Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Knee-jerk Iconoclasm Although I defer to few in my admiration for the rambunctious insights and savory prose of Tom Bethell, his dismissal of Margaret Mead (Capitol Ideas, April...
...The provision of the Constitution makes sense only when read against a fundamental commitment, arising out of the principles of lawfulness, to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty: Those distinctions may not be made in a reasoned way when torture is used to extract confessions, and it is that use of coercion which must be seen as the core of the provision against self-incrimination...
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...Those principles counsel lawfulness, which means that they oblige us to respect explicit provisions of the Constitution until they are lawfully repealed...
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...van den Haag may preserve his respect for law, but the principled source of that commitment remains obscured, and it is hardly assuring to be told that it rests on grounds that are safely non-moral...
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...Arkes believes that we (including the judiciary) are bound by the Constitution and cannot replace, extend, or supersede it via natural rights when these are not granted by it, then it does not matter whether one believes that there are such self-evident natural rights and that they justify what the Constitution tells us to do...
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...van den Haag himself has recognized all of this—i.e., he has recognized at different times that the provisions of the Constitution must often be understood in the light of the true ends or character of the Constitution, which depend in turn on the principles of constitutionalism...
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...van den Haag better may HELP WANTED Auto Damage Appraiser...
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...Actually they areirrelevant and so is, therefore, Mr...
...This is a non sequitur in logic and has not happened in our constitutional history...
...Caveat emptor...
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...Arkes really believe that natural (moral, human) rights legally can supersede or extend those articulated by the Constitution, or that natural rights can legally give powers, or grant rights, not articulated in the Constitution...
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...Arkes replies: I am reluctant to take up more space in these columns than I have already, but frankly I am puzzled by Mr...
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...For that reason Lincoln registered his obligation to respect the provision in Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, which required the return of fugitive slaves—even though he understood that slavery was incompatible with the very...
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...2) that the framers thought (a) that natural rights justify the rights, limitations, and powers articulated in the Constitution, (b) that natural rights are independent of, antecedent to, but consistent with the Constitution, and (c) that natural rights are self-evident truths...
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...Ronald Dworkin has lately succeeded in demonstrating (see his Taking Rights Seriously) once more that natural rights can justify anything one wishes...
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...CORRESPONDENCE Knee-jerk Iconoclasm Although I defer to few in my admiration for the rambunctious insights and savory prose of Tom Bethell, his dismissal of Margaret Mead (Capitol Ideas, April 1978), who remains one of the great figures of this century's thought, is an act of knee-jerk iconoclasm...
...But Mr...
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...Arkes' practice is better than his theory, whereas Dworkin's practice is as good as his theory—shared by Arkes...
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...Arkes' belief in moral values and their objectivity and truth (whether or not correct) is quite irrelevant...
...We have a living constitution by following it, not by replacing it with whatever moral ideas we feel nature tells us to follow...
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...The most we can say is that we are obliged to establish provisions of this kind, and the ones I have mentioned are not inconsistent with the principles that underlie a constitutional order...
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...Moreover, her major work, Male and Female, is still the most lucid, sensitive, and incisive exposition of the differences between the sexes, and in recent years she has defied the entire feminist establishment by declaring the ubiquity and biological basis of patriarchy...
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...Arkes' argument...
...Berger's view that the Constitution must be interpreted as allowing the judiciary to grant only those rights and duties specified in it, however much other rights or duties appear morally (or naturally) justified...
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...George Gilder Tyringham, Massachusetts Taking Rights Seriously In his reply to Raoul Berger (April 1978) Hadley Arkes proves at some length: (1) that the framers of the Constitution were inspired by natural-law ideas commonly held at the time...
...Like Bethell, Mead is never afraid to express her opinions and if a number of them are off the mark, they nonetheless retain a freshness and idiosyncrasy, a refusal to be abashed by new fashions of thought, and a matter-of-fact conservatism about family roles that are rare in an aging pundit, beloved of the media...
...Of course the dispute would move to the question of a priori and necessary truths, but I forbear to say more than I have already lest someone write in to tell us that a priori, necessary truths are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution...
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...In other parts of our Constitution it becomes evident that the literal provisions in the document make no sense unless they are informed by an understanding of the principles of constitutionalism that exist anterior to the Constitution, and which the Constitution is trying to express...
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...van den Haag makes a gratuitous gesture when he persists in representing my own views in the language of "belief" (continued on page 43) The American Spectator June/ July 1978 41 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 41) and "feeling"—a language that he knows is foreign to the argument I made...
...Cash and carry...
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...That is rather like saying that since George McGovern used the claims of "moral" argument in a zany way, "moral" propositions must have no meaning—and no binding force in our law...
...van den Haag's last paragraph is one of his own authorship: viz., that since "natural rights," in the hands of Ronald Dworkin, can be used to "justify anything one wishes," natural rights must be arbitrary and meaningless...
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...Positive constitutional law alone would be decisive in conflicts and litigations...
Vol. 11 • June 1978 • No. 8
