The James Wilson Foundation on Natural Rights and the American Founding

In an article for The American Mind titled “Moral Relativism is our True Constitutional Enemy,” JWI Founder & Director Hadley Arkes uses the debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. to illustrate the drift into moral relativism in our jurisprudence. Prof. Arkes traces the roots of […]

In a piece for the Federalist Society titled “The Take Care Act”, Joel Nolette praises a new Senate bill aimed at curbing the growth of the administrative state.  According to Nolette, the Supreme Court embraced wholesale the technocracy of the New Deal Left by stripping the President of removal power in its landmark Humphrey’s Executor […]

In July 2019, JWI’s Deputy Director Garrett Snedeker and Intern Maura Bradley shared a discussion with Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino, the authors of the book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court (Regnery Publishing, 2019). Hemingway is senior editor at the online magazine The Federalist where she covered the Kavanaugh confirmation […]

In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, JWI’s Gunnar Gundersen and Garrett Snedeker respond to an ongoing debate between David French and Marci Hamilton on the meaning of religious liberty. Gundersen and Snedeker offer a fresh perspective on the discussion, together responding to objections from both the Left and the Right.  They dispel the […]

In a piece for The Catholic Thing titled “When Politics Reshapes the Culture,” Professor Hadley Arkes claims that it is in fact politics that reshapes culture, as seen in numerous Supreme Court decisions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and sexual orientation, rather than culture reshaping politics. It is not the culture we must aim to change, but rather politics itself, given the […]

In an essay for Public Discourse titled “The Pursuit of Happiness Rightly Understood”, JWI-affiliated scholar Justin Dyer reintroduces the classical understanding of liberty that inspired the Declaration of Independence.  He challenges the deeply entrenched fallacy that American liberalism is a philosophy of license: hardly a synonym for property, Jefferson’s careful wording reflects the Aristotelian and […]

In an article for First Things titled “Reordering the Public Square”, Gunnar Gundersen defends the government’s role in promoting the common good.  Responding to both liberal and conservative advocates of government neutrality, Gundersen reaches into history to shed light on America’s deep Christian roots.  He finds no legal footing for rigid constitutional interpretations which retool […]

In an essay for The American Mind titled “In Defense of Political Reason”, Professor Daniel J. Mahoney reaffirms reason’s place within the conservative legal and political tradition. Responding to Yoram Hazony’s scathing denunciation of modern reason in The American Mind, Professor Mahoney acknowledges the destructive effects of rationalism while attempting to rescue premodern reason as […]

In an article for Public Discourse titled “Judaism, Natural Law, and the Achievement of David Novak”, JWI affiliated scholar Daniel Mark praises professor David Novak for popularizing natural law theory within the Jewish faith tradition.  Mark identifies the competing strands of today’s Jewish thought, criticizing Reform Judaism for embracing too much of the modern world […]

In June 2019, JWI’s Deputy Director Garrett Snedeker and Intern Jake Rinear shared a discussion with Dr. Samuel Gregg, author of the book Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization (Regnery Gateway Editions, 2019). Dr. Gregg is an author and the director of research at the Acton Institute. Below you may find: A link […]