Moral Constitution

The Moral Constitution is a means of understanding the U.S. Constitution which emphasizes a fusion of moral philosophy and constitutional law. The most prominent proponent of the moral Constitution is Ronald Dworkin, who advances the view in Law's Empire and Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution. Alternatively, a Moral Constitution can be taken to mean a Constitution which is Moral that defines the fundamental political principles and establishes the power and duties of each government, and does so while being consistent with a moral code. The moral code in turn can be in any of the forms that constitutions can be in, such as written, unwritten, codified, uncodified, etc.

It would appear that such a constitution would create a change in the application of law and in particularly Constitutional Law from a rule of law paradigm to a morality-based paradigm, and would require the explanation and descritption of that rule of morality as a principle of operation of the government specified in this constitution as a fundamental component of its structure.

The description of a rule of morality, or moral code can come in two forms. It can be a set of rules, such as the biblical Ten Commandments, and is the form of most legal systems of government today. Alternatively, it can be a set of principles, or a moral code. The latter form does not seem to have any presently working exemplars in any known government and is little commented upon.

Indeed, this alternative definition of a concept of a Moral Constitution seems only to exist in any form at all in the Bill of Morals efforts of the present government of South Africa.

See also

• Constitutionalism
• Constitutional economics
• Rule according to higher law