The theory of natural law has its most striking feature in its presentation of purely positive law, which, although “entirely” dependent for its legal status on the fact that it has been authoritatively established by certain persons or institutions, nevertheless shares the characteristic of the right to entail a moral obligation to observe, albeit presumably and justified. Concerning these rules of a positive legal system, Thomas Aquinas says that, although they should certainly be “derived from natural law” and should be presumed, they have their legal force only on their part in this postulated system (ex sola lege humana vigorem habent: ST I-II, q. 95 a. 3). The reality of intention in the independent but related field of the communication of meaning is also explored and defended by a legal theory of natural law. This is not an absolute and simple originalism in constitutional interpretation or a mere denial of the insistence characteristic of legal dogmatics that the intention of the parties to conclude agreements or declarations must be determined “objectively (and not subjectively)”, that is, by reference to what a reasonable observer would have understood by the impugned statement. Because: Such an observer (and thus the “objective” point of view) will probably have given priority in this interpretation to what (insofar as the observer can recognize in the circumstances of the declaration [= declaration]) the author of the statement actually meant (“subjectively”) (= express/indicate). The New Testament contains another account of the Abrahamic dialogue and builds on the later Greek exposition on this subject, when Paul`s letter to the Romans states: “For if the Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what is contained in the law, they who do not have the law, a law in itself: Those who have written the work of the law in their hearts, who also bear witness to their conscience, and who, in the meantime, accuse or apologize to each other. [42] The intellectual historian A. J. Carlyle commented on this passage: “There is little doubt that the words of St. John the Baptist are not the only words of St. John the Baptist.
Paul implies an idea analogous to Cicero`s “natural law,” a law written in the hearts of men and recognized by man`s reason, a law distinct from the positive law of any state or from what St. Paul recognized as the revealed law of God. In this sense, the words of St. Paul are taken up by the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, such as St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, and there seems to be no reason to doubt the correctness of their interpretation. [43] Universal law is the law of nature. For there really is, like everyone else to some divine extent, a natural justice and injustice that is imposed on all, even those who have no connection or covenant with one another. Sophocles` Antigone clearly means this when she says that the burial of Polynices, despite the prohibition, was a just act: she means that it was only by nature: this anti-rationalist approach to human affairs was for Hayek the same as that which led Scottish scouts such as Adam Smith, David Hume and Adam Ferguson. to defend freedom. [135] For them, no one can have the knowledge to plan society, and this “natural” or “spontaneous” order of society shows how it can effectively “plan” from the bottom up.
[136] Moreover, the idea that law is merely a product of conscious design, denied by natural law and associated with legal positivism, can easily generate totalitarianism: “If the law is completely the product of conscious design, what the designer calls the law is by definition just, and the unjust law becomes a contradiction in terms. The will of the duly authorized legislator is then completely free and guided only by its specific interests. [137] This idea is false because law cannot simply be the product of “reason”: “No articulated system of law can be applied only within the framework of generally accepted, but often inarticulate, rules of justice. [138] While legal positivism would say that a law can be unjust without being less of a law, natural law scholars would say that there is something legally flawed in an unjust norm. In battles between Parliament and the monarch, Parliament often referred to the fundamental laws of England, which were sometimes said to embody the principles of natural law from time immemorial and set limits on the power of the monarchy. However, according to William Blackstone, natural law could be useful in determining the content of the common law and deciding cases of equity, but was not itself identical to English law.