But it is an abuse of the term natural law to use it to designate the impulses that govern the behavior of animals; for they have no use of reason, and are therefore incapable of perceiving a law or justice. To begin with, it is important to distinguish two types of theory known as natural law. The first is a theory of morality, which is roughly characterized by the following theses. First, moral propositions have what is sometimes called objective, in the sense that such statements carry the value of objective truth; That is, moral statements can be objectively true or false. Although moral objectivism is sometimes equated with moral realism (see, for example, Moore 1992, 190: “The truth of any moral statement lies in its conformity with a moral reality independent of spirit and convention”), the relationship between the two theories is disputed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (1988), for example, views moral objectivism as a kind of moral realism, but not as the only form; According to Sayre-McCord, moral subjectivism and moral intersubjectivism are also forms of moral realism. Strictly speaking, the moral theory of natural law is therefore engaged only in the objectivity of moral norms. The means of distinguishing what is just or unjust, or what natural law commands, are 1. an instinct or a kind of inner feeling that inclines us to certain actions or distances us from them; 2.
The reason that confirms our instincts; it develops principles and draws conclusions from them; 3. the will of God which, when known to man, becomes his supreme rule. Ronald Dworkin`s so-called third legal theory is best understood as a response to legal positivism, which essentially consists of three theoretical obligations: the social fact thesis, the conventionality thesis, and the separability thesis. The social fact thesis asserts that it is necessary that legal validity should ultimately be a function of certain types of social facts; The idea here is that what ultimately explains the validity of a law is the existence of certain social facts, in particular formal promulgation by a legislator. Again, it must be emphasized that Finnis is careful to deny that there is a necessary moral test of legal validity: “My view of the nature and purpose of explanatory definitions of theoretical concepts would simply be misunderstood if one were to assume that my definition `excludes as non-laws` laws that are not or not fully fulfilled, one or another element of the definition” (Finnis, 1980, p. 278). Examples of positive law include rules such as the speed at which individuals are allowed to drive on the highway and the age at which individuals can legally purchase alcohol. Ideally, when drafting positive legislation, governing bodies should base it on their sense of natural law. But there is another type of theory of natural law that has to do with the relationship between morality and law. According to natural law theory, there is no clear separation between the concept of law and the concept of morality. Although there are different versions of the theory of natural law, they all subscribe to the thesis that there are at least some laws that depend for their “authority” not on a pre-existing human convention, but on the logical relationship in which they stand with moral norms.
Otherwise, some norms are authoritative because of their moral content, even though there is no convention that makes moral merit a criterion of legal validity. The idea that the concepts of law and morality overlap in some way is called the overlap thesis. In the first part, which deals with the general principles of law, he first defines the natural law and then situates the principles of this science in nature and in the condition of man; it examines various acts, particularly those that are the subject of the Act; He explains that understanding naturally seeks truth, that its perfection consists in the knowledge of the truth, and that ignorance and error are two stumbling blocks to this knowledge. In any case, conceptual analysis of law remains an important, albeit controversial, project in contemporary legal theory. Conceptual theories of law have traditionally been characterized in terms of their attitude toward the overlap thesis. Thus, conceptual legal theories have traditionally been divided into two main categories: those such as natural law theory, which claim that there is a conceptual relationship between law and morality, and those such as legal positivism, which deny such a relationship. Like Finnis, Lon Fuller (1964) rejects the conceptual naturalistic idea that there are substantial moral constraints necessary on the content of law. But Fuller, unlike Finnis, believes that the law is necessarily subject to procedural morality.
According to Fuller, human activity is necessarily goal-oriented or goal-oriented in the sense that people engage in a particular activity because it helps them achieve a goal. To the extent that human activity is essentially useful, according to Fuller, some human activities can only be understood in terms related to their goals and objectives. Thus, since legislation is essentially a useful activity, it can only be understood in terms that explicitly recognize its essential values and goals: the rest of this work concerns mainly the laws of war, and thus the law of peoples and the science of politics. However, some sections may also be related to natural law; such as questions of self-defence, the rights common to all peoples, the first acquisition of things and other means of acquiring them; paternal power, marriage, body or communities, the power of rulers over their subjects and masters over their slaves; the ownership and disposal of sovereign States; legal succession, promises and contracts; oaths and oaths and promises of sovereigns, public procurement that the sovereign himself or without his consent has unjustly caused damage and the obligations arising therefrom; embassy law, funeral law, penalties and how they are administered. In summary, we conclude that everything we achieve, from the simple act of digestion to putting a man on the moon, we achieve through the skillful application of natural law. Conversely, as we will see below, everything we fail to achieve is due to the failure of the effective application of natural law. The important things that [conceptual naturalism] is supposed to allow us (e.g., evaluate the law morally and determine our moral obligations in relation to the law) are actually complicated by breaking the distinction between morality and law. If we really want to look at law from a moral point of view, it can obscure the task if we consider that law and morality are essentially linked. Moral criticism and legal reform may be supported by initial moral skepticism of the law.
Every wink, every breath, every heartbeat is determined by natural law. Natural law is as familiar to us as life itself. Self-love is the basis of the natural laws that concern us. But Thomas Aquinas is also a theorist of natural law. According to him, a human law (that is, what is proclaimed by men) is valid only to the extent that its content corresponds to the content of the natural law; As Thomas Aquinas says, “Human law has as much of the nature of law as natural law. But if it departs from the natural law in any respect, it is no longer a law, but a perversion of the law” (ST. I-II, Q.95, A.II). To paraphrase Augustine`s famous remark, an unjust law is really not a law at all. It would not be appropriate for man to live in the absence of rules: a rule presupposes a goal; Man`s goal is to work for his own happiness; This is the system of providence; It is a desire which, for man, is essential and inseparable from reason, which is the fundamental rule for humanity.
We rely on natural law. Everything we achieve is achieved by stimulating and supporting the laws of nature, from the most advanced technologies that use the fundamental laws of nature at the electronic and nuclear levels, to the most mundane acts such as eating, which uses countless laws that regulate metabolism and digestion. Science has also learned that not only do these different levels differ in very different time and distance scales, but each level of the physical universe has its own laws. For example, early attempts to understand the atom were based on planetary models, with the massive sun corresponding to the heavy nucleus and planets in their electron-like orbits. At that time, it seemed natural and intuitive that the same fundamental laws of nature also applied at very different scales.