Abstract
What role should law play in the self-determination of communities? Notions of community typically invoke norms that claim validity for an entire group. Yet in complex modern societies almost any conception of generally valid norms is controversial because these societies are heterogeneous in many ways. Theories depicting law as a closed, recursive system of rules related to citizens hierarchically or vertically cannot capture this normative heterogeneity. To relate law to the horizontal relations among members of a community I propose "law and courts of enlightened localism" that would (1) interpret laws in ways that include more rather than fewer groups, (2) construe narrowly those statutes that represent interest groups alone, (3) pursue forms of political and legal decentralization, (4) facilitate social cooperation, not merely social coordination, (5) approach the constitution more as procedure than purveyor of substantive values, (6) view rights as created, not discovered, and (7) remand to the legislature laws that cannot find broad community support.
Published Version
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