Natural Rights, Natural Law & Natural Justice — A Theoretical Construct

Abstract

Natural Rights and Natural Law are concepts well-known to political theory and legal discourse. Natural Justice, as used here, is a less-common concept but still integral to its better-known associates. This essay is an attempt to construct a theoretical framework for these concepts — to demonstrate the essential character of each and the interaction between them in embryotic, untarnished society. It endeavors to explore the origin and character of each, and then their particular attributes. More mature society, however, later determined that the introduction of Positive Law (in the sense first employed by St. Thomas Aquinas) was necessary. The essay then concludes with an exploration of the role and limitations upon Positive Law. This essay is intended neither to be exhaustive nor to explore the tenets of these concepts as developed by its classic expositors. Rather, it was intended to provide a possible new perspective upon these concepts and to be utilized in understanding better the philosophical background of another essay by the author, of which these concepts were basic premises, and essential to the perspective, of it. For in its following form it was first included as an appendix to the author's Interstice Amid the Fabric of Life/Volume 1: The State of Primordial Mankind. Consequently, as it was not initially composed as an independent essay, its deficiencies may be obvious; further consideration and development of it would seem to be propitious. Nevertheless, this discussion is tendered as a possible modest contribution to the literature upon these issues.