A law grounded in the ontological dignity of the person, immutable. It does not arise from human enactment but is knowable within the nature of the person itself. Reinach showed that there exist a priori structures of right which subsist independently of positive legislation.
Natural law is the bridge between the ontological dignity of the person and the concrete legal order: because the person possesses an inalienable dignity, there follow from it inalienable rights — the right to life, to freedom, to community, to education, to freedom of conscience, to privacy. These rights are not conferred by the state but given prior to the state. Positive law that contradicts natural law is morally invalid (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 225–230).
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: Law
Ontological relations:
- distinct from: Positive Law
- grounded in: Ontological Dignity
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Reinach, Adolf: Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913). In: Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung (German) (on a priori structures of right independent of positive legislation).
- Aquinas, Thomas: Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94 (on the natural law).