In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge.
Interpretation
Laws should reflect the intentions of lawmakers rather than judges' personal morals.
This quote suggests that in a constitutional democracy, it is essential for the laws to be rooted in the values and intentions of those who create them (the framers or legislators), rather than being influenced by the subjective moral interpretations of judges. This perspective highlights the importance of democratic principles and the role of lawmakers in shaping the legal framework of society.
In practice
In a discussion on judicial activism, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of adhering to the law as intended by its creators.
The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.
A society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable.
When a judge assumes the power to decide which distinctions made in a statute are legitimate and which are not, he assumes the power to disapprove of any and all legislation, because all legislation makes distinctions
If civilization has risen from the Stone Age, it can rise again from the Wastepaper Age.
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
I don't believe in men waiting until they are ready to die before using any of their money for helpful purposes.
There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.
Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.
The excitement of life is in the numinous experience wherein we are given to each other in that larger celebration of existence in which all things attain their highest expression, for the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratory event.
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