HINDU UNDIVIDED FAMILY: A TAX PLANNING TOOL

HIDAYATULLAH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

Raipur, Chhattisgarh

JURISPRUDENCE PROJECT

ON

John Finnis and Seven kinds of Goods

SUBMITTED TO

Ms. ANUKRITI MISHRA

Faculty Member, HNLU

SUBMITTED BY-:

PARTH SARATHI
Semester 5TH
Section C (Political Science Major)
Roll No. 112

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................5

OBJECTIVES................................................................................................................................7

CHAPTERISATION.....................................................................................................................8

OBJECTIVE 1............................................................................................................................8

HUF TERMINOLOGY..........................................................................................................9

FORMATION OF HUF:-.....................................................................................................10

OBJECTVE 2............................................................................................................................11

WHO SHOULD GO FOR HUF...........................................................................................11

TAX PLANNING TIPS FOR HUF:....................................................................................12

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................15

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................16

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CERTIFICATE OF DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the project work entitled John Finnis and Seven kinds of
Goods submitted to HNLU, Raipur, is record of an original work done by me under the
guidance of Ms. ANUKRITI MISHRA., Faculty Member, HNLU, Raipur.

PARTH SARATHI

Roll. No. 112

Semester 5th

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my Taxation law faculty Ms. Anukriti Mishra. for giving this project
entitled John Finnis and Seven kinds of Goods which has widened my idea as well as
understanding of the theory and specifically about the concept of justice. Her guidance has also
been instrumental towards the completion of this project.

My heartfelt gratitude also goes out to the staff and administration of HNLU for the
infrastructure in the form of our library and IT lab that was a source of great help in the
completion of this project.

I also thank my friends for their precious inputs which have been very helpful in the completion
of this project.

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INTRODUCTION
Finniss natural law theory is divided into three distinct parts, each with its own purpose.Finnis
argues that there are, first, a set of notions that indicate the basic forms of human flourishing as
goods to be pursued and realized and that are known to everyone who thinks about how they
should act. These principles are buttressed by a set of basic methodological requirements of
practical reasonableness . . . which distinguish sound from unsound practical thinking and . . .
provide the criteria for distinguishing between [reasonable and unreasonable acts].1 Following
these methodological requirements allows one to distinguish between acting morally right or
morally wrong and to formulate . . . a set of general moral standards. 2 Finnis begins by
discussing knowledge and describing his theory of the importance of basic goods. Basic goods
are irreducible, self-evident, and even unquestionable. To Finnis, every reasonable person
would assent to the value of these basic goods as objects of human striving, and these basic
goods are indemonstrable but self-evident principles [that shape] our practical reasoning. By
stating that something is a basic good, as he does in the first instance with knowledge, Finnis
argues that reference to the pursuit of knowledge makes intelligible . . . any particular instance
of the human activity and commitment involved in such pursuit. There are seven of these basic
goods. They are: (1) life, (2) knowledge, (3) play, (4) aesthetic experience, (5) sociability or
friendship, (6) practical reasonableness, and (7) religion.3 Finnis argues that the list of basic
goods is exhaustive in that other objectives and forms of good will be found . . . to be ways of
pursuing . . . and realizing . . . one of the seven basic forms of good, or some combination of
them.4

The basic goods are goods sought for their own sake.These goods are properly called ends
and are not those goods which are instrumental and thus considered means. These ends are to
be considered final ends but not in the sense of an objective and determinate final end. Rather,
1 Benjamin Franklin, The Whistle (1779), reprinted in THE OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN ESSAYS 4, 6
(Brander Matthews ed., 1914)

2 MICHAEL D.A. FREEMAN, LLOYDS INTRODUCTION TO JURISPRUDENCE 90 (7th ed. 2001).

3 Germain G. Grisez, The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae,

4 Ibid

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the basic human goods are final ends in that they are definite possibilities intuited independent
of any other sort of knowledge. Finniss basic goods are: (1) life, (2) knowledge, (3) play, (4)
aesthetic experience, (5) sociability (friendship), (6) practical reasonableness, and (7) religion.
Again, these basic goods are not to be confused with moral goods. Basic goods are broken into
two categories: substantive and reflexive. Life, knowledge, and play are substantive goods,
whereas aesthetic experience, sociability, practical reasonableness, and religion are reflexive
goods. Reflexive goods must be defined in terms of human choice, and substantive goods
provide reasons for making choices that stand by themselves.

