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Definition:
Constitutionalism comes from political philosophy and takes the position that a
government, in order to be legitimate, must have legal limits on its powers.
Thus, the government's authority ends up depending upon actually staying within
those limits. A government which goes beyond its limits loses its authority and
legitimacy.
A number of interesting questions are raised by this position. For example, how can a government be limited by laws when the laws are a creation of the government? Should constitutional limits be "entrenched," which means that the organizations limited cannot themselves change the limits? Should the laws creating limitations be interpreted literally and based upon the intentions of the authors, or should interpretation be guided by the basic principles and values underlying those rules?
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
Related Resources:
What are Political and Legal Philosophy
The Philosophy of Politics and the Philosophy of Law are often studied separately, but they are presented here jointly because they both come back to the same thing: the study of force. Politics is the study of political force in the general community, while jurisprudence is the study of how laws can and should be used to achieve political and social goals.What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?
