"Stop Seeking Certainty.." Minow's Response To Bork

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

text merely provides clues as to the intent of the above
mentioned groups. So peripheral documents, such as the Federalist papers,
are important clarifiers of the original intent. The second subdivision of
orginalism is called the textual orginialist view. This view argues that
the actual text of the Constitution is what is most important in terms of
understanding Constitutional intent. Bork began as an intention theorist,
then later changed and came to adopt the textual originalist view point.
Neither subdivision of the view of orginalism is very popular today, as is
evidenced by the fact that Bork was not confirmed by the Congress when he
was nominated for the Supreme Court. Bork argues that by reading the text,
and figuring out what the public understanding of the Constitution was at
the time of it's writing, we can discern what the Constitution actually
means. The problem here is obvious. It is very difficult to know what the
public understanding at the time of ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

principle as it relates to constitutional
interpretation. According to Bork, a judge should make a decision based
only on an original intent understanding of a given law in a given case.
No personal pr eferences should come into play. Instead, legal principles
should be applied equally across all cases which those principles encompass.
It is Bork's assertion that his philosophy of original understanding can
supply neutrality in deriving, defining and applying any legal principle.
(Bork, pp. 53) So, on to the distinctions between deriving, defining and
applying. On the issue of derivation, Bork argues that via his
philosophical view of original intent, it is possible to derive ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: