Abstract
Remarks on the uniformity of natural law concepts in the history of legal philosophy
Highlights
The aim of this paper is to investigate different meanings of the concept of natural law in the history of ideas since the early Greeks
Natural law is generally-speaking linked with human equality, it appears from this investigation that sometimes in antiquity, natural law is invoked to underpin human inequality
We find that the link between natural law and human equality is most often maintained, but on the other hand we find invocations of natural law to justify societal exclusion
Summary
15; De Romilly 1989: 114. 15 In this train of thought Überweg-Praechter 1926: 127; see Hoffmann 1997: 111ff. Callicles’s philosophy is considered here to be “wrong and untrue” This has led us to look into a text of Ulpian which demonstrates that the contrast between true and false philosophy is important. 4. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle in turn deals with the contrast between nomos and physis and as such he endeavours to give an argumentation for the definition that has become the standard for the unchangeable Natural Law: Aristoteles Ethica Nicomacheia V 7 1-3 1134 b 19-27. Τοῦ δὲ πολιτικοῦ δικαίου τὸ μὲν φυσικόν ἐστὶ τὸ δὲ νομικόν, φυσικὸν μὲν τὸ πανταχοῦ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχον δύναμιν, καὶ οὐ τῷ δοκεῖν ἢ μή, νομικὸν δὲ ὃ ἐξ ἀρχῆς μὲν οὐθὲν διαφέρει οὕτως ἢ ἄλλως, ὅταν δὲ θῶνται, διαφέρει, οἷον τὸ μνᾶς λυτροῦσθαι, ἢ τὸ αἶγα θύειν ἀλλα μὴ δύο πρόβατα, ἔτι ὅσα ἐπὶ τῶν καθ’ἕκαστα νομοθετοῦσιν, οἷον τὸ θύειν Βρασίδᾳ, καὶ τὰ ψηφισμαώδη. 17 Here we are at the origin of the distinction in common law between mala per se and mala prohibita, see Thomas Aq, Summa Theologiae, q 100, a 3
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