John Finnis and the Revival of Natural Law

In 1980 the Australian-born legal philosopher John Finnis published Natural Law and Natural Rights, written at the suggestion of H. L. A. Hart, his former teacher. The book revived natural law in analytic philosophy by reinterpreting Aquinas in modern terms. Finnis argued that certain basic goods are self-evidently worth pursuing: life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, friendship, practical reasonableness and religion, understood broadly as concern with the ultimate order of things.

These goods are not derived from facts about human nature, he said, so the 'is–ought' objection misses its target. Finnis then set out requirements of practical reasonableness for pursuing these goods, and explained law as a way of coordinating a community's pursuit of the common good. He treated unjust laws as defective cases of law rather than as simply non-existent.

Supporters credit him with making natural law philosophically rigorous again; critics question whether his list of goods is truly self-evident and dispute some of the moral conclusions he draws from it.