# Natural Law — Tradition Natural law holds that there is an objective moral order, rooted in human nature and accessible to reason, that stands above and judges the positive law made by states. It runs from Aristotle and the Stoics through [[Cicero]] and [[Thomas Aquinas]] (its classic systematization), is secularized by [[Hugo Grotius]] and [[John Locke]], and is recovered in the 20th century by [[Leo Strauss]] (*[[Natural Right and History]]*) against modern historicism. ## Why it is load-bearing on the right Natural law is arguably the single most important philosophical tradition for the American right because it supplies the *form* of so many of its arguments: that just human law must answer to a higher moral order. This grounds the anti-abortion movement's "right to life," traditional-marriage advocacy, religious-liberty claims, and the [[Integralism]] and [[Catholic Post-Liberalism]] projects. The [[Claremont Institute]]'s constitutionalism reads the Declaration of Independence as a natural-law document. [[Patrick Deneen]]'s critique of liberalism is, at root, the charge that liberalism abandoned natural law for autonomous will. ## Tensions The tradition splits between a **theological** wing ([[Thomas Aquinas]], requiring God as lawgiver) and a **rationalist/secular** wing ([[Hugo Grotius]], [[John Locke]]) — a fault line that maps onto today's split between religious integralists and secular natural-rights conservatives. See the [[Philosophy in Right-Wing Thought Hub]] MOC and the [[Ethics]] branch.