Conservative constitutionalism stands at a crossroads.  It has since the 1980s married itself to “originalism”, a basically sound approach to the proper interpretation of an authoritative legal text such as the Constitution.  This union has produced many good results over the last few decades.  But conservative originalism has lately cultivated a pronounced, articulated aversion to critical morality, to sound — that is, true norms of justice.  The problem for conservative constitutionalists is that it is impossible to faithfully interpret the Constitution without regular resort to such natural law norms.

Gerard V. Bradley

Gerard V. Bradley is Co-Director and Senior Scholar at the James Wilson Institute. He is a law professor and director of the Natural Law Institute at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

See Full Bio