Hale Institute 2026-2027 Fellowship
SEMINAR SERIES
Washington, D.C.
“Making Men Moral? The Forbidden While Inescapable Law-Morality Relation”
The broad question to be taken up in the seminar series is whether the law’s contemporary operation and its role in facilitating justice for the community can be divided from the historic role the law served in the Western tradition: namely, to serve and sustain the polity’s moral ecology and the common good. For decades, the historic and formerly uncontroversial understanding of law as concerned with the moral condition of the community has faced a devoted resistance from the institutionally entrenched political philosophy of late-modern liberalism, which instead views the law’s role as a morally agnostic coordinator of individuals’ preference-satisfaction. The now-in-fashion redefinitions of freedom, male/female, marriage, family, and human purpose—and the social enactment of those redefinitions—are illustrative of this contrary vision and its effects.
The seminar series will consider the debate over the law’s proper role and calling by considering certain subjects of the law’s attention: life and death, speech and expression, religion and secularism, marriage and family, technology and science, freedom and authority, tradition and constitutionalism, among others.
A faculty of subject matter experts will present lectures and lead discussions, with opportunities for discussion in a context of conviviality. The series initiates at the end of August with a two-day retreat outside of Washington D.C., followed by four bimonthly afternoon-evening dinner gatherings near Capitol Hill.
Fellowship positions are available for up to 20 participants. Welcome applicants, including Hill staffers, law and policy nonprofit organization personnel, and local graduate program students.
Costs associated with each of the seminar series events will be covered by the Hale Institute, including travel from D.C. to the retreat center and back again, and room and board while at the retreat. Any other travel to and from Washington D.C., and around the city, is the responsibility of each participant.
Application
Prospective participants should submit applications via email by July 15, 2026, to contact@haleinstitute.org. Please include in your email submission the following:
1. Full name, mailing address, telephone number, and preferred email address.
2. PDF of CV or resume.
3. A photo/headshot of yourself.
4. A letter describing your intellectual interest in the seminar series.
5. An academic or professional reference, and that person’s position, email address, and telephone number.
If you have questions on the foregoing, please send them to contact@haleinstitute.org.
