Virtue and Duty in Constitutional Politics
This Constitution Day program examines two proposals to shore up liberal institutions and political life that involve modifying conventional understandings of liberalism. First, from a civic perspective, prior scholarship has developed the idea of “liberal virtues” to argue the crucial role virtue might play in liberal politics today. Second, from the perspective of constitutional thought, scholars and jurists have increasingly extended the reach of constitutional rights to create duties for private actors, a phenomenon known as the horizontal application of rights.
Underlying each of these proposals is a common concern about the fragile state of citizens’ relationships to the polity and with each other in liberal contexts. Inasmuch as liberal commitments and institutions are criticized for fostering atomized, rights-obsessed citizens, liberal virtues and horizontal application may meet these shortcomings by drawing from such age-old concepts as virtue and duty. However, these proposals also invite questions about how such civic and constitutional modifications ultimately fit within the larger liberal tradition. Are they natural complements, perhaps growing out of certain strands of liberal thought and politics? Do they rely on political traditions outside of liberalism, which may be more or less compatible with liberal commitments?
Greater emphasis on virtue and duty may appear to require fundamental innovations to liberalism when considered through a contemporary lens. However, from another angle, these proposals for liberal virtues and constitutional duties actually track older versions of liberal thought and politics. Furthermore, they may be even more effective to their respective tasks if implemented in ways that resemble those older versions of liberal thought.
Featured Speaker:
Christina Bambrick is the Filip Family Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. She specializes in constitutional theory, with interests in comparative constitutionalism, American constitutionalism, and the history of political thought. Bambrick's book, Constitutionalizing the Private Sphere: A Comparative Inquiry, was published with Cambridge in 2025. It examines the horizontal application of rights to non-state actors in comparative constitutionalism, specifically in the United States, India, Germany, South Africa, and the European Union. Bambrick received her doctorate in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, and taught at Clemson University before coming to Notre Dame.