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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Varignon' and 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'

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2 ideas

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / c. Natural law
Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in On the Honourable) that justice is natural and not conventional, as are the law and right reason.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.128
     A reaction: How does he explain variations in the law between different states? Presumably some of them have got it wrong. What is the criterion for deciding which laws are natural?
The order of nature does not prohibit anything, and allows whatever appetite produces [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: The order of nature, under which all human beings are born and for the most part live, prohibits nothing but what no one desires or no one can do; it does not prohibit strife or hatred or anger or anything at all that appetite foments.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.04)
     A reaction: This is as vigorous a rejection of natural law as I have met with. It is hard to see on what grounds anyone could disagree, other than hopeful sentiment.