Judgment
判断
A government judges every day: whether a permit is granted, whether a shop is closed, whether a child is taken away tonight. Institution Theory wrote what an institution is for, and handed how to do it, and whether it can be done, to specific theories of institutions; the Theory of Government is one of these, and its subject term is judgment. This paper asks four things: by whom the judgments within a government are made, in whose name they take effect, to whom they answer, and for what. A judgment is made by the person who sits in a public position, and can be attributed to his doing; it takes effect through the position, in the government's name, as an act of the construct, and the construct is the address of attribution, not the subject of the act. This does not mean that an official judgment issues from his own law, nor does his law issue legitimacy to a public decision. This series does not judge in his place, nor teach him how to judge well; it writes to whom, and for what, a judgment answers as it is made, carried out and corrected. To whom: to those it acts on who come to ask. Answering is set out in three layers: to the construct, it ought to give judgment a place to be made, and also let it be open to questioning; to the position, the burden of explanation and the burden of bearing, where explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about, and bearing is booked to each according to its source; to the person, no ought is written. Rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place, and "I was only following the rules" fails on both sides; a government's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure. The front line is included: the configuration must keep the front line's account apart from the account of those who set rules and allocate resources for the front line, and neither is made to carry the other's account. When the line is not crossed and the channel is there, whether those affected have actual control over the relevant power is one of the main questions this series has taken on; explanation and questioning are necessary, not sufficient, and what must be asked is who can activate which procedure, what actual efficacy it has, and whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own. A government's decisions do not take effect by consent, and their acting on people is answered in three layers: its effect in fact; under what authority and procedure it is valid; on what grounds it may normatively be so. That one person disagrees does not by itself cancel the validity at the second layer of a decision that is made under valid authority and procedure and restricts only actions that may be restricted; he keeps his own law, and may disagree, and may question. The third layer has three necessary conditions: not crossing the line, guaranteeing the recognition-based rights embedded, and openness to questioning; necessary, not sufficient. Judgment is fallible; fallibility does not exempt it from answering, and is one of the reasons it must be open to questioning; a claim to perfection is itself a place where questioning is due. When judgment is handed to a machine, the bearing is not handed over with it. The fictional Apple City runs through the whole paper, which interfaces in place with Aristotle, Kant, Scott, Lipsky, Pettit and Arendt, and at its end converses with Weber: this series does not allocate responsibility by leader and official, and compliance does not transfer the executor's share to the one who gave the order. The paper has eight propositions (G1 to G8), listed together at the end.
Introduction
Levee Street is an old street along the river in Apple City. On it stands a stall that a woman kept for twenty years. This year she died, and her daughter wanted to carry the stall on.
Under an ordinance of the City Council, the Permits Office had set rules for street stalls, and they were clearly written: permits are issued only to applicants who run the stall themselves; each block has at most three stalls; new applications are queued in the order received. What the rules did not write about was succession (a note on family operation stands on the last page; §4 takes it up). Processed as a new application, the daughter would be fortieth in the queue; processed as a succession, she would take her mother's spot directly. The thirty-nine people ahead of her were waiting too. The residents across the street also had to pass along this stretch of pavement to get in and out.
Grant it, or not?
Three things first. Whom it concerns: her; the other applicants in the queue; the residents across the street. Which line: neither granting nor refusing crosses a line; livelihood, place in the queue and passage are all interests within the line. Baseline: the ordinary new application the rules have in view.
The daughter has no basic right that requires her to get this spot, and neither do those in the queue; for the residents across the street, a little more trouble getting in and out is an ordinary part of life. Yet this does not make the matter indifferent. The daughter's livelihood, the queuers' place in line and the residents' passage all rest on this one judgment. The line is not crossed, and the judgment must still be made; once it is made, someone must still answer for it.
It is judgments like this that this series writes about.
Institution Theory wrote what an institution is for: five oughts, with the Kingdom of Ends as their direction. At its outset it handed over the other half: "specific theories of institutions, such as the Theory of Government or a theory of the firm, answer how to do it, and they also judge whether a given thing can be done, and what to do when it cannot." (the Institution Theory Prequel, §6) How to do it has to come down to judgment. Rules can be written only up to this point; one step further, someone has to judge. A government is one such construct: it takes a stretch of territory as its jurisdiction, continuously makes and carries out decisions on the public matters within it, and is carried by public positions through which people come and go (the Prequel, §7). This series does not judge in the place of those who sit in these positions, nor teach them how to judge well; it writes to whom, and for what, judgment must answer.
This paper, the first, asks four things: by whom the judgments within a government are made, in whose name they take effect, to whom they answer, and for what.
The answer runs in nine steps. §1 says by whom judgment is made; §2, that answering is set out in three layers; §3 and §4, that rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place, and that "I was only following the rules" does not hold either; §5, that the front line is included; §6, why discretion within the line is a main question of this series; §7, that a government's decisions act on people even without their consent, and that this acting must be answered in three layers; §8, that judging wrongly is possible; §9, where the bearing falls once judgment has been handed to a machine. §10 converses with Weber. The paper has eight propositions (G1 to G8), listed together at the end.
