This article offers a new understanding of political justification and American constitutionalism. Previous scholarship relies on philosophical justifications of constitutionalism which regard the American Constitution as the blueprint of the good society. Such claims fail to explain why persons should interpret a constitution that does not conform to their conception of political justice. Scholars could offer better reasons for interpreting an imperfect constitution if they placed greater emphasis on two other models of political justification. Institutional justifications of constitutionalism regard Constitutions as standard operating procedures for allocating the resources available for achieving the good society. Social justifications of constitutionalism regard constitutions as compromises among people of fundamentally different views. By combining philosophical, institutional and social perspectives, scholars might strengthen the case for constitutional obedience and provide better foundations for a theory of constitutional interpretation.

In On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life Nietzsche sets forth prescriptions for placing history in the service of human excellence. Nietzsche's prescriptions are based on a substantive metaphysical doctrine and a definite conception of human needs and capacities. Contrary to the dominant trends in recent scholarship that depict Nietzsche as primarily a teacher of antifoundationalism, historicism, and perspectivism, in his major thematic statement on the matter Nietzsche views history as a means to discover and to display nonhistorical and enduring knowledge about human nature and the rank order of desires, human types, and forms of life. For Nietzsche, the task of the “genuine historian” is nothing less than the transformation of history into poetry in the effort to defend wisdom, to distinguish nobility from baseness, and to establish the love of truth as a resplendent vice and noble faith. Nietzsche's account of the right use of history suggests an underappreciated unity in his writings by raising the possibility that in his several histories Nietzsche wrote from the perspective, and assumed the responsibility, of the genuine historian.

This article explores a neglected area in political philosophy and moral economic theory: the origins of normative economic theorizing in classical Greek philosophy. That theory is a critique of the market and the acquisitive life in light of an alternative location of the economy in the oikos or household oriented towards the securing of the good life. Its core elements of the well-ordered community, the good life, and of the foreignness of economic activity to these ends are analyzed here. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of this theory, and an examination of its value for political philosophers concerned to find a non-rights based approach to the economy.

Leading liberal theorist Ronald Dworkin builds a case against paternalism, rooted in his liberal ethical theory, especially the requirement of ethical integrity. But his case is successful only against less sophisticated forms of paternalism. His argument focuses too much on profound ethical convictions, failing to recognize the frequency with which people hold relatively unreflective convictions and the inevitable role of the law in helping to shape convictions. He makes concessions regarding paternalistic actions that come to be endorsed by the persons who are subject to them, but then tries to impose arbitrary limits on such endorsement. Finally, he rests his case against paternalism on the denial of transcendent standards, but is unable to avoid employing such standards himself. Building a case for certain forms of paternalism in a pluralistic liberal democracy is a difficult but necessary task, that can only proceed after removing fallacious objections like Dworkin's.

In the last quarter-century Americans have carried on a lively argument over the nature of distributive justice, equality of opportunity and particularly the appropriateness of affirmative action. Indeed two distinct conceptions of equality of opportunity, drawing on conflicting underlying visions of distributive justice and adopting different stances toward affirmative action, have emerged in both academic and popular circles. Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky's Cultural Theory can be applied to explain the form and focus of this argument as a struggle between the conflicting preferences of rival—individualistic and egalitarian—ways of life. This analysis shows how the longevity and intractable character of the argument are consequences of the social embedding of preferences. That is, individualists and egalitarians cannot further their preferred ways of life with respect to these issues without engendering this conflict. The irreconcilable character of this clash is further underscored by Cultural Theory's capacity to illuminate oversights in the most sophisticated of extant efforts to bridge these opposing views.

Under the banner of “regime theory,” the study of international relations has experienced a massive if largely unacknowledged return to law, the study of the nature, scope, and relevance of norms international politics. Regime is shorthand for forms of institutionalized cooperation in the international system. The article provides one way to assess this movement. In part I, I develop an abstract conception of constitutions as bodies of metanorms, those higher order norms that govern how lower order norms are to be produced, applied, and interpreted. I then examine the extent to which international relations theory is equipped to recognize that some international regimes are constitutional in form (part II). In part III, I propose a means of situating all regime forms, from the most primitive to the full blown constitutional, along a continuum. The central claim is that the distinction made between international and domestic society, for the most part a matter of dogma in mainstream theory, is relative not absolute.

