Natural Law Ethics

Abstract

The multitude of conflicting praxis norms in past and present human societies led to the question how such norms can be justified. Were the morals and laws of Athens better than the ones of Sparta and Persia? Are modern human rights norms better than those of ancient societies and of contemporary theocracies? One possible answer is proposed in natural law ethics: Factual norms can be judged by criteria relying on a normative notion of nature. This may seem daring, to say the least, to many contemporary readers. So, let us first see how such notions of law and nature could be understood.