John Finnis’s Natural Law and Natural Rights’ is a remarkable book.
Finnis offers a robust exposition and defence of natural law-but in terms
that differ significantly from the way in which this tradition is often
understood today, not least by its defenders. He does so by means of
striking and powerful arguments; arguments that owe little, however, to
the major philosophical traditions of this century. It is as if a new species
of C.S. Lewis’s “Old Western man” had appeared on the scene. 2 Finnis
interprets an old tradition in radically new ways. Moreover, he has moved
from a restatement and defence of that tradition to go onto the attack
against contemporary work in ethical theory3 and, most recently, has
applied his ideas to the important issue of the morality of nuclear deterrence.4 In the paper that Finnis contributes to the present symposium, he presents interesting arguments against Ronald Dworkin, a writer
whose views in legal philosophy might superficially seem close to his own.
In particular, Finnis criticizes Dworkin’s ideas about the determinate
character of the law, using arguments drawn from his own interpretation
of the natural law tradition.
It is clearly not possible, in one short paper, for me to do justice to the
views of a writer whose work is as controversial as it is rich, and so I
must be selective.
- Finnis and the Problematic of Natural Law
For those outside the tradition of natural law, the problematic of natural law in our own century would typically be understood as it is presented in the work of a figure such as Henry Veatch. 5 Natural law, in his
view, is grounded on a view of the world in which different species have
essences and natural ends; ends which are to be chosen in the case of
mankind, who possess free will.