Natural Law Commons^™

The Duality Of Machiavellianism In Regard To Modern Political Philosophy, Rebekah Honaker

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The principles of human nature and a realist system of governance irrevocably clash in Niccolò Machiavelli’s most profound works despite his personal convictions remaining seemingly steadfast. Yet, the term ‘Machiavellian’ reflects a relatively one-sided delineation of ideas proposed by the early modern political philosopher. His principles on constructing and maintaining absolute power through corruption, immorality, provocation of fear, coercion, and a general natural human depravity are far more often associated with his legacy on modern politics. However, many alternative principles of republicanism, self-governance, popular sovereignty, and balance of power have a significant presence in his career. Many scholars view the …

The Natural Complexity Of Patent Eligibility, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

It has long been assumed that the doctrine of patent eligibility’s prohibition of patents on “laws of nature,” “natural phenomena,” and “products of nature” rests on legalistic interpretations of those terms. But there is good reason to doubt this assumption. Since the doctrine’s inception, the Supreme Court has yet to provide any framework, formula, or factors explaining these “natural” terms. Rather, the Court has increasingly fixated on a list of scientific tropes, such as gravity, the heat of the Sun, and extracted metals, that it believes are true examples of “natural laws,” “phenomena,” and “products.”

An actual examination of scientific …

Breaking The Deadlock: Toward A Socialist-Confucianist Concept Of Human Rights For China, David E. Christensen

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note offers an alternative perspective on international human rights that seeks to bypass the dead-end universalist-cultural relativist debate, and proposes a concept of human rights that is harmonious with the modern collectivist and socialist Chinese order. Since human rights protect dignity, this study finds the source of human dignity in China in society, not in nature. This analysis opens the door to the development of a meaningful set of guaranteed individual rights for a socialist state and a Confucian order.

The Moral Value Of Law, Philip Soper

Michigan Law Review

Suppose you have correctly concluded that it is your legal obligation to act or refrain from acting in a certain way. Can you, from that conclusion alone, say anything at all about what you ought to do morally?

An affirmative answer to this question implies that law has moral value regardless of content or circumstance: without knowing what the act is that the law commands or even what legal system has enacted the law, one would, on this view, be able to link the conclusion about legal obligation with some conclusion about moral responsibility. Such a view seems quite far-reaching …

The Natural Duty To Obey The Law, Kent Greenawalt

Michigan Law Review

Though scholarly skepticism has been expressed during the past two decades, lawyers and others have often supposed that people have a moral obligation or duty to obey the law. This article is about one possible basis for that moral constraint, a natural duty. The article has a number of interrelated objectives. In it, I try to show briefly why theories of natural duty are so important in this context, how these theories differ from other moral bases for obedience, what the strengths and weaknesses are of particular arguments about a natural duty, what features unify apparently disparate approaches, what assumptions …