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36 J. Legal Educ. 492 (1986)
Natural Law Tradition, The

handle is hein.journals/jled36 and id is 502 raw text is: The Natural Law Tradition John Finnis It scarcely makes sense to talk of a natural law tradition. For natural law (in the context of ethics, politics, law and jurisprudence) simply means the set of true propositions identifying basic human goods, general require- ments of right choosing, and the specific moral norms deducible from those requirements as they bear on particular basic goods. But there is a tradition of theory and theorizing about natural law (and the preceding sentence, a contemporary instance of such theorizing, is in line with the classics of that ,tradition). This tradition of natural law theory has three main features: First, critique and rejection of ethical scepticism, dogmatism and conventionalism; Second, clarification of the methodology of descriptive and explanatory social theories (e.g., political science, economics, jurisprudence .... ); Third, critique and rejection of aggregative conceptions of the right and the just (e.g., consequentialism, utilitarianism, wealth-maximization, proportionalism.. In jurisprudence, the concerns of the tradition are to show: (1) how an understanding of law presupposes a practical understanding (i.e., an under- standing of the point, the good) of community, justice and rights, and authority-as reasons for choice and action; (2) how a definition (i.e., a summary of one's understanding) of law can and should include a reference to the moral functions or point of law (especially, but not only, the procedural ideals of the Rule of Law), without thereby excluding immoral laws from the lawyer's perception of the study of jurisprudence; (3) how positive laws are derived from natural law (moral principles) in at least two radically different ways; (4) how unjust laws, being laws, can sometimes create moral obligations, but always lack the moral authority (and thus a part of the character) which laws, by virtue of being lawfully made, characteristically have. A. Against Ethical Scepticism, Dogmatism, Conventionalism (a) Sceptical denials of at least one basic human good (truth and knowl- edge) are self-refuting. Natural law theory is a theory which tries to account for the fact that doing it (or questioning it) is worthwhile. Theories which make no room for the fact of their own existence, or for the worth of their own pursuit, are self-refuting. (b) Most contemporary scepticisms about the basic human goods, and/or John Finnis is Reader, Oxford University. This paper was prepared for the AALS Workshop on Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy and Their Application to the Basic Curriculum, held on March 20-22, 1986, in Philadelphia. @ 1986 by the Association of American Law Schools. Cite as 36 J. Legal Educ. 492 (1986).

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