| Summary: | This article analyses the rationality of the principle of proportionality as a justificatory
method for solving cases involving conflicts of constitutional principles. It addresses what I
call ‘the problem of comparability’: a set of arguments claiming that proportionalists are
getting wrong what happens when constitutional principles collide. The problem of
comparability suggests that balancing cannot be done if some conflicts of constitutional
principles are, in reality, cases of noncomparability, incommensurability, incomparability, or
vagueness. In this essay I challenge the views of both proportionalists and their skeptics.
Against the skeptics, I shall argue that proportionality can survive the challenge posed by the
problem of comparability. Against the proportionalists, I shall submit that proportionality
cannot be understood as a system of trade-offs between degrees of satisfaction of principles.
If comparison among constitutional principles is to be rational, we need a different approach
to normativity. One that allows for the possibility of parity.
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