ПРИРОДНО ПРАВО И МОРАЛ У ДЕЛУ ЈОВАНА СТЕРИЈЕ ПОПОВИЋА
NATURAL LAW AND ETHICS IN THE OPUS OF JOVAN STERIJA POPOVIĆ

Summary/Abstract: As a proponent of Kant's conception of natural law and moral, Jovan Sterija Popovic deserves the credit for the development of legal science and education in Serbia in the course of the natural law theory rather than in the course of legal positivism.In his opinion, natural law is general, universal and permanent, and does not depend on positive law. On the grounds of his belief that natural law was the pattern used by constitution-framers, judges and law- interpreters, Sterija opposed any kind of authoritarianism and positivism. Natural law is the basis of positive legislation; that is how natural law becomes effective. Thus, Sterija accepted the idea - which was later to be developed by many other legal philosophers - that natural law has to be effective whereas positive law has to be (morally) right; that is how natural law becomes applicable. Sterija also developed the idea that there is a connection between natural law and human dignity, which makes natural law applicable in the field of international law owing to the fact that the right to human dignity has supremacy over all other rights.Although he made a clear distinction between natural law and ethics, by his definition of the proto-law (principal, ultimate law) Sterija falls into the group of legal scholars who perceive the correlation between natural law and morality. The interrelatedness is made prominent in the definition of the proto- law, which is designated as the right of man as a moral being to preserve the personal human dignity.Sterija's idea of natural law and ethics has served as the foundation for the development of Serbian legal science.

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