Conventions follow the Prequel, §8: interfacing in place, sources in four tiers, examples from the Apple City Case File shared by the whole series. Works not written in English are quoted in my translation, with the original in parentheses; works written in English, or quoted from a public-domain English translation, are quoted as they stand.
§1 Who Makes the Judgment
The permit examiner processed it as a new application. In the case file he wrote: "The rules do not provide for succession; processed as a new application, fortieth in the queue." Three days later the daughter received the Permits Office's written decision, headed "Apple City Permits Office" and bearing the Permits Office's seal.
Who made this judgment?
The permit examiner made it. The rules did not make it for him. Action Theory set this down as a proposition: "Judgment cannot be done by rules in anyone's place: rules, facts, reasons and feelings can all enter a judgment, yet applying, weighing and taking up remain the work of the one who judges." (Action Theory Paper 1, D6) The rules spoke of the applicant running the stall himself, three stalls to a block, and the order of receipt; they did not speak of succession. To read "does not speak of it" as "a new application," and not as "a succession," was his reading; to place her fortieth as a new application was his weighing; and once the judgment was handed down, to take it up and carry it was his as well. Action Theory says: "Any set of rules that tries to replace it still comes down, in the end, to a person judging whether it applies to the case in front of him." (Action Theory Paper 1, §5)
Yet the decision was not issued in his name. The heading on it was the Permits Office, and what took effect was a decision of Apple City. Power Theory has a very direct sentence: "The state does not sign decrees; key-node officials sign decrees through the state apparatus." (Power Theory P2 §V.3) Apple City does not sign permits either; the permit examiner signs them through the position that is the Permits Office. Institution Theory states this layer as: "the construct is the address of attribution, not the subject of the act" (Institution Theory Z7a). This act can be traced back to the permit examiner's invocation of the Permits Office; it takes effect in Apple City's name, as an act of the construct, and the address of attribution is Apple City as a construct.
So two things hang on one judgment. The judgment is made by the person who sits in the position, and can be attributed to his doing; it takes effect through the position, as an act of the construct, and acts on others, and the address of attribution is the construct. Both are there, and neither hides the other (Z7a).
Two things must therefore be stated precisely.
First: that the judgment is his does not mean that it issues from his own law. When Action Theory writes about judgment, it writes about a person standing before a decision: he stands in the position of taking himself and others as ends, and at the case layer "it is the person's own judgment, can be questioned, can be revised, and may be obstructed in the doing" (Action Theory Paper 1, D5). The permit examiner is such a person too, and has his own law as well. Perhaps in his heart he felt the daughter should have the spot, and judged by the rules all the same; perhaps he felt the rules really should be read this way. These are his, and this series does not avow them on his behalf (Institution Theory Paper 1, §6). The Permits Office's judgment, even if it coincides with what he holds in his heart, does not draw its effect from that, still less its legitimacy. He judges sitting in a position, and what he judges by is the rules, the case file and the authority of the position; his law alone neither makes this judgment take effect nor issues it legitimacy. The converse holds too: if his law disagrees with this judgment, the judgment does not lose its effect on that account. Whether he can refuse in this position by his own law is a matter for §4.
Second: this judgment differs at one point from the judgment Action Theory writes about. The judgment Action Theory writes about lands on the judging person's own action: he goes and speaks, or he does not. The permit examiner's judgment lands on others: the daughter, those in the queue, the residents across the street. It passes through a position, and behind it stand the Permits Office and Apple City, and when necessary compulsion: whoever runs a stall without a permit can be fined by the city, and cleared away. One person's judgment can act on many others because a position stands behind it, and when necessary compulsion as well. That is why judgment within a government calls for a series of its own.
To extend Action Theory's propositions on judgment from a person standing before a decision to a person sitting in a public position is this series' own step (extension; own undertaking). The ground for the extension: the reason behind D6 is structural, namely that the step of applying a rule to the matter in front of one cannot itself be given by a rule (Action Theory Paper 1, §5); this reason does not depend on what premise the one who judges stands on, and so it holds for the permit examiner as well. Action Theory's domain has a further premise: "for a person who does not stand on this premise, this series does not hold" (Action Theory Paper 0, §1.3); here only that reason is borrowed, not that premise. What changes is the path by which the judgment acts, and the address of attribution; these two are given by Institution Theory Z7a, and later sections add Z6, Z12 and Z34. Once the extension is made, the case layer D5 speaks of remains the permit examiner's own judgment as a person; it has its premise, namely that this person stands in the position of taking himself and others as ends, and this premise is not tacitly imposed on everyone who holds a position. Whether a given permit examiner stands in that position in this matter, this series does not judge; what it requires is that, whether he stands there or not, the judgment he makes through the position can answer.
The main line of this series is one sentence (the Prequel, §8):
Toward its internal subjects, a government holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; its judgments cross no line, must be explained, and remain open to questioning.
