law, ethics, & politics articles and book chapters
The following is a list of some of Professor Beckwith’s published articles and book chapters in law and ethics. Access to most of them requires a subscription.
“Dignitatis Humanae at 60 and the New Challenges to Religious Liberty.” Loyola University Chicago Law Journal (forthcoming 2025)
“Religious Freedom and Abortion: Why State-Imposed Abortion Restrictions Do Not Breach the First Amendment.” (with Alex Deagon). Baylor Law Review (forthcoming Fall 2024)
“Clarifying the Philosophical and Legal Foundations of Dobbs” (with Jason T. Eberl). American Journal of Bioethics 24.2 (2024): 25-28.
“What’s So Special About Religious Liberty?: Law, Philosophy, and Serving God.” Civil Rights Law Journal 33.1 (2022): 1-29. (Link is to pre-publication draft).
“Violinists, Burglars, People-Seeds, Samaritans, and Reluctant Bone Marrow Donors: Why Do We Need Analogies to Pregnancy in Order to Understand It?” In Agency, Pregnancy, and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life. Edited by Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce Blackshaw, and Daniel Rodger. New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 212-228. (Link is to pre-publication galleys).
“Separated at Baptism: What the Mortara Case Can Teach Us About the Rejection of Natual Justice by Integralists and Progressives.” BYU Law Review 47.4 (Summer 2022): 1099-1126.
“Moral Relativism: Arguments For and Against.” In The New Apologetics. Edited by Matthew Nelson. Foreword by Cardinal Thomas Collins. Park Ridge, IL: Word on Fire, 2022. Pp. 25-30. (Link to pre-publication draft can be found here)
“Up From Political Liberalism (But Not Entirely).” In Dissident Philosophers: Against the Political Current of the Academy. Edited by Tully Borland and Allan Hillman. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. Pp. 29-50
“Why Is Sexual Assault Special?: Transactional Sex and Sacred Intuitions.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics. Edited by David Boonin. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2022. Pp. 191-202
“Church, State, and the Abuse Crisis: The Role of Assumed Ideas of `Reasonableness’ in Religious Liberty.” Journal of Christian Legal Thought 10.1 (Summer 2020): 21-28.
“Rawls’ Political Liberalism and the Problem of Taking Rites Seriously: From Abortion to Same-Sex Wedding Cakes,” Raised on the Third Day: The Gary Habermas Festschrift. Edited by W. David Beck and Michael R. Licona. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. Pp. 75-88
“Moral Status and the Architects of Principlism” (with Allison Thornton). Journal of Medicine & Philosophy 45.4-5 (2020): 504-520.
“Morality is Objective” and “Response to Ruse.” In Problems in Value Theory: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates. Edited by Steven B. Cowan. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. Pp. 37-49, 50-54.
“Gotta Serve Somebody?: Religious Liberty, Freedom of Conscience, and Religion as Comprehensive Doctrine.”Studies in Christian Ethics 33.2 (2020): 168-178
“Now, I’m Liberal, But to a Degree: An Essay on Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination.” Cleveland State Law Review 67.2 (2019): 141-172.
“Is Religion Special?: More Likely Than Not.” In Handbook of Philosophy & Public Policy. Edited by David Boonin. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2018. Pp. 276-288
“Faith, Reason, and the Liberal Order: A Philosophical Reflection.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 1-18. Published online first September 10, 2020
“Is The Abolition of Man Conservative?” In Contemporary Perspectives on C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man: History, Philosophy, Education, and Science. Edited by Gayne Anacker and Tim Mosteller. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. Pp. 83-96.
“Carl Henry’s Quandary.” Journal of Christian Legal Thought 5.2 (Fall 2015): 21-24.
“Does Judith Jarvis Thomson Really Grant the Prolife View of Fetal Personhood in Her Defense of Abortion?: A Rawlsian Assessment.” International Philosophical Quarterly 54.4 (December 2014): 443-451
“Fides, Ratio et Juris: How Some Courts and Some Legal Theorists Misrepresent the Rational Status of Religious Beliefs.” In Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order: Political Philosophy and the Claims of Faith. Edited by Paul R. DeHart and Carson Holloway. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Pp. 173-202.
“Secular Bioethics and Its Challenge to the Catholic Citizen.” Nova et Vetra English Edition 12.2 (2014): 471-481
“Personal Bodily Rights, Abortion, and Unplugging the Violinist.” In Today’s Moral Issues: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, 7/ed., ed. Daniel Bonevac. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Pp. 333-359. Republication of an article that appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly 32 (March 1992): 105-118.
