Constitutional Design Proposal Research Paper

Introduction

The elimination of problems of the present-day society from the perspectives of morality and shared values is one of the most challenging tasks for humanity. In order to adequately address these issues, it is vital to reform the existing entities or create new institutions corresponding to people’s needs. This initiative should be based on the establishment of clear regulations of their functioning with regard to the ethical side of the matter.

They should be different depending on the type of organizations under consideration since they imply an emphasis on varying virtues. When complemented by the description of basic operations, these elements will allow providing solid moral grounds for the population. Therefore, this paper aims to present a constitutional design proposal intended for restructuring political, economic, and cultural institutions consisting of their scope of actions and formal rules.

Political Institutions

An Ideal Set of Institutions

Finding solutions to the problems of the modern secular state should start with the consideration of politics as a field essential for developing the basis for other areas to follow. Hence, its institutions should incorporate vital components of what an ideal community should be. In other words, they should include both traditional institutions and an entity serving as a link between them while observing the moral aspect of their functioning.¹ In the case of this initiative, an optimal set of organizations with respect to the specified needs would be the combination of essential actors. They include political parties protecting the interests of various categories of citizens, the system of courts at different levels, the government, and a special body ensuring the morality of their actions. The last element will be aimed at addressing typical challenges deriving from non-compliance of secular notions to real-life situations.

Formal Rules

It is critical to establish clear formal rules for the proposed set of political institutions since they should cover all the aspects of their activity. For the purposes of this project, these regulations for both individuals and organizations are connected to securing access of all people to social benefits and proper distribution of income and wealth.² These provisions will be added by the requirement to promote national unity and identity, implying the focus on both external and internal virtues.³ Their suitability is confirmed by Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”⁴ Accordingly, the specified actors will be guided by the principle of the common good in all its aspects.

Institutions in Action

The work of the identified institutions will allow eliminating the revealed problems in the area, which are the division of spheres of human life and the advancement of improper values deriving solely from logic. Consequently, the cooperation of the political entities described above will be monitored by the special organization, and its task will be to support their combined efforts in making decisions and implementing them. For example, the initiatives, which are necessary to conduct, are sometimes being delayed or even abandoned, whereas the inclusion of this new actor will help eliminate such risks in a moral way. This necessity is underpinned by the findings of researchers, who claim that increased participation of institutions positively affects democratic development.⁵ Thus, the suggested change will result in the improvement of overall conditions in a political sense.

Economic Institutions

An Ideal Set of Institutions

The establishment of a favorable economic environment is significantly conditional upon the success of the efforts on coordinating the work of corresponding entities. For the current proposal, they include the banking system, labor-market entities, and the federal tax authorities accompanied by an organization coordinating their work and monitoring progress.⁶ Previously, it was revealed that the principal issues in this field are the weak ties between the actors and the problem of intolerance towards less prosperous counterparts complemented by the failure of companies to promote inclusion and collaboration. It means that the mentioned body securing the proper connections between them will be the key to their successful operations. In this way, it will be possible not only to reform the area but also to maintain its normal functioning.

Formal Rules

In this sphere of life, the formal rules will be oriented on the equal distribution of benefits among the citizens and, therefore, similar to the ones in the field of politics described above. The difference, in this case, will be the primary emphasis of participants on internal affairs in contrast to highlighting the balanced importance of external factors alongside these considerations. From this perspective, the regulations will be the establishment of fair taxation for all actors, the provision of banking guarantees to everyone without exceptions, and the creation of favorable conditions for increasing economic activity. As follows from Proverbs 22:2, “Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.”⁷ Hence, they should be treated accordingly, and this idea is especially applicable to economic affairs.

Institutions in Action

The operations performed by the selected institutions should be guided by the principles of equality in all respects. So, the banking facilities will be working in accordance with the developed rules concerning the assistance to all categories of citizens regardless of their income level. In turn, the tax authorities will elaborate the schemes correlating with the actual contributions of employees rather than their official earnings, which can be traced by assessing their performance and reported regularly. As for the labor market, it will be functioning on the basis of moral and legal structures since they ensure prosperity in the long run.⁸ The organization coordinating their actions will be evaluating the correspondence of measures to the needs of workers. In this way, the improvement of overall conditions for people stemming from this cooperation will be possible.

Cultural Institutions

An Ideal Set of Institutions

The third area for transformation is culture, and its facilities are presented by greater diversity compared to the political and economic agencies. Thus, for the purposes of the current proposal, only a limited number of these organizations will be considered for prospective reformation. They will include educational and religious entities complemented by art galleries and museums. Their selection seems optimal from the point of view of such tasks as the preservation of heritage, promotion of knowledge, and the guidance of the essential processes in the life of the present-day society by God. Additionally, this set of institutions comprehensively covers all vital aspects of the field, and the coordination of these components will be performed by a special cultural committee.

