First Things recently published a series of letters, some of which were written in response to Prof. Hadley Arkes' article "The Moral Turn" (May). As a critique of Prof. Arkes' natural law arguments, Adam J. MacLeod of Faulkner Law School writes that "natural law does not very often do the work [Prof. Arkes] wants it to... Common law is bounded by natural law, even as it completes and perfects it." Christopher R. Green of University of Mississippi School of Law claims that moral judgments are necessary in the law only because the Constitution contains explicit moral language. He writes, "Judges interpreting the Constitution must be morally sensitive, able to reason aright concerning the natural law, because the Constitution sails on a sea of moral principles. Morality matters for constitutional interpretation because, and to the extent that, moral terms are themselves part of the positive law." Professor Arkes responds: "Both writers assumed, in different ways, that “natural law” refers to some hazy, high-minded sentiments, hovering in the sky, waiting to be invoked and brought down to bear on a case. But the natural law finds its ground in what John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton called the “axioms” of reason underlying everything we know. Those axioms, and canons of reason, are simply woven into the practical judgments we reach every day, including our judgments about what is right and wrong, just and unjust." "...as James Wilson said, the framers were not seeking, in the Constitution, to invent new rights, but rather to acquire “a new security for the possession or recovery of those rights” that we already possessed by nature." Read the full correspondence here.