Abstract
In order to provide comments on Michael Dowdle's account of "Constitutional Listening," this paper aims to establish three counter-arguments. First of all, in contrast to Dowdle's particularly narrow understanding of liberalism, I argue that to evaluate the moral import of liberalism properly, we need to draw attention to the diversities of liberalism. According to what I will call "historicist liberalism," for example, in understanding other cultures we should try to show sensitivities toward alien political systems and moral values. Second of all, although I appreciate Dowdle's effort to avoid the misinterpretation of non-Western constitutional discourse, I do not agree with his methodology purporting to maintain that we should remain morally neutral when conducting cross-cultural dialogues, and that there is no moral linkage between two different civilizations. Finally, with regard to listening to the voices of new-Left thinking which have appeared in China's recent constitutional debates, Dowdle simply overlooks the fact that in the Chinese context the major political and legal vocabularies actually originate from Europe; and consequently, he neglects the long-term historical efforts that Chinese intellectuals have made to accommodate liberal visions in an attempt to resolve their moral anxiety.
Recommended Citation
Roy Tseng,
From Constitutional Listening to Moral Listening,
88
Chi.-Kent L. Rev.
157
(2012).
Available at:
https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol88/iss1/10
