约翰·菲尼斯系牛津大学法学教授、大学院（university college）法理学研究员。是继已故美国法理学家富勒之后，驰名西方法学界的一位自然法哲学家。他的代表作《自然法与自然权利》(牛津大学出版社1980年第1版)被认为是“对自然法的权威性再表述”。

John Finnis has been a central figure in the fundamental re-shaping of legal philosophy over the past half-century. This volume of his Collected Essays shows the full range and power of his contributions to the philosophy of law. The volume collects over twenty papers: on the foundations of law's authority; major theories and theorists of law; legal reasoning; revolutions, rights and law; and the logic of law-making. The essays collected include Finnis' recent appreciations and root-and-branch critiques of Hart's legal and political theories, his engagements with other central figures and works in the field, including Dworkin's Law's Empire; Raz on authority and coordination; Coleman, Leiter and Gardner on legal positivism and naturalism; Aquinas as founder of legal positivism; Weber on the fact-value distinction and legitimation; Unger on indeterminacy in law; Posner on intention and economics; Kelsen and courts on revolutions; game-theory and rational-choice theory; with misinterpreters of Hohfeld on rights logic; John Paul II on voting for unjust laws; the architecture of Blackstone's Commentaries; restitution in civil wrongs; and many other aspects of law and legal theory. Previously unpublished papers include two on critical or post-modern legal theory - one on analogical reasoning in law, and a survey of legal philosophy's history and current of development. An introduction carries forward the debate with his contemporaries, and the reflections on how legal philosophy got to where it is.