The central question guiding this essay is: what does Marx's socialism owe to classical antiquity? Underlying this question is the thesis that Marx's studies of classical Greece supply the angle of vision necessary to bring to light the hallmark of his conception of the socialist polity. The argument challenges a widespread interpretation of the connection between antiquity and socialism in Marx's work—that his socialist vision takes its bearings from the Aristotelian understanding of the relationship between necessity and leisure. In Marx's view, the fundamental legacy of antiquity was the notion of freedom as masterlessness. The roots of this legacy are in the political experience of the democratic polis, not in Aristotle's reflections on the ideal household. The core of Marx's project, then, is not to open a realm of freedom beyond necessity, but rather to create spaces for democratic action within the realm of necessity itself, to ensure that work is free and compatible with leisured activities.

This article demonstrates the radical character of Locke's attack on patriarchalism in the Two Treatises of Government, in part by showing that that attack implies the rejection of the natural and divine order to which patriarchalism appealed to justify itself. In this way, Locke's attack on patriarchalism, which prepared the way for his individualistic liberal politics, is also shown to be an important part of his solution to the political problem of religion. Special attention is given to Locke's disagreement with the Bible concerning the family and its place in political life.

The article consists chiefly in an examination of the Republic, but that examination attempts to determine the place of the Republic in relation to Plato's other works (especially the Laws and the Statesman) as well as their place in relation to it. This comparative effort permits a more precise specification than would otherwise be possible of the most important questions which are raised in those works and of the intention of the author in treating those questions as he does.

Rational choice scholars argue that there is no such thing as legislative intent, and that courts should abandon futile efforts to find and enforce that intent. Faced with ambiguous statutes, these scholars suggest judges either actively interpret statutes to achieve the best public policy possible; or they advise the judges to accept a default assumption that congressional ambiguity will be read as implicit delegation of interpretive discretion to the executive branch. Both options pose problems for the American system of separated institutions. Though legislative intent may be impossible to discern, an effort to identify legislative purpose may be critical to assure the maintenance of a balance of institutional power. How that purpose is identified is a problem not only for the Court, but for the legislative institutions responsible for statutory drafting and approval.

How far ought good liberals to go in accommodating parents with religious objections to the public school curriculum? This article argues that liberal democratic ideals are best honored when we allow parents to structure their children's education in ways compatible with their religious beliefs. Both liberal and democratic theorists, as well as a number of recent judicial decisions, are criticized for opposing such accommodation and for arguing their case against religious parents on a distorted characterization of religious parents' goals. An account of religious parents' concerns that avoids privileging a secular worldview is presented and this account is used to argue for the political benefits of a broad “principle of parental deference.” In conclusion, a new account of where public schools ought properly to draw the line, detailing three exceptional cases in which parental religious concerns ought not to be accommodated, is offered.

This article examines the contrast between philosophy and sophism in Xenophon's Memorabilia, focusing chiefly on the two dialogues between Socrates and Aristippus. In two crucial respects, Socrates and the sophist appear as opposites. He accepts what the sophist rejects: the obligations and restraints imposed by the city's laws; and he rejects what the sophist accepts: the vulgar notion that everyone knows what the good things are. In the first dialogue, Socrates defends the self-discipline proper to citizen-soldiers against Aristippus' complete rejection of political responsibility. In the second, he points to the substitution of the beautiful for the good as the proper object of philosophical investigation, hi both dialogues, Socrates walks a middle road: he is more political than the sophist, but less so than the politician. Yet he proves to be close to the politician qua philosopher than he is qua citizen.

This article examines Hegel's philosophy of history with the intention of once again rendering it strange. Hegel's “historicism” has been accepted for so long that the actual terms of his history are rarely examined afresh. But his account of the past, it is argued here, is best understood through the vocabulary of art and beauty that he develops in the Aesthetics. Historical forms cannot be wholly grasped through the vocabulary of dialectical reason, but ought to be seen as “shapes” in a strong sense. Two principle conclusions follow from this reassessment: The first is that the Philosophy of History is best understood neither as an optimistic account of rational progress, nor as a tale of the “end of history” in liberal democracy, but as an attempt to “seduce us to life”—that is, an attempt to reconcile us to the world through the beauty of history. The second conclusion is that this attempt must fail. It fails because, in his effort to discern beauty in the past, Hegel imposes a completeness upon time that excludes the possibility of a future. Whether intentionally or not, Hegel's pessimism about art is transmitted to his philosophy of history. The Temple of Memory that Hegel builds to shelter our souls ends up imprisoning them instead.