"Its judgments" in this sentence means exactly the judgments that are made through positions and take effect in the government's name, such as that one. "Cross no line" speaks of this act; it writes no ought for the permit examiner's own judgment as a person. What he thinks in his heart, and what would count as judging well, are his affair. "Holds to" is taken in the wider sense; see the Prequel, §8.
With Aristotle. That judgment lies in particulars and is made by the one who judges: Action Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with Aristotle on this point (Action Theory Paper 0, §3.1). Aristotle says that practical wisdom (φρόνησις, which Ross renders as "practical wisdom") is concerned not only with universals but also with particulars (VI.7); Action Theory also stated there that practical wisdom goes together with the ethical virtues, while the judgment it itself speaks of does not presuppose a character that has been formed. Here this paper only points back to it, and takes up only the sentence that lies closest to government. Aristotle says: "Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind, but their essence is not the same" (Nicomachean Ethics VI.8, trans. Ross; tier A). In the affairs of the city, the controlling kind is legislative wisdom; the kind related to it as particulars are to their universal is commonly called political wisdom, and it is concerned with action and deliberation, "for a decree is a thing to be carried out in the form of an individual act" (VI.8, same source).
The permit examiner's judgment is exactly a decision to be carried out in the form of an individual act. Here lies the common question: in public matters, judgment lands on particulars, and rules cannot reach that step.
The two do not speak of entirely the same thing. Aristotle asks what kind of character makes a person deliberate well in the affairs of the city. His answer lands on the one who judges. This series asks to whom, and for what, a judgment answers once it has been made. Its answer lands on the position and the construct. This is a division of scope, not a refutation: this paper does not write about the character of the one who judges, does not infer from this that character does not matter, and does not say that Aristotle asked the wrong question.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). Give a person of poor character a structure of answering, and he only becomes better at evasion; whether a city judges well comes down, in the end, to the people who sit in its positions.
Reply. Whether judgment is good does depend on the person; this series does not deny that sentence, it only does not write it. It does not write it because to write "ought to judge well" for a person is to write an ought for a person, and this series writes no ought for persons (Institution Theory Z4). What it can say to the construct is: give judgment a place to be made, and let it be open to questioning. A permit examiner of good character can make his judgments in such a construct, and they can be questioned; for one of poor character, his judgments can at least be questioned. Evasion is precisely failing to answer the very matter one is questioned about, and this is exactly what the burden of explanation is checked against (Z34). A reply that misses the point is pursued under the fifth ought (§6, the second antecedent). The structure of answering does not reward evasion; it brings evasion into view.
G1 A judgment within a government is made by the person who sits in a public position, and can be attributed to his doing; it takes effect through the position, in the government's name, as an act of the construct, and the construct is the address of attribution, not the subject of the act. This does not mean that every official judgment issues from his own law, nor does his law issue legitimacy to a public decision; the case layer of which Action Theory D5 speaks has its premise in where a person stands, and that premise is not tacitly imposed on everyone who holds a position. This series does not judge in his place, nor teach him how to judge well; it writes to whom, and for what, this judgment answers once it has acted on others through the position, and when necessary through compulsion (extension; own undertaking).
§2 Answering, in Three Layers
The daughter went to her council member's office to complain: "My mother kept a stall here for twenty years. Why should I have to start again at the back of the queue?" The council member's office passed the complaint on to the Permits Office.
Now someone has to answer. To whom is the answer owed, who answers, and what is to be answered?
To whom, first: to those it acts on who come to ask. Here, that is her; if those who come to ask are people in the queue or the residents across the street, it is them. The construct is the one that answers, not the one answered.
Who answers, and what, is set out in three layers, and these are exactly the three layers of Institution Theory: the construct takes the ought, the position takes accountability, the person takes his own law (Institution Theory Z4).
To the construct: give judgment a place to be made, and also let it be open to questioning.
The first half first. Apple City, as a construct, ought to give the Permits Office's judgment a place to be made. There will always be places the rules do not reach. If the construct wrote every place down rigidly, so that the permit examiner could only stamp clause by clause, judgment would not vanish; it would only move to the positions that write the rules, and the account would move with it. If the construct went the other way, writing nothing and leaving each permit examiner to his own lights, judgment would indeed have a place to be made, but once it was made, those who ask about it would find nothing to hold it against. To give judgment a place to be made means that the construct must set judgment where it can be made and can also be answered for: which matters the rules settle, which are left to the person in the position to judge, and on what basis and with what authority he judges. Institution Theory says that the executor is an end (Z6); the construct may not treat a person as a seal that can only stamp. §4 will add that the construct's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure (Z12). The upstream of this half is Z6, and Z12 within the first ought: both draw a floor, that the executor may not be sealed off. The further step from this floor to the positive demand "give judgment a place to be made" is undertaken by this series.
Then the second half. Once a judgment has been made, it must be open to questioning. The daughter's question must have somewhere to be raised and someone to receive it, and once received it must be answered. This is Institution Theory's fifth ought landing on the judgments of a government (Z34); how channels are set at each level belongs to Paper 6 (G35).
To the position: the burden of explanation and the burden of bearing.
