Natural Law Or Natural Rights: From Aquinas To Locke

The subject that modern moral philosophy can not avoid is that whether classical philosophy or modern philosophy makes the contribution to Nature Law and Natural Rights. Aquinas defines Nature Law as rational creatures participated in eternal law,and we can know that Aquinas thinks the theory of Natural Rights is axiomatic from his three precepts of Nature Law. He thinks that natural right is self-evident and can be practice knowable. Meanwhile John Locke the pioneer of modern theory regards Natural Rights as uman self-preservation, and attempted to find natural rights foundation.This article is the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas’ natural law compared with natural rights theory from the Modern Enlightenment liberalism pioneer Locke’s,back in history the concept of natural law, as well as classical the difference between the theory and the sources of the natural law of modern natural rights theory- in Thomas’ s theory of natural law, the natural law is the study of natural rights obtained from; in Locke’s theory, is obtained from the natural law to natural the concept of rights. Modernist looking for change "Nature Law" and "Natural Rights" in the limits of law and morality in the gap that its scholars to pursue for a "promulgation" or a way to fulfill the basis.It’s also my paper’s considers of the crisis of modern natural law.From natural law to natural right, from Aquinas to Locke, between centuries of time,the explore of Natural Law and Natural Rights does not focus on the boundaries of legal and ethical.The inference of the conception for law is insufficient,but Enlightenment thinkers has found the way to determine the Natural Rights from the exploration of the "nature" state.So that the whole theory of natural law comes from classical to modern, from the boundaries of moral and law to the new rational thoughts.