In the aftermath of the 2016 election, the conservative coalition has seemed badly frayed and unable to reach a consensus on what it ought to stand for. Fortunately, Robert P. George, the conservative gadfly of Princeton University, who has labored with intellectual pluck and uncancellable fortitude in the conservative movement for almost 40 years, offers a pathway to cement a conservative consensus and recapture institutions now dominated by progressives.
Known primarily as a philosopher, George, who holds the McCormick Professorship in Jurisprudence at Princeton, has stood out as an intellectual star and institution builder. He is not just an academic who has done significant work in natural-law theory, philosophy of law, and bioethics; he’s also the founder and director of the university’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He has served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, and was chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Among the many rewards he has received is the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal. A devout Catholic, George is known for wedding the domains of faith and reason, helping the faithful understand that reason can deepen the truths of revealed theology, and countering the claims of critics who think all faith-based moral claims are purely fideistic.
Comments