Vacura, Miroslav (2022), “Three Concepts of Natural Law”, Philosophy and Society 33 (3): 601–620.
The concept of natural law is fundamental to political philosophy, ethics,
and legal thought. The present article shows that as early as the ancient
Greek philosophical tradition, three main ideas of natural law existed,
which run in parallel through the philosophical works of many authors
in the course of history. The first two approaches are based on the
understanding that although equipped with reason, humans are nevertheless
still essentially animals subject to biological instincts. The first approach
defines natural law as the law of the strongest, which can be observed
to hold among all members of the animal kingdom. The second conception
presents natural law as the principle of self-preservation, inherent as an
instinct in all living beings. The third approach, also developed in antiquity,
shifts the focus to our rationality and develops the idea of natural law
as the law of reason within us. Some Christian thinkers who consider
the origin of reason in us to be divine, identify the law of reason inherent
in us with God’s will. This paper gives a brief exposition of the development
of these three concepts of natural law in philosophy, with emphasis on
the intertwining of these three concepts, which we, however, understand
as primarily and essentially independent. The paper concludes with an
overview of twentieth-century authors who exclusively focus on only
one of the three concepts. The aim of this article is to argue against these
one-sided interpretations and to uphold the independence and distinctness
of the three historical conceptions of natural law.