About John Finnis

John Finnis is Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy in the University of Oxford, where he has been a Fellow of University College and taught as a member of the Faculty of Law since 1966. He became a member of the Faculty of Philosophy in 1987. Since 1995 he has also been the Biolchini Family Professor of Law and adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Since 1990 he has been a Fellow of the British Academy.

Finnis was born in Adelaide, South Australia, 28 July 1940; he was the eldest of four children. His father, then and until retirement, taught in the Department of Philosophy in the University of Adelaide, and his maternal grandfather was the Professor of Philosophy. Finnis was educated from 1947–56 at South Australia’s leading Church of England school; confirmed in the Church of England at the age of 10 or 11, he spent his teenage years as an atheist reader of Rationalist Press Association publications, Bertrand Russell, and in due course David Hume. He was dux of the school in his final year, before starting four years of Law studies at the University of Adelaide, which he completed in 1961 before going on to Oxford University as Rhodes Scholar for South Australia in 1962. There he undertook a doctorate under the supervision of H.L.A. Hart, the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford.

During his final years as an undergraduate in Adelaide, Finnis became convinced both of the truth of God’s existence and of the reality of his self-disclosure to Israel and in Christ, by extensive reading in philosophical works critical of empiricism, among them B. J. F. Lonergan’s Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, along with some of Newman’s work on revelation. On his way by ship and rail towards England, Finnis spent a day in Rome, where in St. Peter’s he saw the seating arranged for the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He was received into the Catholic Church in St. Aloysius Church, Oxford, on 19 December 1962, at the end of his first academic term in Oxford.

On completing his doctorate in 1965, Finnis was nominated by Hart to a year’s junior teaching position in the Law School at the University of California, Berkeley. The post left plenty of time for wider reading, and in the stacks of the main university library Finnis came upon Grisez’s review of Insight. This alerted him to the name Grisez when he made a one-time visit to a Catholic bookshop in Berkeley, where Contraception and the Natural Law happened to be on display. He bought it and in it found the outlines of an adequate theory of first principles of practical reason, principles which Insight had spoken of but manifestly failed to articulate or even accurately to conceive. Grisez’s book also opened the way for Finnis to read Aquinas fruitfully.

Spending some months in mid-1966 teaching in the Law School in Adelaide on his way back to take up the position as Law Fellow of University College Oxford that he was to hold until 2010, Finnis read intensively in the works of Vitoria, Suarez, and later scholastics whose moral theories and accounts of law and obligation were spoiled by their failure to grasp reflectively practical reason’s per se nota first principles and their normativity.

On returning to Oxford in October 1966, Finnis was asked by Hart to contribute a book to the Clarendon Law Series which Hart edited and had made internationally known by his own volume, The Concept of Law (1961). Hart specified that Finnis’s book should be called Natural Law and Natural Rights and encouraged him not to hurry. In the event, Finnis delivered the typescript in 1978, the year of his return from nearly two years as Professor and Head of the Department of Law in the University of Malawi (on secondment from Oxford).

During the intervening years, the enclyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, had appeared and been the subject of one of Finnis’s early publications, a note in the Law Quarterly Review; and Grisez and Finnis had been brought together for the first time (in Rome in 1974) by the initiative of Fr Ronald Lawler, O.F.M.Cap., to co-author the moral chapters of A Catholic Catechism for Adults.

The publication of Natural Law and Natural Rights moved several neo-scholastics to criticize the theories both Finnis and Grisez now publicly held, and the two collaborated in responding to Ralph McInerny and others as well as to consequentialist or proportionalist developments amongst moral theologians and other Catholic supporters of contraception and other kinds of acts regarded as intrinsically evil. This collaboration expanded into the major undertaking, with Joseph Boyle, of a book (1987) on nuclear deterrence, the ethics of which had been the subject of undergraduate publications by Finnis in and around 1961. (A sense of the rational robustness of Catholic moral teaching’s bearing on such matters had at that time contributed substantially to Finnis’s growing sense that Catholicism was truer both than atheism and than other forms of revealed religion.)

