An Interactionist View on the Relation between Law and Morality

Introduction
The claim of this book is that many issues may be put into a new light if we analyse them with explicit attention to the role of ideals. The relation between law and morality is one of these themes; indeed, my claim is that we will not only be able to understand the debate between natural law theory and legal positivism better, but also to construct a defensible third theory.
In recent decades, the debate between natural law theory and legal positivism has lost most of its sharp edges. Some authors, most notably Ronald Dworkin, construct intermediate positions, which are explicitly referred to as a third theory of law. Various authors have tried to modify positivism and include crucial insights from the Dworkinian criticisms, using phrases such as soft or inclusive positivism. Modem natural law theorists similarly present highly attenuated forms of the old strong positions. However, as critics are eager to point out, these intermediate positions and weaker forms of positivism and natural law also remain quite unsatisfactory, often even much more so than the traditional views. Moreover, as a result of these minor and major modifications, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand what the debate is all about - is there still a genuine disagreement?