Morality and the Supreme Court, with Yuval Levin

American history is riddled with collisions between legally defensible rulings and morally costly outcomes. Still, “the purpose of law in any society is to embody a moral framework in practice,” says Yuval Levin, who joins Mark Labberton to explore the moral architecture in the foundation of the American legal system, as they review the most recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court has just closed one of the most consequential terms in recent memory, articulating the tension between faithfulness to the Constitution and enacting justice and morality.

Together they reflect on why and how a system founded on equality must be both majoritarian and counter-majoritarian at once; why a judge’s job is to articulate their legal (rather than their moral) opinion; the rise of Constitutional originalism; why pre-Trump conservative arguments win at this Court while “Trumpy” ones lose; the contemporary relevance of the Federalist Papers; what recourse citizens have when they believe the Court has done wrong; and why the American legal system’s worst failures still cluster around race.

They explore several of the 2025-26 rulings of the Supreme Court, including imposition of tariffs, immigration enforcement, and birthright citizenship, and the Voting Rights Act.

---

Episode Highlights

• “The purpose of law in any society is to embody a moral framework in practice.”
• ”This is a very good time to get to know The Federalist Papers.”
• ”The role of the judge in the American system is to apply the law, not to find the moral answer per se. We hope the law does that, though it doesn’t always and we know it.”
• ”The American system of government, very much for moral reasons, is expected to be both majoritarian and counter-majoritarian.”
• [Regarding Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh] ”They grew up in the same place. They literally went to the same high school and had the same history teacher. Their mothers knew each other … They agreed with each other 52% of the time in this last term of the Supreme Court.”
• [Courts to Trump] ”You are in charge of the executive branch, but the executive branch is not in charge of the American government.”
• ”If you come to this court with a pre-Trump conservative legal argument, you’re going to win. If you come to this court with a Trumpy legal argument, you’re going to lose.”
• ”We experienced the high water mark of executive power about a year ago, and it is now receding.”
• ”The areas where it has failed most are concentrated around questions of race. That has been true from the beginning. It is thankfully less true than it used to be, but it is still true, and I think we have to be uniquely sensitive to those questions for that reason.”

About Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy and directs Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies. He founded and edits National Affairs, and he is a senior editor at The New Atlantis and a contributing editor at National Review. His books include ”The Great Debate,” ”The Fractured Republic,” ”A Time to Build,” and most recently, ”American Covenant.”

He served on the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush and earned his PhD at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought.

Helpful Links and Resources

• Yuval Levin at the American Enterprise Institute: https://www.aei.org/profile/yuval-levin/
• National Affairs, the publication Levin founded and edits: https://nationalaffairs.com/authors/detail/yuval-levin
• American Covenant, by Yuval Levin: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/american-covenant/9780465040742/?lens=basic-books
• A Time to Build, by Yuval Levin: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/a-time-to-build/9781541699281/?lens=basic-books
• The Federalist Papers, full text at the Library of Congress: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers
• Trump v. Slaughter, the decision overturning Humphrey’s Executor (June 29, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf
• Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the IEEPA tariffs decision (February 20, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
• Louisiana v. Callais, the Voting Rights Act decision (April 29, 2026): https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf
• Coverage of the birthright citizenship ruling in Trump v. Barbara, SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-trumps-order-ending-birthright-citizenship/

Show Notes

• Yuval Levin’s legal/constitutional frame: The law exists to put a society’s moral convictions into workable practice.
• On ”All men are created equal”: If no one has natural authority over anyone else, we decide by majority vote—but equality also means the minority keeps its rights no matter who wins
• The Constitution assigns those two jobs to different institutions and lets them fight: Congress and the president answer to majorities, the courts deliberately do not
• Life tenure and fixed salaries exist so justices can protect minority rights without fear of majority reprisal
• A judge’s job is to say what the law is, not to reach the most just result; therefore good judges regularly land where they might wish they didn’t.
• What citizens can do when the Court rules wrongly: If it misread a statute, Congress can rewrite it.
• Constitutional rulings are harder to undo, but examples include the 16th Amendment (re: income tax) and the 14th Amendment (re: black citizenship, answering the Court directly)
• The pro-life movement’s 50-year strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade
• Levin on the difficulty of simply being in the political minority, and why the system tries to make everyone a winner sometimes
• Originalism began as a limit on judicial power and judges’ preferences
• Legal originalism looks for original public meaning, not the drafters’ intent
• Parallel to biblical interpretation, where faithful readers reach wildly different conclusions
• The challenge of interpreting and applying the Constitution to matters of freedom and democracy today
• With Congress mostly absent, the Court is now deciding questions of executive power the Federalist Papers were written about
• Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch: Same age, same hometown, same high school history teacher, agreed only 52% of the time this term
• Trump v. Slaughter ends the independent agency: the Court overturned Humphrey’s Executor, and the president can now fire FTC-style commissioners at will
• 2026 Court rulings also told the president no: on tariffs, on the National Guard in Illinois without the governor’s consent, and on birthright citizenship
• Levin’s rule of thumb: Pre-Trump conservative arguments win at this Court, Trumpy arguments lose
• Yuval Levin: Executive power peaked about a year ago and is now receding.
• Louisiana v. Callais guts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by requiring proof of racial intent
• A legal bind: Black voters vote Democratic by 90% in the South, so a racist map and a purely partisan map look identical
• Levin defends the ruling as law and grieves it as outcome—several Black-held Southern seats will likely be redistricted away
• Why he opposes reauthorizing the VRA with race-based set-aside districts, and where he thinks change should come from instead
• Software now lets parties gerrymander voter by voter—in New England, Trump won 35% and Republicans hold zero House seats
• The deceptions of the human heart
• Does constitutional structure just launder self-interest?
• The system’s deepest failures have always clustered around race
• Gratitude for the Constitution in America’s 250th year

#SupremeCourt #Constitution #VotingRights #Originalism #ExecutivePower #FaithAndPolitics #YuvalLevin #Conversing

---

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.