Finnis’s own books Fundamental of Ethics (1983) and Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Thought (1998) are shaped by what he learned about doing philosophy (and about reading Aquinas) in his collaboration with Grisez and Boyle. At the same time, not only the deterrence book but later works of Grisez and Boyle profited from Finnis’s special gifts and skills for identifying relevant data, analyzing texts, and minimizing the ambiguities in important formulations.

Meanwhile, in the late seventies, Finnis was appointed a consultor to the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, and in 1986, on the basis perhaps of his work on IVF for the British and Irish bishops and the Holy See, he became with William E. May one of the first two lay members of the International Theological Commission, where during his five years’ membership he was a principal redactor of a never-published project on moral absolutes, whose conclusions are reflected in John Paul II’s encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (1993), in the drafting of which Finnis was not involved.

In preparation for the first volume of The Way of the Lord Jesus, Grisez and Finnis spent nearly a fortnight in Oxford reading through virtually all the documents of the Second Vatican Council in Latin, comparing the two principal English translations. Near the completion of the third volume, they spent a similar period together, in Notre Dame, Indiana, reading and thinking through virtually all the difficult moral questions. Some of those questions had earlier been worked through in public seminars organized by Finnis and conducted by Grisez in Boston College, Massachusetts, and in Oxford. Finnis has been involved in other ways in the preparation of each of the published and projected volumes.

Finnis’s own selected philosophical and theological papers, published and previously unpublished, are being published in March 2011 by Oxford University Press, in five volumes, grouped around, respectively, practical reason, intention and identity, justice and other moral problems, law and legal theory, and Christian revelation as public reason.

In June 1964, in Oxford, Finnis married Marie Carmel McNally, a fellow South Australian and a graduate in English Literature of the Universities of Adelaide, Cambridge and later Oxford. They have three daughters, three sons, and ten grandchildren.

Selected Publications of John Finnis

Books

Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University, 1980); Legge Naturali e Diritti Naturali, trans. F. Viola (Milan: Giappichelli, 1996); Ley Natural y Derechos Naturales, trans. C. Orrego (Buenos Aires: Abeledo-Perrot, 2000); Prawo naturalne i uprawnienia naturalne, trans. Krzysztof Motyka and Karolina (Warsaw: Lossman, 2002); in Chinese (Mandarin), trans. Jiaojiao Dong, Yi Yang, Xiaohui Liang (Beijing, 2004); Lei natural & direitos naturais, trans. Leila Mendes (Sao Leopoldo, Brazil: Editora Unisinos, 2007).

Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1983).

“Commonwealth and Dependencies,” in Halsbury’s Laws of England, 4th ed, vol. 6 (London: Butterworth, 1974), 315–601; annual supplements thereto, to date; reissued, vol. 6 (1991), 345–559, Reissue, vol. 6 (2004); Reissue, vol. 13 (2009), 471–589 (August 2009).

Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism, with Joseph Boyle and Germain Grisez (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987).

Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision and Truth (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University, 1991); Absolutos Morales: Tradición, Revisión y Verdad, trans. Juan José García Norro (Barcelona: Ediciones Internacionales Universitarias, 1992); Gli Assoluti Morali: Tradizione, Revisione e Verità, trans. Andrea Maria Maccarini (Milan: Edizioni Ares, 1993).

Natural Law, International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory: Schools, 1.1 and 1.2, edited (New York: New York University; Aldershot, U.K: Ashgate-Dartmouth, 1991).

Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998).

Theological Papers

“Natural Law and Unnatural Acts” Heythrop Journal. 11 (1970): 365–87.

“The Value of the Human Person,” Twentieth Century [Australia], 27 (1972): 126–37.

Chapters 18–21 in The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults, with Germain Grisez, ed. Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., Donald W. Wuerl, and Thomas Comerford Lawler (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976); abridged edition, 1979; 2nd ed., 1983; 3rd ed., 1991; 4th ed., 1995.

