SOURCE: Guerra, Marc D. “The Ambivalence of Classic Natural Right: Leo Strauss on Philosophy, Morality, and Statesmanship.” Perspectives on Political Science 28, no. 2 (spring 1999): 69-74.

In the following essay, Guerra warns against vulgarizing and oversimplifying Strauss's sometimes obscure thoughts on natural rights.

Natural Right and History is without a doubt Leo Strauss's best known and most influential work.¹ It is also his most timely. When the book appeared, the major currents in political science were either corrupted or paralyzed by the modern dogmas of historicism and positivism. Contemporary social scientists understood themselves to be duty bound to view every moral and political action as an expression of a particular ideological prejudice. Strauss accordingly began Natural Right and History by asking whether or not the United States still believed in the self-evident truths articulated in the Declaration of Independence, or whether it had abandoned the ancient faith in which it...