The Difference Between Values and Principles

The difference between a value and a principle is that one is evidently automated while the other is selected for its believed merit. Whether the belief in the merit is deceived or contrived is not the point. The point is that the grammar of “principle” asserts that the matter is, (a), SELECTED, and (b), believed for its WORTH. Whereas, the grammar of “values” asserts that such starting points are automated or an aesthetic – sort of like the picking of chocolate ice cream over vanilla. It simply gives pleasure or desire (comfort or security).

Philosophy's Craft; the Picture of Digging.

The problem is that you think like an accordion. By this I do not mean that you are flighty – most surely you are not – I mean that you set out to discover gold by digging multiple holes at the same time with one shovel-scoop each. It is not really like digging for gold, however, because the holes you set yourself upon are never “pot luck.” You already know something is there; you just need to “unearth it.” One or two shovel digs here, and then you are taken upon one or two over there. You have no control over this; it is the way you think.

Imagine someone with “X-ray vision,” only it occurs through “spider sense” rather than through the eyes. And instead of it being “seeing,” it simply provides “clarity.” You have a sense of clarity that you can “see” for a moment. As if it tells you that treasure X can be found through paths A B and C. But it is only a momentary picture -- a flash in the brain. And when you set about to see it as a map (in detail), it is gone. And so, from memory or instinct, you take a shovel dig here, there, and somewhere else all at once and do not know exactly where to shovel next. Nothing then results but three shallow holes. But you know there exists both a treasure and its path in the proximate regions where you are digging.

In mathematics, one does not either look for treasure or see a picture of its path.

Philosophy and Mathematics

Mathematicians work forward; philosophers backward. The ideas come into the head, and you have to go backward to explain them to others. This is a tedious process. Philosophy is like one who stumbles upon the end of a journey, but has to go back into the woods to find those who are lost in order to show them what was found. It requires showing the person this wrong turn, that wrong turn, then, finally, the house in the woods (the end of the trip). But here is the key: philosophers themselves do not initially find their house by following maps or rules, they find it by solving puzzles along the venture. They find it in bursts of thoughts. They can see a pathway before others can, but they don’t know exactly where it goes. They know that the house is somewhere near – this path or that one – but they can never be certain until they have found it. Once found, however, they can never be credited without finding the others who remain lost and showing them. The final expressed product, therefore – what is known as X’s philosophy – is a work that backtracks. I do not think this is true with mathematics. Mathematics always works forwards. Mathematics takes its people along the venture together, with it. When it is successful, all have arrived at the same house through the same vehicle. The work product is not defined by “back tracking.”

Attitudinalism is a Language Game

For years, political scientists have been speaking about the concept of “attitudinalism” in judging. If you would go to conferences, for example, they would assert statements like, “attitudinalism is the best empirical account of judging” and so forth. Or they would say “Supreme Court judges vote their political attitudes.” One of my biggest complaints with this critique of judging – aside from its lack of true empirical support -- is that it plays a language game with its audience. You must first decode what is meant by the term “attitudes” before you know what is said. And the problem is that the meaning often changes without the speaker telling you (or being aware?) of the semantic shell game. Let us look at several things that people have called “attitudinal:”

1. Political Directionality. This is my favorite concept. It is the one that I think is most helpful in building a critique of judging based upon ideology. Under this view, a justice votes according to “political attitudes” if his or her preferences correlate meaningfully with the way that value preferences are organized in the larger political culture. Hence, if a justice systemically prefers outcomes that are said to be classifiable as “left” or “right” according to the way that those same views exist in the larger political culture, he or she is demonstrating political direction in judging. You will note that this is essentially a self-contained observation. Why, after all, would one vote consistently liberal or conservative on the Court if one did not feel that these policy outcomes vindicated an abstract view about the “good society?” (This assumes, of course, that the measure of votes is a valid construct – something that is always a big issue). To the extent that we have data about this phenomenon and are willing to rely upon it, however, the evidence shows that political direction is only a small component of Supreme Court decision making in civil liberties cases. And is appears to be getting weaker. How large it is can be debated, but present evidence puts it at around 12% to 24% of the votes cast when considering all Supreme Court justices who have ever voted in civil liberties cases over the last 60 years. (You could argue that this is not a small figure; I am only using the word “small” because, for years, political science suggested it was around 60% to 80%).

2. Reasonable disagreement. Under this view of attitudinalism, two justices, like two doctors, might have differences regarding the protocol to be applied to a given problem. One might use what we would call a “purposes and objectives approach,” which is essentially factoring the social utility of the policy into the decision. Another, however, might use what we call a more “formalistic” approach, saying, e.g., that the Constitution is only the reasonable referent of its text, regardless of whether the policy is beneficial. Paradigmatic disputes like these exist in all fields that are not “hard science” (and possibly some that are). If the subject was dietetics, for example, one might find a qualified expert recommending the food pyramid, another the zone diet and still another the Atkins protocol. Disagreement about which protocol to follow is essentially a function of a “faith” (attitude) in something that is not yet professionally resolved – perhaps we can call it a best educated guess. Because of this, the practitioner has no choice but to rely upon something outside of what is known in order to dispense the knowledge that is known to the trade or craft. Under this view, attitudinalism is merely reasonable disagreement.

