Desperately Seeking Certainty
The Misguided Quest for Constitutional Foundations
219 pages
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6 x 9
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© 2002
Irreverent, provocative, and engaging, Desperately Seeking Certainty attacks the current legal vogue for grand unified theories of constitutional interpretation. On both the Right and the Left, prominent legal scholars are attempting to build all of constitutional law from a single foundational idea. Dan Farber and Suzanna Sherry find that in the end no single, all-encompassing theory can successfully guide judges or provide definitive or even sensible answers to every constitutional question. Their book brilliantly reveals how problematic foundationalism is and shows how the pragmatic, multifaceted common law methods already used by the Court provide a far better means of reaching sound decisions and controlling judicial discretion than do any of the grand theories.
"Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions reached by Farber and Sherry, this book is well worth reading. . . .As a summary description and critique of the scholarship of Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Richard Epstein, Akhil Amar, Bruce Ackerman, and Ronald Dworkin, this book is as good as it gets. . . . The critiques are reasoned and balanced. For this reason alone, Desperately Seeking Certainty should be required reading for students of judicial politics. . . . The analyses are thorough, and its tone is one of reasoned discourse. . . . This is not a book that can be fairly characterized as 'liberal' or 'conservative,' in terms of substantive ideology. Indeed, it is about method, not results."—J. D. Droddy, Law and Politics Book Review
"Desperately Seeking Certainty is at its best on the attack; the authors' criticisms are clear, sensitive and usually fair."
"Terse, effective. . . . Furnishes a useful wake-up call to those who feel theory can construe the Constitution better than a judge with a sense of history, precedence, and humanity."
Contents
Preface
1. Of Law and Latkes
2. In the Beginning: Robert Bork and Other Originalists
3. The Formalist Crusade of Antonin Scalia
4. Richard Epstein and the Incredible Shrinking Government
5. Akhil Amar and the People's Court
6. Bruce Ackerman's Magic Amendment Machine
7. Ronald Dworkin and the City on the Hill
8. Dethroning Grand Theory
Appendix
Notes
Index
1. Of Law and Latkes
2. In the Beginning: Robert Bork and Other Originalists
3. The Formalist Crusade of Antonin Scalia
4. Richard Epstein and the Incredible Shrinking Government
5. Akhil Amar and the People's Court
6. Bruce Ackerman's Magic Amendment Machine
7. Ronald Dworkin and the City on the Hill
8. Dethroning Grand Theory
Appendix
Notes
Index
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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Law and Legal Studies: Legal Thought | The Constitution and the Courts
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