more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 6216

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

Full Idea

Natural law is certain propositions of immutable truth, which guide voluntary actions about the choice of good and avoidance of evil, and which impose an obligation to act, even without regard to civil laws, and ignoring compacts of governments.

Clarification

'Immutable' means can't be changed

Gist of Idea

Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society

Source

Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I)

Book Ref

'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.79

A Reaction

Not a popular view, but I am sympathetic. If you are in a foreign country and find a person lying in pain, there is a terrible moral deficiency in anyone who just ignores such a thing. No legislation can take away a person's right of self-defence.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [laws arising from the natural state of mankind]:

5246 Natural justice is the same everywhere, and does not (unlike legal justice) depend on acceptance [Aristotle]
20856 Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
3561 Stoics originated the concept of natural law, as agreed correct reasoning [Stoic school, by Annas]
22114 Tyrannical laws are irrational, and so not really laws [Aquinas]
22113 Right and wrong actions pertain to natural law, as perceived by practical reason [Aquinas]
23174 Natural law is a rational creature's participation in eternal law [Aquinas]
19897 Human laws must accord with the general laws of Nature [Hooker,R]
22133 Grotius and Pufendorf based natural law on real (rather than idealised) humanity [Grotius, by Ford,JD]
7406 A natural right of self-preservation is balanced by a natural law to avoid unnecessary harm [Grotius, by Tuck]
20484 We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
6225 Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth]
6216 Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society [Cumberland]
19916 The order of nature does not prohibit anything, and allows whatever appetite produces [Spinoza]
19868 It is only by a law of Nature that we can justify punishing foreigners [Locke]
7574 Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley]
19959 Prior to positive laws there is natural equity, of obedience, gratitude, dependence and merit [Montesquieu]
19960 Sensation gives animals natural laws, but knowledge can make them break them [Montesquieu]
19750 Writers just propose natural law as the likely useful agreements among people [Rousseau]
7245 Natural justice, without sanctions, benefits the wicked, who exploit it [Rousseau]
7591 Kant completed Grotius's project of a non-religious basis for natural law [Scruton on Kant]
20933 Natural law theorists fear that without morality, law could be based on efficiency [Zimmermann,J]
20610 Instead of against natural law, we might assess unjust laws against the values of the culture [Tuckness/Wolf]