Dr. Greg Weiner’s review of Originalism’s Promise offers thoughtful questions and powerful potential criticisms from a scholar with the same basic approach to the Constitution. My brief response focuses on what I think is Weiner’s most fundamental criticism. He asks whether my law-as-coordination account can provide “any obligation to the Constitution of 1787” as opposed to another constitution that Americans might propose. “Can any Constitution endure if the reason for hewing to its original meaning is that it is good for us today?” My answer is yes! All Americans today have sounds reasons—“in the here and now”—to follow the Constitution’s original meaning.

My key move in Originalism’s Promise was to employ the focal case of a practically reasonable citizen. Does this citizen have reason(s) to follow the Constitution’s original meaning? I argued that following the original meaning is supported by two classes of reasons. First, the benefits to this citizen and to the citizen’s community from the coordination effected by following the original meaning is a reason for citizen faithfulness. There are many sorts of coordination benefits, and let me mention one: citizens who follow the original meaning contribute to the tremendous good brought to all Americans by the rule of law. Second, following the original meaning conduces to one’s character, and building one’s character is a reason for action. For instance, citizens who follow the Constitution’s original meaning practice the virtue of civic friendship because they will the good of their fellow citizens by supporting the Constitution’s coordination.

Moreover, law’s subjects must have sound reasons today for their faithfulness to the legal system to be practically reasonable. If a legal system did not provide sound reasons for its subjects to follow its laws, then on what basis should rational subjects follow them? For instance, if a legal system was in a state of decay and no longer coordinated its subjects’ actions—think of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy after London’s surrender to William—a practically reasonable subject should not be faithful to that failing legal system. Also, if a legal system effectively coordinated its subjects, but did so for wicked purposes or to wicked ends—think of Stalinist Russia—those subjects have sound reasons to (at least) not follow and (perhaps) to resist the legal system’s coordination.

Americans should follow the Constitution only if they have sound reasons to do so today. If the Constitution at one time provided American citizens with sound reasons to follow it, but ceased doing so at some point—either because it no longer coordinated or because its coordination became unjust—why would a practically reasonable American follow this failed or wicked Constitution? The fact that it was authored by “past generations” or that it was anchored “in the ‘mystic chords of memory’” or that it was part of a “transgenerational social contract,” do not individually or collectively provide a reason to follow it today if it does not effectively coordinate for the common good. Moreover, citizens are entitled to evaluate such arguments about past generations and tradition today to see if they provide reasons to follow the Constitution.