ABSTRACT
There is a tradition of theory and theorizing about natural law. This "tradition of natural law theory" has three main features: first, critique and rejection of ethical scepticism, dogmatism and conventionalism; second, clarification of the methodology of descriptive and explanatory social theories; third, critique and rejection of aggregative conceptions of the right and the just. The critique of scepticism is closely linked to the main strategy of contemporary jurisprudence: attention, not merely to the externals of structure, practices or even feeling, but rather to the characteristic reasons people have for acting in the ways which go to constitute distinctive social phenomena. Natural law theory fully recognizes the place of descriptive/explanatory social sciences, quite distinct from justificatory/critical practical reasoning about the good and the right in social arrangements. Human rights, and institutions such as the Rule of Law, justifiably have the shape they do just insofar as aggregative ethical/political methods are unjustifiable.
