Homosexuality and American Public Life.Edited by Christopher Wolfe.Introduction by William Kristol.Spence. 320 pp. $29.95 Among activists who want to keep the “hetero” in “sexuality,” a consensus is developing that we need a “public philosophy,” a way to speak wisdom to the people. It . . . . Continue Reading »
Natural Law in Judaism.by David Novak.Cambridge University Press. 210 pp $54.95. I At first glance, no marriage in the history of ideas would seem more unlikely to succeed as an artificial union of opposites (“arranged,” as it were, by Yenta the village matchmaker) than that between Jewish . . . . Continue Reading »
Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law by J. Budziszewski. InterVarsity Press, 240 pages, $14.99. A Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics and Natural Law edited by Michael Cromartie. Eerdmans, 195 pages, $20. In the preface to A Preserving Grace, Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and . . . . Continue Reading »
A few years ago I appeared on “Firing Line” with my Notre Dame colleagues Gerhardt Niemeyer and Ralph McInerny for a discussion of natural law. My memory of that occasion is vivid: our attempt to discuss the possibilities for the theory of natural law in the contemporary intellectual climate was . . . . Continue Reading »
America’s Constitutional Soul by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Johns Hopkins University Press, 236 pages, $32 In this collection of characteristically brilliant essays, Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., one of our nation’s most eminent conservative political theorists, defends the American Constitution as . . . . Continue Reading »
The March issue of First Things featured an essay by Robert H. Bork, “Natural Law and the Constitution.” In that essay, Judge Bork responded to criticisms of his views on the topic by Hadley Arkes, Russell Hittinger, and William Bentley Ball. Because of the significance of the subject, . . . . Continue Reading »
Natural law seems an unlikely topic for extensive television coverage, nor would one expect United States senators to develop high anxiety over the subject. Yet the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas brought both of those improbable events to pass. Thomas and Senator Joseph Biden . . . . Continue Reading »
It is a longstanding commonplace in Christian thought that Protestantism distinguishes its moral theology from that of Roman Catholicism by its rejection of natural law. The idea of natural law has long formed the spinal column of Catholic social teaching. Modern Protestantism, by contrast, has no . . . . Continue Reading »
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