No one ever said they were. They are Natural Law, not mere law. I'm not sure if you've been following this thread, but we have been using the term "law" to refer to statutory, Constitutional, or written law, as opposed to Natural Law. — James Riley

So natural law isn't law.

I think of natural law as law because that's what it's called. — Hanover

So natural law is law.

Hmm.

There certainly isn't a consensus here, hey.

Nature, as I understand it, adopts nothing; it makes no laws, it simply is, and we're a part of it. We know things and can infer things from our interaction with the rest of Nature, but that doesn't mean that there are laws inherent in it which govern how we should behave in the sense that a law would. — Ciceronianus the White

I do understand that nature does not promulgate rules, but it does operate in a predictable way, consistent with what we call the laws of physics. That is an example of the word "law' being used in way that differs from the confined way you insist, which is in a way that requires human processes. Another fine example of the word "law" being used in a way that violates your preference is in the phrase "natural law."

There certainly isn't a consensus here, hey. — Banno

Historically, there is consensus. The simple dictionary definition need not be appealed to, though it is clearly there. Then there is the debates of our Founding Fathers, as well as the philosophical discourse during the Enlightenment. The term "Natural Law" has been around since Christ was a Corporal and, I suspect, it was cited as authority for the first written law. Do I have proof of the latter? No, but without it, the law is, by definition, unreasonable. That renders it non-law to those who demand reason.

So... now natural law is law?

So... now natural law is law? — Banno

No. Natural Law is Natural Law. The law is man's effort to reduce Natural Law to writing.

Take it up with @Hanover.

I'll go get the popcorn.

I have not decided on m position yet, but it certainly is not positivism hook line and sinker... — Tobias

Thank you, Toby, for introducing some clarity.

What do you make of appeals to "our founding fathers"? For example,

Then there is the debates of our Founding Fathers, — James Riley

I don't imagine they hold much sway in your part of the world, not mine.

I ask because I assume natural law would be neither so parochial nor paternal.

I'll go get the popcorn. — Banno

I think we (Hanover and I) are in accord. So far, I've not seen much daylight between us. There are some spots where we could make an argument but a lot of that stems from our unique use of terms in this thread, separating law law (writing) from Natural Law.

I don't imagine they hold much sway in your part of the world, — Banno

Our (U.S.) Founding Fathers hold much sway. Sure, the courts try to stay within the four corners of an organic document or statute, but whenever there is ambiguity or conflict, they often hearken back. But reading the Federalist Papers and other docs will point up Natural Law. One need only look to the 9th and 10th Amendment. What could they have been referring to? Blackstone? I think not.

Our... — James Riley

Too presumptive.

However, there was nothing in the written law that prevented him from doing so. In fact the law of inheritance was crystal clear on the issue. The courts invoked a legal principle: "one should not legally benefit from one's own crimes" and withheld the inheritance. If we hold on to the principe of ciceronianus that law is law the courts have acted unlawfully. Did they? even positivists are hard pressed here. Dworkin argued that when law is as lawyers do we have to accept legal principles as a part of law. — Tobias

So, the law provided that someone who murdered X was entitled to his X's estate?

I don't know the case referred to. I don't think a legal positivist would be obliged to contend that the law, once adopted, can never change, however, or cannot be interpreted. Where I practice, those who murder a decedent cannot share in his/her estate by statute.

If there was nothing expressly prohibiting the court from ruling as it did, then it seems to me there was nothing prohibiting it from interpreting the law (statute) in such a fashion, e.g., that it would not have an absurd result--one in which a murderer is entitled to the estate of the one he murdered.

Regardless, though I haven't maintained that morals and moral principles are never employed in making or interpreting, or enforcing laws. My only point is that doesn't make morals or moral principles law.

Too presumptive. — Banno

How so? I don't know where you live, but I qualified it to the U.S. If you are an American Citizen and you know of someone else who enacted the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, please advise.

I haven't maintained that morals and moral principles are never employed in making or interpreting, or enforcing laws. My only point is that doesn't make morals or moral principles law. — Ciceronianus the White

Sure it does. Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a law.

So, Natural law is a set of moral principles. The law is not. Right?

So, Natural law is a set of moral principles. The law is not. Right? — Ciceronianus the White

Wrong. While Natural Law is a set of moral principles, so is the law. The law is just an effort to reduce Natural Law to writing.

Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a law. — James Riley

So, a moral principle becomes a law in that case?

So, a moral principle becomes a law in that case? — Ciceronianus the White

It tries. Sometimes it succeeds. Often it must be tweeked and refined as it keeps running head long into Natural Law. Like the example above: 1. X can leave his estate to Y. It is law! 2. But wait! Y killed X! That don't sound right! Okay, 3. X can leave his estate to Y but Y is not entitled to it if he kills X. And on and on and on. I long ago tried to use the example of homicide and all the variant levels, defenses and punishments, each one of which is the result of a tweek as it arose and some judge, legislature, attorney, people said "that ain't right!"

It's my understanding that we used to be able to go outside and jump up to the moon. Then Newton came along, wrote down the law of gravity, and hence forth we could not longer jump to the moon.