“Catholic Social Teaching: Populorum Progressio and After” Church Alert (SODEPAX Newsletter) 19 (1978): 2–9; also in Liberation Theology in Latin America, ed. James V. Schall (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982).

“Conscience, Infallibility and Contraception,” The Month, 239 (1978): 410–17; also in International Review of Natural Family Planning, 4 (1980): 128–40; also in Human Love and Human Life, ed. Joseph N. Santamaria and John J. Billings (Melbourne: Polding, 1979).

“Catholic Faith and the World Order: Reflections on E.R. Norman,” Clergy Review, 64 (1979): 309–18.

“Reflections on an Essay in Christian Ethics,” Clergy Review, 65 (1980): 51–57 (“Authority in Morals”), 87–93 (“Morals and Method”).

“The Fundamental Themes of Laborem Exercens,” in Proceedings of the Fifth Convention of Fellowship of Catholic Scholars (Scranton, Pa.: Northeast Books, 1983), 19–31.

“IVF and the Catholic Tradition,” The Month, 246 (1984): 55–58.

“Practical Reasoning, Human Goods and the End of Man,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 58 (1984): 23–36; also in New Blackfriars, 66 (1985): 438–51.

“Morality and the Ministry of Defence,” The Tablet, 3 August 1985, 804–5.

“Personal Integrity, Sexual Morality and Responsible Parenthood,” Anthropos [now Anthropotes], 1 (1985): 43–55; also in Why Humanae Vitae was Right: A Reader, ed. Janet E. Smith (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 173–91.

“The Laws of God, the Laws of Man and Reverence for Human Life,” in Linking the Human Life Issues, ed. Russell Hittinger (Chicago: Regnery, 1986), 59–98.

“The Claim of Absolutes,” The Tablet, 241 (1987): 364–6.

“‘Faith and Morals’: A Note” The Month, 21 (1988): 563–7.

“The Act of the Person” in Persona Veritá e Morale: Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Teologia Morale, (Rome: Cittá Nuova Editrice, 1987): 159–75.

“‘Every Marital Act Ought to Be Open to New Life: Toward a Clearer Understanding,” with Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and William E. May, Thomist, 52 (1988): 365–426; “‘Ogni Atto Coniugale Deve Essere Aperto a una Nuova Vita’: Verso una Comprehensione Piú Precisa,” trans. Margherita Sani, Rivista di Studi sulla Persona e la Famiglia: Anthropotes, 4 (1988): 73–122.

“The Consistent Ethic: A Philosophical Critique,” in Consistent Ethic of Life: Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, ed. Thomas G. Fuechtmann (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed and Ward, 1988), 140–81.

“Absolute Moral Norms: Their Ground, Force and Permanence,” Anthropotes, 4 (1988): 287–303.

“Nuclear Deterrence, Christian Conscience, and the End of Christendom,” New Oxford Review, July-August 1988, 6–16

“Nuclear Deterrence and Christian Vocation,” New Blackfriars, 70 (1989): 380–87.

“Aristotle, Aquinas and Moral Absolutes,” Catholica: International Quarterly, 12 (1990) 7–15; “Aristóteles, Santo Tomás y los Absolutos Morales,” trans. Carlos I. Massini-Correas, Persona y Derecho, 28 (1993): 9–26.

“On Creation and Ethics,” Anthropotes, 5 (1989): 197–206 .

“Conscience in the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,” in Newman after a Hundred Years, ed. Ian Ker and Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Oxford University, 1990), 401–18.

“Autour de la question de la fin et des moyens,” Catholica, 21 (1990): 53–61.

“Object and intention in moral judgments according to St Thomas Aquinas,” Catholica: International Quarterly Selection, Spring 1991, 3–8.

“The Natural Moral Law and Faith,” in The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Vatican II: A Look Back and a Look Ahead, ed. Russell E. Smith (Braintree, Mass.: Pope John Center, 1990), 223–38.