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OBJECTIVES
To discuss about the concept of Finniss concept of Natural law.
To discuss about the seven kinds of goods described by Finnis.

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THE SEVEN BASIC GOODS

John Finnis is an Australian legal scholar who grew up in Adelaide before getting a Rhodes
scholarship to Oxford. He is currently professor of law at Oxford. Finnis publishedNatural Law
and Natural Rights in 1980, and the book is considered a seminal restatement of the natural law
doctrine. Finnis is a practising catholic, and a fair proportion of his work (in NLNR and
subsequent articles) deals with the relationship between natural law and Christian/Catholic
values.5

The Seven Basic Goods

The central object of Finniss theory is a set of seven fundamental goods for humankind. These
goods are:

Life
Knowledge (for its own sake)
Friendship and Sociability
Play (for its own sake)
Aesthetic Experience
Practical Reasonableness, i.e. the ability to reason correctly about what is best for
yourself, and to act on those decisions.
Religion i.e. a connection with, and participation with, the orders that transcend
individual humanity

The basic goods serve as an explanation of why we do things. Any worthwhile activity is worth
doing because it participates in one or more basic goods.6

5 http://web.mit.edu/anscombe/www/finnisorientation.pdf

6 See, e.g., JOHN FINNIS, NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS 23 (1980) (supporting an objective
standard of morality)

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Other positive qualities, like freedom or humility, are merely methods by which we can achieve
one or more of the basic goods. Other motivations for action, such as the pursuit of pleasure or
material gain, are misguided and motivated by human inclination rather than practical reason.

The Reality of the Basic Goods

The statement these are the seven basic goods is just as true as the statement there are
infinitely many primes. The basic goods exist independent of human thought, and so we can put
them in reality in the same sense that maths lives in reality. The basic goods, of course, do not
have physical form.

Where do these goods come from?

We can distinguish between theoretical reason, which describes what is true, withpractical
reason, which describes how to act. Theoretical reason has many principles that cannot be
proved, such as:
the validity of deductive inferences
the principle of induction
the assumption that experience corresponds to reality
the preference for a simple explanation over a complex one

7 Finnis, J. (2011, first published 1980). Natural law and natural rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press

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Principles like these cannot be derived from the principles of logic, and can be meaningfully
denied. But if you deny a principle like this, you will find it impossible to pursue knowledge and
you wont be able to get anywhere at all. Moreover, you can just seethat these principles are true
by looking around.8
The basic goods are the same. They cannot be derived from Gods law, or logic, or the
inclinations of a human brain. But if you deny them, you cannot get anywhere in the realm of
practical reason, and you cannot make decisions about what is best for your life. And, just with
theoretical principles, its obvious that these goods are basic. In this way, the seven basic goods
are self-evident.
It is important to make a distinction here. It is not true that everyone is automatically aware of all
the principles of theoretical rationality a toddler may not understand amodus ponens argument.
But such principles are known to every educated, mature person. In the same way, Finnis
acknowledges that there are people who do not respect the basic goods; its just that those people
are wrong.
The Nine Requirements of Practical Reason
One of the seven basic goods is practical reason. You participate in this good by making rational
decision that maximise your participation in the other goods by choosing good projects to
pursue, by making moral decisions, and so on. In order to correctly participating in practical
reason, you need to fulfil nine sub-requirements. These requirements are self-evident in the same
way that the basic goods are self-evident. The nine principles are:
1. You should view your life as a whole, and not live moment to moment
2. You naturally have to prioritise certain goods over others (e.g. an academic would
prioritise knowledge higher than a tradie), but you should always do so with good reason.
You should never arbitrarily discount one of the basic goods.
3. Basic goods apply equally to all people. You can be self-interested to the extent that you
are in the best position to look after yourself, but you should always take into account the
good of others.
4. You should make sure that you do not become obsessed with a particular project, and
keep the perspective that the project is a participation of a basic good.

