Page History

...

What would be the problem, really, if commitment to certain substantive social social 
and economic rights were to be integral to the ethics of citizenship? x impliesy?  
What would be the problem, really, if commitment to certain substantive social and economic rights were to be integral to the ethics of citizenship? 

If there are substantive rights that are not properly matters of statutory legislation-e.g., "the pursuit of happiness," "security," "justice"-because... 

If any formative provision can be morally authorized, finally, only by "implying some ultimate substantive terms by appeal to which it can be validated" (1012), why should it be included in the specific provisions of a constitution, while all substantive provisions.

The picture that keeps forming in my mind is something like this: 

Politics has two levels: constituent and governmental

What does it mean to say, x implies y?

It may mean either of two things: either that x presupposesypresupposes y, in the sense that x requires x requires y by a specUic specific and dejinite definite necessity; or that x anticipates y, in the sense that x requiresx requires y by only a generic and indefinite nece,')',')'itynecessity. (Perhaps another way of explaining what explaining what is meant by the two things that implication may mean-i.e., presupposition and anticipationand anticipation-is to say that, whereas the implication rightly distinguished as as "presupposition" is unconditional, the implication rightly distinguished as "anticipation" is is conditional. 

What Gamwell seems to want to say about a proper democratic constitution, which  which as such is merely formative, is two things: both that it necessarily implies certain substantive certain substantive religious, moral, and political first principles, in the sense that it necessarilypresupposes necessarily presupposes such first principles; and that it necessarily implies certain further, morespecificmore specific, substantive principles (1-'1 u~cJUH::;S, 1-'uli~ies, auJ pracdces, procedures, policies, and practices and so on), in the sense the sense that it necessarily anticipates such further principles. 2 

Whatever else democracy may be said to be, it may be said to be the way of reason of reason specified to politics, both constituent (or constitutional) and governmental (or statutoryor statutory). Put in a more Habermasian way, democracy may be said to be communicative action communicative action specified to politics, again, at both levels, constituent and governmental.

If there are substantive rights that are not properly matters of statutory legislation-e.g., "the pursuit of happiness," "security," "justice"-because

If any formative provision can be morally authorized, finally, only by "implying some ultimate substantive terms by appeal to which it can be validated" (1012), why should it be included in the specific provisions of a constitution, while all substantive provIsIons

The picture that keeps forming in my mind is something like this:

Politics has two levels: constituent and governmental.

What does it mean to say,