Posts Tagged ‘Brigham Young University’

Founding Principles and Today’s Politics

• What: A Conference Hosted by the Tocqueville Project of Brigham Young University, with Funding from The John Adams Center for the Study of Faith, Philosophy and Public Affairs and The Sutherland Institute.
• When: 17-20 November 2010
• Where: BYU Campus, Provo, Utah

Is the Constitution as understood by the Founders at risk? If so, then how so, and what caused this?  And would the passing of the Founders’ Constitution represent a grave threat (as Tea Partiers or Glenn Beck would have it) or rather a welcome moment in the progressive unfolding of basic principles of freedom and equality? Can our deepest constitutional concerns be addressed through ordinary political means, or are our problems fundamentally moral and spiritual?

Conference Director: Ralph C. Hancock, BYU Professor of Political Science and President of the John Adams Center.  Author of The Responsibility of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age.

Visiting Speakers

• Paul Rahe, Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in Western Heritage and Professor of History, Hillsdale College, Author of  Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift. “Montesquieu and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism,”
• Charles R. Kesler, Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College, editor of the Federalist Papers and of the Claremont Review of Books: “Restoring Constitutionalism”
• William Voegeli, Visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Henry Salvatori Center, contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books and the author of Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State: “Populism and Constitutionalism”
• Peter Lawler, Dana Professor of Government at Berry College in Georgia, editor-in-chief of Perspectives on Political Science, and author of Modern and American Dignity: “Toward a Consistent Ethic of Judicial Review: Our Founding and Legislative Compromise.”
• Rogers Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, author of “Oligarchies in America? Reflections on Tocqueville’s Fears”: “The Constitutional Philosophy of Barack Obama.”

Event Schedule

Wednesday, 17th November

• 2pm Kesler: Restoring Constitutionalism - 250 SWKT

Thursday, 18th November

• 9:30-10:30:  Paul Rahe: Montesquieu and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism – Hinckley Assembly Hall
• 10:30-12:00  Panel Discussion: Philosophical Foundations of Constitutionalism: Paul Rahe, Noel B. Reynolds (BYU), Peter McNamara, Utah State University. – Hinckley Assembly Hall
• 2:00 William Voegeli: Populism & Constitutionalism - 4010 JFSB
• 3:00 Panel: Populism & Constitutionalism: Voegeli, Kirk Hawkins (BYU), Charles Kesler - 4010 JFSB

Friday, 19th November

• 10:00 Panel: Religion, Family & Constitutional Order.  Lawler, Hancock, Lynn Wardle (JR Clark Law School)
• 12:00 Peter Lawler: “Toward a Consistent Ethic of Judicial Review” - 4010 JFSB
• 1:00 Panel: Constitutional Interpretation. Lawler, Wardle, Richard Davis (BYU Political Science) - 4010 JFSB [lunch]
• 6:00:  Smith: “The Constitutional Philosophy of Barack Obama.” Response by Charles Kesler. – B002 JFSB

A Symposium Hosted Jointly by Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University, April 12- 14 2010

The idea of Human Rights is now the common language of ethical and political debate and deliberation in Western democracies and indeed throughout the world – often even for peoples who would contest the essentials of Western liberalism. So dominant is this vocabulary of rights that it might almost seem impertinent to inquire into its sources or foundations, except that the very meaning of these rights, as well as the relation of the ethics of rights to other moral vocabularies and bonds of community, remains very much an open question.

Central to the philosophical problem of Human Rights is the question of the role of Biblical religion and of appeals to nature and reason. Human rights are in one sense asserted against any superhuman authority, and in their classical form these rights were held to be founded upon a “nature” accessible to simple human reason. And yet the very sense of the dignity of every human individual that informs our rights seems clearly to have sprung from a Judeo-Christian understanding.

Does the authority and even the meaning of human rights require a faith in God or, alternatively, a foundation in nature? Or is humanity now able to affirm its dignity and its rights without recourse to any foundation, whether natural or divine? These and related questions will be examined through a series of lectures and discussions involving noted scholars invited to join us in Provo and Orem as well as numerous participants from the host institutions.

For more information and a comprehensive schedule of events: Download our PDF