Constitutional interpretation is a serious matter in any political community committed to the rule of law. Widespread disagreement about the most fundamental moral issues is to be expected, and it is bound to play itself out in the interpretation of legal rights. The essays that make up this volume – contributed by some of the most accomplished legal philosophers and constitutional law scholars in the common law world – address three pressing issues in contemporary constitutional interpretation and constitutional theory: (1) the role of moral reasoning in constitutional interpretation; (2) the legitimacy and justification of judicial review; and (3) the place of unwritten constitutional principles in the constitutional order. Although these papers reflect the jurisdictional roots of their authors, they are theoretical works of wide application rather than doctrinal accounts of the workings of the constitution of any particular jurisdiction.

The essays in Part I are concerned with morality and its place in constitutional interpretation.

What does it mean to interpret the constitution? Are judges engaged in an enterprise of moral reasoning, or is legal reasoning about moral questions something different? What sort of morality informs legal reasoning? What does it mean to say that a limit on a right is justified?

The focus of constitutional law scholarship is often on interpretive methodology and the well-known schools of interpretation. But as Steven D. Smith argues, the object of constitutional interpretation is never made clear. What, exactly, is it that is interpreted under the rubric of constitutional interpretation?