“A Propos de la ‘Valeur Intrinsèque de la Vie Humaine’,” Catholica, 28 (1991): 15–21.

“The Language of Doctrine,” Tablet,14 Dec. 1991 (245): 1545.

“What Pope John Said,” Tablet, 4 Jan. 1992 (246): 14.

“What Pope John Said,” Tablet, 18 Jan. 1992 (246): 70–71.

“What Pope John Said,” Tablet, 1 Feb. 1992 (246): 139.

“What Pope John Said,” Tablet, 8 Feb. 1992 (246): 170.

“On the Grace of Humility: A New Theological Reflection,” Allen Review, 7 (1992): 4–7.

“Historical Consciousness and Theological Foundations,” Etienne Gilson Lecture No. 15 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1992).

“Reason, Relativism and Christian Ethics,” Anthropotes, 9 (1993): 211–30.

“Theology and the Four Principles: A Roman Catholic View I,” with Anthony Fisher, O.P., in Principles of Health Care Ethics, ed Raanan Gillon (Chichester, England: John Wiley, 1994), 31–44.

“Gli atti intrinsecamente cattivi,” with Germain Grisez, L’Osservatore Romano (Italian ed.), 4 December 1993, 1 and 4; “Reflections on the Encyclical Letter ‘Veritatis splendor’—16: Negative moral precepts protect the dignity of the human person,” L’Osservatore Romano (Eng. ed.), 23 February 1994, 6–7.

“Beyond the Encyclical,” The Tablet, 8 January 1994, reprinted in Understanding Veritatis Splendor, ed. John Wilkins (London: SPCK, 1994), 69–76.

“Indissolubility, Divorce and Holy Communion,” with Germain Grisez and William E. May, New Blackfriars, 75 (1994): 321–30; “Lettre ouverte ... au sujet de l’admission à la communion eucharistique des divorcés ‘remariés’,” Catholica, 44 (1994): 59–70.

“Unjust Laws in a Democratic Society: Some Philosophical and Theological Reflections,” Notre Dame Law Review, 71 (1996): 595–604.

“Natural Law – Positive Law,” in ‘Evangelium Vitae’ and Law: Acta Symposii Internationalis in Civitate Vaticana celebrati 23–25 maii 1996, ed. A. Lopez Trujillo, I. Herranz, and E. Sgreccia (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 199–209.

“The Catholic Church and public policy debates in Western liberal societies: the basis and limits of intellectual engagement,” in Issues for a Catholic Bioethic, ed. Luke Gormally (London: Linacre Centre, 1999), 261–273.

“‘Direct’ and ‘Indirect’: A Reply to Critics of Our Action Theory,” with Germain Grisez and Joseph Boyle, Thomist, 65 (2001): 1–44.

“Secularism, Morality and Politics,” L’Osservatore Romano (Eng. ed.), 29 January 2003, 9.

“Saint Thomas More and the Crisis in Faith and Morals,” Priest, 7/1 (2003): 10–15, 29–30.

“Nature and Natural Law in Contemporary Philosophical and Theological Debates: Some Observations,” in The Nature & Dignity of the Human Person as the Foundation of the Right to Life: Proceedings of the Eighth Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, ed. A.Lopez Trujillo, I.Herranz, and E.Sgreccia (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003), 81–109.

Philosophical and Jurisprudential Papers

“Natural Law in Humanae vitae,Law Quarterly Review, 84 (1968): 467–71.

“Reason, Authority and Friendship in Law and Morals,” in Jowett Papers 1968–1969, ed. B. Y. Khanbhai, R. S. Katz, and R. A. Pineau (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), 101–24.

“The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion: a reply to Judith Jarvis Thomson,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2 (1973): 117–45; reprinted in Philosophy of Law, ed. Ronald M. Dworkin (Oxford: Oxford University, 1977), 129–52, and in The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion, ed. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1974), 85–113; and in part in Ethics: Theory & Practice, ed. Manuel Velasquez and Cynthia Rostankowski (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1984).

