On the Authority of the Supreme Court

40 Pages Posted: 31 Jul 2022

See all articles by R. George Wright

R. George Wright

Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

Date Written: July 9, 2022

Abstract

Of late, the Court itself has both defended its own moral authority, and has also presented grounds for questioning that moral authority. Neither these defenses nor these critical assessments are confined to any Supreme Court political grouping. This debate within the Court itself as to its own morally binding authority very roughly corresponds to parallel debates among the public, as well as among jurisprudentially oriented writers.

If there is any simply-stated bottom line, it is that the Court may well not hold much genuinely binding moral authority, and the general public may itself be ambivalent on that question. On the other hand, the Court may not actually need much genuine, or much publicly perceived, moral authority in order to perform most of its work.

Suggested Citation

Wright, R. George, On the Authority of the Supreme Court (July 9, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4158621 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4158621

R. George Wright (Contact Author)

Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law ( email )

530 West New York Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
48
Abstract Views
288
PlumX Metrics