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Written by leading authorities in history, philosophy, jurisprudence and political theory, the essays in this volume provide new insights into the variable and changing contents of the rights thinking and consciousness that lie at the core of American political culture and shape its central political institutions. Based on the current state of scholarly understanding and intended to provide a fresh sense of orientation into the complexities of the separate topics covered, the studies focus on two distinct "moments" in the American experience: the eighteenth-century period of founding that produced the Bill of Rights as an element in the Constitutional settlement, and the contemporary moment, marked by a new historical consciousness of the difficulties of interpreting rights in changing contexts and thus by the continuing search for a properly grounded philosophical jurisprudence adequate to meet the ethical, social, and political conflicts of the present.
List of contents
Acknowledgments; Introduction: history, historicism, and the culture of rights; 1. From natural law to the rights of man: a European perspective on American debates; 2. The Bill of Rights and the American revolutionary experience; 3. Parchment barriers and the politics of rights; 4. Rights and wrongs: Jefferson, slavery and philosophical quandaries; 5. Practical philosophy and the Bill of Rights: perspectives on some contemporary issues; 6. The development of modern American legal theory and the judicial interpretation of the Bill of Rights; 7. The British, the Americans, and rights Appendix: the constitution and the Bill of Rights; About the authors; Index.
Summary
Written by leading authorities in history, philosophy, jurisprudence and political theory, the essays in this volume provide insights into the variable and changing contents of the rights thinking and consciousness that lie at the core of American political culture and shape its central political institutions.
