The U.S. Constitution provides a framework for our laws, but what does it have to say about morality? Paul DeHart ferrets out that document's implicit moral assumptions as he revisits the notion that constitutions are more than merely practical institutional arrangements. In Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design, he seeks to reveal, elaborate, and then evaluate the Constitution's normative framework to determine whether it is philosophically sound-and whether it makes moral assumptions that correspond to reality. Rejecting the standard approach of the intellectual historian, DeHart for the first time in constitutional theory applies the method of inference to the best explanation to ascertaining our Constitution's moral meaning. He distinguishes the Constitution's intention from the subjective intentions of the framers, teasing out presuppositions that the document makes about the nature of sovereignty, the common good, natural law, and natural rights. He then argues that the Constitution constrains popular sovereignty in a way that entails a real common good, transcendent of human willing and promotive of human well-being, but he points out that while the Constitution presupposes a real common good, it also implies a natural law that prescribes the common good. In critiquing previous attempts at describing and evaluating the Constitution's normative framework, DeHart demonstrates that the Constitution's moral framework corresponds largely to classical moral theory. He challenges the logical coherency of modern moral philosophy, normative positivism, and other theories that the Constitution has been argued to embody and offers a groundbreaking methodology that can be applied to uncovering the normative framework of other constitutions as well. This cogently argued study shows that the Constitution presupposes a natural law to which human law must conform, and it takes a major step in resolving current debates over the Constitution's normative framework while remaining detached from the social issues that divide today's political arena. Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design is an original approach to the Constitution that marks a significant contribution to understanding the moral underpinnings of our form of government.

In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.

Using Africa as a context for research, new conceptual framing is proposed to make sense of the challenges of designing effective organizations to pursue socio-economic development.

A scientific study of the political and economic factors influencing democratic decision making

Perhaps the last great work of the Enlightenment, this landmark in intellectual history is the Marquis de Condorcet's homage to the human future emancipated from its chains and led by the progress of reason and the establishment of liberty. Writing in 1794, while in hiding, under sentence of death from the Jacobins in revolutionary France, Condorcet surveys human history and speculates upon its future. With William Godwin, he is the chief foil of Malthus's Essay on Population. Portrayed by Malthus as an elate and giddy optimist, Condorcet foresees a future of indefinite progress. Freed from ignorance and superstition, he argues that the human race stands on the threshold of epochal progress and limitless improvement. Condorcet defies modernist stereotypes of the right and the left. He is at once precursor of the free market and social democracy. This new edition of the original 1795 English translation, is the only English translation of a work of Condorcet currently in print.

Implied constitutional principles form part of the landscape of the development of fundamental rights in common law jurisdictions, affecting issues ranging from the remuneration of judges to the appropriation of property by the state. Principled Reasoning in Human Rights Adjudication offers thematic analysis of the use of the implied constitutional principles of the rule of law and separation of powers in human rights cases. The book examines the functions played by those principles in rights adjudication in Australia, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean, and the United Kingdom. It argues that a complete understanding of implied constitutional principles requires thoroughgoing analysis of the sources and methods of implication and of the specific roles played by such principles in the adjudicative process. By disaggregating particular functions and placing those functions within their respective institutional contexts, this book develops an understanding of the features of cases in which implied constitutional principles are invoked and the work done by those principles.