The Witherspoon Institute is an independent research center that works to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of free and democratic societies. Located in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute promotes the application of fundamental principles of republican government and ordered liberty to contemporary problems through a variety of research and educational ventures.

First Principles Seminar Concludes
From August 1 to the 14 the Witherspoon Institute held its annual seminar on First Principles: Moral and Political Philosophy in the Natural Law Tradition, a program of the Schreyer Summer Seminars. Each year this seminar brings together advanced undergraduate and graduate students to examine the fundamental principles that guide human behavior and the epistemology of ethical theory within the framework of the natural law tradition. More...

Moral Life and the Classical Tradition Seminar 2010
From June 20-26 the Witherspoon Institute held its annual seminar on the Moral Life and the Classical Tradition, a program of the Schreyer Summer Seminars. Each year this seminar, led by Professors Michael and Seana Sugrue and Paul Macdonald, brings together rising high school juniors and seniors to discuss the works of Plato as well as a variety of themes in Christian moral thought.

This year, students grappled with Plato's Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo and delved into such works in Christian moral thought as C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, John Paul II's Fides et Ratio and Love and Responsibility, and St. Augustine's Confessions. More...

ITI Theology Conference at Yale University
The Institute for Theological Inquiry, the Witherspoon Institute, Yale Divinity School, and the Yale Department of Religious Studies are co-sponsoring a conference at Yale University on October 24 and 25, 2010. Participants will present and discuss the results of a research project of the Institute for Theological Inquiry and the Witherspoon Institute on topics of Jewish and Christian religious thought relevant to contemporary culture and Jewish-Christian relations. The overarching themes of the papers to be presented at the conference are Covenant, Mission, and Relation to the Other and Hope and the Responsibility for the Human Future. The research will be published in a scholarly volume by Eerdmans Publishing Company in 2011. More...

Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund awarded to Robert P. George
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, one of America's most prominent non-denominational religious freedom advocacy organizations, has announced that Robert P. George will be the recipient of its Canterbury Medal for the defense of conscience and religious liberty. The medal was awarded at the Becket Fund's annual dinner which was held on June 18th in Washington, D.C.

Robert P. George is Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, and McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. More...

Marriage, Family, and the Social Sciences Seminar Concludes
From June 16 -19 the Witherspoon Institute held its annual seminar on Marriage, Family, and the Social Sciences, a program of the Schreyer Summer Seminars. Each year this seminar brings together top graduate students and leading faculty in sociology, demography, psychology, and economics to discuss the state of marriage and family in the 21st Century.

This years seminar, entitled Baby Makes Three: Social Scientific Research on Successfully Combining Marriage and Parenthood, sought to understand how parenthood currently affects the quality and stability of married life, to identify the characteristics of couples who successfully combine marriage and parenthood, and to discuss cultural and policy strategies that might strengthen marriages involving children. More...

Helen Alvaré Appointed Senior Fellow and Chair of the Task Force on Conscience Protection
Helen M. Alvaré is Associate Professor of Law at George Mason School of Law. Previously an associate professor at the Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, Professor Alvaré practiced with the Philadelphia law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young, specializing in commercial litigation and free exercise of religion matters. For three years, she worked at the Office of General Counsel for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, where she drafted amicus briefs in leading U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning abortion, euthanasia and the Establishment Clause. For the next ten years, she worked with the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the NCCB. There, she lobbied, testified before federal congressional committees, addressed university audiences, and appeared on hundreds of television and radio programs on behalf of the U.S. Catholic bishops. She also assisted the Holy See on matters concerning women, marriage and the family, and respect for human life. Professor Alvaré chaired the commission investigating clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and is an advisor to Pope Benedict XVI's Pontifical Council for the Laity, as well as an ABC News consultant. Professor Alvaré received her law degree at Cornell University and a master's degree in systematic theology from The Catholic University of America.

Robert P. George honored with National Human Rights Medal in Poland
Robert George, the Witherspoon Institute's Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow, has been awarded the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the field of human rights. Marek Zubik of the Office of the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection, bestowed the medal in a ceremony May 4 at the University of Warsaw, after which George delivered the 2010 Petrazycki Lecture in legal philosophy on "Natural Law, God and Human Dignity." In attendance were the Chief Justice and several Associate Justices of the Polish Constitutional Court together with many other dignitaries. In conferring the Human Rights medal on Professor George, Dr. Zubik noted that Poland recognizes the importance of intellectual as well as political work in defense of human rights, and praised George's writings for identifying grounds of rational principle for honoring the inherent and equal dignity of all members of the human family.

Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law
by Gabriel Schoenfeld
Resident Scholar of the Witherspoon Institute Gabriel Schoenfeld provides in his new book Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law an intensely controversial scrutiny of American democracy's fundamental tension between the competing imperatives of security and openness.

