Should Judges Employ Natural Law Principles? - Georgetown Law Daniel Webster Debate Series скачать в хорошем качестве

Should Judges Employ Natural Law Principles? - Georgetown Law Daniel Webster Debate Series

According to defenders of natural law (or “the Natural Law” as phrased by some), there is more to our legal rights and duties beyond what is simply written in the various statutes, regulations, and decisions of our governing jurisdictions. Whereas pure positivists contend that there is no more to law than what is written in such human-made laws, natural law theorists posit that certain objective standards based on morality underlie these human-made laws and should have a role in informing the interpretation and construction of those laws. Natural law has been the subject of scholarly writings for millenia now, and it was a concept quite familiar to the founders of our nation. Indeed, as many will well know, natural law figures in our Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson famously wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Such foundation, self-evident truths undoubtedly sound in natural law. But, with this natural law background, that raises the question of what role, if any at all, natural law is to have in day-to-day Article III adjudication. Those who advocate for the incorporation of natural law—or at least its principles—into constitutional interpretation, for example, contend that this accounts for the foundations of the Constitution and the American nation itself. As one of tonight’s debate participants has argued, originalism that does not account for these founding principles grounded in natural law fails to understand the true original meaning of the Constitution. Opponents argue that such ventures beyond the text of the Constitution—or beyond the statute in other instances—leaves legal interpretation unmoored from the written law. To these detractors, employing natural law principles presents the same worries and concerns that originalists were responding to when faced with the years of a Supreme Court continually engaged in living constitutionalism. Ready to take on this intellectually stimulating and hotly contested issue is an exceptionally esteemed and accomplished panel who you can read more about below. We are thus proud to present tonight’s debate: Should Judges Employ Natural Law Principles?