Internet: Knowledge and Community

A constitutional democracy refers to a system of government that is based upon a set of rules and procedures laid out in a constitution. Amy Guttman and Dennis Thompson contend that constitutional democracies fail to adequately address the problem of moral disagreement because they can't address the different ways in which individuals communicate and are based upon assumptions that are culturally situated. Another problem with constitutional democracy is that the more abstract the constitution, the more broad its interpretation. This problem is most notable in the US constitution in the case of the "necessary and proper" clause sometimes called the "elastic" clause because of law makers tendency to stretch it justify just about anything.