Natural law, or, The science of justice: a treatise on natural law, natural justice, natural rights, natural liberty, and natural society : showing ... is an absurdity, a usurpation, and a crime. (ocm11957687 #1)

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808, Athol, Massachusetts - May 14, 1887, Boston, Massachusetts) was an American individualist lawyer, jurist, entrepreneur, abolitionist and anarchist. He defended the unconstitutionality of slavery in the United States and challenged the government's postal service monopoly, in addition to being one of the greatest theorists of natural justice.

Lysander Spooner has great honors in the history of political thought. On the one hand, he was arguably the only constitutionalist in history who has evolved to the stage of an individualist anarchist; on the other hand, it became, progressively and inexorably, increasingly radical as it aged.

Spooner published Natural Law or The Science of Justice as a booklet in 1882. This booklet influenced American and European anarchists at the time considerably. Spooner's plan was that such a pamphlet should serve as an introduction to a broad treaty on the natural right of freedom; and the fact that Spooner was unable to live long enough to complete his project is one of the great tragedies in the history of political thought. But his work maintains its lasting value thanks to the fact that, of all the theorists of the Lockean tradition of natural law, Spooner was the only one to lead the theory to its logical and infinitely radical conclusion: individualist anarchism.

Direito / Educação / Filosofia / História / Literatura Estrangeira / Política / Sociologia