8 Gary Chartier,Economic Justice and Natural Law (2009)

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5. You should actually do projects and make an effort to improve dont just sit around or
repeat old habits
6. You should calculate and plan your actions so that they are the most efficient (in a
utilitarian sense) and do the most good.
7. You should never commit an act that directly harms a basic good, even if it will indirectly
benefit a different basic good. For example, you should not kill even if it will indirectly save
more lives later.
8. You should foster the common good of the community.
9. You should act according to your conscience and practical reason, not the authority of
someone else.9
Making Decisions using the Seven Goods and the Nine Requirements
The seven goods and the nine requirements apply equally to everyone. To make specific
decisions in your life, you think reasonably, in accordance with the nine requirements, and
decide how you will participate in the basic goods.

There is plenty of scope for discretion in this scheme. If you are deciding what to do with your
day, you could choose to listen to music, or to go hiking, or to go to a party, or to volunteer for
disaster relief. These are all, in principle, valid choices. Some choices arewrong, e.g. murdering
someone, or spending all day in an empty room doing nothing, but there are many equally
correct choices.
The seven goods are all equally fundamental, and do not exist in a hierarchy. Therefore, although
some acts are wrong (because they do not participate in a basic good), there is no single correct
act. This is an important distinction between theoretical and practical reason: in theoretical
reason, if two statements contradict then at least one of them must be false. In practical reason,
there can be two contradictory acts that are both morally correct choices. It is up to a humans
free will to choose which act they will adopt.10

9 Mark C Murphy, Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics (2006) ch7.

10 Finnis, Law, Morality and Sexual Orientation, above n 10, 1067

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In this way, the seven goods and the nine requirements specify the overarching structure and
goals, but do not determine the minutiae of day-to-day life, or even big decisions like the choice
of career.

NATURAL LAW, THE COMMON GOOD AND NEED OF AUTHORITY

Humans naturally need to live in groups. This is both required expressly by the basic good of
Sociability, and implicitly by all the other goods, because we are most productive when we are
working together. Hence, one of the nine requirements of practical reason is Contribute to the
common good.

The common good is the situation where each member of the community can effectively pursue
the basic goods for themselves. Like one of the basic goods, the common good is never achieved,
it is only participated in.

Authority

To best achieve the common good, certain acts need to be performed by the wholecommunity
rather than specific people. Examples are respect for the rules of games, collaboration within
knowledge, spirituality within the community, or respect for each others lives and safety. Such
co

Such community-wide actions require coordination, and coordination requires authority (not
necessarily coercive authority). Such coordinating authorities include churches, team captains,
university heads of department, and governments.

One of the basic goods is practical reasonableness. It is necessary that every member of a society
be able to make decisions for themselves. Authority figures therefore need to compromise
between coordinating society effectively, and granting people the ability to pursue their own ends
in the manner they choose.11

11 t http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ spr2012/entries/moral-relativism/

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Natural Law

One of the strongest and most effective sources of authority is the law, and therefore, Finnis
concludes, law is a morally necessary component of society.

How is the specific content of law morally determined?

Some laws directly serve basic goods (e.g. the law against murder). Most laws however, are not
so direct instead they create a stable society in which people have the freedom and ability to
pursue the basic goods. Before, I said that each person is free to choose the specific details of
how they achieve the basic goods in the same way, the authors of the law are free to choose the
specifics of the legal system. As long as the legal system is in service to the basic goods and in
accordance with practical reason, it is a morally good legal system. Of course, some legal
systems will be better than others. A society deciding between legal systems is equivalent to an
individual deciding between conflicting moral decisions.12

What features should a legal system have?

