Natural Law

Are we born with it? Or is it Maybelline?

Well, if we’re talking about natural law, the answer is that we’re born with it. The term “natural law” refers to the fact that some rules, laws, and morals are inherent, universal, unchanging, and there with us from birth to death…and possibly beyond. In fact, it doesn’t matter if a government actually acknowledges natural law or not with its own subpar human-created laws—natural law is still there, existing.

There are three lenses through which we can view this whole “natural law” thing. Let’s start with the historical perspective, which says that the laws we create should align with how society has always operated. This doesn’t mean we should never create new types of laws—for example, abiding by historical natural law doesn’t forbid us from supporting legislation in newer areas like tech platform censorship or LGBTQ rights—but it does mean that those laws should align with our society’s values, morals, and history. Remember learning about the Magna Carta? How about the Constitution? When we say we’re fans of historical natural law, we’re saying, for instance, that we want new laws to build upon the foundation laid by documents like those.

The second lens is the lens of the divine, which says that natural law was created by God or another divine presence. Therefore, all of our laws and behaviors should echo what we’ve been taught by the Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc. Divine natural law also comes into play in countries where the leaders are seen as coming from a long line of divinely appointed leaders; since God chose them, then what they say must be God’s will and therefore in line with natural law.

And finally, the third lens is the secular lens. In this view, natural law is dictated by science and nature. How did people act before government was a thing? What drove us? How did we interact with each other and our environment? Secular natural law fans say that that is what should guide our lawmaking today. Ever heard of John Locke? He’s the guy who said that, no matter what, humans live according to three concepts: equality, liberty, and self-preservation. Ergo, our laws should be designed around those three things. If this sounds a little familiar, it’s because these ideas show up on the reg in our own Constitution and other laws. In fact, we’d be hard-pressed to find a political science or American history course that didn’t mention Lockean philosophies at least once or twice.

Anyway, no matter which lens we’re into, the point is this: natural law is unchanging and unchangeable, and no matter what we humans do or how much we advance, natural law proponents say we’ll never be able to stray too far from the inherent laws that guide us. No matter how many Maybelline products we use.