Background
Richards, David A.J. was born in 1944.
(In writing the constitution, the Founders combined a Lock...)
In writing the constitution, the Founders combined a Lockean theory of politically legitimate power with the political science they had learned from Machiavelli, Harrington, Hume, and Montesquieu to articulate a new conception of constitutional argument. Examining the Founders' humanist analytical methods and working assumptions, this book combines history, political philosophy, and interpretive practice as it demonstrates an alternative exegesis of the Constitution. It clarifies a wide range of interpretive issues of federalism, enumerated rights (religious liberty and free speech), unenumerated rights (the constitutional right to privacy), and equal protection.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195059395/?tag=2022091-20
(Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those ...)
Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those involving "victimless" crimes―consensual adult sexual relations (including homosexuality and prostitution), the use of drugs, and the right to die. How can they be distinguished from proper crimes, and how can we, as citizens, judge the complex moral and legal issues that such questions entail? David Richards, a teacher of law in the areas of constitutional and criminal law, and a moral and legal philosopher concerned with the investigation of legal concepts, applies an interdisciplinary approach to the question of overcriminalization, he draws on legal and philosophical arguments and links the subject to history, psychology, social science, and literature. To demonstrate how gross and unjust overcriminalization has developed, Professor Richards explores basic assumptions that often underlie the common American sense of proper criminalization.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0847675254/?tag=2022091-20
(Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those ...)
Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those involving 'victimless' crimes--consensual adult sexual relations (including homosexuality and prostitution), the use of drugs, and the right to die. How can they be distinguished from proper crimes, and how can we, as citizens, judge the complex moral and legal issues that such questions entail? David Richards, a teacher of law in the areas of constitutional and criminal law, and a moral and legal philosopher concerned with the investigation of legal concepts, applies an interdisciplinary approach to the question of overcriminalization, he draws on legal and philosophical arguments and links the subject to history, psychology, social science, and literature. To demonstrate how gross and unjust overcriminalization has developed, Professor Richards explores basic assumptions that often underlie the common American sense of proper criminalization.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0847670635/?tag=2022091-20
( At stage center of the American drama, maintains David ...)
At stage center of the American drama, maintains David A. J. Richards, is the attempt to understand the implications of the Reconstruction Amendments--Amendments Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen to the United States Constitution. Richards evaluates previous efforts to interpret the amendments and then proposes his own view: together the amendments embodied a self-conscious rebirth of America's revolutionary, rights-based constitutionalism. Building on an approach to constitutional law developed in his Toleration and the Constitution and Foundations of American Constitutionalism, Richards links history, law, and political theory. In Conscience and the Constitution, this method leads from an analysis of the Reconstruction Amendments to a broad discussion of the American constitutional system as a whole. Richards's interpretation focuses on the abolitionists and their radical commitment to the "dissenting conscience." In his view, the Reconstruction Amendments expressed not only the constitutional arguments of a particular historical period but also a general political theory developed by the abolitionists, who restructured the American political community in terms of respect for universal human rights. He argues further that the amendments make a claim on our generation to keep faith with the vision of the "founders of 1865." In specific terms he points out what such allegiance would mean in the context of present-day constitutional issues. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691600244/?tag=2022091-20
(Examines the case for the legal recognition of gay rights...)
Examines the case for the legal recognition of gay rights as basic human rights. This work explores the connections between gay rights and three rights movements - black civil rights, feminism and religious toleration - to determine how these might serve as analogies for the gay rights movement.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EQBU572/?tag=2022091-20
(Why have the issues of religious liberty, free speech and...)
Why have the issues of religious liberty, free speech and constitutional privacy come to figure so prominently in our society? What are the origins of the basic principles of our constitutional law? This work develops a general theory of constitutional interpretation based on an original synthesis of political theory, history, law, and a larger approach to the interpretation of culture. Presenting both historical and theoretical arguments in support of a theory that affirms the moral sovereignty of the people, Richards maintains that toleration, or respect for conscience and individual freedom, is the central constitutional ideal. He discusses such current topics of constitutional controversy as church-state relations, the scope of free speech, and the application of the constitutional right to privacy, to abortion, and consensual adult sexual relations.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195059476/?tag=2022091-20
(Free Speech and the Politics of Identity challenges the s...)
Free Speech and the Politics of Identity challenges the scholarly view as well as the dominant legal view outside the United States that the right of free speech may reasonably be traded off in pursuit of justice to stigmatized minorities. The book's innovative normative and interpretative methodology calls for a new departure in comparative public law, in which all states responsibly address their common problems, not only of inadequate protection of free speech, but also correlative failure to take seriously the continuing political power of such evils as anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198298862/?tag=2022091-20
( When southern Italians began emigrating to the U.S. in ...)
When southern Italians began emigrating to the U.S. in large numbers in the 1870s-part of the "new immigration" from southern and eastern rather than northern Europe-they were seen as racially inferior, what David A. J. Richards terms "nonvisibly" black. The first study of its kind, Italian American explores the acculturation process of Italian immigrants in terms of then-current patterns of European and American racism. Delving into the political and legal context of flawed liberal nationalism both in Italy (the Risorgimento) and the United States (Reconstruction Amendments), Richards examines why Italian Americans were so reluctant to influence depictions of themselves and their own collective identity. He argues that American racism could not have had the durability or political power it has had either in the popular understanding or in the corruption of constitutional ideals unless many new immigrants, themselves often regarded as racially inferior, had been drawn into accepting and supporting many of the terms of American racism. With its unprecedented focus on Italian American identity and an interdisciplinary approach to comparative culture and law, this timely study sheds important light on the history and contemporary importance of identity and multicultural politics in American political and constitutional debate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814775209/?tag=2022091-20
Richards, David A.J. was born in 1944.
AB, Harvard University, 1966. Juris Doctor, Harvard University, 1971. Doctor of Philosophy in Moral and Political Philosophy, Oxford University, England, 1970.
Associate Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, New York City, 1971-1974. Associate professor Fordham University, 1974-1977. Visiting associate professor philosophy Barnard College, 1974-1977.
Associate professor law New York University School Law, 1977-1979, professor law, since 1979, Edwin D. Webb professor law, since 1994.
(Why have the issues of religious liberty, free speech and...)
(In writing the constitution, the Founders combined a Lock...)
(Free Speech and the Politics of Identity challenges the s...)
(Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those ...)
(Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those ...)
(Examines the case for the legal recognition of gay rights...)
( At stage center of the American drama, maintains David ...)
( When southern Italians began emigrating to the U.S. in ...)
(Book by Richards, David A. J)
Fellow New York University Society Fellows. Member Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs (board directors New York chapter 1975-1976), American Society Political and Legal Philosophy (vice president 1984), Austinian Society (president 1974) Clubs: Tuesday Evening.