Hadley Arkes, groundbreaking legal philosopher and acolyte of legendary political thinker Leo Strauss, takes a sledgehammer to both legal relativism and originalism, arguing that the principles the Founders embodied in the U.S. Constitution ...
Over the last thirty years the American political class has come to talk itself out of the doctrines of 'natural rights' that formed the main teaching of the American Founders and Abraham Lincoln.
Hadley Arkes argues that it is necessary to move beyond the Constitution, to the principles that stood antecedent to the text, if we are to understand the text and apply the Constitution to the cases that arise every day in our law.
In this book, Hadley Arkes seeks to restore, for a new generation, the jurisprudence of the late Justice of the Supreme Court George Sutherland--a jurisprudence anchored in the understanding of natural rights.
This book restores to us an understanding that was once settled in the "moral sciences": that there are propositions, in morals and law, which are not only true but which cannot be otherwise.
This volume will be of value to those working in philosophy, political science, and legal theory, as well as to policy analysts, legislators, and judges.