Any theory of justice must draw on basic assumptions about nature and human nature. These assumptions will be historically and culturally variable, and they may be regarded as guaranteed by God, imposed by fixed biological imperative, or conjured up by shifting ideological motives; but in any case, there must be some working model of human needs, desires, powers, virtues, and frailties in order to formulate an authoritative system to judge and regulate conduct. Similarly, any literary theory must presuppose some commonly held view of human nature in relation to the natural world that sustains it. There is no literature without convention, no convention without consensus, no consensus without community, however fractious, and no community without justice. The interaction of justice and literature therefore becomes salient if we consider their common ground in “nature,” a word that we must treat cautiously but cannot escape. This chapter uses natural law for that purpose.

Natural law has a long and chequered history from Stoic philosophy, to Roman law, Thomistic theology, and early modern efforts to define “nature” in relation to a polity that seeks moral direction from a natural order.