3. Lack of a decision constituence.. This notion says that if one’s decisions lack a meaningful constituence (structure), the decisions are merely the product of “attitudes.” Here the concept means “no justification” or perhaps “sham justification.” It means that your decisions are sort of “willy nilly” or perpetually insincere. Justice O’Connor was said at times to vote in an ad hoc manner. This observation suggests that the bulk of her decisions do not consistently reside in the structure of syllogistic reasoning, core principles, comparison and contrast, a formulaic decision construct or anything remotely “analytical.” (Note: I do not make this assertion; others have). If someone hypothetically votes this way, we might say they vote according to boundless “attitudes.”

4. Simple Volition. This view says that something is “attitudinal” by definition if it involves anything other than the kind of mental constraint that one finds in algebra when solving for X. When one solves for X, it is according to rules that dictate the result independently of the problem-solver’s desire. The student who solves for X cannot change what the correct answer is. His or her desire in this respect is completely irrelevant. Hence, to the extent that any decision-making process – legal or otherwise – is NOT like this, it is “attitudinal.” You will note that this version of attitudinalism has become too vacuous to be remarkable. “Justice must make choices.” Is this headline even worth publicizing?

5. Problem Solving. This view of “attitudinalism” is linked to number 4, but it is nonetheless different. It says that when judges engage in problem solving that explicitly involves making choices about the desirability of alternatives, it is necessarily “attitudinal.” Hence, when one considers social utility, policy costs, transaction effects, workability of a rule, the effect of a decision on docket loads or prison populations – any kind of consequentialism – this involves “attitudes.” Hence, when Earl Warren decided in Brown II that it was wise to involve the local judiciary in the implementation of Brown I – or when one in a “prisoner’s dilemma” discovers that cooperation is prudent – this conclusion is the product of attitudes. Note that this is true even if the consequentialism is objective – say, a fair assessment of costs and benefits. Any kind of policy science, policy analysis, law and economics, pragmatism, etc., is “attitudinal.”

So what is the point here? The point is that political scientists who promote “attitudinalism” have an unrefined and vacuous theory that unfortunately hurts their research (and our discipline). Attitudinalism is a language game. You will note that according to viewpoint number 5, pragmatism is “attitudinalism.” But according to the reasonable-disagreement version (number 2), Dworkin promotes attitudinalism. Number 3 says that O’Connor is attitudinal. Number 1 says that Bush v. Gore is attitudinal. Number 4 says that virtually anything is attitudinal. I must ask: what can a justice do during his or her job that is not attitudinal? To what extent is this nothing other than a language assault rather than an analysis? Why is it that a word that blurs valid distinctions created by philosophers of jurisprudence is given so much license by so many in political science? Is it because the political scientists who call themselves “attitudinalists” are not sufficiently familiar with jurisprudence -- and, if so, how can an empirical discipline be excused from such neglect?

It is not my industry to make trouble. I seek only the removal of obstructions from the pursuit of knowledge. If we are to make any normative sense of the act of judging, we must know what philosophers have said and model these phenomena separately. Only then will we have a better hold upon what judging in supreme tribunals empirically consists of.

Colonial Williamsburg is Biased

I am shocked at how biased Colonial Williamsburg is. It is no more a display of American history than it is a display of parochial anti-federalist political culture -- which is, at best, only a factious component of both American history and the revolution.  I was stunned to find out that Washington's stature was demeaned while Jefferson's was artificially enhanced. I was stunned to have one of the tour guides in uniform tell me that Peyton Randolph would have beaten Washington to become the first president of the United States in spite of Washington stature after the war, had Randolph merely lived. I was also stunned to hear one of the tour guides tell me that Virginia is really the most relevant place to spend the 4th of July in America and not Philadelphia. The rationalization for this nonsense was the fiction that Virginia was ahead of Philadelphia in the push for independence. We all know, of course, that if any American or locality was pushing independence before the others, it was Adams in 1775 (in Philadelphia) and elements in Boston who were the first to face gunpoint.

But aside from telling me lies about American history, perhaps the most egregious myth in Colonial Williamsburg is what is not told. Nowhere is Alexander Hamilton mentioned. Hamilton, of course, was the general in Washington's army who led the battle of Yorktown, which, the last time I looked, was in Virginia. And that means that somewhere near the time of the battle of Yorktown, Hamilton would have slept in the Wythe house in Colonial Williamsburg, along with Washington and the rest of his generals who used the house for a brief stay. Why is it that no monument to Hamilton is present on these grounds? Why do they mention Washington's presence in the home but not Hamilton's? Why is John Marshall not mentioned? He was a Virginian who was at Valley Forge and later created the most important Supreme Court ruling in United States history. Surely, he walked the Williamsburg grounds somewhere.

I'll tell you why they are not mentioned: they are federalist. The same mischief that promotes Jefferson and makes Washington an after-thought also excludes Hamilton and John Marshall. You are lucky to get anything but a pair of funny glasses in the name of Ben Franklin.  It is one thing for Virginia to be so arrogant as to display only its native sons as an advertisement for all that was most important in the birth of America;  it is another thing, however, to construct those sons so that federalists are either demeaned (Washington) or excluded (Marshall).  It is still another thing to take a key American figure who commanded the winning revolutionary battle on Virginia's soil, spent the night in Williamsburg and eventually constructed finance capitalism in America -- and to say absolutely nothing about him in the town where his American adventure passed. If Colonial Williamsburg wants an anti-federalist propaganda show for its vacation spot, so be it. But if it wants more than a parochial view of history -- if it wants what it advertises to non-Virginians who decide to visit -- it should stop peddling historical lies and a one sided view of what the American revolution was all about.