Jurisprudence Assignment Question Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Jurisprudence Assignment Question - Essay Example Antigone decided to defy the proclamation that her brother not be buried properly, and gave him a burial against the state's wishes. After this she was imprisoned and hanged herself in her prison (Sophocles). Natural Law According to Stoner (1992),1 the story of Antigone is one in which the individual is entitled to break the law. He cites Thomas Hobbes as distinguishing between right and law (ius and lex) – right being the basis for liberty and law being the basis for obligation. ... be seen as unjust if it does not accord with God’s laws.   6 Hobbes, according to Stoner (1992) also states that there are limits to the law, or, rather, that there are limits as to what an individual is expected to obey. Hobbes believes, essentially, that man has liberty to decide for himself what is right for himself as an individual – â€Å"the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for the perservation of his own Nature; that is to say own Life; and consequently, or doing anything, which in his own Judgement, and Reason, hee shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.†7 Finnis (2001) would concur in this analysis, stating that governmental laws are limited, in that they must recognize certain universal, God-given rights – such as the right not be murdered, raped, enslaved or lie-to. 8 Further, Stoner (1992) states that Hobbes’ philosophical underpinnings of the law is moral, as opposed to civil or political, as it is directed at the individual, and what is right for every individual, as opposed to the collective. The preservation of the individual is at the heart of the Hobbes’ philosophy. Hobbes’ philosophy, according to Stoner, does not even take the mores and customs of a community into account, because custom is not necessarily anchored to morality or liberty.9   In one thinks about this, it makes sense   - just as slavery was a custom, it clearly was in contravention to natural law or liberty, therefore, the custom of slavery is one that is built upon uncertain ground, like sand.   That said, according to Cornish & Clark (1989), Hobbes recognized that man’s nature was prone to violent destruction, so society must keep a check on the individualistic natures.10   Because natural law is inevitably based upon some