Natural, Common and Civil Laws

Today in class we read and discussed some readings about natural, common and civil laws. We took notes on the reading and we then talked about each type if law separately for a little bit. After that we all discussed all three of the types comparatively. Here are my some thoughts after reading the article.

So natural law is is basically a law that is infused in you when you are born. It is kind of like common knowledge but even before that. These are laws that cannot really be enforced at all but they also cannot be broken in anyway. They actually physically can't. Like the law of gravity, you can't make gravity go away and you can't really tell people to listen to gravity. It is just there and people look over it because they don't even consider it a law because it can't be broken or enforced.

A common law is a law that is known through common knowledge. This law is the most confusing to me because it is rather unclear, in my opinion at least. I think that it would be things like don't kill people and don't steal. Things that don't need to be said but are still enforced and known by most people. It is a law known to all mankind therefor it is "common". These laws don't have to be written while civil laws do.

A civil law is a law that is fully enforced and written down for documentation. They do not go unsaid because if they did people would not know about them necessarily. These are laws of the state and are specifically made to be enforced.

I think it is kind of interesting that for each description of the three laws, the actual writing gets shorter and shorter. I think it is because as you go through each law things get more and more straight forward. There is less to say about civil laws then natural laws because it is very clear exactly what they are where natural laws are more open for interpretation. Just an observation.

So what is my idea of a law? I don't actually think that natural laws are really laws. Laws by definition is "the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties" So they actually have to be something that can be enforced. Since natural laws cannot be enforced then they are not actually laws.