Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Zusammenhang: Naturrecht - das beste Regime; Gegensatz: die Stadt Gottes (Bibel); Transformation des Naturrechts durch Offenbarung: das letzte Ziel als trans-politisch; Natur - Tugend = Potenz - Akt

Kurzinhalt: The classic natural right doctrine in its original form, if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine of the best regime ... The political character of natural right became blurred ... and the biblical faith.

Textausschnitt: 144a The classic natural right doctrine in its original form, if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine of the best regime. For the question as to what is by nature right or as to what is justice finds its complete answer only through the construction, in speech, of the best regime. The essentially political character of the classic natural right doctrine appears most clearly in Plato's Republic. Hardly less revealing is the fact that Aristotle's discussion of natural right is a part of his discussion of political right, especially if one contrasts the opening of Aristotle's statement with the statement of Ulpian in which natural right is introduced as a part of private right.1 The political character of natural right became blurred, or ceased to be essential, under the influence of both ancient egalitarian natural right and the biblical faith. On the basis of the biblical faith, the best regime simply is the City of God; therefore, the best regime is coeval with Creation and hence always actual; and the cessation of evil, or Redemption, is brought about by God's supernatural action. The question of the best regime thus loses its crucial significance. The best regime as the classics understood it ceases to be identical with the perfect moral order. The end of civil society is no longer "virtuous life as such" but only a certain segment of the virtuous life. The notion of God as lawgiver takes on a certainty and definiteness which it never possessed in classical philosophy. Therefore natural right or, rather, natural law becomes independent of the best regime and takes precedence over it. The Second Table of the Decalogue and the principles embodied in it are of infinitely higher dignity than the best regime.2 It is classic natural right in this profoundly modified form that has exercised the most powerful influence on Western thought almost since the beginnings of the Christian Era. Still, even this crucial modification of the classical teaching was in a way anticipated by the classics. According to the classics, political life as such is essentially inferior in dignity to the philosophic life. (Fs) (notabene)

145a This observation leads to a new difficulty, or rather it leads us back to the same difficulty with which we have been confronted throughout--e.g., when we used terms like "gentlemen." If man's ultimate end is trans-political, natural right would seem to have a trans-political root. Yet can natural right be adequately understood if it is directly referred to this root? Can natural right be deduced from man's natural end? Can it be deduced from anything? (Fs)

145b Human nature is one thing, virtue or the perfection of human nature is another. The definite character of the virtues and, in particular, of justice cannot be deduced from human nature. In the language of Plato, the idea of man is indeed compatible with the idea of justice, but it is a different idea. The idea of justice even seems to belong to a different kind of ideas than the idea of man, since the idea of man is not in the same way problematic as the idea of justice; there is hardly any disagreement as to whether a given being is a man, whereas there is habitual disagreement in regard to things just and noble. In the language of Aristotle, one could say that the relation of virtue to human nature is comparable to that of act and potency, and the act cannot be determined by starting from the potency, but, on the contrary, the potency becomes known by looking back to it from the act.1 Human nature "is" in a different manner than its perfection or virtue. Virtue exists in most cases, if not in all cases, as an object of aspiration and not as fulfilment. Therefore, it exists in speech rather than in deed. Whatever may be the proper starting point for studying human nature, the proper starting point for studying the perfection of human nature, and hence, in particular, natural right, is what is said about these subjects or the opinions about them. (Fs) (notabene)