PRAVNI ZAPISI • Year VII • No. 2• pp. 213-229
PRECEDENCE OF NATURAL LAW
Dr Miloš Zdravković
Docent, Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu
e-mail: milos.zdravkovic@ius.bg.ac.rs
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Pravni zapisi, No. 2/2016, pp. 213-229
Original Scientific Article
KEY WORDS
Natural law theory, natural law principles, positive law, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Finnis, Robert P. George
ABSTRACT
Modern jus naturalism claims that natural law consists of three sets of principles. First and most fundamentally, a set of principles directing human choice and action toward intelligible purposes, i.e. basic human goods such as life, knowledge, friendship and health. Second, a set of intermediate moral principles directing choice and actions toward integral human fulfilment. Finally, third set of fully specific (moral) norms re- quires or forbids certain possible choices like forbidding killing an innocent person. Because the creating of law has a moral purpose, positive law norms have to be grounded in natural law. This old conception has own genesis from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to nowadays. Today, in mod- ern natural law theory, this conception has purpose to establish criteria for deriving general norms of positive law from natural law principles.