What Makes Laws Just? An Introduction to the Natural Law Tradition I Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

This lecture was given on March 26th, 2025, at Harvard University.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Transcript

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0:00.0	As of July 1st, 2025, applications are open for the Thomistic Institute's Rome Study Abroad program for spring
0:07.6	26. Emmerse yourself in the Catholic intellectual tradition and experience profound opportunities
0:14.2	for spiritual formation in the heart of the church. Applications close August 15th. Learn more and apply at www.comstic Institute.org
0:24.4	forward slash Rome. Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. Our mission is to promote the Catholic
0:34.1	intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public
0:38.0	square. The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute
0:43.2	chapters around the world. To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:48.1	to mystic institute.org. What makes laws just an introduction to the natural law tradition?
0:54.7	This is the theme that I was asked to speak on.
0:57.3	And in inviting me, the organizers said,
1:01.3	now we would like something that introduces the natural law tradition,
1:04.1	but not too introductory because there are some people who really know the subject.
1:07.2	So I tried to make this a kind of a blend.
1:09.6	So this talk will have some parts that are,
1:12.0	I think, rather introductory, like for someone who maybe doesn't know much about this subject
1:18.4	at all. And then other parts where I'm going to try to like go a little higher and hopefully
1:24.3	in a way that's sufficiently clear that you will be able to follow it even if
1:28.2	you are not very familiar with it. So I'm going to try to find the just mean, the golden mean,
1:34.3	which Aristotle says is where you find virtue. The subject of justice is complex. And as both
1:41.6	Plato and Aristotle suggested, in speaking about justice, we are in a certain sense,
1:47.9	speaking of the hope of the moral or ethical life. So it's a huge subject to talk about justice.
1:57.3	It's also a huge subject and very fraught to talk about natural law, especially in, say, the American
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