25 - The Roots of the Tree of Knowledge

Summary

Constitutional norms create an imagined world of law and political (leadership) order: a story spanning the gap between emotions, sentiments, and social order. Emotions and sentiments enable us to assess not only our physical environment and act accordingly, but also to vet our relationships with others, even to value our own thinking and conduct – that is, morality. This chapter demonstrates the role morality plays in constitutions and constitutional law. It lies at the heart of what we call natural law (pre-existing, prerequisites to law and constitutions), and the rules of recognition we use to decide whether law is actually and truly valid law. This natural law line of thinking is opposed to the positive law school of thought. The chapter ends with the question whether there is something like universal morality and whether constitutions are reflections of of basic morality.