The Contemporary Debate on Constitutional Interpretation: William Brennan's Living Constitutionalism Versus Lino Graglia's Originalism

William Brennan, in his speech to the Text and Teaching Symposium, describes the Constitution as "embodying the aspiration to social justice, brotherhood, and human dignity that brought this nation into being." For Brennan, the purpose of the Constitution is to make the United States "a country where the dignity and rights of all persons
According to Brennan, the function of the Supreme Court justice is to interpret the Constitution in such a way as to resolve the predominant "social, economic, philosophical, and political" questions of the day-which are often "issues on which contemporary society is most deeply divided." Brennan thinks that judges must speak for their community and not themselves alone when interpreting the Constitution; he claims to reject the idea of judges as "platonic guardians appointed to wield authority according to their personal moral predilections." Brennan believes that judges must render constitutional interpretations that are perceived as legitimate-despite the fact that judges must sometimes overturn the acts of elected representative bodies "on the ground of inconsistency with higher law."

Brennan disparages the view that the Constitution must be interpreted according to the Framers' intent as "arrogance cloaked as humility." He believes that it is impossible to "gauge accurately the intent of the Framers on application of principle to specific, contemporary questions," since evidence of their intent is often sparse and ambiguous, and the Framers often disagreed amongst themselves. Brennan furthermore believes that interpretation based on the Framers' intent would establish a political "presumption of resolving textual ambiguities against the claim of constitutional right"-which is a choice that implicitly favors the interests of the majority against minority rights and neglects "social progress" as well as "adaptation of overarching principles to social circumstance."