Abstract

HOBUSS, João. Natural and Legal Right in Aristotle. Diánoia [online]. 2009, vol.54, n.63, pp.133-155. ISSN 0185-2450.

One of the most complex passages in the Ethica Nicomachea deals with natural right. In the few lines dedicated by Aristotle to this issue he maintains a conception that seems to contradict the understanding of natural right focused on its perpetual nature. This paper will try to reconstruct the aristotelian argumentation in his ethics and in the Rhetoric in order to try to demonstrate that beyond an apparent contradiction it is possible to find a coherent and satisfactory thesis about natural right from what happens "for the most part" (hõs epì tò polú), which would turn understandable its variability.

Keywords : justice by nature; justice by law; hõs epì tò polú; common good.

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