is legal positivism). The most prominent contemporary natural law jurist, Australian John Finnis, is based in Oxford, but there are also Americans Germain Grisez, Robert P. George, and Canadian Joseph Boyle. All have tried to construct a new version of natural law. The 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.

See also

• Aristotle
• Thomas Aquinas
• Jean Barbeyrac
• Richard Cumberland
• Declarationism
• John Finnis
• Hugo Grotius
• Thomas Hobbes
• John Locke
• Samuel von Pufendorf
• Legal positivism
• Lysander Spooner
• Natural justice
• Natural order
• Natural rights
• Naturalistic fallacy
• Moral realism
• International legal theory
• Orders of creation
• School of Salamanca
• Spontaneous order
• Stoicism
• Substantive due process
• Unenumerated rights

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48. ^ Norman Doe, Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 49.
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52. ^ Charles F. Mullett, Fundamental Law and the American Revolution 1760-1776 (New York: Octagon Books, 1966, orig. 1933), 39.
53. ^ ^{a b} Doctor and Student, bk. 1, ch. 5.
54. ^ Norman Doe, Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 112-13.
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62. ^ Sir Edward Coke, The Selected Writings and Speeches of Sir Edward Coke, ed. Steve Sheppard (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 195-97.
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65. ^ Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 14 (p. 64)
66. ^ Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1992), pp. 372-73
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68. ^ 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.
69. ^ Thomas Hobbes, De Cive (The Citizen), ed. Sterling P. Lamprecht (New York, 1949; orig. 1642), ch. 2, sec. 2 (p. 29).
70. ^ 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).
71. ^ Cicero, De re publica (Keyes translation), bk. 1, ch. 25, sec. 39
72. ^ Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 2, ch. 17 (p. 93)
73. ^ Hobbes, Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 15 (p. 79)(emphasis in original). See also Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, p. 387.
74. ^ 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.
75. ^ Haakonssen, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1996), 51.
76. ^ Jon Parkin, Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae (Bury St. Edmunds, United Kingdom, 1999), 8.
77. ^ Parkin, 8.
78. ^ 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.
79. ^ Cumberland, ch. 1, sec. 33 (p. 356)
80. ^ Haakonssen, "The Character and Obligation of Natural Law according to Richard Cumberland," pp. 34, 35.
81. ^ Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 13 (pp. 523-24).
82. ^ Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 12 (p. 525)
83. ^ Cumberland, ch. 5, sec. 15 (pp. 527-28).
84. ^ John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Second Treatise, Chapter 13, §149
85. ^ Pangle, The Spirit of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 209.
86. ^ Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, n. 44; International Theological Commission, The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at the Natural Law, n. 37.
87. ^ A Biblical Case for Natural Law, by David VanDrunen. Studies in Christian Social Ethics and Economics, no. 1. Grand Rapids: Acton Institute, 2006.
88. ^ Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, n. 48.
89. ^ Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, n. 54 ff.
90. ^ International Theological Commission, The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at the Natural Law, n. 46.
91. ^ Summa Theologica I-II, Q. 94, A. 2.
92. ^ Summa Theologica I-II, Q. 94, A. 6.

Further reading

• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. A. K. Thomson (revised by Hugh Trennedick). New York: Penguin.
• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Joe Sachs. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing.
• Aristotle. Rhetoric.
• Aristotle. Politics.
• Barzilai, Gad. 2007. Law and Religion. International Library of Essays on Law and Society. Ashgate.
• Blackstone, William. 1765–9. Commentaries on the Laws of England.
• Burns, Tony. 2000. "Aquinas's Two Doctrines of Natural Law." Political Studies 48. Pp. 929–946.
• Finnis, John. 1980. Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Haakonssen, Knud. 1992. “Natural Law Theory.” In Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, eds. Encyclopedia of Ethics. New York: Garland.
• Haakonssen, Knud. 1996. Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Jaffa, Harry V. 1952. Thomism and Aristotelianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Kainz, Howard P. 2004. Natural Law: an Introduction and Re-examination. Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9454-6.
• "Natural Law." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York, 1968.
• Robinson, Dave & Groves, Judy. 2003. Introducing Political Philosophy. Icon Books. ISBN 1-84046-450-X.
• Raoul Muhm: Germania: La rinascita del diritto naturale e i crimini contro l´umanità. Deutschland: Die Renaissance des Naturrechts und die Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit. Germany: The renaissance of natural law and crimes against humanity. Vecchiarelli Editore Manziana (Roma) 2004 ISBN 88-8247-153-5
• Shellens, Max Salomon. 1959. "Aristotle on Natural Law." Natural Law Forum 4, no. 1. Pp. 72–100.

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
  • The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics, by Mark Murphy, 2002.
  • Aquinas' Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy, by John Finnis, 2005.
  • Natural Law Theories, by John Finnis, 2007.
• Aquinas on natural law
• Natural Law explained, evaluated and applied A clear introduction to Natural Law
• Catholic Encyclopedia "Natural Law"
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry 'Natural Law' by Kenneth Einar Himma
• Daniel Z. Epstein "Law's 'I'" 2007.
• McElroy, Wendy The Non-Absurdity of Natural Law, The Freeman, February 1998, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 108–111

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