Hegel and Natural Law Theory

Abstract

This paper examines Hegel's attitude towards natural law theory. Commentators disagree on this. Some say that Hegel is hostile to natural law theory and that he is a legal positivist. Others say that he is in fact, a natural law theorist in the conventional sense. The paper argues that both of these interpretations are incorrect. It takes the view that Hegel is a natural law theorist, but not in the conventional sense. Like certain of the medieval scholastics, he subscribes to what is by current standards, an unconventional type of natural law theory, which derives ultimately from Aristotle.