Traditionalism Rising, Part IV: The Problem of Justification

Authors

Marc O. DeGirolami, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Title

Reason - The Volokh Conspiracy

Publication Date

9-9-2022

Abstract

(Excerpt)

What justifies reliance on enduring practices in constitutional law? It is possible to defend traditionalism on a descriptive plane, or on the ground that it reflects a democratic-populist perspective appropriate in the United States. I have made those arguments elsewhere, but in this paper, I respond to a familiar criticism that tradition has no moral force at all: doing the same thing we've always done gives us no reasons, so the objection goes, to do the same thing today.

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Originally published at: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/09/09/traditionalism-rising-part-iv-the-problem-of-justification/