Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; vor-sokratisches Naturrecht; Egalitarismus; Gleichheit und Freiheit von Natur aus - Konventionalismus

Kurzinhalt: ... thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. Natural freedom and natural equality are inseparable from each other. If all men are by nature free, no one is by nature the superior of any other ...

Textausschnitt: 118a I conclude this chapter with a brief remark about pre-Socratic natural right. I shall not speak of those types of natural right doctrine which were fully developed by Socrates and his followers. I shall limit myself to a sketch of that type which was rejected by the classics: egalitarian natural right. (Fs)

118b The doubt of the natural character of both slavery and the division of the human race into distinct political or ethnic groups finds its most simple expression in the thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. Natural freedom and natural equality are inseparable from each other. If all men are by nature free, no one is by nature the superior of any other, and hence by nature all men are equal to each other. If all men are by nature free and equal, it is against nature to treat any man as unfree or unequal; the preservation or restoration of natural freedom or equality is required by natural right. Thus the city appears to be against natural right, for the city stands or falls by inequality or subordination and by the restriction of freedom. The effective denial of natural freedom and equality by the city must be traced to violence and ultimately to wrong opinion or the corruption of nature. This means that natural freedom and equality will be thought to have been fully effective at the beginning, when nature was not yet corrupted by opinion. The doctrine of natural freedom and equality thus allies itself with the doctrine of a golden age. Yet one may assume that original innocence is not irretrievably lost and that, in spite of the natural character of freedom and equality, civil society is indispensable. In that case one must look for a way in which civil society can be brought into some degree of harmony with natural freedom and equality. The only way in which this can be done is to assume that civil society, to the extent to which it is in agreement with natural right, is based on the consent or, more precisely, on the contract of the free and equal individuals. (Fs) (notabene)

119a It is doubtful whether the doctrines of natural freedom and equality, as well as of the social compact, were originally meant as political theses and not rather as theoretical theses setting forth the questionable character of civil society as such. As long as nature was regarded as the standard, the contractualist doctrine, regardless of whether it was based on the egalitarian or the nonegalitarian premise, necessarily implied a depreciation of civil society, because it implied that civil society is not natural but conventional.1 This must be borne in mind if one wants to understand the specific character and the tremendous political effect of the contractualist doctrines of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For in the modern era the notion that nature is the standard was abandoned, and therewith the stigma on whatever is conventional or contractual was taken away. As for premodern times, it is safe to assume that all contractualist doctrines implied the depreciation of whatever owed its origin to contract. (Fs) (notabene)

119b In a passage of Plato's Crito, Socrates is presented as deriving his duty of obedience to the city of Athens and her laws from a tacit contract. To understand this passage, one has to compare it with its parallel in the Republic. In the Republic the philosopher's duty of obedience to the city is not derived from any contract. The reason is obvious. The city of the Republic is the best city, the city according to nature. But the city of Athens, that democracy, was from Plato's point of view a most imperfect city.1 Only the allegiance to an inferior community can be derivative from contract, for an honest man keeps his promises to everyone regardless of the worth of him to whom he made the promise. (Fs)