Natural law

The natural law or law of nature is a system of justice that exists independently of the positive law of a given political order. Its usage has varied through its history. It currently has a meaning in both moral theory and legal theory, despite the fact that the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. According to natural law ethical theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings or the cosmos in general. According to natural law legal theory, the authority of at least some legal standards necessarily derives, at least in part, from considerations having to do with the moral merit of those standards.

Related Topics:
Positive law - Moral theory - Legal theory

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In the philosophy of natural law, the idea that the concepts of law and morality intersect in some way is called the "overlap thesis".

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There are a number of different theories of natural law, differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms. This article will deal with its usages separately rather than attempt to give a single concept that ties them all together.

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