Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; vollständiges Naturrecht, Offenbarung - partielles Naturrecht, Vernunft

Kurzinhalt: However doubtful the status of the complete law of nature may have become in Locke's thought, the partial law of nature which ... would seem to have stood firm.

Textausschnitt: 212a One can state the issue in simpler terms as follows: The veracity of God is indeed a demonstration of any proposition which he has revealed. Yet "the whole strength of the certainty depends upon our knowledge that God revealed" the proposition in question, or "our assurance can be no greater than our knowledge is, that it is a revelation from God." And at least as regards all men who know of revelation only through tradition, "the knowledge we have that this revelation came at first from God, can never be so sure as the knowledge we have from the clear and distinct perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas." Accordingly, our assurance that the souls of men shall live forever belongs to the province of faith and not to that of reason.1 Yet since without that assurance "the just measures of right and wrong" do not have the character of a law, those just measures are not a law for reason. This would mean that there does not exist a law of nature. Therefore, if there is to be "a law knowable by the light of nature, that is, without the help of positive revelation," that law must consist of a set of rules whose validity does not presuppose life after death or belief in a life after death. (Fs)

212b Such rules were established by the classical philosophers. The pagan philosophers, "who spoke from reason, made not much mention of the Deity in their ethics." They showed that virtue "is the perfection and the excellency of our nature; that she is herself a reward, and will recommend our names to future ages," but they left "her unendowed."2 For they were unable to show a necessary connection between virtue and prosperity or happiness, a connection which is not visible in this life and which can be guaranteed only if there is a life after death.3 Still, while unassisted reason cannot establish a necessary connection between virtue and prosperity or happiness, the classical philosophers realized, and practically all men realize, a necessary connection between a kind of prosperity or happiness and a kind or part of virtue. There exists, indeed, a visible connection between "public happiness" or "the prosperity and temporal happiness of any people" and the general compliance with "several moral rules." These rules, which apparently are a part of the complete law of nature, "may receive from mankind a very general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his hands rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the proudest offender." But even if, and precisely if, those rules are divorced from "the true ground of morality," they stand "on their true foundations": "[Prior to Jesus], those just measures of right and wrong, which necessity had anywhere introduced, the civil laws prescribed, or philosophers recommended, stood on their true foundations. They were looked on as bonds of society, and conveniencies of common life, and laudable practices. "4 However doubtful the status of the complete law of nature may have become in Locke's thought, the partial law of nature which is limited to what "political happiness"--a "good of mankind in this world"--evidently requires would seem to have stood firm. Only this partial law of nature can have been recognized by him, in the last analysis, as a law of reason and therewith as truly a law of nature. (Fs)