Natural Law Moment

Student of Leo Strauss: Hadley Arkes's Formation at UChicago

Join Natural Law Moment for the next installment of a look back into the lives of our co-hosts Profs. Arkes and Bradley before they became the storied teachers they would become. This latest episode focuses on Hadley Arkes's intellectual formation at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s as a graduate student of the legendary philosopher and political scientiest Leo Strauss. Our co-hosts explore the ingredients that made the University of Chicago of that era such a vibrant place, a place where Arkes would never have wanted to leave "to study abroad." Arkes recounts classroom interactions between Strauss and his students as well as the philosophic developments that would come to be associated with a revival of conservative thought on the American Founders and Lincoln. And don't miss what Arkes says that Strauss might say to our leaders of today.

Prosecutor as Moral Agent: Gerry Bradley's Early Years in the Manhattan DA's Office

Join co-hosts Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley for the first of something we expect to become a regular feature on Natural Law Moment, a look back into the lives of Profs. Arkes and Bradley before became the storied teachers they would become. This latest episode focuses on how young Gerry Bradley was thrust into the rough and tumble world of the law as a young prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the early 1980s. The conversation explores how the practice of law as a young prosecutor in the New York of that era was an education like none other, with the sordid business of prostitution, drugs, and homicide providing regular fodder for the work of young Bradley well before be entered academia to become a professor of criminal procedure. Arkes and Bradley delve into how moral decisions infuse the work of a prosecutor along with all those entrusted to maintain law and order in the city. Subscribe to Natural Law Moment on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/natural-law-moment/id1828249441] Subscribe to Natural Law Moment on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/6baZXvwD1NK4TY5ACfvwfo] Follow Natural Law Moment on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@jameswilsoninstitute7296/] Learn more about the James Wilson Institute [https://www.jameswilsoninstitute.org/]

The “Illegitimate” Supreme Court? Sorting Myth from Reality

Join Natural Law Moment’s hosts Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley for a pointed discussion of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in American public life. Since the confirmation of three Supreme Court justices appointed by President Trump, progressives have publicly questioned the legitimacy of the Court, threatening to pack it beyond nine members. Yet now even with the significant progressive challenge to the Court as an institution, some conservatives have begun to muse whether the judiciary writ large, now from time to time in stark opposition to the executive branch, could jeopardize its legitimacy with rulings far sweeping. This discussion has urgency since rulings of Supreme Court affect America’s public life and as ever, the moral and legal course of the country. Tune in today!

Charlie Kirk: Free Speech & His Legacy

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Natural Law Moment's co-hosts Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley consider Kirk's legacy as an advocate for free speech. They mourn Kirk's loss as well as distill his incredible memorial service. Finally, Arkes and Bradley discuss why free speech on the campuses has gained an added relevance, given that Kirk's assassination occurred as he was engaging students in public at Utah Valley University.

Seeking Truth & Speaking Truth: Featuring Robert P. George

Our fifth episode represents a first for Natural Law Moment, our first featuring a guest. And we could think of no better a first guest than to welcome one of the oldest and dearest friends of Hadley Arkes and Gerry Bradley, Robert George. Robby as he is known to his friends, is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Prof. George joined Natural Law Moment for a lively and wide-ranging discussion of his new book Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth [https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/seeking-truth-speaking-truth/] from Encounter Books. The book, which we highly recommend and you can find at fine booksellers nationwide, is a collection of essays that challenges the “Age of Feeling” by appealing to reason in the pursuit of sound moral understanding on crucial and contentious topics including human dignity, the definition of marriage, philosophy of law, constitutional law, the nature of civil liberties, free markets, and more. Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also been the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of JD and MTS from Harvard University and the degrees of DPhil, BCL, DCL, and DLitt from Oxford University. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.