Devotees of the Anchoring Truths Podcast are no doubt aware that interest in the moral foundations of law has reached a fever pitch among those in the conservative legal movement. Culture-shaping decisions of the Supreme Court such as in Bostock and Dobbs have focused the attention of lawyers, judges, and scholars to the fact that law and morality are indeed inextricably bound together. In addition to the work of our co-directors Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley, younger scholars have emerged in recent years who have incorporated a jurisprudence rooted in an appreciation of the Natural Law. To that end, we at the James Wilson Institute are proud to announce that we have launched a new sister podcast of sorts, Natural Law Moment. The name of the show is taken from the subtitle of one of Prof. Arkes’s chapters of his 2023 book Mere Natural Law.
Natural Law Moment, whose first three episodes are available to download today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, is a bi-weekly podcast featuring Profs. Arkes and Bradley that will explore fundamental questions of law, politics, and culture. The legal world today is a tumultuous one, and to comprehend it, we must get to the heart of the matter. Through this podcast, Professors Arkes and Bradley will help us understand the principles of judgment upon which the decisions that shape our personal and public lives are based. You’re encouraged to subscribe and rate Natural Law Moment today!
As a loose tie in to the launch of our sister podcast, we could not think of a better guest to have on the Anchoring Truths Podcast than Dennis Wieboldt, the author of a new article forthcoming in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy titled “Our Natural Law Moment(s)” The article argues that in the last 100 years, American law has experienced two other Natural Law Moments before today. We explore what today’s moment, the third Natural Law Moment in Mr. Wieboldt’s view, has in common with these past ones, where it has differed, and what it has built on.
Dennis Wieboldt is a J.D./Ph.D. student in history at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellow at the Graduate School and Edward J. Murphy Fellow at the Law School. The first Notre Dame student to concurrently pursue a J.D./Ph.D. in history, Dennis has authored more than a dozen scholarly articles and book chapters on religious liberty, civil rights, constitutional interpretation, and related subjects.
Dennis earned his B.A. summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Boston College. After earning his B.A., Dennis earned an M.A. in history from Boston College.
Read “Our Natural Law Moment(s)” here
Follow Dennis on Twitter/X here
