CLASSICAL NATURAL LAW THEORY, PROPERTY RIGHTS, AND TAXATION

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Feser
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Natural Law Theory

AbstractClassical natural law theory derives moral conclusions from the essentialist and teleological understanding of nature enshrined in classical metaphysics. The paper argues that this understanding of nature is as defensible today as it was in the days of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. It then shows how a natural law theory of the grounds and content of our moral obligations follows from this understanding of nature, and how a doctrine of natural rights follows in turn from the theory of natural law. With this background in place, the implications of the theory for questions about property rights and taxation are explored. It is argued that classical natural law theory entails the existence of a natural right of private property, and that this right is neither so strong as to supportlaissez fairelibertarianism, nor so weak as to allow for socialism. Though the theory leaves much of the middle ground between these extremes open to empirical rather than moral evaluation, it is argued that there is a strong natural law presumption against social democratic policies and in favor of free enterprise.

scholarly journals APPLICATION OF NATURAL LAW THEORY (THE NATURAL RIGHT) TO PROTECT THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prasetyo Hadi Purwandoko ◽  
M. Najib Imanullah
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Individual Property ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Natural Law Theory

<p align="center"><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>The theory of natural law is usually used as a moral and philosophical foundation in order to protect the individuals property rights of Intellectual Property (IP). Philosophically, the protection of  Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) can not be separated from the dominant thought that emphasizes the doctrine of natural human factors research. This study is legal research by using law and historical approach. The analysis of primary data is qualitatively through internal valuing to obtain a complete understanding (verstehen), while the secondary data such as law material is analyzed using hermeneutics (interpretation), content analysis and deductive method. The result shows that in respect of the development of the theory of natural law, there are four dominant theory of natural law to examine IP namely utilitarian theory, labor theory, personality theory, and social-planning theories. Moral doctrine which is based on natural law was adopted by the IPR regime to protect the individual owners of IPRs in order to that rights  would not be violated by others. The natural law theory (the natural right) is still relevant to be used as a moral and philosophical foundation for the protection of IPR, as an individual property rights.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Rights, traditional cultural expression, Protection</p>

LYSANDER SPOONER: NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA'S LAST NATURAL RIGHTS THEORIST

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Mack
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Herbert Spencer

AbstractThe main purpose of this essay is to articulate the ideas of the last powerful advocate of natural rights in nineteenth-century America. That last powerful advocate was the Massachusetts-born radical libertarian Lysander Spooner (1808-1887). Besides his powerful antebellum attacks on slavery, Spooner developed forceful arguments on behalf of a strongly individualistic conception of natural law and private property rights and against coercive moralism, coercive paternalism, and state authority and legislation. This essay focuses on the theoretical core of Spooner’s position which is his doctrine of natural rights—a doctrine that is primarily developed in Spooner’s The Law of Intellectual Property (1855), Natural Law (1882), and A Letter to Grover Cleveland (1886). I situate Spooner within the libertarian tradition in political thought by beginning this essay with an examination of two English writers whose radical writings (for the most part) preceded Spooner’s—Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869) and the early Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). I emphasis the strongly Lockean character of Spooner’s thought and support this contention in part by showing how much more Lockean Spooner was than either Hodgskin or the early Spencer.

scholarly journals God, New Natural Law Theory, and Human Rights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Full Theory ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Epistemological Dimension

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.

scholarly journals THE CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES, HUMAN REPRODUCTION AND NATURAL LAW: THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSHUMANISM

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
О. Рыбаков ◽  
O. Rybakov ◽  
С. Тихонова ◽  
S. Tikhonova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Biomedical Technology ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Convergence Of Technologies

<p>The article deals with analysis of transhumanist prospects for the philosophy of law. Modern transhumanists consider morphological freedom as a concept, revealing the natural right to happiness. The authors take this idea as a starting point and consider the logic of the convergent biotechnology development. They believe that the extension of natural law has the character of a dialectical strategy of assumptions and tactics of the local bans in the sphere of human reproduction. This situation is typical of biomedical technology in general. The legislator authorizes a technology by endorsing forms of reproductive relationships and blocking technologies that support immoral forms. As a result, it gradually enhances understanding of how technology must be applied to ensure the human natural rights. Convergence of technologies makes real a hypothetical design of rights to reproduction, while the conflict of morality and the imperatives of technological development can be resolved from the standpoint of the primacy of natural law.</p>

