This chapter takes up the principal questions of constitutional interpretation and the assumptions underlying the enterprise of constitutional interpretation by considering William Rehnquist's classic criticism of the notion of a “living constitution” and defense of a narrow originalism. It argues that fidelity to the Constitution as written — understood as a scheme of abstract moral principles or concepts like fairness rather than as a code of concrete historical conceptions of those concepts — requires what Ronald Dworkin has called a “fusion” of constitutional law and moral philosophy. Such a philosophic approach would require “judicial activism”, not “judicial deference”. It also would, as Dworkin argues, presuppose a moral objectivity of principle, not, as Rehnquist assumes, moral skepticism.
Keywords: living constitution, Ronald Dworkin, fidelity to the Constitution as written, fusion of constitutional law and moral philosophy, judicial activism, judicial deference, moral objectivity, moral skepticism, William Rehnquist, Warren Court,