The Supreme Court's approach to representation and redistricting has been grounded on a vision of fairness which extends only as far as the electoral process itself. Accordingly, the doctrine of one-person one-vote, as well as the Court's advocacy of remedial redistricting measures, has focused on ensuring that the electoral routes to legislative representation remained open. Recently, a new wave of challenges to this approach has arisen in legal scholarship and the lower federal courts because its focus on maintaining an open and pluralist political process overlooks the political realities of governing: gaining representation means little if one remains an impotent minority. This article assesses the merits of this new “neopluralist” challenge and the extent to which the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have already begun to incorporate some of its elements. The article concludes by pointing out that this incorporation has led to the establishment of two lines of precedent which are based on irreconcilable notions of representation.

Several recent scholars have raised afresh the question of what Aristotle meant in Politics 1 by the statement that men are “by nature” political, that is, are political animals. This article addresses this quandary by reference to Aristotle's psychology and his notion of political education. It is argued that by concentrating on Aristotle's theory of human locomotion and its implications for moral choice, we may identify the relation he conceived between the polis and human nature. Specifically, the ability of humans to live according to their natures requires the systematic education afforded by the laws and institutions of the polis.

Lonergan's cognitional theory, though generally unknown in the discipline, points the way toward a more concrete understanding of politics through its emphasis on the self-appropriation of our knowing. This article examines the invariant structure or method Lonergan finds in all practical or scientific knowing, the precepts that can be derived from the operations of the mind, the continuity between cognitive and moral self-transcendence, and the different horizons which may confine our knowing. It considers the biases which distort personal and political development, the need for cosmopolis, an informal community which helps to save practicality by transcending it, the methodological natural right which may be derived from norms inherent in our knowing, and the emergent probability of progress or decline set by the stock of insights or oversights operative in a society. It concludes that Lonergan's work makes a substantial contribution to the critical human science he seeks and that it could play a helpful role in unifying the discipline.

When and in what way does it make sense to think of philosophical and scientific activity or simply the act of thinking as acts of resistance to political corruption? This article examines Eric Voegelin's extended answer to that question. Voegelin gradually developed a conception of scientific inquiry that distinguished between science, philosophy, and the wider context within which these activities take place. He showed thereby that scientific inquiry may be a valuable form of political resistance, without its practitioners being fully aware philosophically of what they are doing

The activities of state attorneys general have received little scholarly attention despite their growing importance as national policymakers. This article examines how New Federalism and divided government during the past two decades has altered the political context of state legal work and how state attorneys general have responded. In addition to establishing new mechanisms for integrating state law enforcement policies, state attorneys general have assumed a more coordinated and proactive litigating posture in the federal courts. These developments have allowed states to launch effective challenges to federal law enforcement policy and to protect state regulation from federal preemption.

The article examines two different types of “tolerant” dialogues, represented by Desiderius Erasmus and Jean Bodin. Erasmus offers a traditional conception of dialogue, in which the speakers are engaged in a common search for truth. This search for truth justifies toleration. To discover truth, the speakers must be free to question the other speakers' views, as well as their own. And they must respect each other because civility promotes the discovery of truth. Bodin, by contrast, presents an alternative version of the tolerant dialogue in his Colloquium heptaplomeres, a dialogue between representatives of seven different religions. While the Erasmian dialogue presupposes that (1) there is a single truth and that (2) the greater the consensus, the more successful the dialogue, in Bodin's Colloquium, the speakers do not pursue a common truth. Rather, they offer up their own particular versions of truth, unwilling to change their positions. The speakers do not agree on the truth because truth—especially religious truth—is complex, and each speaker represents a different facet of that multifaceted truth. And though the speakers remain firm in their initial convictions, they gain from the dialogue a clearer perception of their own opinions. By comparing their views with one another, the speakers come to better understand their separate truths, the sum of which constitutes the whole truth.