In the pantheon of intellectual giants of modern conservatism, standing first among equals is the late professor Harry Jaffa. Jaffa, who influenced generations of students from his academic perch at Claremont Graduate University, might have been the 20th century’s greatest scholar on the thought of Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa, who along with JWI Founder & Co-Director Hadley …
Could it possibly be the best of times as well as the worst of times for the pro-life movement? Following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case, immediate celebration met the harsh realities of how divided the country remains on abortion. The political reaction to the Dobbs decision, with Blue States in particular enshrining …
Conor Gallagher interviews James Wilson Founder and Co-Director Hadley Arkes to discuss how the justice system lost its soul and how to get it back. In the interview, Arkes explores natural law vis-a-vis the American justice system, determinant Supreme Court cases, federalism, and related issues. For further information on the issues discussed during the interview, …
Can one federal district court judge, even temporarily, be more powerful than the President of the United States? That’s the issue at the heart of the critical debate over the legal remedy known as the nationwide injunction. The deployment of this legal remedy by federal district court judges has increased significantly in the past ten …
In Part One of this essay, I argued that the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Rahimi set the stage for lawyers and judges to incorporate natural law principles into their reasoning. In Rahimi, the Court appealed to the “principles underlying the Second Amendment” in order to ascertain the scope of its protections. Our …
Alex MacDonald, a DC-based labor lawyer, touches on the historical roots of the right to work, the right’s connection with natural-law principles, and its return to modern jurisprudence. Informed by JWI Co-Director Hadley Arkes’s Mere Natural Law, Alex examines how that return could transform modern labor law, especially the concept of exclusive representation. This episode, …
Video Recordings of the Norton Lectures Delivered by JWI Co-Director Prof. Hadley Arkes at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, October 8-9, 2024. Lecture I: The Enduring Rediscovery: The Polis as a Moral Association Lecture II: On Aristotle and Political Science as the “Architectonic Science” Lecture III: The American Founding and Natural Theology – And a …
“Man was born free yet he is everywhere in chains.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762) Part One of this essay endeavored to sketch a framework, rooted in Natural Law, around which individuals may pursue ultimate meaning. Part Two addresses questions of existence, of God, of personal identity, and of meaning. Personal Identity Ever since their primordial exile …
“In the middle of the journey of life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight-way was lost.” (Alighieri Dante, 1265 – 1321) Reflecting on his life, the lonely individual comes to realize he is cast into a complex and bewildering universe. He finds himself in a quandary, facing an irrepressible tension …
Join host Garrett Snedeker on this episode of the Anchoring Truths Podcast for an exciting discussion with author Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., about his new book Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License. The conversation explored conflicting definitions of liberty, the issue of expressive individualism, and misperceptions of the freedom secured by …
