Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays

Oxford University Press, 1992.

Description from Publisher: Natural law theory is enjoying a revival of interest in a variety of scholarly disciplines including law, philosophy, political science, and theology and religious studies. This volume presents twelve original essays by leading natural law theorists and their… More

Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality

Oxford University Press, 1993.

Description from Publisher: Contemporary liberal thinkers commonly suppose that there is something in principle unjust about the legal prohibition of putatively victimless crimes. Here Robert P. George defends the traditional justification of morals legislation against criticisms advanced… More

Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality

Oxford University Press, 1996.

Description from Publisher: This work brings together leading defenders of Natural Law and Liberalism for a series of frank and lively exchanges touching upon critical issues of contemporary moral and political theory. The book is an outstanding example of the engagement of traditions of… More

The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism

Oxford University Press, 1996.

Description from Publisher: This collection of original essays from distinguished legal philosophers offers a challenging assessment of the nature and viability of legal positivism, an approach to legal theory that continues to dominate contemporary legal theoretical debates. To what… More

In Defense of Natural Law

Oxford University Press, 1999.

Description from Publisher: In Making Men Moral, his 1995 book, George questioned the central doctrines of liberal jurisprudence and political theory. In his new work he extends his critique of liberalism, and also goes beyond it to show how contemporary natural law theory provides a… More

Great Cases in Constitutional Law

Princeton University Press, 2000.

Description from Publisher: Slavery, segregation, abortion, workers’ rights, the power of the courts. These issues have been at the heart of the greatest constitutional controversies in American history. And in this concise and thought-provoking volume, some of today’s most… More

Natural Law and Public Reason

With Christopher Wolfe, eds. Georgetown University Press, 2000.

Description from Publisher: “Public reason” is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens’ religious and moral beliefs by… More

Constitutional Politics: Essays on Constitution Making, Maintenance, and Change

With Sotirios A. Barber, eds. Princeton University Press, 2001.

Description from Publisher: What does it mean to have a constitution? Scholars and students associated with Walter Murphy at Princeton University have long asked this question in their exploration of constitutional politics and judicial behavior. These scholars, concerned with the making,… More

The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis

Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2002.

Description from Publisher: It is a common supposition among many of our cultural elites that a constitutional “wall of separation” between church and state precludes religious believers from bringing their beliefs to bear on public matters. This is because secular liberals… More

The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market and Morals

With Jean Bethke Elshtain, eds. Spence Publishing, 2006.

Description from Publisher: The movement for same-sex marriage has triggered an unprecedented crisis in the social norms and laws governing marriage. All great civilizations have sought to unite, in the institution of marriage, the goods of sexual intimacy, childbearing and childrearing,… More

Embryo: A Defense of Human Life

With Christopher Tollefsen. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008. Reprinted by The Witherspoon Institute, 2011.

Description from Publisher: The bitter national debates over abortion, euthanasia, and stem cell research have created an unbridgeable gap between religious groups and those who insist that faith-based views have no place in public policy. Religious conservatives are so adamantly opposed… More

Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics

With Patrick Lee. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Description from Publisher: This book treats the question of what a human person is and the ethical and political controversies of abortion, hedonism and drug-taking, euthanasia, and sex ethics. It defends the position that human beings are both body and soul, with a fundamental and… More

What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense

With Sherif Girgis and Ryan T. Anderson. Encounter Books, 2012.

Description from the Publisher: Until yesterday, no society had seen marriage as anything other than a conjugal partner­ship: a male-female union. What Is Marriage? identifies and defends the reasons for this historic consensus and shows why redefining civil marriage is unnecessary,… More

Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis

With John Keown, eds. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Description from Publisher: John Finnis is a pioneer in the development of a new yet classically-grounded theory of natural law. His work offers a systematic philosophy of practical reasoning and moral choosing that addresses the great questions of the rational foundations of ethical… More

A Second Look at First Things: A Case for Conservative Politics

With F. Beckwith and S. McWilliams, eds., St. Augustine’s Press, 2013.

Excerpt: The conservative movement in America seems to have fallen on hard times. Even though conservative talk radio is at its height, and President Obama had to shift to the political center to win the 2008 election (only to disappoint months after his inauguration), conservative ideas… More

Conjugal Union: What Marriage Is and Why It Matters

With Patrick Lee. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Description from the Publisher: This book defends the conjugal view of marriage. Patrick Lee and Robert P. George argue that marriage is a distinctive type of community: the union of a man and a woman who have committed to sharing their lives on every level of their beings (bodily,… More