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July 17, 2018|Articles of Confederation, Conscience, John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

John Dickinson: Friend of Conscience

by Mark David Hall|

John Dickinson (ISI)
If we hope to understand the America founders fully, we simply cannot ignore John Dickinson's arguments about conscience and political restraint.

July 29, 2016|Conscience, Harvey Mansfield, Religious Establishment, Religious Liberty

Divine Rights and Human Rights

by Marc DeGirolami|

The eminent political theorist Harvey Mansfield once wrote that the “religious question” is the crucial one for the modern age, because it concerns the ultimate repository of authority and control. Is it human or is it divine?

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October 28, 2013|civil rights, Conscience, Conservatism, Immigration, James Madison, Natural Law, Natural Rights, Robert P. George

The Conscience of a Madisonian Conservative

by Ken Masugi|

Nathaniel Peters’ review of Robert George’s Conscience and Its Enemies is an insightful introduction to the Princeton scholar the New York Times Magazine resident anthropologist of conservatives, David Kirkpatrick, described as “this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker.” Aptly titled, “The Dynamic Unity of Conscience,” the essay was almost entirely devoted to George’s understanding of marriage and the philosophic analysis that supported it. In summarizing George, Peters elegantly illustrates how conscience is the first pillar of a decent society, followed by marriage, justice, education, and wealth. Conscience is the central philosophic issue to be sure, but a broader audience might appreciate how George’s understanding of the conscience influences his public policy choices.

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October 14, 2013|Conscience, Descartes, John Henry Newman, libertarian, Phaedo, social conservatism

The Dynamic Unity of Conscience

by Nathaniel Peters|

Many times in public discourse one finds oneself repeating the old line from The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” We disagree about the terms of the debate, but also fail to address the more substantive disagreements that lie below the surface. Few thinkers speak as clearly as Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. “Self-awareness is, indeed, an obligation of democratic citizenship,” George writes. By that reckoning, he is a model democratic citizen. George’s newest book, Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas…

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June 27, 2013|Conscience, Democracy, Divine Law, Natural Law, Rémi Brague, Rule of Law, Secularism, Slavery and the Constitution, Theocracy

How the West was Won

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

So I’ve been deep in the bowels of the Georgia Historical Society archives the past week laying the groundwork for a new project on slavery and the law. Of course, as far as bowels go, the Georgia Historical Society is mighty fine, located in wonderful Savannah and adjacent to beautiful Forsyth Park. Repeated trips to Elizabeth’s restore the soul and the body after a long day with the super efficient archivists who continually fed me pamphlets and speeches on slavery and the Constitution, and the Bible, and science, and the progress of civilization.

Of interest to me, although by no means core to my project, is the civilizational confidence both Northern and Southern speakers evinced about their political, social, and cultural orders. It is a confidence, I think, almost absent from any state in the West today.

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May 12, 2013|Canon Law, Christopher St. German, Common Law, Conscience, Henry VIII, Hillary Mantel, History of Richard III, Life of Pico, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, Utopia, Wolf Hall

Liberated by Conscience

by Louis W. Karlin|

Who was Thomas More?  What might seem a simple question draws several conflicting answers.  To many, More was the great humanist author of Utopia, a work that has remained an essential text in the study of Western literature and political theory for 500 years.  For others, More was the heroic opponent of tyranny, who was executed as a traitor in 1535 for his refusal to swear against his conscience that Henry VIII was the “supreme head of the Church in England.”  Indeed, it was this More that inspired Robert Bolt to write the play, A Man For All Seasons, in…

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November 25, 2012|Brian Leiter, Conscience, Establishment Clause, First Amendment, Religious Liberty, Why Tolerate Religion

A Leiter Case for the Superfluousness of Religious Liberty

by Ryan Anderson|

In Why Tolerate Religion? Brian Leiter, author of the Leiter Reports blog and a law professor at the University of Chicago who has an interest in philosophy, asks why Western democracies have sought to promote and protect religion—and religious liberty—in both law and culture. He explores this question because he’s puzzled by it. As he sees things, “no one has been able to articulate a credible principled argument for tolerating religion qua religion … why, as a matter of moral principle, we ought to accord special legal and moral treatment to religious practices” (emphases throughout are original). He argues that there…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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