Sorry all, but I must depart this thread to actually practice law, which means dealing with laws that exist, not laws that I think exist, or should exist. It's a useful distinction for a lawyer to make. But not a philosopher, it seems.

which means dealing with laws that exist, not laws that I think exist, or should exist. — Ciceronianus the White

No one said laws don't exist, but if your gut tells you one should and it doesn't, I hope you bring that up. Maybe you'll have a case of first impression, and you can help make some new law, and bring some justice into a court of law. I guess that would be novel.

Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a law. — James Riley

Now we’re getting somewhere. Once a moral principle is employed in making a law it makes it a MORAL law. Once a logical principle is employed in making a law it makes it a LOGICAL law. Once a civic principle is employed in making a law it makes it a CIVIL law. Pick a domain, find a principle, make a law grounded by it.

All laws of kind have principles from which they are made laws of that kind. It follows there must be at least one principle that makes any law a law, or that makes any law, lawful. Which succinctly quantifies the thread title...a law is a law is a law.

See page 1.

All laws of kind have principles from which they are made laws of that kind. It follows there must be at least one principle that makes any law a law, or that makes any law, lawful. — Mww

That sounds reasonable to me. One word that covers all principles is "reason." Reason was used to arrive at the law, regardless of the type of, but still based upon principle, and that is the reason for it.

Which succinctly quantifies the thread title...a law is a law is a law. — Mww

That too sounds reasonable. But "qualifies" sounds better, to me, than "quantifies." Thus, the law is the law is the law but the fact it is a law does not provide the reason for it's invocation.

Yeah....I used quantifies only because the thread title showed a plurality of single instances.

I agree any single law is qualified by whichever principle reason assigns as its ground. And just as reason covers all principles, universality and necessity, as principles, cover all laws.

Wel Cic, where do you practice? It is rather odd you do not know the case Riggs v. Palmer when writing on the positivism / anti-positivism debate. But anyway, the case is an old case, at the end of the 19th century. Probably the law has changed and no, there is nothing in positivism that says the law cannot change. However, in the state of New York at the time there was no law that stated that one cannot inherit in case you murdered the testator. Elmer Palmer did to prevent him to change his will. But in absence of a law stating otherwise should not normal inheritance law apply? And would that not mean the wording of the will, validly drafted, should be executed as is?

It is not a question of interpretation. The law is clear. There is no textual difficulty. So the court appealed to other, possibly higher principles of law. But when you bluntly state "law is law" you should at least clarify whether that includes legal principles or not and if so whence do they derive their legal force.

If there was nothing expressly prohibiting the court from ruling as it did, then it seems to me there was nothing prohibiting it from interpreting the law (statute) in such a fashion, e.g., that it would not have an absurd result--one in which a murderer is entitled to the estate of the one he murdered. — Ciceronianus the White

Absurd absurd? so law is law unless it leads to absurd results? Comes dangerously close to natural law Ciceronianus. It is not that judges are prohibited to rule in way x or way y. the question is, does their ruling stand up to legal scrutiny? If textual interprretation is the only method of interpretation then their position collapses, because the law on inheritance is clear. Were they allowed? Yes, but it rpoves Dworin's point that there is more to law than what positivists hold law to be.

Regardless, though I haven't maintained that morals and moral principles are never employed in making or interpreting, or enforcing laws. My only point is that doesn't make morals or moral principles law. — Ciceronianus the White

Well you will have to. There was no question of unclarity in the law that should be interpreted, there was no law to be made but only a case to be judged and there was no question of enforcement either. so according to you the courts used non law to set aside the law and still took a legally valid decision? That is definitely odd. Then non law would be law and law would in your view be non-law. That is definitely absurd. So much more consistent it is to accept that these principles are part of law. As is the usual interpretation actually.

What do you make of appeals to "our founding fathers"? For example, — Banno

It is an oddity of US law. No we never appeal to 'our founding fathers', in fact the Netherlands does not have constitutional review ;) But in the US these people are so revered that what they once wrote is considered to be crucial to interpret current situations. There are huge debates between the originalists who state that the constitution should be interpreted as in light of its original intention and the evolutionists who hold that the constitution should be interpreted as a 'living document', so in light of current times. We do have legislative historical interpretation though where we try to find out what the legislative branch intended with a certain law, but never to the degree of 'originalism'.

Sorry all, but I must depart this thread to actually practice law, which means dealing with laws that exist, not laws that I think exist, or should exist. It's a useful distinction for a lawyer to make. But not a philosopher, it seems. — Ciceronianus the White

And wiith legal principles... don't forget legal principles. They exist and they might well make you win a case ;)

You're right of course. I should have known that it's impossible to comment intelligently on legal positivism without being familiar with the case of Riggs v. Palmer. And no doubt the jurisdiction in which I practice isn't one worthy of recognition, not really. I'll retire from the field with what dignity I have left.

Ah, so, natural law is ridiculous, legal principles are indispensable.

Cool.

