Evolution of Natural Law Theory (Exploring 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. Without natural law, the humble laws of a small farming 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 have been impossible forever; without natural law, it is likely that neither the later American and French Revolutions would have occurred, nor the great ideals of freedom and equality would have entered people's minds and then been enshrined in legal texts. — Dentelev. The topic of this book — Western natural law and human rights issues — is a hot interdisciplinary issue and also a fundamental theoretical issue. The author's interdisciplinary knowledge structure and long-term academic accumulation provide excellent conditions for this research. Linking natural law and human rights to study the human rights views of Western natural law schools is the greatest feature of this book. Theoretically, human rights are the core theme of modern and contemporary political philosophy and jurisprudence, and basic political values such as freedom, equality, and democracy can all be derived from some form of human rights. 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.