Constitutional Goods (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780199274666)

In Constitutional Goods, Alan Brudner distills the essentials of liberal constitutionalism from the jurisprudence and practice of contemporary liberal-democratic states, and argues that the model liberal-democratic constitution is best understood as a unity of three constitutional frameworks: libertarian, egalitarian, and communitarian. Each of these has a particular conception of public reason. Brudner criticizes each of these frameworks insofar as its organizing conception claims to be fundamental, and moves forward to suggest a Hegelian conception of public reason within which each framework is contained as a constituent element of a whole.

When viewed in this light, the liberal constitution embodies a surprising synthesis. It reconciles a commitment to individual liberty and freedom of conscience with the perfectionist idea that the state ought to cultivate a type of personality whose fundamental ends are the goods essential to dignity. Such a reconciliation, the author suggests, may attract competing liberalisms to a consensus on an inclusive conception of public reason under which political authority is validated for those who share a confidence in the individual's inviolable worth.

Author: Alan Brudner
ISBN-10: 0199274665
ISBN-13: 9780199274666
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 11/11/2004
Pages: 464
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.81lbs
Size: 9.38h x 6.48w x 1.20d