medium · LSAT Reading Comprehension
Natural law theory posits that there is an objective, universal set of moral principles that can be discovered through human reason and that these principles should form the basis of all valid human laws. According to this view, an unjust law—one that conflicts with natural law—is not a true law at all, and citizens may have a moral right, or even a duty, to disobey it. This tradition, stretching from ancient Greek philosophy through medieval scholasticism to modern human rights discourse, emphasizes the inherent dignity of the person and the common good. Legal positivism, by contrast, argues that the validity of a law depends solely on its source within a recognized political authority, regardless of its moral content. Positivists emphasize the need for clarity and predictability in a legal system, arguing that mixing law and morality leads to subjective interpretations that undermine the rule of law. They maintain that while a law may be immoral, it remains legally binding so long as it was enacted according to the established procedural rules.
The reference to the inherently discovery-based nature of natural law serves primarily to:
- Underscore that the theory grounds its moral principles in the exercise of human reason rather than in any external decree.
- Establish that natural law belongs among the empirical sciences, deriving its conclusions from observation and experiment.
- Maintain that, because positivism neglects any process of discovery, it is necessarily the weaker of the two theories.
- Indicate that the moral principles of natural law have been recognized identically by every society across recorded history.
- Explain that positivists prize procedural regularity precisely because morality cannot be reliably ascertained.
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