“On Making the Case for Life: On St. Peter’s Counsel to Always Be Ready.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.4 (Winter 2013): 601-609
“Justificatory Liberalism and Same-Sex Marriage.” Ratio Juris: An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 26.4 (December 2013): 487-509.
“Potentials and Burdens: A Response to Giubilini and Minerva.” Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (May 2013): 341-344.
“Zygotes, Embryos, and Subsistence: A Response to Corcoran.” Philosophia Christi 14.1 (Summer 2012): 209-219.
“The Human Being, a Person of Substance: A Response to Dean Stretton.” In Persons, Moral Worth, and Embryos: A Critical Analysis of Pro-Choice Arguments. Edited by Stephen Napier. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 67-83.
“Dignity Never Been Photographed: Scientific Materialism, Enlightenment Liberalism, and Steven Pinker.” Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics 26.2 (Summer 2010): 93-110.
“How To Be An Anti-Intelligent Design Advocate.”University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy 4.1 (2009-2010): 35-65
“Must Theology Sit in the Back of Secular Bus?: The Federal Courts’ View of Religion and Its Status as Knowledge.” Journal of Law & Religion 24.2 (2008-2009): 547-568
“The Courts, Natural Rights, and Religious Claims as Knowledge.” Santa Clara Law Review 49.2 (2009): 429-458.
“Arguments from Bodily Rights: A Critical Analysis.” In What’s Wrong?: Applied Ethicists and Their Critics. 2/e. Edited by David Boonin and Graham Oddie. New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 108-114.
“Bioethics, the Christian Citizen, and the Pluralist Game.” Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality 13 (May 2007): 159-170.
“The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and Abortion Law.” Liberty University Law Review 1.1 (2006): 37-72.
“The Court of Disbelief: The Constitution’s Article VI Religious Test Prohibition and the Judiciary’s Religious Motive Analysis.” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 33.2&3 (Winter and Spring 2006): 337-360.
“Taking Theology Seriously: The Status of the Religious Beliefs of Judicial Nominees for the Federal Bench.” Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 20.1 (2006): 455-471.
“Defending Abortion Philosophically: A Review of David Boonin’s A Defense of Abortion.” Journal of Medicine & Philosophy 31 (April 2006): 177-203.
“Gimme That Ol’ Time Separation: A Review Essay.” Chapman Law Review 8.1 (2005): 309-27.
“Thomson’s `Equal Reasonableness’ Argument for Abortion Rights: A Critique.” American Journal of Jurisprudence 49.1 (2004): 185-198
“The Explanatory Power of the Substance View of Persons.” Christian Bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality 10.1 (2004): 33-54.
“When You Come to a Fork In the Road, Take It?: Abortion, Personhood, and the Jurisprudence of Neutrality.” Journal of Church and State 44.3 (Summer 2003): 485-497.
“Consent, Sex, and the Prenatal Rapist: A Brief Reply to McDonagh’s Suggested Revision of Roe v. Wade.” (co-authored with Steven D. Thomas). Journal of Libertarian Studies 17.3 (Summer 2003): 1-16
“Science and Religion Twenty Years After McLean v. Arkansas: Evolution, Public Education, and the New Challenge of Intelligent Design.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 26.2 (Spring 2003): 455-499.
“Cloning and Reproductive Liberty.” Nevada Law Journal 3.1 (Fall 2002): 61-87
“Law, Religion, and the Metaphysics of Abortion: A Reply to Simmons.” Journal of Church and State 43.1 (Winter 2001): 19-33
“Taking Abortion Seriously: A Philosophical Critique of the New Anti-Abortion Rhetorical Shift.” Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics 17.3(Fall 2001): 155-166.
“Physician-Value Neutrality: A Critique” (with John Peppin). Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 28.1 (Spring 2000): 67-77.
“The `Nobody Deserves His or Her Talents Argument for Affirmative Action’: A Critical Analysis.” Social Theory and Practice vol. 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999):53-60.
“The Ethics of Referral Kickbacks and Self-Referral and the HMO Physician as Gatekeeper: An Ethical Analysis.” Journal of Social Philosophy28.3 (Winter 1996): 41-48.
“The Epistemology of Political Correctness.” Public Affairs Quarterly 8.4 (October 1994): 331-340.
“Personal Bodily Rights, Abortion, and Unplugging the Violinist.” International Philosophical Quarterly 32.1 (March 1992): 105-118.