Page "Crime" Paragraph 32
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Justifying the State's use of force to coerce compliance with its laws has proven a consistent theoretical problem.
One of the earliest justifications involved the theory of natural law.
This posits that the nature of the world or of human beings underlies the standards of morality or constructs them.
Thomas Aquinas wrote in the 13th century: " the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts " ( Aquinas, ST I-II, Q. 90, A. I ).
He regarded people as by nature rational beings, concluding that it becomes morally appropriate that they should behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature.
Thus, to be valid, any law must conform to natural law and coercing people to conform to that law is morally acceptable.
In the 1760s William Blackstone ( 1979: 41 ) described the thesis:
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