Shows how a judge can obey a document written in ordinary, flexible language. Whether something is “constitutional” is not an historical fact, but is an artisan judgment. Criteria are set forth showing why some judgments have superior connoisseurship and others do not.
Along the way, there is a potent critique of originalism. This belief system is shown to be inherently incompatible with the American legal system. Originalism can only be understood as a legal ideology, not an actual philosophy of law.
The book overthrows the scholarship of many law professors and even reconstitutes Ronald Dworkin. And the findings also challenge the way that professors of politics often think about whether a judge has “followed law.”
