Liberalism and Natural Law Theory

I shall argue, in the course of this lecture, that the title I gave myself is a bad one, one that sets a bad example. Liberalism, like conservatism and socialism, is too local, contingent and shifting a term to deserve a place in a general theory of society, politics, government and law. So I had better say at once which proposition or set of propositions I, on this occasion, was gesturing towards with the word liberalism, out of all the many propositions, often conflicting, which have been called liberal. What I had in mind was the thesis that government and law should be limited in their range of application, that there are domains which government and law should not enter and in which there is (to use that excruciatingly imprecise dictum) a right to be let alone . Any sound theory of natural law will explain and justify the authority of government as an authority limited (1) by positive law (especially but not only constitutional law), (2) by the moral principles and norms of justice which apply to all human action (whether private or public), and (3) by the common good of political communities—a common good which I shall argue is inherently instrumental and therefore limited. If limited government is not a term widely used in natural law theories, it is because it is so ambiguous. For the proper limits on government and political authority are quite various in their kinds and their sources. Nonetheless, being limited is only to a limited extent a desirable characteristic of government: bad and powerful people and groups want government limited so that they can bully and exploit the weak, or simply enjoy their wealth untroubled by care for others. So limited cannot be a framework term, like just