For example, if it were sufficient to say that the framers' intention to rely on courts for constitutional review justified that review, we would already have assumed the very legitimacy for historical argument for which we sought a justification in the first place. Grounding legitimacy in extra-legal justifications leads to an infinite regress: Each justification must be independently legitimated, and that legitimacy in turn demands a fresh justification.

DEFINE: Explains the infinite regress problem that arises when trying to justify legitimacy through extra-legal appeals — each justification itself needs independent legitimation. Pays off: "External normativity is spoiled by its own threshold problem."

Philip Chase Bobbitt, Philip Chase Bobbitt - Refl…, loc. 646