Natural Law Ethical Theory

This is an ethical theory that holds one or more of the following three claims: (1) moral claims are not social conventions but are based on the objective nature of things; (2) moral right and wrong depend on facts of [Page 1486]human nature; and (3) an immoral rule cannot be a valid law.

All three of these claims are found in the writings of ancient and early medieval Greek and Roman thinkers. The view that moral claims are not conventional but are based on the objective nature of things is stated by Aristotle, who notes in the Nicomachean Ethics (Book V, Chapter 7) that natural justice consists of moral claims that are “unchangeable and equally valid everywhere and do not depend on whether or not we ...