Natural Law Vs Human Law
By: Max • Essay • 1,338 Words • March 29, 2010 • 1,523 Views
Natural Law Vs Human Law
NATURAL LAW vs HUMAN LAW
In the book Law, Aquinas explains different of law types which are eternal law, natural law, human law and Divine law. According to Aquinas law means "a rule and measures of acts, by which man is induced to act or is restrained from acting". (Aquinas, 77) And law requires or show how a person should behave. As said by him law binds us to the rules and existence of a law gives us a reason to act. So it can be understand that law has a power to morally obligate acting in a way. According to Aquinas the relationship between natural law and human law is important. And also as said by him "every human law is derived from the natural law" or in other word each government published by moral law. I disagree with Aquinas because those circumstance isn't very possible in two ways; firstly there are some rules that it doesn't have any connection with natural law and secondly human law arrange only specific rules.
The natural law isn't a kind of law written. It is domestic, attached closely to our sense of right and wrong. Natural law is participation to eternal law and because of natural law human being makes some decisions. It is troubled from general principles and these general principles are exact and are the same for everyone. They are known by every human being such as "don't harm anyone else." And as said by Aquinas as natural law is unwritten, he becomes insight of the human being. For example a person called a taxi and after him in the line there is a woman with her crying baby. If the first let the woman to take the taxi then according to Aquinas this is natural law. Aquinas explains the human law as "particular
determinations devised by human reason" (Aquinas, 88). Human law is the law made by human reasons and written. The human law is organized by humans for the supremacy of society. For example the limitation of speed in a school zone.
According to Aquinas the human law derived from the natural law. Because of the rule of reason in human situations is supposed to be just, in order to be right so the human law is derived from the natural law. The human law write what the natural law says. For example, in a school zone there is a limit of speed because cars can be dangerous in a place full of children. According to natural law human being know already that would be wrong to go too fast in this zone. And human law while turning this to a rule knows that to go too fast is wrong morally. Although moral law does not tell us what is wrights as "too fast" 40 kph or 30? This must be stated with human law. And for Aquinas human law is derived from natural law in two ways. Firstly, human law reach to a general conclusion from the principles of the natural law. For example "don't harm anyone" can turn to the "don't kill anyone" or "don't hurt anyone". The other part of the human law is derived from natural law by in a way analogous. General ideas are given particular form in the arts, in other words when a planner makes a decision that he will put into practice the general form of a house by constructing this or that particular mode. This means that human law defines some specific rules about general principles. For example, to go too fast is has been resulted that some speed are dangerous. Speed limits enforce the basic principle of natural law: "good is to be done, evil avoided." It is good to travel safely. And because of this human law determines in what speed a travel can be safely as in some country this speed is minimum 40 kph but some other country is 30 kph. As a result of this human law define the basic point for a daily life and what natural law didn't mention specifically. A speed limit is a human law leading the speed on a exacting street in a
exacting conditions. Another example is that according to natural law to harm or to kill someone is an act that should be punished but what human law defines is that the sort of punishment.
My objection about the human law isn't derived from natural law is that the natural law is a moral law but human law don't make all the rules according to moral law. For example normally to drive a car in the right sight isn't morally wrong but in some country it is forbidden and people should drive the car in the left sight. This something