Single Idea 5246

[catalogued under 25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / c. Natural law]

Full Idea

There are two sorts of political justice, one natural and the other legal; the natural is that which has the same validity everywhere and does not depend upon acceptance.

Gist of Idea

Natural justice is the same everywhere, and does not (unlike legal justice) depend on acceptance

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1134b18)

Book Reference

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.189


A Reaction

This I take to be the germ out of which Aquinas developed more fully the idea of 'natural law'. This remark is strong counterevidence that Aristotle was not merely describing convention in his theory of the virtues.