Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution

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 are built in to the general human condition, and that the path away from national dysfunction and ruin lies in reinvigorating our understanding of these innate moral principles and reapplying them to modern life.

Mere Natural Law seeks to recover, for a new generation, the understanding of natural law that has never been learned by the lawyers and judges of our day. And it does that in part by returning to the American Founders, in their understanding of those axioms, or necessary truths, that form the moral ground of our law.