What is Meant by Philosophy of the Constitution?

It is tempting to think of a constitution as nothing more than a body of laws, and to treat laws and moral values as two separate things — in which case the only sensible approach to a constitution would be a purely legal (legalistic) one, not a philosophical one. But this misses something important: while it's true that not every law carries moral content, a great many laws are directly tied to deeply held values. A law banning discrimination on grounds of language or religion, for instance, exists because we value equality — the law and the value are inseparable. This means laws and moral values are connected, and a constitution built substantially out of such laws must be read as expressing a moral vision, not merely a technical rulebook. Taking a political philosophy approach to the Constitution means keeping three things in mind. First, we need to understand the Constitution's conceptual structure — working out the possible meanings of the key terms it uses, such as 'rights', 'citizenship', 'minority' or 'democracy'. Second, we need to work out a coherent vision of society and polity that follows from interpreting these key concepts together — in other words, grasp the underlying set of ideals the Constitution embeds, not just isolated definitions. Third, the Indian Constitution should be read together with the Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), because the debates raise the philosophical treatment of a value to a higher plane by supplying the justification for it — a value stated without a reasoned justification for it is philosophically incomplete. A political philosophy approach is needed not only to uncover the moral content of the Constitution and test its claims, but also, practically, to arbitrate between competing interpretations of its core values — because these ideals get challenged, debated and sometimes deliberately misread by different political actors (in legislatures, parties, the press, schools) to suit short-term interests. Since the ideal expressed in the Constitution carries real authority, it can be used to settle such disputes of interpretation. The Japanese Constitution of 1947 (the 'peace constitution') is a good illustration of how a founding document's philosophy shapes everythi …