ABSTRACT
A major theme in contemporary discussions of moral philosophy is dissatisfaction with the condition of ethical theory. Ethical theory can be characterized as the effort to develop general criteria for distinguishing correct from incorrect moral judgements, within an overall account of moral life and experience. Moral life is rooted in the concrete practices and traditions of communities, but is not beyond criticism. This chapter provides ambiguous relationship between natural law theorizing and virtues ethics and allied views about the tradition-dependent character of ethical thinking. It seeks to determine in what ways natural law and natural law theorizing are tradition-dependent, and whether key natural law claims are compatible with recognition of these sorts of tradition dependence. The chapter considers several objections to natural law thinking which this analysis raises. It distinguishes three ways in which an enquiry can be tradition-dependent, and then for each of them in turn considers whether natural law theory is tradition-dependent.
