Moral Foundations of Law Seminar

The Seminar

Moral Foundations of Law a comprehensive week-long seminar investigating the interaction between moral thought, legal theory and the nature of moral legislation. Led by Gerard V. Bradley (Notre Dame Law School), in collaboration with Robert P. George (Princeton University) and John M. Finnis (Oxford University), the seminar will take place August 10–16, 2008 on the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Guest lecturers will include Judge Edith B. Clement (Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) and Judge Edith H. Jones (Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals).

The Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute brings together from its Academic Committee three of the United States and England’s top legal minds to lead an intense discussion of some of the most profound moral and legal questions facing students in the top law school programs and political philosophy departments, including issues such as the compatibility of political constitutions with morals legislation, religious institutions, the institution of marriage, moral neutrality in law, legal positivism, and the legal and moral understanding of a right to privacy. Extensive readings from recent legal theory, chiefly from the analytical tradition, will accompany both seminars and directed discussions.

Participants
The Moral Foundations of Law Seminar is designed for rising second- and third-year law students who are interested in moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of law.

Application 2008
Application Requirements: Moral Foundations of Law Application Form, current résumé or curriculum vitae, and one academic letter of recommendation.

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2008 Seminar Faculty Profiles

Gerard V. Bradley is a professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and a noted scholar in the fields of constitutional law as well as law and religion, having taught previously at University of Illinois. Admitted to the New York Bar, he practiced law as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office. With Professor John Finnis, he has served as director of Notre Dame’s Natural Law Institute and as co-editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence. He is president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, vice-president of the American Public Philosophy Institute, member of the board of advisors of the Cardinal Newman Society, chair of the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberties Practice Group, and a member of the Ramsey Colloquium of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. He earned his B.A. from Cornell University and his J.D. from the Cornell Law School.

Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and founding Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and the Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute. He is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and formerly served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Professor George was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States. His books include Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality and The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, he holds a doctorate in legal philosophy from Oxford University.

John M. Finnis is a chaired professor in law and legal philosophy at Oxford University, and the Biolchini Chair in Law at Notre Dame University, where he is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy. He has served as associate in law at the University of California at Berkeley, as professor of law at the University of Malawi (Africa), and as the Huber Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Boston College Law School. He is admitted to the English Bar (Gray's Inn). Professor Finnis has served in positions at the Linacre Centre for Health Care Ethics, the Catholic Bishops’ Joint Committee on Bioethical Issues, the International Theological Commission, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and the Pontifical Academy Pro Vita. Professor Finnis has published widely in law, legal theory, moral and political philosophy, moral theology, and the history of the late Elizabethan era. His magisterial work Natural Law and Natural Rights was published by Oxford University Press in its Clarendon Law Series, under the general editorship of H. L. A. Hart, in 1980. He earned his LL.B. from Adelaide University (Australia) and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil.

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2008 Guest Lecturers

Judge Edith Clement sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Clement worked in a private practice as a maritime attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana, before being appointed in 1991 to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, by President George H. W. Bush. In 2001, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Clement is a member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, the Federal Bar Association, the American Law Institute, the Federalist Society, the Tulane Law School’s Inn of Court, and the Committee on the Administrative Office of the Judicial Conference of the United States. She is a graduate of the University of Alabama and received her J. D. from Tulane Law School.

Judge Edith H. Jones is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Jones worked in private practice specializing in bankruptcy law and became the first female partner of the firm of Andrews, Kurth, Campbell and Jones. She was nominated to the Fifth Circuit by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate in 1985. In 2006, she became Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit. Judge Jones is a member of a number of committees of the American Bar Associations, and sits on the board of directors of Garland Walker American Inns of Court. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University and her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.