Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

What is the idea of natural law?

2 Answers

Relevance
  • Anonymous
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    G

    It's just some people abstracting what is with their own filters in place, and then expecting everyone else to obey.

  • 8 years ago

    Under natural law, no one "obeys". The whole idea of it is to provide the rationale for individualism.

    "John Locke wrote in his Two Treatises on Government, "every man has a Property in his own Person." Locke also said that the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did."[9][10]

    "Josiah Warren was the first who wrote about the "sovereignty of the individual".[citation needed]

    "The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is sometimes viewed as an implementation of the concept of self-ownership, as are some portions of the Bill of Rights." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership

    While Josiah Warren is said to have first used the phrase "individual sovereignty" in the middle 19th century, "Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm

    This is because they took from Locke's "popular sovereignty" (in which the people choose their leaders) the idea that if they could do that, then they already had sovereignty in themselves FIRST, or they could not confer some of their powers upon others they elect to act for them.

    "The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one: And Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions. [John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, §6]

    And so, all being equal and INDEPENDENT, each of us may do anything we wish so long as we do not infringe upon the same rights of others, which naturally limits us to things which require no force. This "non-initiation of force" principle, or non-aggression principle, is the only thing that allows natural law to work.

    Because no one can use force, no one must "obey" anyone else. If you think a law is wrong, civil disobedience is an accepted means of rebellion.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.