Legal Philosophy: Natural Law

3 credits · Law School

This course will introduce students to the philosophical foundations of law, with a stress on the Natural Law tradition. Modern legal philosophy, often starting with the ontological question, “what is law,” tends to follow a canon loosely called “legal positivism.” While this course will survey elements of that canon, its focus will be on understanding legal philosophy in a longer historical perspective. To that end, it will cover a sequence of writings in western philosophy that form the “natural law” tradition. Studying natural law will allow us to see how theology and moral philosophy for shape our understanding what is law. We will also then learn how, based on the historical moment we occupy, legal arguments become persuasive. We will be covering the work of theologians, as well as moral and political philosophers, ranging from Aquinas to Kant, Hobbes to Smith, with a view to seeing how deeply the patterns of argument in fields such as contract, property, torts, international, and constitutional law are inflected by natural law philosophy. [3]