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Virtues And Voices, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay explores two ideas that have recently played an important role in discourse about the American constitutional order. The first idea has emerged from the revival of civic republicanism. The republican revival has focused our attention on the classical conception of civic virtue. Our basic social arrangements ought to nourish a citizenry with the characteristics of mind and will that promote human flourishing. The second idea, expressed in critical race theory and feminist jurisprudence, is that we have an obligation as a society and as scholars to attend to excluded voices. The juxtaposition of these two themes offers an …