A position does not hold an ought; it holds accountability. On Accountability · Wei establishes accountability as a term: it is "the answering load the recipient holds in that position" (On Accountability F36). What a position is, it also states finely: its F37 is titled "A Position Is a Single Registration Event." The permit examiner's taking up this post is a registration; the section chief of the Permits Office has his registration; the Permits Office, within Apple City, also holds a position. On Accountability also says: "Only a subject can hold a duty; construct and subject alike can hold accountability" (On Accountability F39). So the sentences here all speak of accountability, not of duty.
Accountability here is of two kinds.
One is the burden of explanation. The Permits Office must explain: why it processed this as a new application; what the rules say and what they do not; whether the permit examiner had any discretionary authority, whether he used it, and why. On the burden of explanation, Institution Theory has a sentence that matters a great deal: an institution "bears the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced, and must answer the very matter it is questioned about" (Z34). This is an ought addressed to the construct, and it lands on positions by way of accountability (Z5): the position the Permits Office holds within Apple City, and the permit examiner's and the section chief's own positions, are all among them. What the daughter asked was "Why should I have to start again at the back of the queue?" To answer "That is what the rules provide" does not answer it: the rules are precisely silent on succession, and what she is asking is how this silent place is to be read.
The other is the burden of bearing, that is, of where the account falls. If this judgment was wrong, where is the account booked? Institution Theory says: "the construct's name does not shield an individual responsibility that has independent grounds, and the construct's failure is not automatically transferred onto any one person" (Z6). How well the permit examiner read the rules is the account of his position; how the section chief signed off is the section chief's account; that the rules left succession blank is the account of the place that set the rules; how the Permits Office fitted these together is the account of the Permits Office as a construct. Each account is checked by its own source, authority, registration and conduct, as How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) has it (F6 §1.3), and none settles another.
To the person: no ought is written.
For the permit examiner as a person, this series writes no ought. Whether he should sympathize with the daughter, whether he should be anxious on her behalf, is his own law. The construct can require his position to explain and to bear; it cannot require him as a person to think in any particular way.
Of these three layers, what is said to the construct and what is said to the position are each said in their own place, and are not mixed. There is a well-known way of dividing that splits responsibility in a political order by kinds of person into two: one kind for officials, one for leaders. This paper divides differently; §10 converses with that division.
G2 The answering of a judgment is set out in three layers; those to whom it answers are those it acts on who come to ask. To the construct: it ought to give judgment a place to be made (from the floor of Z6 and Z12 to this positive demand; own undertaking), and also to let it be open to questioning. To the position: it holds the burden of explanation and the burden of bearing; explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about, and bearing is booked separately by source, authority, registration and conduct; the construct's name does not shield an individual's account, and the construct's failure is not automatically transferred onto an individual. To the person: no ought is written.
§3 Rules Cannot Judge in Anyone's Place
The same year, an inspector from the Health Department made a routine inspection of a restaurant on Levee Street. The restaurant had put in a new kind of charcoal warming cabinet, which was not on the inspection checklist; every other item on the checklist passed. The kitchen was small, with only one small vent. The inspector judged that in this closed kitchen the cabinet might let carbon monoxide build up, and ordered the restaurant closed on the spot, pending testing by the state.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the owner and the staff; those who come to eat. Which line: if the risk is real, the life-substrate of the staff and diners is at stake; the closure order acts on the owner's business, which is an action that may be restricted. Baseline: the ordinary kitchen equipment the checklist lists.
The checklist is a rule. Since it did not list this item, the inspector had to judge: was it left off because it poses no risk, or because whoever wrote the checklist did not think of it? The checklist itself cannot answer that. Action Theory says: "the step of applying a rule to the matter in front of one cannot itself be given by a rule" (Action Theory Paper 1, §5). The checklist could add an item, "other equipment that may produce harmful gases," but that item too would need someone standing in the kitchen to judge whether this cabinet counts.
With Kant. Applying rules to particulars takes judgment, and judgment cannot in turn be taught by rules: if general logic wished to give general direction on how to distinguish whether something does or does not stand under a rule, it could do so only by means of another rule, and that rule would again require direction from judgment. Action Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with Kant on this passage of the Critique of Pure Reason, where it and D6 illuminate each other (Action Theory Paper 0, §3.2); here this paper only points back to it, and adds only the example that follows the passage. Kant says: "A physician therefore, a judge or a statesman, may have in his head many admirable pathological, juridical, or political rules ... and yet in the application of these rules he may very possibly blunder" (Introduction to the Analytic of Principles, "Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General," A133–134/B172–173, trans. Meiklejohn, public-domain English translation; tier A; the English translation carries no A/B pagination; the A/B pages given follow the standard citation). What is spoken of here is determining judgment: the rule is already there, and what is judged is whether this case stands under it. It is not the same place as the judgment of the Critique of Judgment, which §7 will touch on, and the two are marked separately.
At this point the two concur. Where they part is the latter half: what Kant goes on to say is how judgment is formed, through examples and practice; this series does not write about that. Action Theory, too, states that it does not ask how habits are formed (Action Theory Paper 0, §1.1), and the judgment it speaks of does not presuppose a character that has been formed (ibid., §3.1). What this series writes is this: since rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place, once a judgment is made there must be somewhere for it to answer.
