Natural Law, Assumptions, and Humility

Authors

Ezra Rosser, American University Washington College of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-28-2023

Journal

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Volume

9

Issue

4

First Page

653

Last Page

672

Abstract

This review of Natural Property Rights celebrates Eric Claeys’s efforts to resuscitate natural law as a viable approach to property law. Although readers unlikely to be convinced that natural law is the way to best understand property rights, Claeys succeeds in breathing new life into natural law. Natural Property Rights’ emphasis on use as property law’s fundamental value creates space to reconceptualize the rights of property owners and the place of non-owners within a just theory of property rights. The main critiques of Natural Property Rights offered in this review center around the choice to prioritize rights over duties and the logically inconsistencies involved in Claeys’s attempts to defend the justice of non-Indian claims to land that had belonged to Indian nations.

Recommended Citation

Ezra Rosser, Natural Law, Assumptions, and Humility, 9 Texas A&M Journal of Property Law 653 (2023).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2214