Retired United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s new book is a formidable, scholarly work. In “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, not Textualism” (Simon & Shuster,2024), Breyer explains why, as a sitting Justice, he pursued a philosophy of “pragmatism” —not “originalism” nor “textualism”.
Breyer doesn’t use these words, but, clearly, the tropism of his decisional life frequently sought legal mechanisms to achieve “better” results (if the outcomes he adamantly opposed were in any way avoidable). Put differently, he typically advocated for a result that both he and those who think like him would consider more humanistic and would square with their personal sense of justice. Breyer chooses the term “making society more workable” in employing ways to interpret the Constitution.
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