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Does nature make laws an introduction to the natural law tradition?

I've been invited to deliver an introductory lecture on the natural law tradition.

Having accepted that invitation, I feel bound to honor it. In one way, my acceptance was an act of self-binding, like making a promise or a vow, I took on an obligation.

But there seems to be a source of obligation outside of myself.

I promised something, so I owe it, and not just to myself, but to others.

But why must the promise be kept?

Why can I find myself, even by my own action, in a state of obligation to others, to you, my audience. To talk about the natural

law tradition is not only to offer a particular perspective on how to answer this question,

but also to elucidate what the question itself reveals about the human condition. Before I proceed, allow me to make some distinctions.

As a topic for a lecture,

natural law admits of different modes of approach and scopes of focus.

We can speak of the general obligation of natural law as a whole

or of specific obligations of the natural law, such as keeping

one's promises. We can also speak of those obligations, general or specific, precisely conceived as

obligations of natural law, and we can consider how conceiving of obligation as natural law relates obligation to other parts of moral philosophy and theology.

And of course, we can also speak of how different historical thinkers have developed theories of natural law with respect to any of the previous four topics already distinguished, and of how the idea

of natural law and particular theories of natural law have been defended against various

forms of criticism. Indeed, one can find extensive scholarship in each of these areas. There is

scholarship about how and in what way natural law in general is binding,

and about particular topics such as slavery or sexual ethics or just war or suicide or capital

...