Natural Law
The tradition that grounds positive law in objective moral order accessible to human reason—and ultimately in divine eternal law.
Core Claims
Natural law makes several key claims that distinguish it from legal positivism. These claims are philosophically defensible and practically necessary.
Without natural law, we cannot explain why some laws are unjust, why human rights are inalienable, or why 'I was following orders' is not a defense.
- Objective Morality: Moral truths are real and knowable by reason. They are not mere preferences or cultural conventions.
- Human Nature: Morality is grounded in human nature and its proper flourishing. What is good for humans is determined by what humans are.
- Universal Application: Natural law applies to all humans regardless of culture or positive law. It is not Western imperialism but human universalism.
- Basic Goods: Finnis identifies basic goods—life, knowledge, friendship, play, aesthetic experience, practical reasonableness, religion—that ground natural law.
Theistic Grounding
Natural law finds its ultimate foundation in God. While natural law can be known by reason, it is grounded in divine eternal law.
Aquinas distinguished four types of law: eternal law (God's reason), natural law (human participation in eternal law), human law (positive law), and divine law (revelation). All are ordered hierarchically.
- Eternal Law: Natural law participates in God's eternal law—the divine reason ordering all things. The Logos grounds the moral order.
- Created Nature: Human nature is designed by God—its proper function reflects divine intention. We are made for certain ends.
- Moral Realism: Objective moral truths are grounded in God's nature and will. Divine command theory and natural law are complementary.
- Convergent Epistemology: Reason and revelation converge on the same moral truths. Natural law and Scripture agree because both come from God.