'Explain how Natural Law is important for understanding rights'
As a nation, we take the rights and freedoms we hold for granted. Daily, we make decisions without interference from the government or the monarchy. In contrast, our ancestors didn’t enjoy the freedoms and rights that we enjoy today and lived their lives under dictatorship and tyranny. However, through The Age Of Enlightenment, philosophers such as John Locke, began to question the suppressing treatment that civilians were subject to and altered the way people viewed power structures. This led to a shift in expectation of rights and freedoms. Throughout this essay, I will refer back to John Locke’s work.
Developing from The United Nations General Assembly, …show more content…
An area of the law which was is relevant to the understanding of a right is natural law. It is useful to introduce the idea of natural law as a theory before exploring its relevance to rights.
Natural Law is a philosophical theory which teaches us that values are ‘inherent in human nature’ and universally identifiable through ‘human reason’. Through science we are aware of the ‘law …show more content…
The first are ‘theological’ natural rights thinkers who’s views are religion-dependent. They believe that laws must be based in morality because they originate from God’s eternal law. Conversely, secular thinkers view things from a non-religious standpoint. They replace the laws of God with behavioural laws which are understood by human reason. They say that by observing nature we can organise our laws with the equivalent level of morality as theological thinkers. By observing natural behaviours we can sense of how our laws should be arranged.
As early as 1225, Thomas Aquinas, a theological natural law thinker, began to act upon Aristotle’s ideas and was seeking the answer to questions surrounding what human nature is. Akin to Aristotle, he believed that all humans have a final purpose. Aquinas explained that each person needs a
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'space' over which they have sole control and 'no one else may rightfully intervene'. This moral space was defined as Natural Rights.9 Aquinas taught that there are laws/precepts that are built into nature and can be understood through reason. He says that in order to reach eternal happiness the Five Primary Precepts must be exercised. These