At its inception in seventeenth-century England, our liberal order held that law must be humble. Brutal political conflict had proved that we are incapable of knowing basic moral and social truths. With fundamental disagreement inescapable, law must defer to skepticism and relativism. Humble law would provide just enough stability to leave people free to safely craft their own truths, identities, and manners of life. In the framing of Sean Coyle, since liberalism doubts that there are “any true principles of right conduct that are rationally discoverable,” the ambition of natural law jurisprudence to codify universally known moral truths smacks of vain authoritarianism.
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