John Finnis, Oxford University, 1980

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An oft-cited, but not easy to read, classic on the justification for laws. When he does get to the point, however, this book make us think and look hard at our laws and gives us a basis to question if they are just. He considers what is universal to all societies as a basis upon which to build legal systems that are not arbitrary but that are validated by broad practice. Human impulses and reactiveness are monitored everywhere to prevent self-centered actions from having a negative impact on others and society, and people in all cultures consider cooperation and friendship to be beneficial. This book is erudite and difficult to quote to extract plain meaning, but the page below gives us a sense of what he is trying to convey.

…surveying the anthropological literature entitles us to make some rather confident assertions. All human societies show a concern for the value of life…all human societies consider the procreation of life in itself a good thing…no human society fails to restrict sexual activity…All human societies display a concern for truth…through education…but also…theoretical…all societies display a favour for the values of cooperation, of common over individual good, of obligations between individuals, and of justice…all know friendship…All have some conception of…property…all value play…all treat the bodies of dead members…in some traditional and ritualistic fashion…all display a concern for powers or principles which are to be respected as suprahuman; in one form or another religion is universal. (P 83)