Page "Natural law" Paragraph 7

The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from the Rhetoric, where Aristotle notes that, aside from the " particular " laws that each people has set up for itself, there is a " common " law that is according to nature.

The context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle advised that it could be rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the " particular " law of one's own city was averse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law ; Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid, natural law provided in this passage to be wrong.

Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed.