ABSTRACT
Democratic processes in which representative assemblies are chosen by all the people in competitive and open elections have seemed to many the natural solution to the problem of governing people with conflicting moral and political views. Democratic proceduralism shares the originalist's commitment to judicial neutrality, though its appeal is to the political virtues of democratic procedures themselves, not to the framers' intentions. Viewed in terms of the traditional commitment to democratic institutions, the practice of judicial review thus seems especially anomalous, which explains in part why the methods of constitutional interpretation themselves are often hotly disputed. Utilitarianism and contractualism were developed in a largely philosophical context, so here the focus is legal, requiring an account of each theory's conception of the purposes of judicial review and the nature of constitutional interpretation.
