Available in Russian
Author: Egor Badyra
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2025-4-187-207
Keywords: Adrian Vermeule; common good; common good constitutionalism; originalism; classical legal tradition; natural law; interpretation of law
The article analyses the concept of common good constitutionalism proposed by Harvard Law School professor A.Vermeule in the context of the academic debate that unfolded around his ideas in the pages of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy in 2023. The aim of the study is to familiarise the Russian legal community with the debate on common good constitutionalism, systematising its key critical and apologetic arguments, and to assess the potential of the presented approach for updating public law doctrine. The author reconstructs the philosophical and legal foundations of common good constitutionalism in the context of the classical natural law tradition, analyses Vermeule’s criticism of originalism and living constitution, identifies key disputes about the relationship between individual rights and the common good, and summarises the strengths and weaknesses of Vermeule’s project. The methodological basis includes comparative legal analysis as well as discursive analysis of academic texts, which allows the dogmatic level of reasoning to be linked to its value assumptions. The study shows that common good constitutionalism considers the constitution to be a teleological instrument oriented towards the prosperity of the political community, and not only towards the limitation of power — such a framework of reasoning brings the categories of virtue and dignity back to the centre of legal thinking. At the same time, risks have been identified, including the uncertainty of criteria for the common good, the politicisation of the judicial process, and the incompatibility of an objective concept of the good with the pluralistic nature of modern society. Comparative material demonstrates that appealing to the common good can strengthen the legitimacy of decisions, but requires clear institutional constraints. The conclusion is made that, despite the concept’s current incompleteness and sharp criticism, common good constitutionalism provides a productive impetus for rethinking the links between law, politics and morality and opens up the prospect of formulating an integral model capable of combining the values of personal dignity, oriented towards the achievement of the common good of power and a pluralistic society. Thus, the study not only identifies the theoretical foundations and problem areas of common good constitutionalism, but also raises the question of the ethical coordinates of contemporary public law.
About the author: Egor Badyra – Ph.D. Student, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Faculty of Law, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Citation: Badyra E. (2025) Constitutsionalizm obshchego blaga: vvedenie v diskussiyu [Common good constitutionalism: introduction to the discussion]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.34, no.4, pp.187–207. (In Russian).
References
Alexy R. (2003) Constitutional Rights, Balancing, and Rationality. Ratio Juris, vol.16, no.2, pp.131–140.
Balkin J.M. (2011) Living Originalism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Barak A. (2012) Proportionality: Constitutional Rights and Their Limitations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barclay S.H. (2023) Strict Scrutiny, Religious Liberty, and the Common Good. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.937–955.
Baude W. (2015) Is Originalism Our Law? Columbia Law Review, vol.115, no.8, pp.2349–2408.
Baude W., Sachs S.E. (2023) The “Common-Good” Manifesto. Harvard Law Review, vol.136, no.3, pp.861–906.
Berger R. (1977) Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Blocher J., Siegel R.B. (2021) When Guns Threaten the Public Sphere: A New Account of Public Safety Regulation Under Heller. Northwestern University Law Review, vol.116, no.1, pp.139–201.
Bobbitt P. (1982) Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution, New York: Oxford University Press.
Bork R.H. (1971) Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems. Indiana Law Journal, vol.47, no.1, pp.1–35. (In Russian).
Bork R.H. (1990) The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law, New York: Free Press.
Brennan W.J., Jr. (1985) Construing the Constitution. University of California Davis Law Review, vol.19, no.1, pp.2–14.
Casey C. (2023) The Irish Constitution and Common Good Constitutionalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1055–1090.
Dolzhikov A. (2016) Tolkovanie konstitutsionnykh prav [Interpretation of constitutional rights]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.25, no.4, pp.125–151. (In Russian).
Dworkin R. (1978) Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dworkin R. (1996) Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fallon R.H., Jr. (2007) Strict Judicial Scrutiny. UCLA Law Review, vol.54, no.5, pp.1267–1337.
Fleming J.E. (2022) Constructing Basic Liberties: A Defense of Substantive Due Process, Chicago, IL; London: The University of Chicago Press.
Foran M. (2023) Equal Dignity and the Common Good. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1009–1027.
Gritsenko E. (2011) Predely konstitutsionno-sudebnogo normotvorchestva [The boundaries of the constitutional court’s rulemaking]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.20, no.5, pp.107–130. (In Russian).
Hammer J. (2021) Common Good Originalism: Our Tradition and Our Path Forward. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.44, no.3, pp.917–959.
Hammer J. (2023) Common Good Constitutionalism and Common Good Originalism: A Convergence? Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1197–1216.
Ho J.C. (2023) Originalism, Common Good Constitutionalism, and Our Common Adversary: Fair-Weather Originalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.957–966.