With Aristotle on equity. What to do where the rules do not reach, Aristotle answers in another way. He says that "the equitable is just, but not the legally just but a correction of legal justice"; for "all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to make a universal statement which shall be correct" (Nicomachean Ethics V.10, trans. Ross; tier A). The measure of the correction is "to say what the legislator himself would have said had he been present, and would have put into his law if he had known" (ibid.). Hence equity is "a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality" (ibid.). Equity is not breaking the law at will; it makes good the law at the places where the law itself falls short.
The common question is clear: rules are universal, matters are particular. Where the two part has to be written against his measure. His measure is what the legislator would say if he were present: what the inspector should ask is how the person who wrote the checklist would judge if he were standing in this kitchen. This series does not take this measure as the standard of judgment, nor does it set up another; it does not teach judgment. It asks something else: whether the inspector judges by this measure or by another, once he has judged, his judgment must answer to the owner and to the diners, and must answer the very matter they ask about. What the legislator would say if present can be one reason in the inspector's explanation; it does not answer for this judgment in its stead.
With Scott. James C. Scott wrote about how the state sees society: in order to see clearly and to govern, the state simplifies complex local life into tables and schemes; large-scale schemes of improvement often fail because such simplification throws away local practical knowledge (mētis), knowledge that lies mainly on the side of practitioners and the governed (per the Yale University Press book description; tier C). The inspection checklist is one such simplification.
Here only the concurring half is taken: a rule is a simplification, and applying it to the matter at hand takes judgment. The other half has to be written the other way round, without a quiet substitution. In this case, Scott's practical knowledge lies first of all on the cook's side: how this cabinet is used in this kitchen, when it is turned on and for how long, he knows. The judgment the inspector made standing in the kitchen is not thereby practical knowledge; it may be another kind of simplification, pressing down the cook's knowledge on the state's behalf. §8 will show that this judgment was afterward not supported by the test. One reminder can be brought back from Scott: an officeholder's judgment does not become practical knowledge because it was made on the spot, nor is it thereby exempt from questioning.
With Xunzi and Huang Zongxi. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with them on governing law and governing persons (Institution Theory Paper 0, §8). This section goes one step further down from there: whichever comes first, law or persons, the judgments persons make all face the question of to whom they must answer.
Rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place. The next section takes up the other side of this: "I was only following the rules" cannot shield the one who judges either. The two sides make one proposition, stated at the end of the next section (G3).
§4 "I Was Only Following the Rules"
Back to the stall on Levee Street. When the complaint reached the Permits Office, the permit examiner said: "I was only following the rules. I referred it up."
He had indeed referred it up. While handling the case he had entered a note in the internal system: "The rules say nothing on succession; suggest referring this up." The section chief minuted four words: "Proceed per the rules." The referral went no further than the section chief. Asked about it, the section chief said: "That is how the rules are written." The Permits Office's reply said: "The permit examiner handled it according to procedure."
The three say one and the same thing: I was only following the rules.
Institution Theory has said that this sentence fails on both sides: "'I was only following the rules' fails on both sides: it cannot make the executor disappear into the construct, and it cannot make the construct disappear behind the executor." (Institution Theory Z12) There it was speaking of a mill (Institution Theory Paper 2, §5). Placed in a government, the shape is the same and the weight is greater: a government's rules often have compulsion behind them, many people carry them out, and still more people are reached by them.
On one side, it cannot make the permit examiner disappear into the construct. He referred it up; that is an entry of his, recorded under his name; but referring it up does not read the rules for him. On the last page of the rules there is a note: "Family operation may be recognized at discretion." He did not see it (§6). Missing the note is the account of his position, and it is not settled because the section chief minuted "Proceed per the rules." Institution Theory says: "That a demand bears the name of procedure does not prove that complying with it is within the line." (Z12) In this case nothing on the applicant's side touches the line, and the same reasoning still applies: having followed procedure does not prove that the judgment was right (extension; own undertaking: Z12 speaks of the line; here it is borrowed for whether a judgment is right, on the ground that, for both, the name of procedure proves only that the procedure was gone through, not the content).
On the other side, it cannot make the Permits Office disappear behind the permit examiner either. "The permit examiner handled it according to procedure" is what the Permits Office said on Apple City's behalf; what it means is that the trouble arose at the stage of handling. But the procedure was configured by the Permits Office: the rules were set by it under the ordinance, and they leave succession blank; the note is printed on the last page of the rules, and the handling guidelines the Permits Office issued to permit examiners do not contain it; referral stops at the section chief, and when the section chief minuted "Proceed per the rules," he did not look at the note. That the section chief signed off without looking at the note is an entry of the section chief's; that the configuration is as it is, is an entry of the Permits Office's.
