Natural Right and the Historical Approach
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7417023 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leo Strau (corresponding author), Leo Strauss (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1950 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 422-442 |
| Publication date | 1950-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Review of Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0034670500047136 |
| OpenAlex | W2162464254 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 1 |
The attack on natural right in the name of history takes in most cases the following form: natural right claims to be a right that is discernible by human reason and is universally acknowledged; but history (including anthropology) teaches us that no such right exists; instead of the supposed uniformity we find an indefinite variety of notions of right or justice. Or, in other words, there cannot be natural right if there are no immutable principles of justice, but history shows us that all principles of justice are mutable. One cannot understand the meaning of the attack on natural right in the name of history, before one has realized the utter irrelevance of this argument. In the first place, “consent of all mankind” is by no means a necessary condition of the existence of natural right. Some of the greatest natural right teachers have argued that, precisely if natural right is rational, its discovery presupposes the cultivation of reason, and therefore natural right will not be known universally: one ought not even to expect any real knowledge of natural right among savages. In other words by proving diat there is no principle of justice diat has not been denied somewhere or at some time, one has not yet proven that any given denial was justified or reasonable. Furthermore, it has always been known that different notions of justice obtain at different times and in different nations. It is absurd to claim diat the discovery of a still greater number of such notions by modern students has in any way affected the fundamental issue
Argument (complex analysis · Denial · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Meaning (existential · Natural (archaeology · Natural law · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2009 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |