As is evident by the variety of thinkers and source documents presented here, the natural law and natural right tradition is a complex and many-sided body of moral and political thought. It is unified, however, by an agreement as to the natural (as distinguished from conventional or man-made) character of principles of right and wrong, and of justice and injustice. Philosophers and statesmen who think and act within this shared understanding agree that the standards that ought to guide the ordering of political and social life are accessible to human reason. One can find this appeal to natural standards of...