What is the basis for the ideal of natural law?

Answer 1

Natural law is described as a higher law derived naturally from a universal understanding that certain choices made and actions taken by humans are right or wrong. Natural law is a system of justice for all societies, regardless of their individual culture or customs. Thomas Hobbes described natural law as the way in which a rational human who is seeking to survive and prosper would act. Some people view it as divine law pursuant to the teachings of Thomas Acquinas . Natural law influenced the development of English common law and also the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Human rights are the rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to. They spring from the concept of natural rights which in turn, spring from natural law.

Natural rights is a complicated topic with many facets and the concept dates back at least to late Antiquity. Briefly, natural rights have been described as universal, inalienable rights that all people are entitled to regardless of political and legal institutions and beyond the authority of secular or religious authorities. Some people recognize no difference between natural rights and human rights which include: life, liberty and property; freedom from oppression; self determination; religious freedom; equality; privacy.

One school of thought holds that in the natural state only the strongest can benefit from their natural rights so people form a social contract ceding their natural rights to an authority (government) to protect them from abuse by the stronger individuals.

This is an interesting topic on which to do some reading.

"A man [must] be willing, when others are so too, as far forth, as for peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself." Thomas Hobbes