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The Constitution, The Common Good, And The Ambition Of Adrian Vermeule, Sotirios Barber, Stephen Macedo, James E. Fleming
The Constitution, The Common Good, And The Ambition Of Adrian Vermeule, Sotirios Barber, Stephen Macedo, James E. Fleming
Faculty Scholarship
Public trust in the U.S. government has declined steadily over the last sixty years, from 73% in 1958 to 17% in 2018 (Pew 12/9/20). Public support for the U.S. Constitution has remained higher. When support for the government dipped to an all-time low of 15% in 2010, support for the Constitution stood at 74%. But the gap has narrowed. From 2010 to 2017 support for the Constitution fell from 74% to around 50%—a drop of 24 points in seven years (AP/NCC 8/12; Rasmussen 2017). These figures suggest that if Americans continue to believe that their government isn’t working, they’ll eventually …
Legacies Of Pragmatism, Robert L. Tsai
Legacies Of Pragmatism, Robert L. Tsai
Faculty Scholarship
Pragmatism has triumphed in the law by becoming all things to all people—or has it? This essay, prepared for a symposium at Drake University Law School's Constitutional Law Center, examines the future of pragmatism in constitutional thought. First, I revisit the work of William James to recover the ideal disposition of a pragmatist decision maker. Second, I analyze pragmatism's impact on constitutional theory from Richard Posner to Cass Sunstein, from Philip Bobbitt to Willy Forbath and Joey Fishkin. I show that pragmatism lives on in constitutional theories that don't self-consciously characterize themselves in such terms. I also contend that pragmatism …