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2 ideas
20856 | 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? |
19916 | 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. |