“Bentham et le droit naturel classique,” Archives de Philosophie du Droit , 17 (1972): 423–27.

“The Restoration of Retribution,” Analysis, 32 (1972): 131–5.

“Scepticism, Self-refutation and the Good of Truth, Law, Morality and Society: Essays in Honour of H.L.A. Hart, ed. P. M. Hacker and Joseph Raz (Oxford: Oxford University, 1977), 247–67.

“Observations...,” Archives de Philosophie du Droit , 26 (1981): 425–27.

“The Basic Principles of Natural Law: A Reply to Ralph McInerny,” with Germain Grisez, Ameerican Journal of Jurisprudence, 26 (1982): 21–31.

“Natural Law and the ‘Is’–‘Ought’ Question: An Invitation to Professor Veatch,” Catholic Lawyer, 26 (1982): 266–77.

“The Authority of Law in the Predicament of Contemporary Social Theory,” Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, 1 (1984): 115–37.

“On ‘Positivism’ and ‘Legal-Rational Authority’,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 3 (1985): 74–90.

“On Positivism and the Foundations of Legal Authority,” in Issues in Legal Philosophy: the Influence of H.L.A. Hart, ed. Ruth Gavison (Oxford: Oxford University, 1986), 62–75.

“A Bill of Rights for Britain? The Moral of Contemporary Jurisprudence,” Maccabaean Lecture in Jurisprudence, Proceedings of the British Academy, 71 (1985): 303–31.

“Legal Enforcement of Duties to Oneself: Kant v. Neo-Kantians,” Columbia Law Review, 87 (1987): 433–56.

“The ‘Natural Law Tradition’,” Journal of Legal Education, 36 (1986): 492–95.

“Natural Inclinations and Natural Rights: Deriving ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’ according to Aquinas,” in Lex et Libertas: Freedom and Law according to St Thomas Aquinas, ed. L. J. Elders and J. Hedwig, Studi Tomistici 30 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987), 43–55.

“Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate Ends,” with Germain Grisez and Joseph Boyle, American Journal of Jurisprudence, 32 (1987): 99–151; also in Natural Law, vol. 1, ed. Finnis.

“On Reason and Authority in Law’s Empire,” Law and Philosophy, 6 (1987): 357–380.

“Persons and their Associations,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. 63 (1989): 267–74.

“Law as Coordination,” Ratio Iuris. 2 (1989): 97–104.

“Incoherence and Consequentialism (or Proportionalism—A Rejoinder,” with Joseph Boyle and Germain Grisez, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 64 (1990): 271–77.

“Natural Law and Legal Reasoning,” Cleveland State Law Review, 38 (1990): 1–13.

“Allocating Risks and Suffering: Some Hidden Traps,” Cleveland State Law Review, 38 (1990): 193–207.

“Concluding Reflections,” Cleveland State Law Review, 38 (1990) 231–50.

“Object and Intention in Moral Judgments according to St. Thomas Aquinas,” Thomist, 55 (1991): 1–27; rev. version in Finalité et Intentionnalité: Doctrine Thomiste et Perspectives Modernes, ed. J. Follon and J. McEvoy, Bibliothèque Philosophique de Louvain, 35 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1992) 127–48.

“Intention and Side-effects,” in Liability and Responsibility: Essays in Law and Morals, ed. R.G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991). 32–64.

“Introduction,” Natural Law, vol I, International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, Schools 1.1 (New York: New York University; Aldershot, U.K: Ashgate-Dartmouth, 1991), xi–xxiii.

“Introduction,” Natural Law, vol. II, International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory, Schools 1.2 (New York: New York University; Aldershot, U.K: Ashgate-Dartmouth, 1991), xi–xvi.

“The Legal Status of the Unborn Baby,” Catholic Medical Quarterly, 43 (1992): 5–11.

“Natural Law and Legal Reasoning,” in Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays, ed. Robert P. George (Oxford: Oxford University, 1992), 134–57.

