Constitutionalism and the Common Good

• In Event: Crises and Critics of U.S. Constitutionalism

Abstract

A negative (rights-oriented, anti-perfectionist) constitutionalism presently dominates American political thought and practice. The failure of this constitutionalism to meet grave challenges (global warming, advancing oligarchy, etc.) argues for a constitutionalism oriented to public purposes and the common good. Positive or common-good constitutionalism presently comes in two broad versions: the secular/liberal constitutionalism of Hamilton, Lincoln, and FDR (Moore, Murphy, etc.) and a religious/antiliberal constitutionalism of the American Religious Right (Vermeule, Deneen, etc.). Good-faith argumentation (Mill) can support only the former. Because a faith-based regime grounds in privileged revelation, it eludes and even actively excludes both a rational defense and a common good –i.e., any good reflecting experiences common to the people who are governed (Spinoza, Strauss, Neuhaus). As a logical matter, a faith-based system need not pursue inhuman policies; but privileged revelation has been used to excuse such policies (Grunberger, Probst). Institutional/cultural reform in line with a secular/liberal regime of the common good won’t come easy, but the survival of American constitutionalism depends on it.

Author

• Sotirios A. Barber, University of Notre Dame