Welfare and the Constitution

Sotirios A. Barber

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English

Princeton University Press
25 October 2005

Social welfare & social services; Constitution: government & the state; Central government policies

Series: New Forum Books

Welfare and the Constitution defends a largely forgotten understanding of the U.S. Constitution: the positive or ""welfarist"" view of Abraham Lincoln and the Federalist Papers. Sotirios Barber challenges conventional scholarship by arguing that the government has a constitutional duty to pursue the well-being of all the people. He shows that James Madison was right in saying that the ""real welfare"" of the people must be the ""supreme object"" of constitutional government. With conceptual rigor set in fluid prose, Barber opposes the shared view of America's Right and Left: that the federal constitutional duties of public officials are limited to respecting negative liberties and maintaining processes of democratic choice. Barber contends that no historical, scientific, moral, or metaethical argument can favor today's negative constitutionalism over Madison's positive understanding. He urges scholars to develop a substantive account of constitutional ends for use in critiquing Supreme Court decisions, the policies of elected officials, and the attitudes of the larger public.

He defends the philosophical possibility of such theories while also offering a theory of his own as a starting point for the discussion the book will provoke.

This theory holds, for example, that voucher schemes which drain resources from secular public schools to schools that would train citizens to submit to religious authority are unconstitutional; First Amendment issues aside, such schemes defeat what is undeniably an element of the ""real welfare"" of the people, individually and collectively: the capacity to think critically for oneself.

By: Sotirios A. Barber
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Volume: 38
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 11mm
Weight: 255g
ISBN: 9780691123752
ISBN 10: 0691123756
Series: New Forum Books
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 25 October 2005
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Acknowledgments ix Preface xi CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: Every State a Welfare State 1 The Negative-Liberties Model of the Constitution 5 Every State a Welfare State? 8 ""Welfare"": How Capacious the Term? 12 CHAPTER TWO: Charter of Negative Liberties: Arguments from Text and History 23 Is Positive Constitutionalism Ahistorical? 23 Welfare and the Framers 36 CHAPTER THREE: Negative Constitutionalism and Unwanted Consequences 42 The Slippery Slope in General 42 Does Welfare Constitutionalism Undermine Negative Liberties? 44 A Benefits Model and Liberalism's Private Sphere 53 Does a Welfare Constitution Reach Too High? 55 CHAPTER FOUR: Moral Philosophy and the Negative-Liberties Model 65 Is the Benefits Model Unjust or Unfair? 65 Is the Benefits Model Undemocratic? 68 Is the Benefits Model Antiliberal? 71 The Moral Philosophy of Positive Constitutionalism 77 Welfare and Moral Skepticism 79 Moral Philosophy and Intolerance 86 CHAPTER FIVE: The Instrumental Constitution 92 Some Formal Elements of the Instrumental Constitution 92 Welfare as an End of Government 96 Well-Being in America: A Hypothesis 100 What Constitutes Well-Being? 106 CHAPTER SIX: Is the Constitution Adequate to Its Ends? 118 Welfare and Power: Structure and Context of the Question 119 The Constitution's Formal Adequacy 122 Welfare and the Courts 142 Index 157"

Sotirios A. Barber is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of On What the Constitution Means and The Constitution of Judicial Power, and coeditor of Constitutional Politics (Princeton).

Reviews for Welfare and the Constitution

""In this bold book, the case for a 'welfarist' constitution is made carefully and rigorously. Going back to Madison and The Federalist Papers, as well as reinterpreting canonical cases, Barber describes a way of interpreting the US Constitution that departs significantly from the prevailing view. He provides a plethora of sources and rich documentation... [T]his book will provoke much debate among legal scholars.""--Choice ""[A] model of the way one might expect constitutional theory to be done.""--Ken I. Kersch, Political Science Quarterly