The Rationality behind Scientific Research of Natural Law

Petja Mihelič

The Rationality behind Scientific Research of Natural Law

Key words: natural law, positive law, legal theories, justice

Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, through the presentation of various pursuits and creations of objective law, the necessity of objective natural law and the essentialidentity of natural and positive law. A positive law governing a morally relevant issue must be the same as the ethical norm of natural law. Only such a law can be considered just and legitimate. When regulating social relations in the field of morality, positive law must not depart from the coherent norms of natural law. However, man has the discretion to regulate many other areas of dispositive (natural) law, such as technical norms and the vast majority of legal rules in various legal branches. Legal theories of the origin of cultures (positivist, integral, historical, etc.) are not concerned about seeking objective law (as a fully constructed and set legal reality), but about creating objective law. It is a creation of a whole new reality: Grundnorm in Kelsen, Hercules in Dworkin, procedural objectivity in Fuller, minimal morality in Hart, seven commandments of good in Finnis, etc. The theories listed are of a subjectivist nature, as they want to create objective law, to determine good and evil themselves, to take on the role of God himself.

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