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Mission of the Fordham Natural Law Colloquium
The Fordham Natural Law Colloquium was inaugurated in the fall of 2000
through the efforts of Fordham alumnus Gene Harper and Fordham Philosophy
Department Chair Dominic Balestra. The Colloquium is jointly sponsored by
the Law School and the Philosophy Department, and dedicated to encouraging
reflection upon "natural law" reasoning in law, politics, and public discourse.
The natural law tradition, derived from Aristotle and Aquinas, is an important
part of the University's intellectual heritage, and has been central to
Fordham's broader mission as a Jesuit institution of higher education.
Since the time of Aristotle and Aquinas, many philosophers, jurists, and judges
have appealed to the notion of "natural law" in articulating their moral claims
and visions of the public good and in defending their interpretations of the
law. Common to all natural law thinking (whether ancient, medieval, or modern)
is the commitment to the proposition that the nature and scope of legal
obligations can be properly understood only within the context of a deeper
examination of moral obligations and goodness. While unapologetic in its
insistence on the essential connection between law and morality, the natural law
tradition is remarkably rich and diverse in the forms it takes. Accordingly, the
mission of the Colloquium is to foster critical thinking and collegial debate
about the vast array of topics and issues that are relevant to, and that can be
addressed through, a natural law perspective.
In accordance with its mission, the Colloquium aims to encourage thinking beyond
the stale orthodoxies -- both rightist and leftist, traditionalist and
progressive -- that can all too easily obscure the richness of the natural law
tradition and its broad relevance for our contemporary situation. In addition to
addressing some of the more common "natural law" topics (such as morals
legislation and life-and-death issues), the Colloquium seeks to bring the
natural law tradition to bear on a wide variety of other important issues such
as: distributive justice, the common law, just war theory, criminality and
punishment, privacy and civil liberties, judicial review, public reason, civil
disobedience, emerging technologies, and international law. In short, the
Colloquium provides a forum for debate on all issues in contemporary law and
politics, in light of the natural law tradition. |