I did not mean to be offensive Ciceronianus and never did I imply that your jurisdiction is not worthy of recognition. I practice in the Netherlands and there is no doubt in my mind that your jurisdiction holds more sway than the Amsterdam district court. I do find it odd that you did not know the case. I was sure you would since your original post displayed much knowledge on the history of positivism. Dworkin's attack against it is based on the case and this attack (not the case of course) raises very difficult questions for this doctrine. So yes... I was genuinely puzzled as I expected it to be known.

Ah, so, natural law is ridiculous, legal principles are indispensable. — Banno

Even natural law is not totally out of the window these days. Sure the idea of a "heaven of legal concepts in the sky" does not have many adherents, but trouble arises when we try to justify universal human rights for instance. "We hold these rights to be self evident:" is a natural law formulation. The natural law thesis in its thinnest form says that there are essential features of any legal rule or system without which this rule is not law. In other words, are there regulations thinkable that even though they are promulgated in the right way, following the right procedures should still not count as law. Now I think we would all agree that a law that tells you to open and close the door simultaneously, even if promulgated in the right way, poses certain problems because it is impossible to comply with. Hart would say this is simply bad law and he might have a point. However if you also hold the view that law is more than mere rambling because it claims obedience than this rule might well lack that claim since it is impossible to adhere to.

Now this is academic but there are legal cases, for instance the case of the grudge informer http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/The_Grudge_Informer_Case_Revisited.pdf
where the question whether certain rules are law or not comes to the fore.

If we say that law is what lawyers do that let's see what they do, said Ronny Dworkin. When we analyse cases (the famous case Riggs v Palmer, easy to find). In Riggs v Palmer the court argued that a murderer cannot claim the inheriitance of the person he murdered. However, there was nothing in the written law that prevented him from doing so. In fact the law of inheritance was crystal clear on the issue. The courts invoked a legal principle: "one should not legally benefit from one's own crimes" and withheld the inheritance. If we hold on to the principe of ciceronianus that law is law the courts have acted unlawfully. Did they? even positivists are hard pressed here. Dworkin argued that when law is as lawyers do we have to accept legal principles as a part of law. — Tobias

If there's a question of interpretation, a judge will try to do so within the 'spirit of the law', is that right? He'll interpreted it on the basis of a reasonable assessment of what that particular law set out to achieve. Say a law banning knives left some clearly dangerous use ambiguous, the judgement is likely to adopt the least dangerous interpretation assuming that the intent of the law was to protect people rather than, say, harm knife manufacturing.

Could not, then, the same argument be made for the body of law as a whole? That, where there's uncertainty, or conflict, the overall purposes of the body of law as a whole is invoked to justify a particular decision.

This would rescue positivism because the overall purposes of the body of law as a whole need not be aligned with any external morality.

It could simply be seen as an effort to maintain the maximum consistency, as is already the case if two laws accidentally contradict one another.

Edit - So in your German case, the aberrant law need not be overrode because it conflicts with natural law, but simply because it's so obviously opposed to the general intent of all other laws.

Regardless, though I haven't maintained that morals and moral principles are never employed in making or interpreting, or enforcing laws. My only point is that doesn't make morals or moral principles law. — Ciceronianus the White

This comment really deprives this debate of any significance. In trying to determine what this thread intends to answer, I've arrived at that following possibilities:

1. Whether there are principles of morality that are employed in legal interpretation?
2. Whether the US system relies upon moral principles when it interprets law?
3. Whether there are moral principles that exist that are not human creations?
4. Should there be a legal system that uses morality when interpreting some laws?
5. Are natural laws properly defined in English as laws?

As to #1, you say yes, although you previously seemed to deny such occurred in the contemporary US system. It is obvious, however, that other systems do directly question the morality of a law when deciding whether to uphold it.

As to #2, you say yes sometimes such occurs in the US.

As to #3, I believe you say yes. If you said no, then this debate would become one of whether moral realism exists and it would more directly challenge the existence of natural law in a philosophical way. From your posts, I don't see this as your concern.

As to #4, it's not clear what you think, but I'm guessing that doesn't matter to you. The only discussion as to this point is where you pointed to the lack of evidence of in your practice that US courts rely upon morality when ruling. I've noted the irrelevance of those responses to this question.

As to #5, you say no, and this seems to be the main point you wish to show in this discussion. The problem with this question is that it has no philosophical significance, it's pedantic, and it demands a rigid prescriptive definitional scheme, where we turn to preset dictionary definitions to understand words as opposed to reference to nuanced usages and context. The real answer to this question is the same as when you ask the definition of most any word, which is that words tend to be defined different ways in different contexts. We could have had the same conversation about "cups" or "chickens" and drawn the same conclusion and we wouldn't have been so burdened by all the issues related to natural law versus positivism.

Anywho, the reason this natural law debate matters, imho, is because it challenges the role of governments. Do governments create the most fundamental laws we hold so dear, or is the role of government to defend the rights we already have?. That is, do governments create the laws we refer to as "rights," or is the government subservient to the rights we have regardless of what a legislature decides? If we accept the latter explanation, then we stand on firm ground when we defy government oppression of our rights and we declare such systems illegitimate on their face.