Legal Obligation and the Natural Law

This Article will for the most part assume, however, that we currently have at least an arbitrary preference to avoid such a result, \nif possible. But again, no narrowly circumscribed solution to the \nproblem of justifying legal obligation seems possible. Rather, the \nnarrowest possible affirmative solution to the problem of the moral \ncharacter of legal obligation involves recourse to what is recognizably a natural law approach. Not just any recognizably natural law \napproach will suffice, however. If we are to solve the problem of \nlegal obligation in an affirmative way, we are led inevitably to a \nsingle possible solution involving a distinctively, unmistakably, \ntheistic version of the natural law. It is something of an under- \nstatement to suggest that proving such a solution works is a task \nbeyond the scope of this Article. But some effort will be expended \non showing not merely that the choice really is as stark as we have \nsupposed, but that the theistic natural law approach is susceptible \nof progressive development and not without contemporary plausibility and intellectual appeal.