Law Commons^™

The Moral Reading As A Practice: A Response To Three Comments On Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, many originalists have claimed a monopoly on concern for fidelity in constitutional interpretation. In my book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution, 1 I reject originalisms—whether old or new, concrete or abstract, living or dead. Instead, I defend what Ronald Dworkin called a “moral reading” of the United States Constitution, or a “philosophic approach” to constitutional interpretation. I refer to conceptions of the Constitution as embodying abstract moral and political principles—not codifying concrete historical rules or practices—and of interpretation of those principles as requiring normative judgments about how they are best understood—not merely historical research to discover relatively …

Dworkin's Perfectionism, Linda C. Mcclain, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, we shall interpret Dworkin's constitutional theory in light of three varieties of perfectionism: (1) the idea that government should undertake a formative project of inculcating civic virtues and encouraging responsibility in the exercise of rights; (2) the idea that we should interpret the American Constitution so as to make it the best it can be; and (3) the idea that we should defend a Constitution-perfecting theory that would secure not only procedural liberties essential for democratic self-government but also substantive liberties essential for personal self-government. We shall identify three gaps left by Dworkin's work and sketch how …

Fit, Justification, And Fidelity In Constitutional Interpretation, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that the best interpretation of a Constitution should both fit and justify the legal materials, for example, the text, original meaning, and precedents. In his recent book, Against Obligation (Harvard University Press, 2012), Abner S. Greene provocatively and creatively bucks the tendencies of constitutional theorists to profess fidelity with the past in constitutional interpretation. He rejects originalist understandings of obligation to follow original meaning in interpreting the Constitution. And indeed he rejects interpretive obligation to follow precedent. In this Essay I focus on Greene’s arguments against interpretive obligation to the past, in particular, his argument that …

Living Originalism And Living Constitutionalism As Moral Readings Of The American Constitution, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

With this event – A Symposium on Jack Balkin’s Living Originalism and David Strauss’s The Living Constitution – we launch a Boston University School of Law series of symposia on significant recent books in law. The distinctive format is to pick two significant books that join issue on an important topic, to invite the author of each book to write an essay on the other book, and to invite several Boston University School of Law faculty to write an essay on one or both books.

What are the justifications for pairing Balkin’s Living Originalism1 and Strauss’s The Living Constitution2 in …

Taking Responsibilities As Well As Rights Seriously, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

In his first book, Ronald Dworkin famously called for “taking rights seriously” by treating them as “trumps” over considerations of utility or the general welfare.1 Taking Rights Seriously (along with other works) provoked calls for taking responsibilities as well as (or instead of) rights seriously, or for engaging in “responsibility talk,” not just “rights talk.”2 In Life’s Dominion, Dworkin himself got on the responsibility bandwagon in justifying the right to procreative autonomy and the right to die.3 He countenanced that government may encourage women to take the decision whether to have an abortion responsibly, so long as it does not …

The Place Of History And Philosophy In The Moral Reading Of The American Constitution, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

Dworkin argues that commitment to interpretive fidelity requires that we recognize that the Constitution embodies abstract moral principles rather than laying down a particular historical conception, and that interpreting those principles requires fresh judgments of political theory about how they are best understood. This interpretive strategy — Dworkin's ‘moral reading’ of the Constitution — stands in opposition to the narrow originalists' claim that interpretive fidelity requires following the rules laid down by the framers of the Constitution. Some theorists have responded to the originalists by attempting to carve out an intermediate theory between narrow originalism and the moral reading. Dworkin …

Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution, James E. Fleming

Faculty Scholarship

What is the question of fidelity a question about? The topic of our Symposium, "Fidelity in Constitutional Theory," raises two fundamental questions: Fidelity to what? and What is fidelity? The short answer to the first-fidelity to the Constitution-poses a further question: What is the Constitution? For example, does the Fourteenth Amendment embody abstract moral principles or enact relatively concrete historical rules? And does the Constitution presuppose a political theory of majoritarian democracy or one of constitutional democracy? The short answer to the second-being faithful to the Constitution in interpreting it-leads to another question: How should the Constitution be interpreted?' Does …