[Revised entry by John Finnis on March 28, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
This entry considers natural law theories only as theories of law – in the sense of “law” (and of “positive law”) that has its central case in the laws and legal system of a modern state. That is not to say that legal theory can be adequately identified and pursued independently of moral and political theory. Nor is it to deny that there are worthwhile natural law theories much more concerned with foundational issues in ethics and political theory than with law or legal theory. A sample of such wider and more…

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