Natural Law and Natural Rights

by Finnis, John

• ISBN13: 9780199599134
• ISBN10: 0199599130
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

First published in 1980,Natural Law and Natural Rightsis widely heralded as a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law, and an authoritative restatement of natural law doctrine. It has offered generations of students and other readers a thorough grounding in the central issues of legal, moral, and political philosophy from Finnis's distinctive perspective. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years of discussion, criticism and further work in the field to develop and refine the original theory. The book closely integrates the philosophy of law with ethics, social theory and political philosophy. The author develops a sustained and substantive argument; it is not a review of other people's arguments but makes frequent illustrative and critical reference to classical, modern, and contemporary writers in ethics, social and political theory, and jurisprudence. The preliminary First Part reviews a century of analytical jurisprudence to illustrate the dependence of every descriptive social science upon evaluations by the theorist. A fully critical basis for such evaluations is a theory of natural law. Standard contemporary objections to natural law theory are reviewed and shown to rest on serious misunderstandings. The Second Part develops in ten carefully structured chapters an account of: basic human goods and basic requirements of practical reasonableness, community and 'the common good'; justice; the logical structure of rights-talk; the bases of human rights, their specification and their limits; authority, and the formation of authoritative rules by non-authoritative persons and procedures; law, the Rule of Law, and the derivation of laws from the principles of practical reasonableness; the complex relation between legal and moral obligation; and the practical and theoretical problems created by unjust laws. A final Part develops a vigorous argument about the relation between 'natural law', 'natural theology' and 'revelation' - between moral concern and other ultimate questions.

Author Biography

John Finnis is Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of University College. He is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	p. XV
Evaluation and the Description of Law	p. 3
The Formation of Concepts for Descriptive Social Science	p. 3
Attention to Practical Point	p. 6
Selection of Central Case and Focal Meaning	p. 9
Selection of Viewpoint	p. 11
The Theory of Natural Law	p. 18
Notes	p. 19
Images and Objections	p. 23
Natural Law and Theories of Natural Law	p. 23
Legal Validity and Morality	p. 25
The Variety of Human Opinions and Practices	p. 29
The Illicit Inference from Facts to Norms	p. 33
Hume and Clarke on 'Is' and 'Ought'	p. 36
Clarke's Antecedents	p. 42
The 'Perverted Faculty' Argument	p. 48
Natural Law and the Existence and Will of God	p. 48
Notes	p. 50
A Basic Form of Good: Knowledge	p. 59
An Example	p. 59
From Inclination to Grasp of Value	p. 60
Practical Principle and Participation in Value	p. 63
The Self-evidence of the Good of Knowledge	p. 64
'Object of Desire' and Objectivity	p. 69
Scepticism about this Basic Value is Indefensible	p. 73
Notes	p. 75
The Other Basic Values	p. 81
Theoretical Studies of 'Universal' Values	p. 81
The Basic Forms of Human Good: A Practical Reflection	p. 85
Life	p. 86
Knowledge	p. 87
Play	p. 87
Aesthetic experience	p. 87
Sociability (friendship)	p. 88
Practical reasonableness	p. 88
'Religion'	p. 89
An Exhaustive List?	p. 90
All Equally Fundamental	p. 92
Is Pleasure the Point of It All?	p. 95
Notes	p. 97
The Basic Requirements of Practical Reasonableness	p. 100
The Good of Practical Reasonableness Structures Our Pursuit of Goods	p. 100
A Coherent Plan of Life	p. 103
No Arbitrary Preferences Amongst Values	p. 105
No Arbitrary Preferences Amongst Persons	p. 106
Detachment and Commitment	p. 109
The (Limited) Relevance of Consequences: Efficiency, Within Reason	p. 111
Respect for Every Basic Value in Every Act	p. 118
The Requirements of the Common Good	p. 125
Following One's Conscience	p. 125
The Product of these Requirements: Morality	p. 126
Notes	p. 127
Community, Communities, and Common Good	p. 134
Reasonableness and Self-interest	p. 134
Types of Unifying Relationship	p. 135
'Business' Community and 'Play' Community	p. 139
Friendship	p. 141
'Communism' and 'Subsidiarity'	p. 144
Complete Community	p. 147
The Existence of a Community	p. 150
The Common Good	p. 154
Notes	p. 156
Justice	p. 161
Elements of Justice	p. 161
General Justice	p. 164
Distributive Justice	p. 165
Criteria of Distributive Justice	p. 173
Commutative Justice	p. 177
Justice and the State	p. 184
An Example of Justice: Bankruptcy	p. 188
Notes	p. 193
Rights	p. 198
'Natural', 'Human', or 'Moral' Rights	p. 198
An Analysis of Rights-talk	p. 199
Arc Duties 'Prior to' Rights?	p. 205
Rights and the Common Good	p. 210
The Specification of Rights	p. 218
Rights and Equality of Concern and Respect	p. 221
Absolute Human Rights	p. 223
Notes	p. 226
Authority	p. 231
The Need for Authority	p. 231
The Meanings of 'Authority'	p. 233
Formation of Conventions or Customary Rules	p. 238
The Authority of Rulers	p. 245
'Bound By Their Own Rules'?	p. 252
Notes	p. 254
Law	p. 260
Law and Coercion	p. 260
Unjust Punishment	p. 265
The Main Features of Legal Order	p. 266
The Rule of Law	p. 270
Limits of the Rule of Law	p. 273
A Definition of Law	p. 276
Derivation of 'Positive' from 'Natural' Law	p. 281
Notes	p. 291
Obligation	p. 297
'Obligation', 'Ought', and Rational Necessity	p. 297
Promissory Obligation	p. 298
Variable and Invariant Obligatory Force	p. 308
'Legally Obligatory': the Legal Sense and the Moral Sense	p. 314
Contractual Obligation in Law: Performance or Compensation?	p. 320
Legal Obligation in the Moral Sense: Performance or Submission to Penalty?	p. 325
Obligation and Legislative Will	p. 330
'Reason' and 'Will' in Decision, Legislation, and Compliance with Law	p. 337
Moral Obligation and God's Will	p. 342
Notes	p. 343
Unjust Laws	p. 351
A Subordinate Concern of Natural Law Theory	p. 351
Types of Injustice in Law	p. 352
Effects of Injustice on Obligation	p. 354
'Lex Injusta Non Est Lex'	p. 363
Notes	p. 367
Nature, Reason, God	p. 371
Further Questions about the Point of Human Existence	p. 371
Orders, Disorders, and the Explanation of Existence	p. 378
Divine Nature and 'Eternal Law': Speculation and Revelation	p. 388
Natural Law as 'Participation of Eternal Law'	p. 398
Concluding Reflections on the Point and Force of Practical Reasonableness	p. 403
Notes	p. 411
Postscript	p. 414
Bibliography	p. 480
Index	p. 485
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