STUART BUCK HAS QUESTIONS regarding Bruce Ackerman’s terminology.

I agree that calling Justices Scalia and Thomas “neo-conservatives” is incoherent, unless “neo-conservative” is simply a synonym for “people Ackerman doesn’t like.”

As Arthur Leff noted, all definitions are permitted the definer, so long as they are stated clearly. But I think that Ackerman could have done better at spelling this one out. I don’t think there’s much of anything “neo” about Scalia and Thomas’s conservatism.