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The natural law was how a rational human being, seeking to survive and prosper, would act. Natural law, therefore, was discovered by considering humankind's natural rights, whereas previously it could be said that natural rights were discovered by considering the natural law.
Natural law is the law of natural rights. Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights. Natural law first appeared in ancient Greek philosophy, [2] and was referred to by Roman ...
Hugo Grotius, the founder of a purely rationalistic system of natural law, argued that law arises from both a social impulse—as Aristotle had indicated—and reason. [43] Immanuel Kant believed a moral imperative requires laws "be chosen as though they should hold as universal laws of nature". [44]
Some notions of righteousness present in ancient law and religion are sometimes retrospectively included under the term "human rights". While Enlightenment philosophers suggest a secular social contract between the rulers and the ruled, ancient traditions derived similar conclusions from notions of divine law, and, in Hellenistic philosophy, natural law.
Some laws were invented by men, but ultimately they reflected the essential natural law. Grotius was no different, except in one important respect: Unlike the earlier thinkers, who believed that the natural law was imposed by a deity, Grotius believed that the natural law came from an essential universal reason, common to all men.
Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors—Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally—as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of nature and natural law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it ...
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it has changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations [1] and operates in the wider context of social history.
The argument of natural laws as a basis for God was changed by Christian figures such as Thomas Aquinas, in order to fit biblical scripture and establish a Judeo-Christian teleological law. Bertrand Russell criticized the argument, arguing that many of the things considered to be laws of nature , in fact, are human conventions.