On the Historical Development of Lex Naturalis and Ius Naturale in the Context of Contract Theories of the Selected Authors of Early Liberalism
On the Historical Development of Lex Naturalis and Ius Naturale in the Context of Contract Theories of the Selected Authors of Early Liberalism

Summary/Abstract: As early as within the ancient period and the emergence of the Roman law and then also in the Middle Ages, the contract theory played an important role in establishing order. Contractualism has assumed great importance in the milieu of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It was primarily concerned with agreements that were intended to secure the covenants of people with God and took on the character of a normative contract as a source of law. In the field of state and law, the influence of contract theories asserted itself particularly on the threshold of the modern period in the context of the development of liberalism in its early forms. Contract theories emerge in this period in a dominant part of writers of the early liberalism, with the central motivation being to secure the protection of an individual against the arbitrary will of another individual or authority of any kind. The basic motivation of contract theories became the objective to establish a sovereign in the state. Such process of choice is accompanied by a legally unstable state of nature, which is characterized by the existence of the lex naturalis (natural law) and ius naturale (natural right). This article deals with the definition, analysis, and comparison of the concepts of natural law and natural right in the context of the three most relevant thinkers of the given period, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. The aim of this paper is to highlight overlaps and differences in the way of discussing these concepts, which at the time formed the basis of what we now call the statecraft. In addition, the text is also enriched by author's criticism and analyses of problematic or content-inconsistent passages in the philosophy of individual authors.

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