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William Faulkner's Belief In Natural Law

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William Faulkner’s “Belief in Natural law and Natural rights in the Land” Dr. R. Purushothaman Assistant Professor and Head Department of English Periyar University College of Arts and Science Pappireddipatti, Dharmapuri William Faulkner apparently with deliberate intent, is vitally aware of the land question, and in this awareness one detects a relation of his ideas to those philosophers of the past whose concepts were dependent upon a belief in natural law and natural rights, a belief especially popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Faulkner is, of course, a Southerner, and he possesses a deep feeling for the soil, recognition of the land’s importance and the effects it can have upon the men who put their lives …show more content…

Over-all, “natural law decides what actions would be ethically right, and what wrong, in a community that had no government; and positive law ought to be, as far as possible, guided and inspired by natural law.” What Locke says is simply that natural law guarantees to all men complete liberty and equality, while at the same time it forbids anyone to infringe upon the rights of anyone else, be they the rights of life, liberty or possessions. Obviously, if one has the right to life, he must have a right to the necessities of life’s preservation, one of the most vital of which is land, especially in the agricultural society. Also, if one has the right to property in land, he has that right, under natural law, only so far as the land is needed by him, not to the point of claiming another’s rightful …show more content…

Does it not require that each shall be free to make, save and to enjoy what wealth he may, without interference with the equal rights of others; that no one shall be compelled to give forced labor to another, or to yield up his earnings to another; that no one shall be permitted to extort from another labor or earnings? All this goes without saying. Any recognition of the equal right to life and liberty which would deny the right to property the right of a man to his labor and to the full fruits of his labor would be

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