Originalism and Truth-Telling: A Reply to Stephen Sachs

Abstract

In my Herbert W. Vaughan Memorial Lecture, "The Natural Law Moment in Constitutional Theory," published earlier in this volume, I argue that constitutional theories cannot avoid making contested moral truth claims. In his response, Professor Stephen Sachs disagrees, arguing that the moral arguments for adopting originalism are the uninteresting ones, and all the important work is done by the descriptive arguments for concluding that originalism is our law. In this reply, I respond to his claims.

Keywords: originalism, legal positivism, normative reasoning