We were finally able to schedule a taping with enough lead time to get a special guest we've been wanting to have on for a long time—the great Hadley Arkes, emertus professor of jurisprudence from Amherst College and founder of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, and co-host of his own very fine podcast, the Natural Law Moment. We've abused Hadley in absentia in some of our podcasts over the last few months, so now he got hsi chance especially to attempt to sort out the very stubborn John Yoo.
John was delayed a bit joining us, so since this podcast is partly anchored not only in the truths of natural law, but also libations of a scotch variety, we decided to take advantage of Hadley's advanced expertise in gin martinis. Plus some "origin story" of how he came to political philosophy and in particular natural law as the primary focus of his mature work. And once John showed up, it was ON!
We rounded off this episode with an AI-generated parody of Hadley, which begins as follows:
“On the Ontological Status of the Ham Sandwich: A Moral Inquiry into the Lunchtime Crisis”
By Gladly Harkness, Edward Whiskers Professor of Ontological Jurisprudence
It is a curious feature of our current jurisprudence that the simple act of consuming a ham sandwich has not yet been subject to rigorous philosophical analysis. . .
For the whole thing, you'll need to head over to Steve's "Political Questions" Substack.