Reflections of an Empirical Reader (Or: Could Fleming Be Right This Time?)

Authors

Gary S. Lawson, Boston Univeristy School of LawFollow

Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2016

ISSN

0006-8047

Publisher

Boston University School of Law

Language

en-US

Abstract

Professor Jim Fleming’s new book, Fidelity to Our Imperfect Constitution: For Moral Readings and Against Originalisms, purports to critique all forms of originalism from the perspective of Professor Fleming’s “moral reading” of, or “philosophic approach” to, the Constitution. I propose a somewhat different opposition: empirical reading versus moral reading. Empirical reading is necessarily originalist, but it focuses directly on the need to ground interpretation in theories of concepts, language, and communication. In this short comment, I outline the research agenda for a theory of empirical reading, explore the extent to which empirical readings and moral readings of the Constitution are compatible (spoiler alert: it’s an empirical question), and situate empirical reading within the development of originalist theory.

Comments

Symposium on James E. Fleming's Fidelity to our Imperfect Constitution: For Moral Readings and Against Originalisms

Recommended Citation

Gary S. Lawson, Reflections of an Empirical Reader (Or: Could Fleming Be Right This Time?) , in 96 Boston University Law Review 1457 (2016).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/801