What is classical natural law?

The classical school of law refers to a secular natural law produced in the Western liberal capitalist stage from the 17th to the 19th century. It is based on the natural law that criticized medieval theology. It is the product and sharp weapon of the bourgeoisie's anti-feudal struggle.

Their representatives and their works include Grotius's "The Law of War and Peace", Hobbes's "Leviathan", Locke's "Treatise of Government", Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws" and Rousseau's "The Spirit of the Laws".

Social Contract Theory".

The natural law of this period has the following obvious characteristics: 1. Taking human beings as the starting point of research and human rationality as the basis of law and the main criterion for measurement; 2. Emphasizing individual rights and proposing the theory of natural human rights;

3. A detailed discussion of the content of natural law; 4. Combining natural law thinking with social contracts, etc.; however, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, some Western jurists began to pay attention to and study the concept of natural law and natural law theory.

After being ignored for half the world, it was resurrected and became the new natural law. Representatives of this period and their works include Frenchman Jacques Maritain's "Man and the State" and British John Phoenix's "Natural Law".

and Natural Rights," American John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice," and Ronald Dworkin's "Taking Rights Seriously."

The new natural law of this period has the following characteristics: 1. A new interpretation of the concept of "natural law" is made. It is no longer understood as a kind of law parallel to positive law, but more as a kind of law hidden behind the scenes.

A law that guides the implementation of statutory law; 2. Change the previous belief that natural law is immutable, and now emphasize the variability and relativity of natural law; 3. Absorb and learn from the views and methods of other legal schools.