First Paragraph: In this original monograph William Lucy takes a fresh look at some aspects of the relationship between law and morality that have not attracted much attention in recent years. Though most of the current controversies over this complex relationship focus on questions such as whether morality has a necessary place in law and whether law has its own inherent value or is merely a means to fostering other values, Lucy’s jurisprudential endeavour begins at a later stage of the inquiry. It explores whether a mode of judging human conduct that he places under the name law’s abstract judgement, and considers to be typical of law (or at least of law in liberal polities), contributes to law’s pursuit of four values: fairness, dignity, equality and community.