THE SELFLESS CONSTITUTION, experimentalism and flourishing as foundations of South Africa's basic law

562pp., paperback, New Edition, Makhanda, (2013) 2021

"Stu Woolman is one of the leading constitutional law scholars in South Africa for a reason. His Selfless Constitution - a philosophical tour de force - bestows upon us an utterly original way to think about constitutional jurisprudence in South Africa. In so doing, the book underwrites a host of novel and imaginative contributions to contemporary currents in interdisciplinary legal thought, sociology of law, philosophy, and political theory." Professor Drucilla Cornell, Jurisprudence and Political Science, Rutgers University/ University of London

"In this extremely impressive work, Stu Woolman sets out to provide an original theoretical foundation for South African constitutional law and jurisprudence by drawing on arguments from contemporary philosophy as well as empirical findings from the natural sciences and the social sciences. The interdisciplinary sweep of the book is remarkable: the ground traversed includes philosophy of mind and action, neuroscience, behavioural economics, consciousness studies, evolutionary epistemology, choice architecture, social capital theory, experimental governance, development theory and the capabilities approach." Professor Denise Meyerson, University of Melbourne

Stu Woolman is Professor of Law and Elizabeth Bradley Chair of Ethics, Governance and Sustainable Development at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is Academic Director at the South Africa Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law. He is the creator, editor-in-chief and primary author of the 5 volume treatise, Constitutional Law of South Africa, creator and editor-in-chief of the Constitutional Court Review, author of The Constitution in the Classroom: Law and education in South Africa, 1994 - 2008 (2009) and co-author and co-editor of The Business of Sustainable Development in Africa (Winner of the 2010 Hindiggh-Currie Award for Best Book); The Dignity Jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Is This Seat Taken?: Conversations at the bar, bench and academy about the South African Constitution and Constitutional Conversations.