If nature is a work of divine art, it follows that one of the most elemental tasks of any legal system would be to protect that work.
There’s the natural world, the physical space which we inhabit. Contained within are living things, both plant and animal. Some may also suggest that the earth itself is infused with an anima mundi, a world soul. But let’s not forget that one of the key creations of divine art is us—that’s right, people, mankind, human beings. We too are a work of divine art.
Once this recognition is fixed, it follows that law should protect humans from harm. Humans have done nothing to create the human species. It’s something we take for granted and justly admire as an utterly unique and extraordinary life form, but with regard to its initial creation we had no role. This is a first fact, a basic premise, and from this premise two conclusions can necessarily be drawn.
First. Law should protect us. Law should be protective—it should guard against harm so that we can live without another being permitted to cause us injury or illness. This protective role derives from the realization that we are guardians of something we still do not fully understand and had no role in bringing about. Since we have incomplete knowledge, the first priority would be to preserve, rather than destroy or harm, what currently exists.
Second. Law, when harm occurs, should provide just compensation. Law should provide just compensation when harm does occur. This role of the law derives from the same source—our role as guardians over that which we had no role in creating. This conclusion makes sense since it imputes value to heal and make up for what’s been lost.
This idea of nature as a work of divine art is not a new idea. “I will only lay it down that the products of nature, as they are called, are works of divine art, as things made out of them by man are works of human art”—so wrote Plato in the Sophist. Or as stated by Dante: “Nature is the art of God.” The legal system of any society thrives and flourishes when it comes to recognize this most elemental insight.
Quotation from Plato: Collected Dialogs, pg. 1013 (Princeton University Press 1961)(Edited by Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns)
