Customer Reviews

Beyond the Constitution

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Hadley Arkes is, simply put, a national treasure and one of the great thinkers in America today. This illuminating look at constitutional law builds upon the good professor's previous writings on natural law. Simply put, Arkes rejects the notion that all of the answers to constitutional issues can be found in the text of that document. Instead, we must move to the principles that stood antecedent to its adoption. Professor Arkes feels that judges have lost the ability or willingness to engage in this task, which has led to an odd result: both liberal and conservative jurists alike now advocate an extreme form of moral relativism. The liberals advocate judicial activism to overturn legislation based on the fact that government cannot favor one view of right and wrong, while conservatives argue for judicial restraint on the basis that what is "right" is what the majority thinks at that time. It suffices to say that Arkes is hostile to both views, believing that right and wrong can be determined through reason. This leads to some very interesting discussions on such areas such as federalism and the wisdom of the Bill of Rights. Like all of Arkes's work, the writing is accessible to even those who are relatively new to the area of law and philosophy and never lacking in cleverness.