Learning and teaching the foundations of law and ordered liberty
Human beings have the amazing capacity to govern ourselves. When we exercise this capacity well and freely, our lives go well, our families and communities flourish, we invent and create new goods and works of art, we learn and teach, we reason together, cooperate, and achieve more than we could alone. The job of law is to enable people to govern themselves, so that we can honor our duties and do well for others by doing what is right.
Adam J MacLeod writes and speaks about the rights and duties that help people flourish.
Areas of Interest
Property
Property norms and institutions are important safeguards of ordered liberty. But they are not well understood today. They are mistakenly thought to benefit the few at the expense of the many. But in fact property protects equal human dignity. My work explains how property rights and duties can benefit everyone, materially and morally.
Intellectual Property
Property rights in intellectual resources are important. They are similar to property rights in land and personal effects, but they differ in some ways. My work explores the application of property concepts to intellectual and information resources.
Rights
We govern ourselves and do well for others by honoring people’s rights. Rights are primarily about not what we are owed by others but rather what is right to do for and with respect to other people. When we understand rights correctly, we can reason together about what is good and right to do. Much of my work explains what rights are and how they best operate.
Public Discourse
To reason well together we need to understand each other’s moral concerns. We can do better at that. I write and speak about the moral dimension of civic discourse.
Moral & Civic Education
Many of our civic problems today are not simply political or economic. They are also moral. We need to educate our young people how to understand these issues. My work explores the moral dimension of civic education.
Civil Rights & Natural Law
Rights are reasonable and just when they take into account what is good for people. The great civil rights thinkers and leaders have always grounded rights in what they called the natural law, which teaches what is good for human beings to do. My work explores the natural law foundations of civil rights.
“Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives to every person what he is due as a matter of right.”
Let me hear from you.
Use the form below to contact me.