Natural Law
Posted on March 17th, 2009
I recently used the term “natural liberty” in a post, which generated a private email asking why is a “natural liberty” is so very important versus any other kind of liberty. That series of email exchanges, between myself and an ally to preserve home educators’ liberty, revealed how very little most people today understand the very foundations of the political philosophy upon which this country and most of western civilization is built. There is a fundamental lack of understanding in America today about natural law.
Natural rights are rights that do not depend on the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or political system. In contrast, legal rights are rights given by the government (known as positive law), put in place by legislatures or kings, and depend upon local mores, customs, or beliefs especially when enacted by a democratic or republican form of governance.
Therefore, natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights (or positive law) are culturally and politically relative. Natural rights are therefore superior to legal rights, which is why I said that if I do not defend natural liberties, I have no logical justification to defend civil liberties.
Those who hold to natural law theory believe there exists of a rational and purposeful order to the universe and that a rational being may derive precepts for personal and civil governance from both inherent rational necessity to avoid self-contradiction and observations drawn from a rational study of the universe (nature). No where in this is the direct application of laws from the sacred documents of any religion, it is purely the application of man’s rational mind (however flawed) to discover those self-evident truths found in nature.
Under this view, all secular governments (the U.S.A. is a secular government) exists to protect natural rights based on natural law, and only to protect those natural rights. This is the view of the founding fathers, where a diverse group of Christians, deists, and atheists agreed upon the following words:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them…
The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776 and written by George Mason, is:
That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Even the United Nations, for which there is much room for contempt, has in one of its foundational documents a clear appeal to natural law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first line of the preamble says:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not without error due to obvious logical / rational inconsistencies [Note the contradiction between Articles 4 and 17 in contrast to Articles 22 and 25.], it does present a tremendous amount of truth about those precepts derived from natural law. The point of all this is to make clear that I am intentionally avoiding making a religious appeal to the right to home education. Found in the truths of the above document, secular from beginning to end, I want to point out Article 26 Part 3:
Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
With that, I have said all I intend to say about the topic of “home schooling”, however, that of “natural law” is a topic I can promise more articles on in the future.
Tags: political philosophy
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3 Responses to “Natural Law”
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The Statesman Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 7:02 pmThe “Natural Law” concept is a hitchhiker on the Judeo-Christian worldview. To whatever extent some of the founders were deists or atheists they were deists and atheists who grew up in a Christian-saturated culture. What they mistakenly assumed “every body knows in their heart and mind is right” is only so because of the type of culture they grew up in.
A secular Darwinist has no rational basis for “Natural Rights”. They are an illusion for propaganda purposes only. “Nature is red in tooth and claw” and the only law they see is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest.
No, “Natural Rights” absent a culture with a God very much like the one portrayed in scripture is a non-starter. Each citizen hopes the other will honor his “rights”, but instead of knowing and agreeing what those rights might be, in their heart they know that those “rights” are a sham absent their being a gift “from their Creator”.
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Valerie Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 8:21 pmMark,
I believe that natural law is rarely discussed in school anymore. The few times I hear it discussed it’s usually being put down. You’re a religious fruitcake if you believe in it. Most people probably wouldn’t recognize that it’s adopted in our founding documents. -
Mark Martin Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 9:07 pmValerie,
The Statesman, above, unfortunately agrees with the modern atheist that you must be a “religious fruitcake” if you believe it can be a way to reach a consensus for establishing liberty and justice in governace.
Murray Rothbard, who was one of the 20th century’s most prolific free-market economists and libertarian political theorists, was an atheist. He wisely writes:
In the controversy over man’s nature, and over the broader and more controversial concept of “natural law,” both sides have repeatedly proclaimed that natural law and theology are inextricably intertwined. As a result, many champions of natural law, in scientific or philosophic circles, have gravely weakened their case by implying that rational, philosophical methods alone cannot establish such law: that theological faith is necessary to maintain the concept. On the other hand, the opponents of natural law have gleefully agreed; since faith in the supernatural is deemed necessary to belief in natural law, the latter concept must be tossed out of scientific, secular discourse, and be consigned to the arcane sphere of the divine studies. In consequence, the idea of a natural law founded on reason and rational inquiry has been virtually lost.
The believer in a rationally established natural law must, then, face the hostility of both camps: the one group sensing in this position an antagonism toward religion; and the other group suspecting that God and mysticism are being slipped in by the back door.
As is the usual case, I end up making both sides mad. Hehe.
Nonetheless, it is a concept that this country is founded on, most of western society is founded on, a large part of eastern society is founded on, and it is also a concept that the United Nations was founded on. Don’t you think that alone should be enough for it be discussed in school?
