Professor Robert George co-author of the Manhattan Declaration speaking at the 2011 Bringing America Back to Life Symposium on: “Conscience and The Political Obligations of Citizens Toward Human Life” Professor George is one of the leading conservative minds in the world and is responsible for re-establishing the natural law theory in political and ethical debate.
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According to the Catholic Education Resource Center (CERC) the Oxford trained legal philosopher was hired at Princeton, given tenure, and even installed in a prestigious endowed chair first held by Woodrow Wilson despite his outspoken pro-life, pro-family views. Adding insult to ideological injury, George went on to found, in mid-2000, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton, which invites the likes of Lynn Cheney, John DiIulio, William Kristol, Robert Bork, and Jean Bethke Elshtain to Princeton to communicate before packed student audiences, an appreciation of the blessings of the American Founding and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Lisa Hess, a Princeton Graduate is quoted in the article as saying that George’s lectures are the only ones on campus that keep the student awake from start to finish. She says “Students are drawn to him, not just sensing controversy in the air but compelled by a teaching style based on principles that force thoughtful conclusions, and not merely relativistic admirations for different theories.”
George is responsible for re-establishing the natural law theory in political and ethical debate and reasoning. CERC says his colleague Professor Dennis Thomson, Harvard’s Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy, describes the professors impact thus: “George has forced many of us to take natural-law theory more seriously as a worthy philosophical view because he presents arguments, not just assertions…. [and] has developed an approach that could be called analytic natural law,” which is “both more rigorous and more accessible than traditional natural law.”
Professor George who is as comfortable with a group of students as he is with world leaders, recently expanded his intellectual prominence by co-authoring “The Manhattan Declaration” According to the dedicated website this document is “A Call of Christian Conscience” and analyzes the intent behind the declaration in these words “ Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. It was in this tradition that a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration on November 20, 2009 at a press conference in Washington, DC. The 4,700-word declaration speaks in defense of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. It issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere firmly to their convictions in these three areas”
Cleveland Right to Life was honored to host this profound and worthy philosopher.