JURISPRUDENCE- NATURAL LAW THEORY

Sreenidhi KR
WHY STUDY LEGAL PHILOSOPHY?

 Argumentation
 Critique (Reason)
 Analysis

helps in studying(understanding), interpreting,

enforcing and even making the law
WHAT IS LAW?
“we enquire into the meaning of words so that we
can better orientate ourselves in the practical
tasks of life”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

“What is Law?”
WHAT IS LAW?
A concept?
A process?
A social phenomenon?
A way of thinking?
An ability?
An attitude?
All or a combination of many of these or more?
MANY PHILOSOPHERS – MANY THEORIES
 Natural– Reason
 Positive – Command – Soverign – Obedience
 Historical
 Sociological
 Pure
 Critical
And many many more...
 NATURAL LAW THEORY
LAW AS A DICTATE OF REASON
CLASSIFICATION

 Ancient
 Medival

 Classical

 Modern
ANCIENT GREECE

Hesiod
Homer
The oracle of Delphi
ANCIENT GREECE -
for it was not Zeus that had published me that edict;
not such are the laws set among men by the justice
who dwells with the gods below; nor deemed I that
thy decrees were of such force, that a mortal could
override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of
heaven. For their life is not of to-day or yesterday, but
from all time, and no man knows when they were
first put forth.
THE CHANGE

 Antiphon
 Physis – Nature – Necesscary – Inexorable
 Inviolable

 Nomos – Man made – Human arbitrariness

 No punishment if undetected
SOPHISTS

 The Right of the strong – Callicles

 Right is Might – Thrasymachus

SOCRATES AND PLATO
SOCRATES AND PLATO – THE CAVE
SOCRATES AND PLATO
ARISTOTLE
 deep and pragmatic understanding of human nature

 Plato’s conception of justice demanded exceptional nobility from

individuals which is the antithesis of average human nature.

 man as a part of nature, as an animal endowed with one strikingly

unique feature: Rationality.

 best of animals - segregation from laws

 Worst - when segregated from laws
..
...
THE DARK AGES – ST AUGUSTINE
 Sometimes representative of the fact that this
was a period of intellectual darkness and
barbarity.
 Marked by a superimposition of the Church on
the State
 St. Augustine, St. Ambrose and St. Gregory
were among the fore-runners
THE DARK AGES
 idea of sin based on a violation of moral
precepts mentioned in the Scriptures.
 human institutions become necessary only
when men fail to adhere to Christian values
and therefore, human institutions like
government, slavery, property, etc. are nothing
but a product of sin
THE DARK AGES
 human institutions can never become good but it
is the task of the Church to ensure that human
laws are tested, verified and adjusted to eternal
Christian principles
 the absolute ideal of ‘law of nature’ had been
realised in a golden age of mankind when human
beings lived in a state of holiness, innocence and
justice.
THE DARK AGES

 Lex Aterna
 Lex Temporalis
THE MIDDLE AGES

 an honest attempt to rescue the body of legal

rules and principles from chains of Orthodoxy
imposed by the Church in the Dark Ages.
THE MIDDLE AGES – ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

four different kinds of Law:

 the eternal,

 the natural,

 the divine,

 the human law.

THE MIDDLE AGES – ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
“divine reason and wisdom directing all movements and
actions in the universe.”

According to Aquinas, Natural Law is the voice of

Reason in man which dictates him to distinguish
between good and evil. To the question of determination
of good and evil, Aquinas was of the opinion that
everything that man was naturally inclined to do was
good and the converse of it was evil.
The former constitutes Natural Law
THE CLASSICAL THEORIES

Hugo Grotius –
THE CLASSICAL THEORIES

Thomas Hobbes –
THE CLASSICAL THEORIES

John Locke–
THE CLASSICAL THEORIES
Jean Jaques Rosseau–
"Man is born free, and
everywhere he is in
chains. Those who
think themselves the
masters of others are
indeed greater slaves
than they."