The most controversial foundational issue today in both legal philosophy and constitutional law is the relationship between objective moral norms and the positive law. Is it possible for the state to be morally "neutral" about such matters as marriage, the family, religion, religious liberty, and - as the Supreme Court once famously phrased it - "the meaning of life"? If such neutrality is possible, is it desirable?
In this volume of essays one of our country's leading constitutional lawyers answers "no" to both questions. In the first three chapters, Gerard Bradley investigates the central moral justification of punishment, the morality of plea bargaining, and how the criminal justice system should treat the family. These essays reflect both Bradley's decades as a teacher of criminal law as well as his earlier experience as a trial prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The second triptych of papers has to do with the raging controversy over same-sex "marriage," and the broader movement toward a socially sanctioned orthodoxy about sexual orientation of which the "marriage" movement is one part. These papers reflect the author's years of philosophical work on the marriage question, as well as his more practical experience as a popular debater and expert witness.
Finally, Bradley takes up the questions of religious liberty and how our democratic polity should treat religion. These chapters cover the original meaning of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, the role of Catholicism in the post-World War II controversies over movie censorship as they played out in the Supreme Court, and emerging challenges to religious liberty in the 21st century.

About the Author

Gerard V. Bradley is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, where serves as Co-Direcor of the Natural law Institute and as Co-Editor of The American Journal of Jurisprudence. Bradley is also a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institutue in Princeton, N.J. He was for many years President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Book Information
ISBN 9781587312304
Author Gerard V. Bradley
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint St Augustine's Press
Publisher St Augustine's Press
Weight(grams) 312g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 155mm * 15mm