Constitutional Essentials : On The Constitutional Theory of Political Liberalism / Frank I. Michelman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Rawls's constitution-centered "liberal principle of legitimacy" : a first look;
The constitution as procedural recourse : rawlss liberal principle of legitimacy;
Constitution as directive code;
Constitutional essentials. A singularity of reason, or a space of reasonability?
Constitutional law and human rights : the call to civility;
Constitutional fidelity : of courts, citizens, and time;
A realistic utopia?
Legitimacy : procedural compliance or ethical attitude?;
Offsets to proceduralism;
Constitutional application : between will and reason;
Justification-by-constitution, economic guarantees, and the rise of weak-form review;
Judicial restraint (and judicial supremacy);
Legal formalism and the rule of law;
Constitutional rights and private legal relations;
Liberal tolerance to liberal collapse?

"We enter here upon a history of conversational traffic between the respective departments of philosophy and law in the old academy of liberalism, where lawyers hear much from philosophers, yes-and philosophers hear from lawyers, too, in what has fruitfully been a both-ways exchange. Our philosophical protagonist is John Rawls. This book comprises a study of the rise and workings, within the Rawlsian political-liberal philosophy, of the idea of a country's higher-legal constitution as a public platform for the justification of political coercion. A study of Rawls on constitutionalism can help us, I believe, in scoping out and managing a cluster of constitutional lawyers' debates-interminable ones, it seems, in the constitutional-democratic precincts of our times-that I will catalogue soon below. But conversely, I believe, those seeking the best and truest readings of Rawls might have something to learn from the controversies of the lawyers. My approach to Rawls has accordingly been that of a critically leavened (while no doubt broadly sympathetic) exegesis, while with the legal-discursive materials I take more of a diagnostic turn. My hope is that a treatment of these two discourses in relation to each other will prove an aid to both political-philosophical and legal-practical reflection"-- Provided by publisher.