Should the law be concerned only with actions which harm individuals, or may it be used to Protect the morality and essential institutions of a society? Differing views on this and allied questions have been expressed by Lord Devlin, Professor H. L. A. Hart, and others. In this book, Professor Mitchell seeks to 'disentangle the strands of the argument' and to trace the disagreements to their origin in fundamental differences about the scope and nature of morality. Noting that the disputants are all recognizable liberals, he suggests that there are 'varieties of liberalism'. He concludes by asking to what extent, if at all, specifically Christian conceptions should be allowed to influence the process of law-making in a secular society. His illuminating guidance to the issues involved will, as R. M. Hare wrote in Philosophy, 'deepen the understanding of anybody who reads this book.'