Natural Law and Legal Positivism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Natural Law and Legal Positivism - Essay Example Natural law applies to theories of ethics, politics, civil law, and theories of religious morality. Natural law as it applies to the theories of ethics, seeks to establish a definition for features of moral theory as nature dictates them. However, natural law theory does not recount on the history of the natural law development thought. Natural law theory finds its definition in ethics (Murphy 654). Any moral theory that relates to the natural law theory belongs to Aquinas. Every ethics analogy that includes material on natural law theory is definitely by Aquinas. It is therefore arguable that Aquinas natural law theory is the centre stage of a natural law position. The theory of natural law ascribes the origin of law to the supreme God. Natural law is a divine providence that originates from God himself. Natural law is therefore part of the theory of divine providence. At the point of view of human role as a recipient of this God's provision, natural law is a product of the principles of practical rationality (Waluchow 179). These are the principles that set judgment of the human actions either as reasonable or as unreasonable. Natural law is a preeminent of the theory of practical rationality. Practicing natural law is a participation in the eternal law. Eternal law is the rational plan that presents the ordinance of all creation. Therefore, natural law attains its quality as law from this base. The practice of natural law binds naturally. To learn natural law does not call for human methods of instruction (Waluchow 179). Humans learn the precepts of natural law naturally. Natural law judges between good and evil, maintaining that, people should do only good things and avoid the evil ones at all cost. Natural law is unique in itself in that, it does not fall into the contemporary categories for moral theories. On interesting feature of natural law is that, it is hard to tell when an ethics analogy ceases to be a natural! Natural laws are intact and cannot be broken or enforced. On the other hand, legal positivism is the theory that maintains that the existence and the content of law depend sharply on the social facts but not on its merits (George 31). The theory does not state that the law's merits are incomprehensible, insignificant, or marginal to the philosophy of law. It rather discourages the thought that the law's merits can determine whether the law or legal systems exist. The impact of any law in any particular place depends on the social standards that are in recognition as authoritative by the officials of the law. For instance, if the legislature enacts, judicial system decide, or social customs declare an act to be a law, then it becomes a law. According to legal positivism, law is anything that the society in question posits. Therefore, law is a social construction. Law is a command of the sovereign under the support of the force (George 31). However, legal positivism is not a confinement of law. The statement that existence of law depends on facts rather than its merits is a thesis about the relation amid laws, facts and merits, but not a thesis about the individual relata (Waluchow 179). Legal positivism is unique in that, it is not contradictory to natural law's moral doctrines and objective morality set in human nature. In order to