The podcast discusses the intrinsic worth of human goods like friendship and justice, explores the relationship between health and moral norms, challenges prioritizing rights over human flourishing, emphasizes the importance of religious freedom, analyzes religious liberty through natural law reasoning in the Catholic tradition, and delves into the complexities of balancing religious freedom with state coercion.
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insights INSIGHT
Basis of Ethical Reflection
Ethical reflection starts with basic human goods like friendship, knowledge, and justice.
These intrinsic goods are the foundation of practical reasoning and moral judgment.
insights INSIGHT
Just vs. Unjust Laws
Just laws uphold human rights, while unjust laws violate them, as highlighted by Martin Luther King Jr.
Segregation is unjust because it degrades human personality, creating false senses of superiority and inferiority.
insights INSIGHT
Political Morality and Human Rights
Political morality applies to governments, whose actions can be just or unjust like individual actions.
Human rights are moral principles demanding respect and protection, especially regarding equal worth.
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This lecture was given on September 28th, 2023, at Georgetown University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
About the speaker:
Robert P. George is the sixth McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, a program founded under his leadership in 2000. George has frequently been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.
Born on July 10, 1955, Robert George has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as well as a presidential appointee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. In addition, Professor George has served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was also a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds J.D. and M.T.S. degrees from Harvard University as well as D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., D.Litt. degrees from Oxford University. He holds twenty-two honorary doctorates.
George is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and one of Princeton University’s highest honors – the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
George is the author of hundreds of books, essays, and articles. He is a finger-style guitarist and bluegrass banjo player.
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