Pravni Zapisi (Jan 2016)
Precedence of natural law
Abstract
Modern jusnaturalism claims that natural law consists of three sets of principles. First and most fundamentally, a set of principles directing human choice and action toward intelligible purposes, i.e. basic human goods such as life, knowledge, friendship and health. Second, a set of intermediate moral principles directing choice and actions toward integral human fulfillment. Finally, third set of fully specific (moral) norms requires or forbids certain possible choices like forbidding killing an innocent person. Because the creating of law has a moral purpose, positive law norms have to be grounded in natural law. This old conception has own genesis from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to nowadays. Today, in modern natural law theory, this conception has purpose to establish criteria for deriving general norms of positive law from natural law principles.