A Review Of D’ Entreves’s Thought Of Natural Law

Italian jurist d’Entreves is one of the representatives of the Modern Natural Law Renaissance Movement, and the core of his legal philosophy and political theory is natural law. d’Entreves studies and discusses a history of natural law theory, the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and obligation of civil obedience.Roman law is characterized by its universal validity which foundation is natural law. The medieval natural law theory provides secular ethics with a solid foundation that makes coexistence of rationality and belief. Natural law theory in the17th and18th century gradually evolves into a theory of natural rights that constitutes the theoretical basis of American and French revolution. Natural law theory could be divided into technological, ontological and deontological one. Because technological and ontological natural law theory both are flawed, d’Entreves advocates a natural law theory of deontology which core proposition is to discuss the final existence of value as the foundation of responsibility. On the nature of law, natural law theory claims that essence of law is reason, and therefore it has to deal with challenges of voluntarism, legal positivism and "ethical state" doctrine. One assumption of natural law theory is that law and morality are closely combined, but it doesn’t exclude possibility of distinction."Differential Characters" theory can’t effectively distinguish between law and morality. The key difference between them is the core nature of legal obligation and moral obligations. On obligation of obedience to the law, d’Entreves believes that natural law is essentially a theory about individuals and citizens to obey law and state. Of course, this is also a political obligation problem in political philosophy. We must understand obeying whom firstly before we obey, and distinguish between legality and legitimacy. Legality is the premise of legitimacy. Only power that meets certain value can be converted to authority and get voluntary obedience. Citizens have duties to obey the law, but they also have rights to disobey laws which seriously violate human rights. Partial obedience theory is deeply rooted in the western natural law tradition.In a word, d’Entreves tries to transcend popular legal positivism and Neo-Thomism to re-examine heritage of natural law theory in a critical and inclusive attitude. He provides a new and powerful defense for natural law.