preview

The Three Pillars Of Universalism

Decent Essays

Universalism demands every human being to have basic rights and there are three pillars of universalism. These human rights theories have originated from multiple different theorists. Natural law is one of the three pillars of universalism that will be discussed in the course of this essay. Thomas Aquinas was a philosopher who expanded on the philosophy of natural law. He believed in the concept of religion and morality, and presumed that natural law was derived because of the commandments of God. Furthermore, the objective of this essay will be to explain natural law and why I disagree with the theory.
Authors, Tremblay, Kelly, Lipson, and Mayer (2008, p. 86) state that “Natural law refers to a body of universal laws, which is applicable to all human beings and regulates our interactions.” Natural law claims that some rights we have is because of the decency in our human nature which is passed on to us by God, and we can use human reasoning to comprehend that concept. Furthermore, natural law insists that law should be dependent on religion and morality and humans should be able to differentiate between good and evil. Theorists believed that human rights should not be defined by an authority figure such as the government, but instead, by ethics, because they assumed that human morality comes from nature. According to Aquinas, violation of human being morals “were considered contrary to the law of nature and the will of God” (Tremblay et al., 2008, p. 87). Furthermore, the

Get Access