This section has one more thing to say, and it falls on the construct's side. Institution Theory says that "a construct's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure," and that "this is checked by the threshold of sealing off, and does not mean that refusal has no consequences, nor that no post may ever end" (Z12). In this case, when the permit examiner found the rules doubtful, all he could do was refer it up; the referral stopped at the section chief, and he followed the section chief's instruction. What would happen if he did not? If it would cost him an entry against his name, that is a consequence, not sealing off. If not complying meant losing this position, while the question "how should the rules be read?" had nowhere to be sent, then the configuration would have reached that point. On which side this case actually falls has to be checked against the Permits Office's actual configuration; this paper does not issue the full ruling in its stead. What must be made clear is what is checked: not "why didn't he refuse?" but "could he refuse, and when he could not, was there a path for this question to be sent to a place able to review it?" If that is missing, then by Z12 the line has already been crossed on the permit examiner; it falls under the first ought (Z9), and the account lies with Apple City. This line falls on the permit examiner, not on the applicant; when the Introduction said "neither granting nor refusing crosses a line," it spoke of the latter.
Weber's official. There is an account of the official that bears directly on "I was only following the rules." An official may state his dissent; if his superior insists, he complies, on the responsibility of the one who gave the order, carrying it out conscientiously, exactly as if it corresponded to his own conviction. This is the honor Weber, in Politik als Beruf, set for the official. It differs from "I was only following the rules": the official must first voice his dissent. At one point it lies next to that sentence: the responsibility for the content of the order lies with the one who gave it. Where this paper differs from it is gathered in §10.
G3 Rules can enter a judgment, yet applying, weighing and taking up remain the work of the one who judges; rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place. "I was only following the rules" fails on both sides: it cannot make the executor disappear into the construct, and it cannot make the construct disappear behind the executor. A government's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure; this is checked by the threshold of sealing off, and does not mean that refusal has no consequences. That reviewable procedure is checked by the three conditions of Z34: it is independent of the party questioned, the executor can actually reach it, and sending a matter to it for review brings no retaliation (extension; own undertaking; §10).
§5 The Front Line
In the same week, two other people in Apple City each made a judgment.
One was a patrol officer. At night, outside a bar on Levee Street, two people were arguing, and the argument rose to shoving. He walked over and had to judge: step in now, or watch a little longer? Step in too early, and a quarrel is treated as a fight; too late, and someone may already have been hit (what happened later that night, Paper 2 goes on to tell).
The other was a social worker. She received a report from a neighbor that a nine-year-old child was being harmed at home. She had to judge: take the child away tonight, or come back tomorrow? The protocols of the Department of Children and Families required her to decide within twenty-four hours of receiving a report; each social worker in the department was responsible for sixty families.
Add the permit examiner on Levee Street, and there are three.
For the patrol officer's case, three things first. Whom it concerns: the one who may be hit; the one who may strike. Which line: whether one party's body will be crossed; and stepping in on the other party must itself be a limit. Baseline: before the fight begins.
For the social worker's case, three things first. Whom it concerns: the child, and his father. Which line: the child's body and growth. Baseline: a home without harm.
For the permit examiner's case, the three things were given in the Introduction.
All three stand on the outermost front line. They sign no decrees and write no rules, yet the judgments they make every day land on the people of Apple City, often more directly than the documents the mayor signs. This series counts them among officeholders: "officeholders" means everyone who holds a public position and judges in it, the front line included (the Prequel, §7).
With front-line judgments, two errors of accounting come most easily.
One is to charge the whole account to the front line. Suppose that she did not go that night, because reports on three other families came in at the same time and she could go to only one first; the child was hurt again that night, and the department said: "It was her error of judgment." (In fact she did go that night; Paper 2 goes on to tell it.) The twenty-four hours and the sixty families were not set by her. Institution Theory says that the construct's failure "is not automatically transferred onto any one person" (Z6).
The other is to push the whole account back onto the configuration. Still within this supposition, the social worker says: "Those are the protocols, that is the staffing. What could I do?" But within those twenty-four hours, which family to go to first, and on seeing what to decide on removal, were hers to judge. The configuration's faults do not settle the account of this judgment of hers. Institution Theory says: "the construct's name does not shield an individual responsibility that has independent grounds" (Z6).
So the construct's configuration must keep the two accounts apart: one falls on the front-line position, the other on the positions that set rules and allocate resources for the front line. Keeping them apart does not mean that the two can always be cut cleanly; it means that neither swallows the other, and each is checked by its own source, authority, registration and conduct. In a department where each social worker is responsible for sixty families, the position in the department that set that number must explain: on what grounds this number, what is to be done when it cannot be met, and where the account falls when something goes wrong.
With Lipsky. Michael Lipsky calls people such as teachers, police officers and social workers street-level bureaucrats. He says that they wield considerable discretion in carrying out public programs, and in effect make policy; heavy workloads, ambiguous goals and limited resources set policy on paper far apart from policy as actually carried out; to cope, they ration resources, screen applicants, and turn their dealings with people into routine, and these shortcuts, taken together, can change the direction of policy (per the description of Street-Level Bureaucracy published by the Russell Sage Foundation; tier C).
Here is the common question: the front line is included, and front-line judgment is what policy actually looks like. This paper agrees, and takes this as a premise (tier C).
