Document Type
Working Paper
Repository Date
2008
Keywords
natural law, legal positivism, privacy, libertarianism
Subject Categories
Ethics in Religion | Law | Legal Theory
Abstract
What follows from the following two propositions? Legal positivism views law as a command writ large. The commander is the person or group with the most power. Answer: this pernicious mind-set is responsible for our abandonment of personal liberty. For there can be no limit to the imagination and will power of the commander. The plenary jurisdiction of the commander paves the way for Big Government to move in and regulate every aspect of our lives and our privacy. The world wasn't always like this. Prior to the servility that positivism has induced, there was a now-forgotten secular natural law that was inherently limited to the needs of society and had no power beyond the outer edge of a person's zone of privacy.
Repository Citation
D'Amato, Anthony, "Natural Law - A Libertarian View" (2008). Faculty Working Papers. 148.
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/facultyworkingpapers/148
Included in
Ethics in Religion Commons, Law Commons, Legal Theory Commons