Natural Law, Justice, and Legal Values: An Overview
Iusnaturalista Solution: Natural Law
Iusnaturalista solution welcomes those who defend a higher objective order that is permanent and universal. Humans can discover criteria to guide their behavior, which should also guide the law. We distinguish between natural law coinciding with legal objectivism and natural law as a higher law. For authentic law rules, they must align with natural law’s content. Natural law positions defend a dual legal system: natural law (ideal) and positive law (which should reflect the ideal). Some argue that only natural law is authentic, as positive law is valid only if it reflects natural criteria.
Current Legal Values: Justice
Justice is a fundamental legal value from which other values derive. Different doctrinal positions exist regarding the relationship between law and justice:
- Natural Law Position: Justice and law are intrinsically linked. Unjust laws are not laws or are corruptions of law.
- Positivist Position: Justice is linked to moral judgments, not intrinsic to law. A rule is legal if it meets formal requirements, regardless of its fairness.
- Eclectic Position: Justice is an ideal principle that law should strive for, though no system can fully achieve it.
Conceptions of Justice
Plato’s conceptions of justice include:
- Positivist: The will of the stronger, expressed in law.
- Formal: Giving each their due.
- Material: Harmony of virtues in individuals and society.
Aristotle distinguishes:
- General Justice: The sum of all virtues.
- Particular Justice: Equality in intersubjective relations, divided into distributive (proportional) and correlative (synallagmatic) justice.
H. Kelsen defines justice as:
- A possible feature of a social order.
- A human virtue when behavior matches a just social order.
Collective Legal Values
- Social Peace: Peaceful relations within a group.
- Common Good: Benefit of the community.
- Legal Certainty: Linked to the rule of law, ensuring predictability and stability through general, public, clear, stable, non-retroactive, and full laws.
Individual Legal Values
- Personal Dignity: Positive affirmation of full personality development and self-determination.
- Personal Freedom: Autonomy and free choice about personal interests.
- Personal Equality:
- Formal: Equality before the law, general law, alignment of the law, and differentiation under the law.
- Material: Balance of goods and social-economic situations.