“Economics, Justice and the Value of Life: Concluding Remarks,” in Economics and the Dependent Elderly: Autonomy, Justice and Quality of Care, ed. Luke Gormally (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992), 189–98.

“Abortion and Health Care Ethics,” in Principles of Health Care Ethics, ed. Raanan Gillon (Chichester, England: John Wiley, 1993), 547–57.

“Law, Morality, and ‘Sexual Orientation’,” Notre Dame Law Review, 69 (1994): 1049–76; with additions, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy, 9 (1995): 11–39.

“Liberalism and Natural Law Theory,” Mercer Law Review, 45 (1994): 687–704.

“On Conditional Intentions and Preparatory Intentions,” in Moral Truth and Moral Tradition: Essays in Honour of Peter Geach and Elizabeth Anscombe, ed. Luke Gormally (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1994), 163–76.

“A Philosophical Case against Euthanasia,” “The Fragile Case for Euthanasia: A Reply to John Harris,” and “Misunderstanding the Case against Euthanasia: Response to Harris’s First Reply,” in Euthanasia: Ethical, Legal and Clinical Perspectives, ed. John Keown (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1995), 23–35, 46–55, 62–71.

“The Truth in Legal Positivism,” in The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism, ed. Robert P. George (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 195–214.

Articles in Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University, 1995): “History of Philosophy of Law” (465–68), “Problems in the Philosophy of Law” (468–72), “Austin” (67), “Defeasible” (181), “Dworkin” (209–10), “Grotius” (328), “Hart” (334), “Legal Positivism” (476–7), “Legal Realism” (477), “Natural Law” (606–7), “Natural Rights” (607).

“The Ethics of War and Peace in the Catholic Natural Law Tradition,” in The Ethics of War and Peace, ed. Terry Nardin (Princeton: Princeton University, 1996), 15–39.

“Is Natural Law Theory Compatible with Limited Government?,” in Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality, ed. Robert P. George (Oxford: Oxford University, 1996), 1–26.

“Loi naturelle,” in Dictionnaire de Philosophie Morale, ed. Monique Canto-Sperber (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996) 862–68.

“Law, Morality and ‘Sexual Orientation’,” in Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality, ed. John Corvino (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), 31–43.

“The Good of Marriage and the Morality of Sexual Relations: Some Philosophical and Historical Observations,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 42 (1997): 97–134.

“Commensuration and Public Reason,” in Incommensurability, Comparability and Practical Reasoning, ed. Ruth Chang (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1997), 215–33, 285–89.

“Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas,” in Natural Law and Moral Inquiry, ed. Robert P. George (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1998), 174–209.

“On the Practical Meaning of Secularism,” Notre Dame Law Review, 73 (1998): 491–515.

“Natural Law,” in Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998), 6:685–90.

“Public Reason, Abortion and Cloning,” Valparaiso University Law Review, 32 (1998): 361–82.

“Euthanasia, Morality and Law,” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 31 (1998): 1123–45.

“What is the Common Good, and Why Does It Concern the Client’s Lawyer?,” South Texas Law Review, 40 (1999): 41–53.

“Natural Law and the Ethics of Discourse,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 43 (1999): 53–73.

“Natural Law and the Ethics of Discourse,” Ratio Juris, 12 (1999): 354–73.

“The Priority of Persons,” in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Fourth Series, ed. Edward Craig (Oxford: Oxford University, 2000), 1–15.

“Abortion, Natural Law and Public Reason,” in Natural Law and Public Reason, ed. Robert P George and Christopher Wolfe (Washington, D.C,: Georgetown University, 2000), 71–105.

“Some Fundamental Evils of Generating Human Embryos by Cloning,” in Etica della Ricerca Biologica, ed. Cosimo Marco Mazzoni (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000), 115–23; also in Ethics and Law in Biological Research, ed. Cosimo Marco Mazzoni (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 99–106.

“Retribution: Punishment’s Formative Aim,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 44 (2000): 91–103.

