Page 52 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

natural law 1353

combustion-free, and the quest for pollution-free power “the good life” (eudaimonia) fascinated the ancient Greeks.
generators capable of being sited at the end-user’s place The philosophy of Natural Law concluded that eudaimo-
of consumption, also are expected to increase our nia consisted in “living in agreement with nature.” Before
reliance on natural gas. Natural Law was explicitly defined in philosophical
terms, it was largely implicit in Greek culture, as revealed
Eli Goldstein
in Sophocles’s Antigone and in the pre-Socratic meta-
See also Energy physical debates concerning the static or mutable nature
of the universe. It was also implicit in Aristotle’s (384–
324 BCE) distinction between natural and legal justice.
Further Reading Throughout, the Greeks repeatedly contrasted universal
Castaneda, C. J., & Smith, C. M. (1996). Gas pipelines and the emergence truths grounded in an objective and unchanging reality
of America’s regulatory state: A history of Panhandle Eastern Corpo-
ration: 1928–1993. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. with subjective beliefs based in mutable facts or on con-
Clark, J. A. (1963). The chronological history of the petroleum and natu- tingent social customs.
ral gas industries. Houston,TX: Clark Books.
Herbert, J. H. (1992). Clean cheap heat: The development of residential In the Hellenistic Era (323–31 BCE), Zeno of Citium
markets for natural gas in the United States. New York: Praeger. (334–262 BCE) explicitly conceived of Natural Law as a
MacAvoy, P.W. (2000). The natural gas market: Sixty years of regulation central concept of his Stoic school of philosophy. The
and deregulation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Peebles, M.W. H. (1980). Evolution of the gas industry. New York: New Stoics maintained that the universe was structured and
York University Press. organized according to rational laws, which were know-
able via the one human faculty that shares in this uni-
versal reason—the rational mind.These universal, abso-
lute, unchanging laws constituted the “Natural Law,”
Natural Law and living in agreement with nature (as structured by the

Natural Law) was the good life.
enerally speaking, the Natural Law comprises uni- Although the Stoics gave birth to the formal concept
Gversal, objective, and necessary moral truths, which (and phrase) “Natural Law,” they are not responsible for
define proper personal conduct or the fundamentals of the long-standing impact that it would have on moral and
political association. By necessity, this statement is an political philosophy over the next two millennia.The rea-
oversimplification because the meaning and import of son is that the original Stoics were determinists.Thus, they
the Natural Law has evolved throughout the history of believed that living in agreement with nature was solely
Western civilization—from its genesis in ancient Greece an issue of aligning one’s internal mental states with the
and Rome to its modern, post-modern, and relativist events of the external world that were necessarily deter-
twentieth-century forms. The Natural Law pervades the mined by Natural Law. The Stoic ideal was the happy
Western philosophical tradition as an alternative to sub- tranquility (apotheia) of the person who simply accepts
jectivist, cynical, or skeptical theories about human behav- the world for what it is and has to be.There was no role
ior and political association. for social or political philosophy in this worldview.
The Romans were heavily influenced by Stoicism, and
Natural Law in Ancient some of the most prominent Stoic philosophers in the
Greece and Rome Western canon are Romans, such as Seneca (3 BCE–65
Although numerous cultures had recognized the basic CE), Epictetus (55– c.135 CE), and Marcus Aurelius (161–
dichotomy between law as an artifact and law existing 180 CE).The most prominent Roman Stoic is the lawyer
outside and independent of human society, ancient and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE).
Greek culture was the first to raise this distinction as a As a lawyer, Cicero rejected Stoic determinism but
purely philosophical question. The issue of how to live found the Stoic concept of Natural Law vitally important