Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution

Integrity in law, says Dworkin, law professor at Oxford and NYU, must first ""be a matter of principle, not compromise or strategy or political accommodation."" But while Americans are increasingly hungry for political and personal morality, moral principal in interpreting the Constitution is still unfashionable. Witness Supreme Court nominees like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, who claimed either the seemingly neutral ""original intent"" reading(in Bork's case) or no constitutional philosophy at all (in Thomas's). In five chapters on those two justices, Dworkin makes a persuasive argument that these are nonetheless moral and political positions. But most of the 17 chapters (all but three of which originally appeared in the New York Review of Books) center on issues like abortion, affirmative action and freedom of speech. What's interesting here is to see the application of Dworkin's moral reading throughout, which in unavoidably simplistic terms is this: true democracy is not crude majoritarianism but rather a ""constitutional conception"" in which ""collective decisions [are] made by political institutions whose structure, composition, and practices treat all members of the community, as individuals, with equal concern and respect,"" and that to safeguard this democracy it is necessary to protect ""negative"" liberties like free speech and privacy even if it curtails ""positive"" liberties like the ability to control or participate in public decision making. This rejection of the framers' intent and of majoritarian rule continues themes Dworkin addressed in Life's Dominion and Taking Rights Seriously. But this book stands on its own either as a continuation or an introduction. Complex and compelling, learned and readable, it goes to the heart of what it means to live in a democracy and, through concrete details, illuminates a very real, very admirable principle. (May)