The law should bring specificity, clarity and predictability into human interactions, and so it
should obey public and precise rules. These rules should also regulate the creation of new rules.
Finnis agrees with Lon Fullers eight requirements of the inner morality of law,13 that laws
should be:

1. Prospective, not retroactive

2. Possible to comply with
3. Promulgated
4. Clear
5. Coherent
6. Stable enough that people can use the law as a guide
7. The making of new laws should be guided effectively within the legal system

12 A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory, Russell Hittinger

13 Chris Gowans, Moral Relativism

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8. People who have authority should be

A. Accountable
B. Consistent and acting in good faith

(These eight requirements are posed by Finnis, but agree closely with Fullers requirements)

The Moral Force of Law

If you accept a legal system, then you have a legal obligation to obey every law However, a legal
system, when implemented correctly, is a very important source of guidance for people, and
people have a moral obligation to obey the law. The argument runs like this:

I ought to pursue the basic goods

Society needs to coordinate in order to best achieve the basic goods
The law is an effective way of coordinating society this way
Therefore:
I ought to obey the law.

Therefore you have both a legal obligation and a moral obligation to respect and obey the law.
The legal obligation is invariant in force the law just has offences and sanctions; no offence or
sanction is legally worse than any other. The moral obligation has different weight depending on
the specific offense, because some offences damage the legal system more than others. If a legal
obligation is in line with a moral obligation (e.g. Do not murder) then you also have the non-
legal obligation to not perform that act for moral reasons.

In this way, the law is not just a coercive order. Certainly, in an imperfect society, the law needs
to be coercive in order to regulate people who behave badly. These bad people follow the law in
order to avoid sanctions. But many people follow the law because they believe that following the
law is morally correct. In a perfect society, there would be law without sanctions that functioned
only to coordinate people.

What about when the law conflicts with morals?

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A classic interpretation of natural law is the doctrine of lex injusta non est lex: that morally
wrong laws are not laws at all. Finnis first asserts that this is not the primary concern of a theory
of natural law the primary concern is discerning a system of common good, and determing
whether/how a legal system can best achieve that. The issue of immoral laws is nonetheless
worth discussing, and Finnis does indeed discuss it.

I have already talked about how laws have both moral and legal obligation. Finnis explanation
of lex injusta non est lex is quite simple: a morally unjust law imposes legal obligation, but no
moral obligation. Specifically, if we look at the argument from before:

I ought to pursue the basic goods

Society needs to coordinate in order to best achieve the basic goods
The law is an effective way of coordinating society this way,
Therefore
I ought to obey the law.

If a law is immoral/unjust, we can reject premise number 3, and so there is no moral obligation
to obey the law. We still have the legal obligation that we should obey the law if we want to
avoid the sanction. In this sense the law is still legally valid, but it is not morally valid.

There is another consideration that can sometimes provide a moral obligation to obey immoral
laws. Imagine that an act X is morally wrong, but is required by law. Since the law has moral
force, it is morally important to ensure that the law is stable. Therefore citizens have a moral
obligation to perform X for the sake of not undermining the legal system, and legal officials have
a moral obligation enforce X for the same reason. This moral obligation will not necessarily
trump the moral obligation that X not be performed, but it is possible that it will trump that
obligation. In this way, it can sometimes be morally correct to obey the law, even if the law itself
is not morally valid.

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CONCLUSION

Finnis further asserts that the list of basic goods is exhaustive and lacks any notion of internal
hierarchy. Each one of the seven basic goods is equally self-evident. None of these goods is
reducible to an aspect of one of the other goods, nor can any individual basic good be regarded
as the most important. While it is true that a person can choose to treat one of these goods as
superior to the others, each good is still fundamental, and these goods have no objective priority
of value. These choices constitute a life plan that subjectively orders the basic goods for the
individual, but the fundamental nature of the goods and the subjective ordering do not change the
intrinsic value of the goods themselves. Finniss notion of a life plan and its relationship to the
ordering of goods proves to be an important part of the critique of his theory. Finnis has argued
that there are seven basic, self-evident, and incommensurable goods. With his list and his theory
of the relationship among the goods Finnis has provided fuel for one of the critiques of his theory
the charge that the list of basic goods lacks an internal hierarchy.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY & WEBLIOGRAPHY

John Finniss Natural Law Theory and a Critique of the Incommensurable Nature of
Basic Goods, Alex E. Wallin.
Natural Law and Natural Rights, J. Finnis
The Collected Essays of John Finnis, J. Finnis
: http://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/clr
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political/
http://web.mit.edu/anscombe/www/finnisorientation.pdf

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