Worse than nothing : the dangerous fallacy of originalism / Erwin Chemerinsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chemerinsky, Erwin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constitutional law--Philosophy.

Constitutional law.

Law--Interpretation and construction.

Law.

Origin (Philosophy).

Constitutional law--United States.

Physical Description:

xiii, 248 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2022]

Summary:

Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court's nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges in the lower courts. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be an inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know what the "original intent" of any particular provision was. Perhaps worst of all, though its supporters tout it as a politically neutral and objective method, originalist interpretation tends to disappear when its results fail to conform to modern conservative ideology.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 The Rise of Originalism

ch. 2 The Allure of Originalism

ch. 3 The Epistemological Problem

ch. 4 The Incoherence Problem

ch. 5 The Abhorrence Problem

ch. 6 The Modernity Problem

ch. 7 The Hypocrisy Problem

ch. 8 In Defense of Non-Originalism

ch. 9 We Should Be Afraid.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9780300259902

0300259905

OCLC:

1310154267