"Illuminating, extremely intelligent, learned, engaging, and important. This is a truly great bookthe best account ever of the relationship between the press and the government concerning the protection and disclosure of national-security secrets, one that is centrally relevant to manifold national-security debates today."
Jack Goldsmith, author of The Terror Presidency

"A serious work for a serious issue. Schoenfeld illuminates the complex history and the even more complicated present of America's struggle to balance security and free expression."
General Michael V. Hayden, former Director of the NSA and CIA

The Social Costs of Pornography:
A Statement of Findings and Recommendations
The Witherspoon Institute has released The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations, the fruit of an inquiry begun at a consultation held in Princeton, New Jersey. This consultation was the first multifaceted, multidisciplinary, scholarly exploration of pornography since the advent of the Internet. The proceedings, research and recommendations are available in booklet form and as a two-DVD set of the actual two-day meeting that assembled leading experts in several fields, including economics, psychology, sociology, and law to present a rigorously argued overview of pornography in today's society. This publication is the first of the Social Costs of Pornography Project.

Schreyer Summer Seminars 2010
The Witherspoon Institute is now accepting applications to the 2010 Schreyer Summer Seminars, a collection of intensive summer programs exploring vital moral questions in social, philosophical, legal, and political thought. The small seminars are led by some of the leading scholars of the United States and Great Britain, and they constitute the core of the Institute's effort to encourage and inform outstanding young men and women at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional level who aspire to academic careers and rigorous scholarship.

Thomas Farr Appointed Senior Fellow
A former U.S. diplomat, Farr is Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and World Affairs and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He is also the Director of the Task Force on International Religious Liberty of the Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution. During his career in the Foreign Service, he specialized in strategic military policy, political affairs, and religious freedom. Dr. Farr has taught history at the U.S. Military Academy and international relations at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and is the author of World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty is Vital to American National Security (Oxford, 2008).

Michael New Appointed Fellow
Michael New received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama. He has served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-MIT data center and a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His research interests include limitations on government, tax revolts, welfare reform and campaign finance reform.

James Stoner, Jr., Appointed Senior Fellow
James Stoner, Jr., is a professor at Louisiana State University where he teaches political theory, English common law, and American constitutionalism. He is the author of Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 2003) and Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 1992), and with Samuel Gregg edited the volume Rethinking Business Management: Examining the Foundations of Business Education (Witherspoon Institute, 2008).

Profit, Prudence and Virtue:
Essays in Ethics, Business and Management
Edited by
Samuel Gregg and James R. Stoner, Jr.
St. Andrew's Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs has published a volume that draws together the work of distinguished scholars and professionals from history, medicine, law, economics, theology, philosophy, and business management and provides new, person-centered perspectives on business management and business education for the 21st century. This collection of essays is the European edition of Rethinking Business Management: Examining the Foundations of Business Education, published by the Witherspoon Institute in 2007.

"The Moral Witness of the Catholic Church"
An address given by Senior Fellow Robert P. George on May 28, 2009 at the symposium "Faith and Freedom: Church and State in the American Experience" is now available online. The symposium was held at the Catholic University of America, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of United States-Vatican diplomatic relations.

The Creation and Destruction of Value:
The Globalization Cycle
by Harold James
Witherspoon Institute senior fellow Harold James examines the vulnerability and fragility of processes of globalization, both historically and in the present, in his new book from Harvard University Press. This book applies lessons from past breakdowns of globalization, above all in the Great Depression, to show how financial crises provoke backlashes against global integration. Harold James is Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and director of the Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society.

No one is better qualified than Harold James to explore the similarities and differences between recent events and the early 1930s. A model of lucid exposition, The Creation and Destruction of Value confirms that if you want to understand our current predicament, history is a much better guide than economics.
Niall Ferguson, Harvard University and author of The Ascent of Money

A masterly account. James commands his subject like no other. The lessons of 1931 for todays world are compelling. Like Humpty Dumpty, globalization is broken, and it will take time to put it together again.
David Marsh, author of The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency

Project on Religious Liberty
The Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution has launched the Project on Religious Liberty, a scholarly task force assembled in light of the questions and discussions arising from the Center's Law and Religion: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives consultation. This project will focus on threats to both domestic and international religious liberty, in particular in the areas of conscience protection and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Members of the task force include Thomas F. Farr (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University), Jennifer Bryson (Islam and Civil Society Project, Witherspoon Institute), William Inboden (Legatum Institute), Jennifer Marshall (Heritage Foundation), and Joseph Wood (German Marshall Fund).

Online Media available from Reflections on Religious Liberty: A One-Day Symposium
The Witherspoon Institute in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation brought Philip Hamburger (Columbia Law School), Angela C. Wu, Esq. (The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty), Thomas F. Farr (Georgetown University), Joseph Weiler (New York University), and John M. Finnis (Oxford University; Notre Dame Law School) together for a symposium on religious liberty. Online video from the symposium is now available.

Robert P. George awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal
In a ceremony held on December 10th, Robert P. George was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in honor of his contributions to American public life. George is a Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute and the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. George is the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and has sat on the President's Council on Bioethics. More...

The Research Project in Islam and Civil Society
The Witherspoon Institute is pleased to announce the launch of the Research Project on Islam and Civil Society under the direction of Jennifer Bryson. Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, significant research has been devoted to the ideology and media of violent extremists in Muslim communities. Far less attention has focused on the theology and media of Muslims who actively support civil society, including pluralism, and who undermine violent extremism. This project will seek to increase understanding in three main areas: Islamic theology and civil society, the circulation of Muslim media supporting civil society, and Jihad and civil society.