Each of these contrasting reflections expresses a different view of legal theory. In this chapter, I consider the relationship between two particular approaches to criminal law theory: ‘critique’ and ‘the philosophy of criminal law.’ Whilst the title of my chapter presupposes an opposition between the two, it is in fact one of my main purposes to question that opposition. It is, of course, an opposition which bears some real relationship with the positions held by protagonists in the debate canvassed by Antony Duff in his introduction to this collection. In recent years, a number of British and American writers working within a ‘critical’ tradition have questioned the basis of ‘philosophical’ theories of criminal law which emphasise and seek to elaborate upon its ‘principled’ nature.