On May 30, the State Department announced that it was setting up a Commission on Unalienable Rights to advise the Secretary of State, and “provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where ...

A couple of weeks ago, David Bentley Hart published a critique of natural law theory in First Things. Hart argued, in summary, that arguments based on natural law are coherent, but not very useful for ...

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch isn't just a respected judge; he also holds a philosophy degree from Oxford, where he studied under John Finnis, one of the most prominent scholars in natural law ...

It is a singular honor to be delivering the Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture at The Heritage Foundation, and Ed Meese’s presence here tonight makes this honor all the more meaningful.[1] For those ...

On September 1, a group of prominent legal scholars joined AEI’s J. Joel Alicea to discuss one of the most timely—and divisive—debates in the conservative legal community: What is the relationship ...

Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason, by Pierre Manent (University of Notre Dame Press, 149 pp., $29) Russell Kirk once described natural law as “an ethical knowledge, ...

In an essay only available to First Things subscribers — wanting to read it is why I finally got off my rear end and subscribed to the magazine whose site I read every day, several times a day; you ...

Drawing on their new book, Hopeful Realism, Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, and Micah Watson lay out an Augustinian and evangelical theory of the natural law and show how it can be employed within ...

As I discuss philosophical questions with my high school students, I find that they tend to gravitate toward ethical dilemmas and “What-would-you-do-in-this-situation” type conversations. It is ...

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the role of natural law in American law. Several important scholars, such as Jud Campbell and Richard H. Helmholz, have ...

Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue. Founded in 1890, Ethics publishes scholarly work in moral, political, and legal philosophy from a variety of intellectual ...