Natural Law Theory, “New” and Old Coyle, Sean
The American journal of jurisprudence (Notre Dame),
06/2023, Letnik:
68, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
In the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights John Finnis observes that, whilst he expected criticism of his theory from positivists, he did not expect it from traditional natural ...law theorists who felt that the theory was insufficiently grounded in Aquinas’s doctrines. Finnis argued that the divergence was a mirage occasioned by his addressing topics out of the standard orders of treatment. This essay considers what Finnis’s theory would look like if placed back into Aquinas’s orders of treatment, and gauges the extent to which it conforms to Aquinas’s doctrines, and the extent to which it is divergent and “new.” This analysis may hopefully serve as a starting point for further study.
Motivation: The contrast between positive law and natural law regarding the rationalization of public budget management is strongest at the local government level. Local government finances are ...governed by the budget law enacted by parliament. However, it is at the subnational level of government where the natural right to self-determination and making rational decisions in the interest of local communities is most apparent.Aim: This article evaluates and compares the scope and instruments of Polish and Romanian budget laws that enable the rationalization of managing subnational budgets from the perspective of positive law and natural law. The article is based on research using qualitative methods (a literature review and a critical examination of financial legislation in Poland and Romania) and a descriptive comparative analysis.Results: The research confirms the main thesis of the article that the pillar of budget management rationalization in Polish and Romanian local governments is a symbiosis of positive law with natural law, the underpinning and enhancement of which should be formal legislation.
Abstract
The fact that the most prominent brands of positivism and natural law theory, namely their Razian and Finnisian variants, are in agreement about some hitherto hotly contested issues has over ...the decades become more of an entertaining curio than an actual concern that ruffles any theoretical feathers. Whatever its benefits, this great convergence requires positivism to forfeit much of what has originally made it a theoretically appealing position. One of the many reasons for the curious alignment of positivism with natural law theory has been a focus on the explanatory power and theoretical import of the phenomenon of friendship. If we allow the countervailing forces of enmity to be given their due weight, a different model of law emerges, namely law as peace, which is more resistant to the contortions and ultimate self-abandonment that ensues from the alignment of positivism with natural law theory.
Universality of common human values embedded in declarations and international treaties supposed to be evident in the international human rights legal system but it does not mean that there were no ...intellectual discrepancies behind those instruments. Universality of human rights has its roots more than anything on theories of Jhon locke's natural law and Immanuel kant's rational ethics. But one of the earliest philosophers of opposition side against unity of human nature and universal morality at the embryonic stage was Nietzsche. Bringing forth the theory of will to power by adopting a psychological genealogy method Nietzsche distinguished between two moralities: Masters Morality and Slaves Morality. He attributed human rights as slave morality. Slaves revolted with the spirit of resentment and womanish deception against masters then introduced their own qualities as standard and universal. The Rise of Christianity and the Great French Revolution are amongst two biggest examples of such slave revolt in morality. With such a presupposition, trying by any effort to reconcile human rights morals with Nietzschean views seems to be unachievable. While reviewing past philosophical challenges, this article tries to analyze necessity of co-existence both international human rights legal system and Nietzschean world from a new perspective.
Continuing injustices and denial of rights of indigenous peoples are part of the long legacy of colonialism. Parallel processes of exploitation and injustice can be identified in relation to ...non-human species and/or aspects of the natural environment. International law can address some extreme examples of the crimes and harms of colonialism through the idea and legal definition of genocide, but the intimately related notion of ecocide that applies to nature and the environment is not yet formally accepted within the body of international law. In the context of this special issue reflecting on the development of green criminology, the article argues that the concept of ecocide provides a powerful tool. To illustrate this, the article explores connections between ecocide, genocide, capitalism and colonialism and discusses impacts on indigenous peoples and on local and global (glocal) ecosystems.
For centuries, scientists have attempted to identify and document analytical laws that underlie physical phenomena in nature. Despite the prevalence of computing power, the process of finding natural ...laws and their corresponding equations has resisted automation. A key challenge to finding analytic relations automatically is defining algorithmically what makes a correlation in observed data important and insightful. We propose a principle for the identification of nontriviality. We demonstrated this approach by automatically searching motion-tracking data captured from various physical systems, ranging from simple harmonic oscillators to chaotic double-pendula. Without any prior knowledge about physics, kinematics, or geometry, the algorithm discovered Hamiltonians, Lagrangians, and other laws of geometric and momentum conservation. The discovery rate accelerated as laws found for simpler systems were used to bootstrap explanations for more complex systems, gradually uncovering the "alphabet" used to describe those systems.
Liberalism is a very broad political family which, if taken in the broadest sense, brings together authors with diverse positions whose only common point is their attachment to freedom. Therefore, to ...find one’s way around in this political family, it is essential to establish classification criteria. There are many possibilities: Liberals can be classified by nationality, by period, by preferred field of interest (economic liberalism, political liberalism), etc. This article proposes to classify them following two criteria, the conception of freedom on the one hand, and the utilitarian or jusnaturalist basis of the attachment to freedom on the other. These two criteria generate an operational grid of six categories which, without exhausting liberalism, highlights decisive fractures within.
The debate involving the Jusnaturalism and the Juspositivism has been inspiring the reflections of jurists and philosophers. Although we can affirm that a great deal of the historical controversies ...associated to the confrontation between the Positive Law and the Natural Law have already been surpassed, there are still countless aspects which deserve an academic dedication. Notwithstanding dissonant opinions, which militate for the theoretical weakening of the subject, the passing of the centuries demonstrates exactly the opposite, given the non-elimination of the thinkers' esteem for the thematic now developed. Thus, the current article discourses about the theoretical contributions formulated by Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Ross and Hart for the Legal Positivism.
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