Thursday, November 30, 2023 | 12:00 PM to 5:30 PM ET
Friday, December 1, 2023 | 9:00 AM to 5:15 PM ET
AEI, Auditorium
1789 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036
Thirty years ago, Robert P. George’s Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Clarendon Press, 1993) challenged the consensus that justice requires governmental neutrality on contested questions of morality. Dr. George argued that moral neutrality in politics is impossible, that a proper concern for public morality can be a legitimate basis for laws and policies, and that natural law offered a more secure foundation for civil liberties than “neutralist” liberalism did.
How did Making Men Moral shape decades of debates about civil liberties and public morality? As these debates have evolved, how is Making Men Moral relevant going forward?
Please join AEI, the Ethics & Public Policy Center, Pepperdine University, and the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Catholic University for a conference to mark Making Men Moral’s enduring influence on public policy.
Agenda:
Thursday, November 30
12:00 p.m.—Lunch
12:45 p.m.—Opening Remarks:
J. Joel Alicea, Nonresident Fellow, AEI
12:50 p.m.—30 Years of Making Men Moral: A Conversation with Robert P. George
Participants:
Ryan T. Anderson, President, Ethics & Public Policy Center
Robert P. George, Nonresident Senior Fellow, AEI
1:45 p.m.—Q&A
2:00 p.m.—Break
2:15 p.m.—Panel I: Making Men Moral’s Challenge to Liberalism
Panelists:
John Peter DiIulio, James N. Perry Scholar of Philosophy, Politics, and Society, University of Pennsylvania
Yuval Levin, Director, Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies, AEI
Micah Watson, Paul Henry Chair in Christianity and Politics, Calvin University
Moderator:
Ramesh Ponnuru, Nonresident Senior Fellow, AEI
3:30 p.m.—Q&A
3:45 p.m.—Break
4:00 p.m.—Panel II: Social Science and Public Morality
Panelists:
Mark Regnerus, Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Ian Rowe, Senior Fellow, AEI
W. Bradford Wilcox, Nonresident Senior Fellow, AEI
Moderator:
Byron Johnson, Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences, Baylor University
5:15 p.m.—Q&A
5:30 p.m.—Adjournment
Friday, December 1
9:00 a.m.—Opening Remarks:
Pete Peterson, Dean, Pepperdine School of Public Policy
9:05 a.m.—Panel III: Civil Society and Subsidiarity: Challenges to Making Men Moral
Panelists:
Timothy P. Carney, Senior Fellow, AEI
Eugene F. Rivers III, Founding Director, Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies
Ryan Streeter, Executive Director for Research, Civitas Institute
Moderator:
Alexandra DeSanctis, Fellow, Ethics & Public Policy Center
10:15 a.m.—Q&A
10:30 a.m.—Break
10:45 a.m.—Panel IV: “Liberalism”: Is There a Baby in the Bathwater?
Panelists:
Samuel Gregg, Distinguished Fellow in Political Economy, American Institute for Economic Research
V. Bradley Lewis, Associate Professor, Catholic University of America
Christopher O. Tollefsen, Professor, University of South Carolina
Moderator:
Christopher Wolfe, Distinguished Research Scholar, University of Dallas
12:00 p.m.—Q&A
12:15 p.m.—Break
12:30 p.m.—Lunchtime Conversation
Panelists:
Hadley Arkes, Director, James Wilson Institute
O. Carter Snead, Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Andrew T. Walker, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Moderator:
Ryan T. Anderson, President, Ethics & Public Policy Center
2:00 p.m.—Panel V: Civil Liberties or Public Morality?
Panelists:
Sherif Girgis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Daniel Mark, Assistant Professor, Villanova University
Melissa Moschella, Associate Professor, Catholic University of America
Moderator:
Elizabeth Kirk, Director, Center for Law & the Human Person
3:15 p.m.—Q&A
3:30 p.m.—Break
3:45 p.m.—Panel VI: Making Men Moral and Constitutional Interpretation
Panelists:
J. Joel Alicea, Nonresident Fellow, AEI
Marc O. DeGirolami, Cary Fields Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law
Steven D. Smith, Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego
Moderator:
Thomas B. Griffith, Former Circuit Judge, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
5:00 p.m.—Q&A
5:15 p.m.—Adjournment