The Supreme Court Phalanx

"A New York Review Books collection"--Cover.

Ronald Dworkin is widely accepted as the most important and most controversial Anglo-American jurist of the past forty years. And this same-named volume on his work has become a minor classic in the field, offering the most complete analysis and integration of Dworkin's work to date. This third edition offers a substantial revision of earlier texts and, most importantly, incorporates discussion of Dworkin's recent masterwork Justice for Hedgehogs. Accessibly written for a wide readership, this book captures the complexity and depth of thought of Ronald Dworkin. Displaying a long-standing commitment to Dworkin's work, Stephen Guest clearly highlights the scholar's key theories to illustrate a guiding principle over the course of Dworkin's work: that there are right answers to questions of moral value. In assessing this principle, Guest also expands his analysis of contemporary critiques of Dworkin. The third edition includes an updated and complete bibliography of Dworkin's work.

Constitutional 'losers' represent a thorny and longstanding problem in American constitutional law. Here, Emily Calhoun draws upon conflict resolution theory, political theory, and Habermasian discourse theory to argue that in such cases, the Court must work harder to avoid inflicting unnecessary harm on Constitutional losers.

From renowned political theorist James MacGregor Burns, an incisive critique of the overreaching power of an ideological Supreme Court For decades, Pulitzer Prize-winner James MacGregor Burns has been one of the great masters of the study of power and leadership in America. In Packing the Court, he turns his eye to the U.S. Supreme Court, an institution that he believes has become more powerful, and more partisan, than the founding fathers ever intended. In a compelling and provocative narrative, Burns reveals how the Supreme Court has served as a reactionary force in American politics at critical moments throughout the nation's history, and concludes with a bold proposal to rein in the court's power.

In Mighty Judgment Philip Slayton describes the important issues the Supreme Court decides for individual Canadians and for Canada as a nation, and the surprising and dramatic ways in which these decisions shape our future. In the Morgentaler case (1988), the court struck down laws restricting abortion, leaving Canada the only Western country without any abortion laws. In the Same-Sex Marriage Reference (2004), it decided that gays and lesbians could marry. In the Secession Reference (1998), it laid down the conditions under which Quebec could secede from Canada. In the Patrick case (2009), the court decided that the right of privacy does not stop the police from rifling through our garbage. More recently, the court administered a tongue-lashing to the federal government over its treatment of Canadian youth Omar Khadr, accused by the United States government of fighting with the Taliban. Mighty Judgment makes clear that the Supreme Court of Canada is a political institution, and that judges are politicians. But unlike other politicians, judges cannot be voted out of office. Slayton discusses reforms that will be needed, particularly in the way judges are chosen, once we recognize that the court decides policy and plays a pivotal role in governing Canada.

For centuries, law was used to subordinate women and exclude them from the public sphere, so it cannot be expected to become a source of equality instantaneously or without resistance from benchmark men—that is, those who are white, heterosexual, able-bodied and middle class. Equality, furthermore, was attainable only in the public sphere, whereas the private sphere was marked as a site of inequality; a wife, children and servants could never be the equals of the master. Despite their ambivalence about the role of law and its contradictions, women and Others felt that they had no alternative but to look to it as a means of liberation. This skewed patriarchal heritage, the subtext of this collection of essays, has continued to impede the quest for equality by women and Others. It informs not only gender relations in the private sphere, as illustrated by domestic violence and sexual assault, but also the status of women in the public sphere. Despite the fact that women have entered the paid workforce—including the professions—in large numbers, they are still expected to assume responsibility for the preponderance of society’s caring. The essays show how maternal and caring roles, which are still largely viewed as belonging to an unregulated private sphere, continue to be invoked to detract from the authority of the feminine in the public sphere. The promise of antidiscrimination legislation in overcoming the heritage of the past is also shown to be somewhat hollow.

Praise for previous editions: "...accessible...this book is an excellent addition to collections serving general readers, high schools, and undergraduates."-American Reference Books Annual "This readable volume is recommended for high-school, public, and undergraduate libraries..."-Booklist "...[an] outstanding reference tool...Biographical dictionaries abound, in political science as in other fields...[but] Wilson's work is more accessible, benefitting from his straightforward approach and simpler organization...Highly recommended."-Choice "Recommended."-Library Media Connection "...an authoritative and readable guide...serves as a helpful resource for high school, college, and public libraries..."-Christian Library Journal American Political Leaders, Third Edition contains 286 biographical profiles of men and women in the United States who have demonstrated their political leadership primarily by being elected, nominated, or appointed to significant political offices in the United States or by having attained some special prominence associated with political leadership. This reference work provides students and general readers with a concise, readable guide to present and past leaders in U.S. politics. Included in this book are presidents, vice presidents, major party candidates for president, significant third-party candidates, important Supreme Court justices, Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, senators, representatives, cabinet officers, significant agency heads, and diplomats. Since much of U.S. political leadership involves the representation of successive waves of new groups within the U.S. political system, special care has been taken to include the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Americans who represented earlier waves of immigrants to the United States. Profiles include: John Adams: president, vice president, diplomat, Revolutionary leader, author Amy Coney Barrett: justice of the Supreme Court Pete Buttigieg: secretary of transportation; candidate for president Andrew Cuomo: governor of New York Jefferson Davis: secretary of war, senator, representative, president of the Confederate States of America Kamala Harris: senator; vice president John Lewis: civil rights activist; representative Gavin Newsom: governor of California Barack Obama: senator, president Sonia Sotomayor: associate justice of the Supreme Court Elizabeth Warren: senator; candidate for president

The fox knows many things, the Greeks said, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. In his most comprehensive work, Ronald Dworkin argues that value in all its forms is one big thing: that what truth is, life means, morality requires, and justice demands are different aspects of the same large question. He develops original theories on a great variety of issues very rarely considered in the same book: moral skepticism, literary, artistic, and historical interpretation, free will, ancient moral theory, being good and living well, liberty, equality, and law among many other topics. What we think about any one of these must stand up, eventually, to any argument we find compelling about the rest. Skepticism in all its forms—philosophical, cynical, or post-modern—threatens that unity. The Galilean revolution once made the theological world of value safe for science. But the new republic gradually became a new empire: the modern philosophers inflated the methods of physics into a totalitarian theory of everything. They invaded and occupied all the honorifics—reality, truth, fact, ground, meaning, knowledge, and being—and dictated the terms on which other bodies of thought might aspire to them, and skepticism has been the inevitable result. We need a new revolution. We must make the world of science safe for value.