Morality And Constitutionalism

A central difficulty that surrounds political discourse is the question of the limits of morality in public life.

As an adjunct, there is considerable dispute that arises from an inability to resolve the proper role, if any, of morality relative to constitutionalism. This difficulty is also why there are shortcomings in both the strict and the liberal interpretations of the Constitution: The Constitution is sometimes made the vessel of rights for which it is not particularly suited.

On the right, the Constitution is simply discounted as a source of moral rights that could be argued to be part of the requirements of such things equal protection. For example, some strict constructionists think that the Civil Rights Act should not be Constitutionally enshrined (justified) in any way, directly or indirectly. This seems to be rather limiting, because even such constructionists would agree that equality of the races under law should be given some Constitutional purchase.

On the left, you have those who want to enshrine abortion rights as part of the Constitution. This runs afoul of the fact that the Constitution says nothing about abortion, and indeed does not use the term "right of privacy". Further, there is no moral consensus that abortion itself is a good thing, so the "right" to choose what many people a great evil is very problematical.

This is not an issue that will soon go away.