Natural law: Classical and Christian

Read Ratnapala’s account of Plato.  In The Republic, Plato was considering ‘justice’.  He was trying to state how a just society would best be organised.  Please note –

1. Plato’s understanding of ideal forms.
2. The object of a just state.
3. How a just state balances reason, appetite and spirit, and how each of these elements of the mind are reflected by different groups of people.
4. The guardians of the just state are philosophers – philosopher-Kings, in fact.

Something of Plato’s ideal republic is also replicated in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). Does this kind of society remind you of any political communities that exist in the world today?  In which countries?  What are the common features of Plato’s republic, More’s Utopia and these contemporary political communities?  What do you like about this kind of society? What don’t you like?

Read Ratnapala on Augustine.

1. What is the difference between natural law and human law?
2. To whom is human law directed?
3. What happens if human law conflicts with the natural law?

Prepare answers to all five questions

1. Evaluate  Plato’s theory of forms relates to  a modem conception of justice, law and freedom.   
2. Evaluate  Aristotle’s idea of  justice.   Is Aristotle’s  justice  acceptable  in modern pluralistic society?
3. A legal system  and  theological  system    work as mass   ‘meaning providers’ .

What are the differences between Augustine and Aquinas on the separation between law and religion.  

4. In Oppenheimer v Cattermole [1976] AC 249, the House of Lords was considering whether to recognise a German decree (of the Nazi era) that cancelled the citizenship of any German Jews living outside Germany at the time. In his speech, Lord Cross of Chelsea said (at 278): ‘To my mind a law of this sort constitutes so grave an infringement of human rights that the courts of this country ought to refuse to recognise it as a law at all.’ 

Assuming that House of Lords has  the competence to decide the legitimacy of foreign law, provide an argument for  and one  against   the validity of the German Decree .