Constitutional Liberalism through Thick and Thin: Reflections on Frank Michelman's Constitutional Essentials

Authors

James E. Fleming, Boston University School of LawFollow
Linda C. McClain, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

ISSN

0191-4537

Publisher

SAGE Publishing

Language

en-US

Abstract

In his new book, Constitutional Essentials, Frank Michelman provides a splendid elaboration and defense of “the constitutional theory of political liberalism” implicit in John Rawls’s classic work, Political Liberalism. In this essay, we make some observations about what a difference 30 years makes, comparing the political and constitutional climate in which Rawls wrote and published Political Liberalism in 1993 with the climate in which Frank wrote and published this exegesis of it. We focus on (1) changes in our circumstances of pluralism, including the accentuation of polarization and unreasonable views, and (2) the simultaneous breakdown of trust in the Supreme Court authoritatively to resolve disputes concerning constitutional essentials. Throughout, we acknowledge and seek to reckon with the possibility that Michelman may have given Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy its fullest, most coherent account just at the moment when the possibility of realizing it seems to be passing.

Comments

article forthcoming in 2024

Recommended Citation

James E. Fleming & Linda C. McClain, Constitutional Liberalism through Thick and Thin: Reflections on Frank Michelman's Constitutional Essentials , in Philosophy & Social Criticism (2023).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3698