Whats the historical significance of Natural Law?
I did not see your original question, so I’m not sure of the scope of your research. If I seem off base, I apologize in advance. Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics seems to contain the germ of natural law theory, but it has developed significantly since then. Paine’s Rights of Man and other early documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, use natural law concepts. One of the misconceptions about natural law, is that it is another way of referring to the laws of nature. It is, in effect, a form of moral law, based on the nature of things, and on the nature of Man, in particular. It is usually understand as a higher law than positive law, which constitutes the written legal codes of man. This would have been the way the founders understood natural law.
