Natural Law
Natural Law is a long-standing and widely influential theory in ethics and legal philosophy. Because of its long and varied history, and the diversity of definitions of the term "natural," it is somewhat difficult to summarize exactly what makes a position or methodology one of natural law—at least in such a way as to neatly include all the positions and methodologies that have gone by that name. In attempting to establish a broad set of characteristics such a theory would have to possess in order to be considered natural law, it is useful then to look at the historical development of paradigmatic theories, paying attention to David Hume's advice that when trying to understand a discourse that employs the concept of "nature," we must consider what the concept is contextually being opposed to, and "the opposition will always discover the sense, in which it is taken" (Hume 2000, p. 305, n.).
In general, we can say that the traditional notion of natural law has held to the following four propositions: (1) morality is ultimately real and objective and is not relative in its primary truths to culture, subjective taste, or social agreement; (2) morality is somehow grounded in human nature, which is a specific part of the general order of nature, and is crucial for human happiness and flourishing; (3) the normative force and obligatoriness of morality is somehow the result of this grounding and may be understood using the terminology associated with a legal code; (4) the application of reason in examining human nature, and to some extent general nature, provides evidence for the specific content of our moral obligations.
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