“On the Incoherence of Legal Positivism,” Notre Dame Law Review, 75 (2000): 1597–1611.

“Natural Law: The Classical Tradition,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, ed. Jules Coleman and Scott Shapiro (Oxford: Oxford University, 2002), 1–60.

“Aquinas on jus and Hart on Rights: A Response,” Review of Politics, 64 (2002): 407–10.

“Law and What I Truly Should Decide,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 48 (2003): 107–130.

“Natural Law & the Re-making of Boundaries,” in States, Nations, and Boundaries: The Ethics of Making Boundaries, ed. Allen Buchanan & Margaret Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003), 171–78.

“Per un’etica dell’eguaglianza nel diritto alla vita: Un commento a Peter Singer,” in Questioni Mortali: L’Attuale Dibattito sulla Morte Cerebrale e il Problema dei Trapianti, ed. Rosangela Barcaro and Paolo Becchi (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2004), 127–39.

“Helping Enact Unjust Laws without Complicity in Injustice,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 49 (2004): 11–42.

“‘The Thing I Am’: Personal Identity in Aquinas and Shakespeare,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 22 (2005): 250–82; also in Personal Identity, ed. Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred. D. Miller, and Jeffrey Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2005), 250–82.

“On ‘Public Reason’,” Ius et Lex (Warsaw), (2005), 33–56; translation, “O Racji Pulicznej,” 7–30; also SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=955815.

“Philosophy of Law” [in Chinese], in The Map of Contemporary British and American Philosophy, ed. Ouyang Kang (Beijing: 2005), 390–413.

“Restricting Legalised Abortion Is Not Intrinsically Unjust,” in Cooperation, Complicity and Conscience: Proceedings of an International Conference on Problems in Healthcare, Science, Law and Public Policy, ed. Helen Watt (London: Linacre Centre, 2005), 209–45.

“A Vote Decisive for … a More Restrictive Law,” in Cooperation, Complicity and Conscience: Proceedings of an International Conference on Problems in Healthcare, Science, Law and Public Policy, ed. Helen Watt (London: Linacre Centre, 2005), 269–95.

“Self-referential (or Performative) Inconsistency: Its Significance for Truth,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 78 (2005): 13–21.

“Foundations of Practical Reason Revisited,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 50 (2005): 109–132.

“Aquinas’ Moral, Political and Legal Philosophy,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political/

“Religion and State: Some Main Issues and Sources,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 51 (2006): 107–130; also SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=943420

“Natural Law Theories of Law,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (2007): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-theories/

“Grounds of Law & Legal Theory: A Response,” Legal Theory, 13 (2008): 315–44, also SSRN http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1094691

“The Mental Capacity Act 2005: Some Ethical and Legal Issues,” forthcoming in Incapacity and Care: Proceedings of the Linacre Centre Conference 2007 (London: Linacre Centre, 2008).

“On Hart’s Ways: Law as Reason and as Fact,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 52, (2007) 25–53; also SSRN: NDLS Paper 08-06 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1100170

“Universality, Personal and Social Identity, and Law,” Proceedings of (Third) Congresso Sul-Americano de Filosofia do Direito and (Sixth) Colóquio Sul-Americano de Realismo Jurídico, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 4 Oct 2007, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1094277

“Discriminating between Faiths: A Case of Extreme Speech?” in Extreme Speech and Democracy, ed, Ivan Hare and James Weinstein (Oxford: Oxford University, 2009), 430–41, also SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1101522

“Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good,” The Monist, 91 (2008): 396–414; also SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1392288

“Reason, Revelation, Universality and Particularity in Ethics,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 53 (2008): 23-48. SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1392288

“Why Religious Liberty is a Special, Important and Limited Right,” Address at Witherspoon Institute and Templeton Foundation Conference on Religious Liberty, Princeton University, 30 October 2008; SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1392278

“Review Essay: [Anscombe’s Essays],” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 9 (2009): 199–207; SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1392217

“Telling the Truth about God and Man in a Pluralist Society: Economy or Explication?” in The Naked Public Square Reconsidered: Religion and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Christopher Wolfe (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2009), 103–115 and 195–200.