Formal Rules

For this type of facilities, formal rules will be mostly based on the mechanisms of their action. They will incorporate particular areas such as the promotion of culture through assessing the overall attendance and the involvement of people in the principal operations for taking further steps in improving the situation.⁹ These tasks are vital for eliminating the risks of citizens’ indifference towards the events attributed to these organizations. Moreover, they seem to be efficient in addressing the identified challenge of deciding whether one’s deeds are good or bad for the community as a whole. These outcomes allow concluding on the suitability of the specified rules to the actual needs of people regarding this field.

Institutions in Action

The activity of the mentioned cultural institutions will correspond to the principles of cognition. They are connected to the impact of powerful individuals within the facilities capable of instilling the appropriate values and distribute information. Subsequently, the shared interests will be created and maintained by the population.¹⁰

In this way, the formation of moral preferences and virtues among citizens will be performed by these enforcers and coordinated through the collaboration of churches, art galleries, museums, and schools for the benefit of all people. These entities will combine their efforts for the mentioned objectives while being controlled by the committee examining the efficiency as well as the morality of their work as one of the conditions for acquiring knowledge.¹¹ As a result, the guidance provided by cultural leaders will lead to its application to other spheres of human life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the initiative to fix the problems of the modern secular state presented in the form of the current constitutional design proposal adequately addresses the gap in morality attributed to the division of entities. This task is performed through the suggestion to include special organizations monitoring the work of political, economic, and cultural institutions. In the end, they will serve as a link between all the actors in any selected area and help establish and distribute the knowledge regarding appropriate conduct as per the values, which include cooperation and equality. Thus, the issues stemming from the lack of connection between the facilities will be compensated by this solution.

Bibliography

Berggren, Niclas, and Christian Bjørnskov. “Institutions and Life Satisfaction.” In Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, edited by Klaus F. Zimmermann, 1-48: Cham: Springer, 2020. Web.

Bible Study Tools. “Galatians 5:22-23.” Web.

Bible Study Tools. “Proverbs 22:2.” Web.

Bjørnskov, Christian, and Martin Rode. “Regime Types and Regime Change: A New Dataset on Democracy, Coups, and Political Institutions.” The Review of International Organizations 15, no. 2 (2019): 531-551. Web.

Budziszewski, J. Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1997.

Golinowska, Karolina. “Global Paths of Cultural Institutions: Attendance, Participation, or Education.” In Interpreting Globalization: Polish Perspectives on Culture in the Globalized World, edited by Leszek Koczanowicz, Piotr Jakub Fereński, and Joanna Panciuchin, 150-160: Amsterdam: Brill Rodopi, 2021. Web.

Khaitan, Tarunabh. “Constitutional Directives: Morally‐Committed Political Constitutionalism.” The Modern Law Review 82, no. 4 (2019): 603-632. Web.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.

Richards, Howard. “Moral Economy and Emancipation.” Journal of Critical Realism 19, no. 2 (2020): 146-158. Web.

Singh, Manvir, Richard Wrangham, and Luke Glowacki. “Self-Interest and the Design of Rules.” Human Nature 28, no. 4 (2017): 457-480. Web.

Footnotes

1. Tarunabh Khaitan, “Constitutional Directives: Morally‐Committed Political Constitutionalism,” The Modern Law Review 82, no. 4 (2019): 607. Web.
2. Khaitan, “Constitutional Directives: Morally‐Committed Political Constitutionalism,” 604.
3. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 196.
4. “Galatians 5:22-23,” Bible Study Tools. Web.
5. Christian Bjørnskov and Martin Rode, “Regime Types and Regime Change: A New Dataset on Democracy, Coups, and Political Institutions,” The Review of International Organizations 15, no. 2 (2019): 550. Web.
6. Niclas Berggren and Christian Bjørnskov, “Institutions and Life Satisfaction,” in Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, ed. Klaus F. Zimmermann (Cham: Springer, 2020), 39. Web.
7. “Proverbs 22:2,” Bible Study Tools. Web.
8. Howard Richards, “Moral Economy and Emancipation,” Journal of Critical Realism 19, no. 2 (2020): 156. Web.
9. Karolina Golinowska, “Global Paths of Cultural Institutions: Attendance, Participation, or Education,” In Interpreting Globalization: Polish Perspectives on Culture in the Globalized World, ed. Leszek Koczanowicz, Piotr Jakub Fereński, and Joanna Panciuchin (Amsterdam: Brill Rodopi, 2021), 150. Web.
10. Manvir Singh, Richard Wrangham, and Luke Glowacki, “Self-Interest and the Design of Rules,” Human Nature 28, no. 4 (2017): 465. Web.
11. J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1997), 108.