PERSONS PURSUING GOODS

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 285-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
Basic Good ◽  
Theory Of Law

John Finnis's powerfully and deservedly influential modern classic, Natural Law and Natural Rights, expounds a theory of law and morality that is based on a picture of “persons” using practical reason to pursue certain “basic goods.” While devoting much attention to practical reason and to the goods, however, Finnis says little about the nature of personhood. This relative inattention to what “persons” are creates a risk—one that Finnis himself notices—of assuming or importing an inadequate anthropology. This essay suggests that the “new natural law” developed by Finnis suffers in places from the inadvertent adoption of (or, more likely, acquiescence in) a flawed anthropology—an anthropology under the thrall of modern individualistic commitments. To explain this suspicion, this article discusses three difficulties (or so they seem to me) in his natural law theory: difficulties in accounting for the basic good of friendship, for obligations we owe to others, and for legal authority. These difficulties may seem disconnected, but this article suggests that they may all reflect an inadequate anthropology—one that Finnis does not exactly embrace (in fact, I suspect that he would reject it) but that is pervasive today and that in places may affect his theorizing.

FINNIS ON NATURE, REASON, GOD

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Way

It is often claimed that John Finnis's natural law theory is detachable from the ultimate theistic explanation that he offers in the final chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. My aim in this paper is to think through the question of the detachability of Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law from the remainder of his natural law view, both in Natural Law and Natural Rights and beyond. I argue that Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law as actually presented can be, without too much strain, treated as largely detachable in the way that his readers have by and large supposed it to be; indeed, Finnis's account as actually presented really amounts to no explanation of the natural law at all, theistic or otherwise, and that fact accounts in part for the ease with which Finnis's natural law view can be detached from theism of that final chapter. Nevertheless, the considerations raised in that chapter militate in favor of a much more thoroughgoing, largely nondetachable theistic account. And it is just such an account that we find Finnis affirming in the development of his views after Natural Law and Natural Rights.

Property Rights and Democratic Socialism

1978 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Furniss
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Distribution Rules ◽  
The One ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
Operational Component

This paper attempts to throw new light on what one might terra the ‘operational component’ of social democratic thinking, functional socialism, by focusing on the creation. organization, and transformation of property rights. I argue that while democratic socialism does provide a political and philosophical schema that justifies distribution rules not sanctioned in ‘the market’,1 the novelty of the solution (and thus the necessary difference from existing advanced industrial societies, including the United States) is exaggerated. In addition. the tension between the attenuation of private property rights and their arrogation by the state on the one hand and citizen control over state activities on the other is not sufficiently perceived. My main purpose is to delineate and explore these problems. I also suggest ways in which the argument might be strengthened.

Natural Rights as Powers to Act

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Susan James
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Right

Spinoza grounds his political philosophy on a highly counter-intuitive conception of natural right as the right to do anything in your power. Just as big fish eat little fish by the right of nature, so humans act by natural right, regardless of what they do. In this essay I explain what leads Spinoza to hold this view and show how, in doing so, he contentiously rejects some of the most central assumptions of the natural law tradition. Finally, I consider whether Spinoza’s view can contribute anything of value to current discussions of natural right. I argue that he draws our attention to prerequisites of a cooperative way of life that contemporary theorists frequently neglect.

John Locke and the Hobbesian Hypothesis: How a Similar Colonial Prejudice Became an Essential Premise in the Most Popular Justification of Private Property Rights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Widerquist ◽  
Grant S. McCall
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Property Theory ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Property System ◽  
Lockean Proviso ◽  
Ownership Of Land

This chapter introduces the role of “the Hobbesian hypothesis” (the claim that “the Lockean proviso” is fulfilled) in the natural rights justification of private property by discussing John Locke’s use of it in his “appropriation” theory. The chapter defines the property-theory version of “the Lockean proviso” as the claim that everyone is better off in a society with private ownership of land and natural resources than they could reasonably expect to be in any society in which land remains a commons as it was for many small-scale stateless peoples in history and prehistory. The chapter defines the property-theory version of “the Hobbesian hypothesis” as the empirical claim that the Lockean proviso is fulfilled by the property rights system: even the least advantage people under the private property system are better off than they could reasonably expect to be in a small-scale society with common land. It argues that any plausible natural rights justification of the private property system relies on this hypothesis as an empirical premise comparing the welfare of disadvantaged people in societies with a well-develop private property system and people in small-scale, stateless societies that treat land as a commons.

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