"Law's Limited Domain Confronts Morality's Universal Empire"

On SSRN, Professors Alexander and Schauer post this article on "the ongoing debate in contemporary jurisprudence over whether law, properly conceived, is capable of incorporating morality," for example whether interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause or Free Exercise Clause should follow the best moral/philosophical understanding of equality or religious freedom.  They question whether

law can retain its lawness and retain its ability to perform law's essential functions while still being open to the full universe of moral considerations. In a word, we do not believe that this is possible, and thus we believe, and shall argue here, that even when law incorporates morality it can only serve law's primary and essential functions if it has a considerable degree of resistance to the pressure of at least some morally correct moral claims. In other words, we strive here to make the moral argument for law's ignoring of at least some moral arguments in legal decision-making.

Tom