Where they part is scope. Lipsky writes how the front line judges and why it judges that way; that is description. This series does not write how the front line ought to judge; it writes how the account falls once these judgments have been made. The coping methods he describes show exactly why the configuration's slot must answer: routine is mostly not a preference the front-line people invented for themselves; it is pressed out of them by workloads and resources.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). The front line's coping methods are entangled with the configuration; you say the two accounts are kept apart, but in practice they cannot be; insist on splitting them, and those above will only push it onto those below.
Reply. What this series requires is not that the two accounts can always be cut apart, but that neither swallows the other. Where they cannot be told apart, it must still be written down where they cannot, and each side must explain; "they cannot be told apart" may not be used to settle the account of either side.
G4 The front line is included. Whether a patrol officer steps in, whether a social worker takes a child away, whether a permit examiner grants an application: all are judgments, and all must answer. The construct's configuration ought to keep it clear whether explanation and bearing fall on the front-line position or on the positions that set rules and allocate resources for the front line; neither is made to carry the other's account.
§6 Discretion within the Line, and Actual Control
The daughter did not let it rest there. The Permits Office has an objection procedure: anyone who disputes an approval decision may object in writing within thirty days. Objections bypass the permit examiner and the section chief, and are received by a review officer in the Permits Office's Regulations Unit; the review officer does not belong to the Approvals Section. Whether to look into an objection, and whether it has been fully answered, are not for the Permits Office to decide; the reply is signed by the review officer and sent directly to the applicant, and the Permits Office cannot change it.
She objected. The review officer replied in writing within the time limit. The reply answered the very matter she had asked about: why it had not been processed as a succession. The reply also admitted that the permit examiner, when handling the case, had not seen the note in the rules, "Family operation may be recognized at discretion." The review officer recommended that the Permits Office reconsider.
The Permits Office did not reconsider. The objection procedure gives the review officer only the power to "recommend"; whether to reconsider, the Permits Office decides for itself. It gave its reasons in writing: "The note says only that it may be recognized at discretion, not that it ought to be; the original decision stands."
The shape of this matter is worth stopping to look at. The line is not crossed: neither granting nor refusing crosses anyone's line (Introduction). The channel is there: the daughter could object, someone received it, it was answered on time and to the point, and no one made things hard for her because she objected. Yet though her question reaches, it moves nothing: that judgment remains that judgment. Over the past five years, every objection this procedure received was answered on time, and not one changed a decision.
Institution Theory Paper 0, in its conversation with Pettit, came upon this place. It said that Institution Theory checks a construct by two checks: whether it crosses the line, judged by limit and violation; whether it can be questioned, checked by the three conditions of the channel. Having checked, it found: "There is also one place neither check reaches: a complaint channel may be independent, usable and bound to answer, and still it must be asked separately whether those affected really control the relevant power of interference (§11, the fourth slot)" (Institution Theory Paper 0, §4.2). There it drafted an objection on Pettit's behalf: "A mill opens a complaint channel, but the channel has no teeth, and the mill still dominates people." It did not say that this slot had been answered; it only registered it as a research candidate: "The line is not crossed and the channel is there: do those affected have actual control over the relevant power? Wide discretion within authority is one instance." (Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the fourth slot)
This series has taken on this slot (the Prequel, §9). The reason is on Levee Street: many of a government's judgments are exactly judgments of this kind. The line is not crossed, the channel is there, it is within authority, and the discretion is wide. A series that checks only for line-crossing and only for channels has nothing more to say about these judgments; yet those these judgments act on live their days inside them.
This slot has to keep hold of two antecedents, or it will slide into other places.
The first antecedent: the line is not crossed. A hidden line-crossing does not belong in this slot; it belongs to Institution Theory's first ought: the construct's acts cross no line against any internal subject (Z9). It is judged by that ought.
The second antecedent: the channel is there. The three conditions of the channel are checked one by one (Z34). Independence: the objection bypasses the permit examiner and the section chief; whether to look into it and whether it has been fully answered are not for the Permits Office to decide; the reply is signed and sent directly, and the Permits Office cannot change it. Independence is functional; what it guards against is "the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own" (Z34), and here the Permits Office cannot seal it off. Within reach: she could object; an objection in writing within thirty days is all it takes. No retaliation: no one made things hard for her because she objected. Nor did the burden of explanation go unmet: the review officer's reply answered the very matter she had asked about; in not reconsidering, the Permits Office also gave its reasons in writing. Whether those reasons stand can still be questioned further (Paper 6, §2, G36a); it is not a refusal without reasons.
Nor is this sealing off review. Institution Theory says that questioning must be independent, the reason being that "the party under review may not monopolize the decision on whether a challenge exists and whether it is over"; and it also says that "a particular matter can be answered and closed" (Z35a). In this case her objection was received, and whether to look into it and whether it had been fully answered were not decided by the Permits Office; it was answered, and closed; under new evidence or new problems it can be questioned again (Z37). What the Permits Office holds is not whether this question exists or whether it is over, but whether, once it has been answered, the decision moves. What is missing is not review; it is efficacy on the decision after review.