Huigens K.J. (2024) Theistic Illiberal Constitutionalism: A Review of Adrian Vermeule’s Common Good Constitutionalism. University of Louisville Law Review, vol.63, no.1, pp.1–36.
Jaede M. (2017) The Concept of the Common Good. Available at: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1851/Jaede.pdf (accessed: 26.10.2025).
Kelly M.D. (2024) Challenging Common Good Constitutionalism. Jurisprudence, vol.15, no.3, pp.418–440.
Kūris E. (2004) O stabil'nosti konstitutsii, istochnikakh konstitutsionnogo prava i mnimom vsemogushchestve konstitutsionnykh sudov [On the stability of the constitution, sources of constitutional law, and the seeming omnipotence of constitutional courts]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.13, no.3, pp.92–102. (In Russian).
Leiter B. (2023) Politics by Other Means: The Jurisprudence of “Common Good Constitutionalism”. University of Chicago Law Review, vol.90, no.6, pp.1685–1717.
Manzhosov S. (2025) Smertnaya kazn' v Rossii v svete teoriy originalizma i zhivoy konstitutsii [The death penalty in Russia through the lens of the theories of originalism and living constitution]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol.34, no.2, pp.177–200. (In Russian).
Matey P.B. (2023) “Indispensably Obligatory”: Natural Law and the American Legal Tradition. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.967–980.
McClain L.C. (2022) Reasons to Doubt Whether “the Best Way Forward Is to Look Backward”: Commentary on Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism. Balkanization, 12 July. Available at: https://balkin.blogspot.com/2022/07/reasons-to-doubt-whether-best-way.html (accessed: 26.10.2025).
McClain L.С, Fleming J.E. (2023) Toward a Liberal Common Good Constitutionalism for Polarized Times. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1123–1148.
McConnell M.W. (1995) Originalism and the Desegregation Decisions. Virginia Law Review, vol.81, no.4, pp.947–1140.
McGinnis J.O., Rappaport M.B. (2013) Originalism and the Good Constitution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miller D.A.H. (2023) Common Good Gun Rights. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1029–1053.
Müller J.-W. (2025) “Common Good Constitutionalism”: Rule of Law, Rule by Law, or Something Else Entirely? Law and Contemporary Problems, vol.87, no.3, pp.47–65.
Pabst A. (2024) Three Faces of Postliberalism. In: Laruelle M. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism, New York: Oxford University Press, pp.887–912.
Pojanowski J., Walsh K. (2022) Recovering Classical Legal Constitutionalism: A Critique of Professor Vermeule’s New Theory. Notre Dame Law Review, vol.98, no.1, pp.403–463.
Rodriguez-Blanco V. (2023) When Moral Principles Meet the Normative or Deliberative Stance of Judges: The Layers of Common Good Constitutionalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.983–1008.
Ruben E. (2020) An Unstable Core: Self-Defense and the Second Amendment. California Law Review, vol.108, pp.63–105.
Sachs S.E. (2023) According to Law. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1271–1297.
Scalia A. (1997) A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Siegel S.A. (2006) The Origin of the Compelling State Interest Test and Strict Scrutiny. American Journal of Legal History, vol.48, no.4, pp.355–407.
Smith M.L. (2023) Originalism, Common Good Constitutionalism, and Transparency. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1217–1241.
Solum L.B. (2023) Flourishing, Virtue, and Common Good Constitutionalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1149–1175.
Strang L.J. (2023) The Common Good as a Reason to Follow the Original Meaning of the United States Constitution. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1243–1269.
Strauss D.A. (2010) The Living Constitution, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Sulyok M. (2023) The “Common Good” in Hungarian Judicial Interpretation: Footnotes for American Debates on Common Good Constitutionalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1091–1121.
Sunstein C.R. (2001) One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sunstein C.R. (2023) Experiments of Living Constitutionalism. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1177–1194.
Timoshina E.V. (2025) “Obshchee blago” klassicheskoy pravovoy traditsii: sud'ba ponyatiya v kartinakh mira (Vozrozhdenie i rannee Novoe vremya) i sovremennye popytki ego reabilitatsii [The “common good” of the classical legal tradition: the fate of the concept in worldviews (the renaissance and early modern times) and modern attempts at its rehabilitation]. Voprosy filosofii, no.5, pp.58–69. (In Russian).
Vermeule A. (2020) Beyond Originalism. The Atlantic, 31 March, Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/ (accessed: 26.10.2025).
Vermeule A. (2022) Common Good Constitutionalism: Recovering the Classical Legal Tradition, Cambridge; Medford, MA: Polity Press.
Vermeule A. (2023) Enriching Legal Theory. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol.46, no.3, pp.1299–1328.
Whittington K.E. (1999) Constitutional Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial Review, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.