Rawls's constitution-centered "liberal principle of legitimacy" : a first look -- The constitution as procedural recourse : rawlss liberal principle of legitimacy -- Constitution as directive code -- Constitutional essentials. A singularity of reason, or a space of reasonability? -- Constitutional law and human rights : the call to civility -- Constitutional fidelity : of courts, citizens, and time -- A realistic utopia? -- Legitimacy : procedural compliance or ethical attitude? -- Offsets to proceduralism -- Constitutional application : between will and reason -- Justification-by-constitution, economic guarantees, and the rise of weak-form review -- Judicial restraint (and judicial supremacy) -- Legal formalism and the rule of law -- Constitutional rights and private legal relations -- Liberal tolerance to liberal collapse?
Summary:
"We enter here upon a history of conversational traffic between the respective departments of philosophy and law in the old academy of liberalism, where lawyers hear much from philosophers, yes-and philosophers hear from lawyers, too, in what has fruitfully been a both-ways exchange. Our philosophical protagonist is John Rawls. This book comprises a study of the rise and workings, within the Rawlsian political-liberal philosophy, of the idea of a country's higher-legal constitution as a public platform for the justification of political coercion. A study of Rawls on constitutionalism can help us, I believe, in scoping out and managing a cluster of constitutional lawyers' debates-interminable ones, it seems, in the constitutional-democratic precincts of our times-that I will catalogue soon below. But conversely, I believe, those seeking the best and truest readings of Rawls might have something to learn from the controversies of the lawyers. My approach to Rawls has accordingly been that of a critically leavened (while no doubt broadly sympathetic) exegesis, while with the legal-discursive materials I take more of a diagnostic turn. My hope is that a treatment of these two discourses in relation to each other will prove an aid to both political-philosophical and legal-practical reflection"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.