Evolution of Natural Law Theory: Tracing the Origins of Western Mainstream Human Rights Views

Author: Shen Jianlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: "All existing things have their law." — Montesquieu If there were no natural law, the humble laws of a small peasant community on the Italian Peninsula could never have evolved into the universal laws of later international civilization; without natural law, the synthesis of medieval theological wisdom and secular wisdom would likely have remained impossible; without natural law, there might not have been the later American and French revolutions, and the great ideals of freedom and equality might never have entered people's minds, let alone been enshrined in legal texts. — Dentelev This book's topic — Western natural law and human rights — is a hot interdisciplinary issue and also a fundamental theoretical question. The author's interdisciplinary knowledge structure and long-term academic accumulation provide favorable conditions for this research. Linking natural law and human rights to study the human rights perspective of Western natural law schools is the major feature of this book. Theoretically, human rights are the core theme of modern and contemporary political philosophy and jurisprudence, and fundamental political values such as freedom, equality, and democracy can all be traced back to some form of human right. In reality, human rights are the goal and soul of constitutionalism. As a constitutional concept, the constitution is not just a map of state power but also a declaration of rights.