Hadley Arkes on Right Reason and Constitutional Law

In this podcast, I discuss with Hadley Arkes the fundamental touchstones of our written Constitution that he contends are discovered through reason and logic in a process that goes beyond the text. In his most recent book, Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law, Arkes argues “the task of judgment,  in our constitutional law, persistently moves us away from the text, or from a gross description of the act, and it moves us to the commonsense understanding of the principles that guide these judgments: the principles that help us in making those distinctions between the things that are justified or unjustified.” My discussion with Arkes unpacks this provocative argument.

 Other Related Links at Law and Liberty:

• Michael Ramsey reviews Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths.

• Arkes’ response.

• An older lecture from Hadley Arkes on the Justices who resisted the New Deal’s jurisprudence.