Natural Right and History by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Strauss asks whether human beings can know what is just apart from the laws of a particular society. Modern social science, he argued, says no: it separates facts from values and treats moral judgments as expressions of preference. Historicism, in turn, holds that every standard is a product of its time.

Both views, he claimed, lead to nihilism, because they leave no ground on which to condemn even the worst regimes. He traced the shift from the classical natural right of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, through the modern natural rights of Hobbes and Locke, to Rousseau and Burke, who began to historicize morality.

The book does not simply endorse the ancient view; it raises the question whether the classical position can be recovered, and invites readers to take it seriously.

Why it matters

Strauss trained generations of scholars, such as Harry Jaffa and Allan Bloom, who carried his questions into American constitutional and moral debate. The book is the origin of much of the intellectual conservatism of the late twentieth century, and also of a long argument about whether Straussians are truly conservatives.

About the author

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a German-Jewish scholar who left Germany in 1932 and eventually settled in the United States, teaching at the New School and then, from 1949 to 1968, at the University of Chicago. Natural Right and History is based on the Walgreen Lectures he gave in 1949. His students include Allan Bloom, Harry Jaffa and many others who taught in American universities.

Who should read it

Graduate students, philosophers and committed general readers. The opening chapters on natural right and the historical approach are the easiest entry.