The concept of natural law
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The concept of natural law was first developed in the Greek world and has been carried through to the present day. There are a number of different approaches to this concept. The Graeco-Roman tradition held that there was a natural law that was accessible to mankind through reason. Christian theorists adopted aspects of Cicero's Stoic philosophy, an example of natural law, because of its emphasis on moral content. The Christian legal philosophy that developed was in many ways a fusion between the fundamental Christian teachings and the adapted teachings of the Stoics (Kelly 102). Most recently, the idea of natural law stands in opposition to the positivist school. Natural law requires a minimal moral content as a prerequisite for viewing something as in contravention of the law, while the positivist school holds that the law is whatever the state (in whatever form that exists) says it is. The concept of the natural law has the advantage of being based on something immutable, though admittedly morality may differ somewhat from one society to another. Yet the fact that Christian doctrine and Stoic doctrine can unify around certain legal issues demonstrates how moral dictates can be transcendent and can serve as guides that stand more readily than do the temporary whims of individual rulers or states. In the medieval world, natural law is represented by Thomas Aquinas, while the opposing force is ably recounted by Machiavelli. Machiavelli in The Prince seems to suggest
. . .
oes Machiavelli, and clearly he has a very different emphasis and a very different sense of the origin of virtue, the necessity to keep virtue, and the value of virtue in and of itself and not as a means of control or as a means to an end. Aquinas speaks of human behavior in terms of habits and asks whether habits are bad or good and what makes them that way. Aquinas talks of power in a different context than does Machiavelli and says that virtue is a perfection of power. Perfection is considered in terms of the action's end, and the end of power is act. Power is thus said to be perfect according to the action it engenders.
Aquinas explains this by noting that there are two kinds of power, the power in reference to being and the power in reference to act. Aquinas divides the essence of the human being into body and soul, into the body that man has in common with other animals and the soul which includes the rational forces that are peculiar to man. Human virtue is something that the animals cannot possess, and therefore it belongs to the soul and not to the body. Human virtue thus does not refer to being but to act, and human virtue is thus an operative habit.
The idea that laws require moral content is carried forth
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Joel Feinberg, Hobbes Rousseau, Rights Seriously, Prince Machiavelli, Stoics Kelly, Aquinas Machiavelli, natural law, , Cicero's Stoic, Machiavelli Prince, Westview Press, concept natural, concept natural law, moral content, ronald dworkin, press 1994, law requires, human virtue, ronald dworkin ed, morality harm, harm law, ed boulder colorado, legal theory, dworkin ed boulder, harm law ronald,
Approximate Word count = 1693
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
More Essays on The concept of natural law
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
