Natural Law

and Human
Rights
Theory
 Thomas
Cicero Aquinas John Locke
(106 BC) (circa (1632)
1225)
 Marcus Tullius Cicero
Born: January 3, 106 BC
Died: December7, 43 BC (age 63)
- Defender of the RomanRepublic
- a Roman orator, lawyer, statesman
and philosopher.
- He wrote on what he believed to be the ideal
form of government.
- In 56, he wrote 2 important books on
government. - *The Law
*The Republic
In The Laws , Cicero explored
his concept of natural law. Law
is the highest reason. He wrote
implanted in nature w/c
commands and forbids the
opposite. Thus natural is the
guide for right and wrong in
human affairs
 In the Republic, he argued
that
laws are not enough for a just
state.
There also must liberty.
 Natural Law – The
History
The Greeks -- Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle
emphasized the distinction
between "nature" (physis,
φъσις) and "law," "custom," or
"convention" (nomos, νуμος).
What the law commanded
varied from place to place,
but what was "by nature"
should be the same
everywhere.
 Aristotle (BC 384—
322)
-is considered by many to be the
father of “natural law.” In
Rhetoric, he argues that aside from
“particular” laws that each people
has set up for itself, there is a
“common law” or “higher law” that
is according to nature (Rhetoric
1373b2–8).
Centuries later, St. Thomas
would express this same
notion by saying that if our
natures were different, our
moral obligations would be
different.
For over two thousand years, the
greatest minds in Western
culture agreed that there are
universal laws bases on human
nature against which the laws of
a particular king or ruler or
legislature have to be judged.
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 be role that
morality plays in determining the
authority of legal norms.
ST. THOMAS OF AQUINAS
ON THE NATURAL LAW
ST. THOMAS OF
AQUINAS
 1225-1274
He lived in Dark
Ages

• Saint, Philosopher,
Priest
• Italian Dominican
theologian
• one of the most
influential medieval
thinkers of
Scholasticism
• The father of the
Thomistic school of
theology.
St. Thomas of Aquinas returns to
the view that natural law is an
independent reality within a
system of human reason
approaching (but never fully
comprehending) God’s eternal
law (and thus needing
supplementation by God’s divine
law).
  Law is a dictate of
reason from the ruler
for the community he
rules.
 Click icon to add picture

Eternal law

is the ideal type and order of the

universe (kosmos) pre-existing in
the mind of God 
 Natural law
It is evident that all things partake
somewhat of the eternal law, in so far
as, namely, from its being imprinted
on them... Wherefore it (human
nature) has a share of the Eternal
Reason, whereby it has a natural
inclination to its proper act and end:
and this participation of the eternal
law in the rational creature is called
the natural law."
 Click icon to add picture

Human law

refers to “the more particular

determinations of certain matters
devised by human reason
 Divine law
refers to Special Revelation -- the will of
God as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments. This law was
necessary for four reasons: (1) humans need
explicit divine guidance on how to perform
proper acts; (2) uncertainty of human
judgment needs a check; (3) humans need
divine insight on issues on which they are
not competent to judge; and (4) it proves
that God will punish some deeds that even
go beyond the ability of human law to
punish.