Thursday, July 2, 2015

TerBeek's Obituary for Originalism

Calvin J. TerBeek, a Tulane JD and doctoral candidate in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, has posted Originalism's Obituary, which is to appear in the Utah Law Review (2015):
This short essay argues that originalism is in a Kuhnian (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) crisis due to the theory's epistemic closure, ideological nature, and immodesty. After detailing the evidence for each of the three issues, the paper contends that originalism will eventually, and perhaps soon, be relegated to the dustbin along with other discarded normative theories of constitutional interpretation.
 H/t: Legal Theory Blog