The James Wilson Foundation on Natural Rights and the American Founding

On Life Talk , a production of Sacred Heart Radio in Washington State, Prof. Hadley Arkes gives a behind-the-scenes look into his recent essay  in First Things, “The Moral Turn.”  Prof. Arkes discusses how he came to write the essay, the moral grounds of American jurisprudence,  and the contradictions in legal reasoning that arise when this is forgotten. Listen […]

Justin Dyer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri and an Affiliated Scholar of JWI, recalls the oral argument of John Quincy Adams in the historic Supreme Court case of United States v. Amistad (1841). In a piece published at Starting Points, a journal of the Kinder Institute, Dyer explains Adams’s use of arguments based […]

Prof. Arkes joined The Mike Janocik Show to discuss his recent essay in First Things,  “The Moral Turn.” Prof. Arkes examines the treatment of moral arguments by progressive and conservative lawyers, explains several schools of constitutional interpretation, and discusses what he describes as President Trump’s common-sense approach to the law. Listen to the Interview:   Audio courtesy […]

Prof. Arkes joined The Seth and Chris Show to discuss the protests in Charlottesville, VA and analogies to the Nazis who marched through Skokie in the late 1970s. Prof. Arkes examines the contradictory position of the ACLU in its defense of “the freedom to choose the Nazis” and outlines how those moral principles which underlie […]

Father Arne Panula, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, passed away on July 19, 2017 after several months’ battle with cancer. Fr. Arne was a humble servant of Christ and a beloved friend of Professor Hadley Arkes. In a memoir entitled, “What Fr. Arne Shaped” for The Catholic Thing, Prof. Arkes recounts Fr. Arne’s final […]

JWI: Can you tell me a little bit about Americans United for Life? Catherine: Americans United for Life (AUL), the nation’s premier pro-life legal team, works through the law and legislative process to one end: Achieving comprehensive legal protection for human life from conception to natural death. AUL is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy […]

We share with you Prof. Arkes’s latest piece in the May 2017 print edition of First Things titled, “The Moral Turn.” “The argument in the piece is largely drawn from an ongoing topic of discussion in one of our JWI programs, our biannual Senior Seminar. A year ago, our core attendees of judges and law professors contrasted the dissent from conservative justices Rehnquist […]

On May 20th, 2017, Professor Arkes was honored by the Institute of World Politics, and delivered the Commencement address to IWP’s Graduating Class of 2017. IWP is a stand-alone Graduate School which was “founded to fill a major national need: to supply professional education in statecraft, national security, and international affairs.” For Professor Arkes, Commencements […]

In the past, we have called your attention to noteworthy advancements in the careers of some of the alumni of our James Wilson Fellowship program. We are deeply pleased to share the news—and a certain excitement—that 2016 Fellow Catherine Glenn Foster has been named President & CEO of Americans United for Life.  Photo Courtesy of AUL In […]

In a piece for The Catholic Thing, entitled “Of Satanism and Religious Freedom,” Gunnar Gundersen discusses the nature of religious liberty and whether the protection of this natural right extends to Satanism and “irreligion”. Gundersen is an affiliated scholar of the James Wilson Institute. Some excerpts: “Do our laws require that Satanism be protected as a religion? The short answer is […]