“Discriminating between Religions: Some Thoughts on Reading Greenawalt’s Religion and the Constitution: Establishment & Fairness,Constitutional Commentary. 25 (2009): 265–71.

“H.L.A. Hart: A Twentieth-Century Oxford Political Philosopher,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 54 (2009); SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477276

Legal Papers

“Constitutional Law,” annual contributions (1967–75) to Annual Survey of Commonwealth Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968–1977).

“Reason and Passion: The Constitutional Dialectic of Free Speech and Obscenity,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 116 (1967): 222–43.

“Blackstone’s Theoretical Intentions,” Natural Law Forum, 12 (1967): 163–83.

“Separation of Powers in the Australian Constitution,” Adelaide Law Review, 3 (1968): 159–77.

“Three Schemes of Regulation,” in The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives, ed. John T. Noonan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1970), 172–219; also published as “Abortion and Legal Rationality,” Adelaide Law Review, 3 (1970): 431–67.

“The Abortion Act: What has changed?” Criminal Law Review, 18 (1971): 3–12.

“Revolutions and Continuity of Law,” in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence: Second Series, ed. A. W. Brian Simpson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 44–76.

“Some Professorial Fallacies about Rights,” Adelaide Law Review, 4 (1972): 377–88.

“The Responsibilities of the United Kingdom Parliament and Government under the Australian Constitution,” Adelaide Law Review, 9 (1983): 91–107.

“Power to Enforce Treaties in Australia—The High Court Goes Centralist?” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 3 (1983): 126–30.

“Reforming the Expanded External Affairs Power,” in Report of the External Affairs Subcommittee to the Standing Committee of the Australian Constitutional Convention (September 1984), 43–51.

“On ‘The Critical Legal Studies Movement’,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, 30 (1985): 21–42; also in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence: Third Series, ed. John Eekelaar and John Bell (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 145–65.

Bland: Crossing the Rubicon?,” Law Quarterly Review, 109 (1993): 329–37.

“‘Living Will’ Legislation,” in Euthanasia, Clinical Practice and the Law, ed. Luke Gormally (London: Linacre Centre, 1994), 167–76.

“Intention in Tort Law,” in Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law, ed. David G. Owen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 229–48.

“The Fairy Tale’s Moral,” Law Quarterly Review, 115 (1999): 170–75.

“Nationality, Alienage and Constitutional Principle,” Law Quarterly Review, 123 (2007): 417–45; SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1101495

“Common Law Constraints: Whose Common Good Counts?” Cambridge Centre for Public Law Conference, January 2008; SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1100628

“The Lords’ Eerie Swansong: A Note on R (Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions” (2009): SSRN http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477281

Historical Papers, with Patrick H. Martin

“The Identity of ‘Anthony Rivers’,” Recusant History, 26 (2002): 39–74.

“Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Part I: Goddard Tyrwhitt, Martyr, 1580,” Recusant History, 26 (2002): 301–313.

“Tyrwhitt of Kettleby, Part II: Robert Tyrwhitt, a Main Benefactor of John Gerard SJ, 1599–1605,” Recusant History, 27 (2003): 556–69.

“Thomas Thorpe, ‘W.S’, and the Catholic Intelligencers,” Elizabethan Literary Renaissance, (2003): 1–43

“Shakespeare‘s Intercession for Love’s Martyr,” Times Literary Supplement, April 18, 2003, 12–14.

“Caesar, Succession, and the Chastisement of Rulers,” Notre Dame Law Review, 78 (2003): 1045–74.

“Benedicam Dominum: Ben Jonson’s Strange 1605 Inscription,” Times Literary Supplement, November 4, 2005,

“The Secret Sharers: ‘Anthony Rivers’ and the Appellant Controversy, 1601–21,” Huntingdon Library Quarterly, 69 (2006): 195–238. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/ hlq.2006.69.2.195