Abstract
One of the main problems that causes a certain Verfremdungseffekt when someone talks about Natural Law nowadays, is the fact that the language (and conceptualisation) of Natural Law—that theoretical and practical juridical set of tools—is no longer used in the daily life of academies. And what is more problematic, indeed, is that it was exiled from the courts of justice. Or even worse: Natural Law has been discredited in some intellectual, political and juridical circles (not to be forgotten) because of its ideological use, pro domo, made by some rather conservative, authoritarian regimes, and even dictatorship ones, not so long ago.
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Notes
- 1.
Alasdair McIntyre, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd Edition, Notre Dame, 1984, p. 70.
- 2.
Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law 1150 – 1625, Grand Rapids/Cambridge, William B. Eerdmans, 1997, new edition, 2001, p. 2, n. 4.
- 3.
Jean-Marc Trigeaud, Ce droit naturel que le positivisme a inventé, in Métaphysique et Éthique au Fondement du Droit,
Bordeaux, Biere, 1995, p. 161 et sq. About the two paradigms, Norberto Bobbio, Giusnaturalismo e positivismo giuridico,
Milano, Ed. di Comunità, 1984. About positivism, Chr. Grezegorczyk,/M. Troper,/F. Michaut, Le Positivisme juridique,
Paris, Dalloz, 1974.
- 4.
See our article Questões de Princípios, in “Thèmes”, VI, 20011:
http://www.philosophiedudroit.org/da%20cunha,%20questoes%20de%20principios.htm.
- 5.
Alberto Montoro Ballesteros, Iusnaturalismo y Derecho Comparado, in Francisco Puy (org.), El Derecho Natural Hispanico.
Actas de las 'Primeras Jornadas Hispánicas de Derecho Natural', Madrid, Escelicer, 1973, p. 403 et sq.
- 6.
Michel Villey, Réflexions sur la Philosophie et le Droit. Les Carnets, PUF, Paris, 1995, p. 45.
- 7.
But it is the eternal return. See the contemporary synthesis by Luc Ferry/Jean-Didier Vincent, Qu’est-de que l’homme?, Paris,
Odile Jacob, 2000, p. 11: “Longtemps tenue pour taboue, soupçonnée des pires connotations politiques et idéologiques, la
recherche des ‘fondements naturels’ de nos comportements normaux ou déviants tend donc à devenir aujourd’hui une évidence
pour l’immense majorité des biologistes, même lorsqu’ils se veulent par ailleurs ‘progressistes’ et hostiles à toute forme
d’idéologie raciste ou extrémiste”.
- 8.
Édouard Laboulaye, Introduction à Esprit des lois, by Montesquieu, in Oeuves Complètes, Paris, Garnier Frères, 1875, p. 6 (electronic edition).
- 9.
Rabelais, La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, V, 25.
- 10.
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
- 11.
Álvaro D’Ors, Derecho y Sentido Común. Siete lecciones de derecho natural como límite del derecho positivo, Madrid, Civitas, 1995.
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da Cunha, P.F. (2013). Sterility of Natural Law Theoricism. In: Rethinking Natural Law. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32659-2_3
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