legal naturalism

To suppose that there are (positive) legal reasons why a formally valid law can be voided for moral impropriety is a logical error. To suppose that all formally valid laws are morally obligatory is a moral error.

John Dunn, I. Consent in the Political Theory of John Locke, The Historical Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 1967, pp. 153–182, p. 153-182

The Law is no man’s enemy: the Law is no man’s rival. Ask the clamorous and unruly multitude –-it is never the Law itself that is in the wrong: it is always some wicked interpreter of the Law that has corrupted and abused it.

Jeremy Bentham, The collected works of Jeremy Bentham: A comment on the commentaries and A fragment on goverment, Oxford, 1977