Stoicism's Theory Of Law: The Concept Of Natural Law
Introduction
The concept of natural law has taken several forms. The idea began with the ancient Greeks’ conception of a universe governed in every particular by an eternal, immutable law and in their distinction between what is just by nature and just by convention. Stoicism provided the most complete classical formulation of natural law. The Stoics argued that the universe is governed by reason, or rational principle; they further argued that all humans have reason within them and can therefore know and obey its law. Because human beings have the faculty of choice (a free will), they will not necessarily obey the law; if they act in accordance with reason, however, they will be “following nature.”
A widespread concept of political and legal thought, denoting the aggregate or collection of principles, rules, laws, and values dictated by human nature and therefore seemingly independent of concrete social conditions and the state.
Natural law has always appeared as a value category relative to the legal order in force in a given political society and to the system of social relations consolidated by such a legal order. In views serving as apologetics this system and the
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