Suppose that the review officer's reply had been only a stock phrase, "Upon review, the original decision complies with the rules," without answering the matter she asked about; then what would be missing is the burden of explanation, which belongs to the fifth ought (Z34), not to this slot. Suppose that the entrance to objections were held by the Approvals Section, or that the review officer's reply could go out only with the Permits Office's nod; then what would be missing is independence, which also belongs to the fifth ought, not to this slot. What this slot speaks of is this: the question reaches, it is answered, and still nothing moves.
Two further readings must be headed off.
One is: no decision has been reversed, so control has failed. Not necessarily. Suppose that the procedure had the efficacy of re-examination, and only in these five years there happened to be no new material sufficient for a reversal; then that no decision has been reversed would not show that control has failed. No reversal is a signal to be checked, not by itself a diagnosis. What must be checked is the structure: when a procedure receives reasons sufficient for reversal, can it have the decision determined afresh? In the Levee Street case, what the check finds is that it cannot: the review officer verified an applicable condition that had been missed, and the Permits Office could still decide on its own not to reconsider.
The other is: control means that every person affected can veto. It does not. Control is not a veto, nor does it mean that a change must be made each time as someone wishes. Suppose that the residents across the street objected, demanding that all stalls on this block be abolished, and the Permits Office changed nothing; that would not show that the residents had lost control.
So what this paper asks in this slot is three things: who can activate which procedure on what matter; what actual efficacy this procedure has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; and whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own. For the Levee Street objection procedure, all three can be checked. Activation: the daughter can activate it, without the Permits Office's consent. Actual efficacy: on reasons, it has some: someone must answer, and answer to the point; on actions, none: whether to reconsider is decided by the Permits Office alone; on rules, there is no path within this procedure for sending "how succession is to be read" for revision; on the holding of office, it touches nothing. Whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own: at the layer of reasons it cannot, since the reply is signed and sent directly and the Permits Office cannot change it; at the layer of actions it can: the Permits Office alone can disregard the review officer's recommendation, and the reasons it gives for not reconsidering are, in this configuration, checked by no one but itself.
This paper checks only this far. What the functions of control are, and how each is kept from being cancelled by the party questioned, Paper 6 answers (G36a).
With Pettit. Philip Pettit understands freedom as non-domination: no one can interfere in your affairs arbitrarily, and arbitrary means uncontrolled. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already held this conversation (§4.2); here this paper only points back to it, and adds one point, so as not to write this section's step larger than it is. Pettit himself requires control to be real: in a later book he says that the people control the state only insofar as they have an individualized, unconditioned and efficacious influence (On the People's Terms, Chapter 5 abstract, per the Cambridge University Press web page; tier C). So to go from contestability to actual efficacy is not a step by which this series goes beyond him. This series' own step is to connect control with the three conditions of the channel: independence, being within reach, no retaliation (Z34). How the control that non-domination requires connects with these three conditions is exactly the question Institution Theory Paper 0 left (§11, the sixth slot), and Paper 6 answers it (G36a).
One more difference is written here. In that chapter's abstract Pettit restates his argument: a state is legitimate to the extent that the order it imposes on its citizens is under the people's control (ibid.). This series does not ground legitimacy this way. The legitimacy of a government's power has necessary conditions of its own: not crossing the line (the first ought, Z9); guaranteeing the recognition-based rights it has embedded, with no de-righting, no empty shell, and withdrawal or amendment made in public and open to questioning (Paper 3, G17, G19, G22); openness to questioning (the fifth ought, Z34). The step from these oughts to necessary conditions of legitimacy is undertaken by this series; why the three are necessary, §7 says condition by condition. Control is a question within the line, after these; this series takes it on, and does not use it to define legitimacy.
G5 When the line is not crossed and the channel is there, whether those affected have actual control over the relevant power is one of this series' main questions (taking on Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the fourth slot). Explanation and questioning are necessary, not sufficient. What must be asked is: who can activate which procedure on what matter; what actual efficacy this procedure has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own. Control does not mean that every person affected has a veto, nor that each time a change must be made; that no decision has been reversed over a period does not by itself diagnose a failure of control. The functions of control are answered in Paper 6.
§7 Acting without Consent
That year the City Council also passed a new parking rule: street parking in the old quarter became metered, with no parking after 10 p.m. One resident of the old quarter disagreed. He went on parking on the street at night as before, and received a ticket.
He asked: "I never agreed to it. By what right does this rule govern me?"
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the residents, businesses and visitors of the old quarter. Which line: within the line; parking is an action that may be restricted, and the new rule touches no one's position that cannot be overwritten. Baseline: the old rule.
This question the Conflict Treatise has answered between two people. Two people finish a quarrel and set a rule to go by from then on; that rule's binding force "must pass separately through each party's own law, or come from a procedure both have acknowledged"; and again: "It is not a third law above the two." (Conflict Treatise §24) The answer is very clean, but placed in Apple City it is not enough. The parking rule did not pass through this resident's law: he disagrees. Does it come from a procedure he has acknowledged? He has never said to the City Council, "Whatever you decide, I'll accept." A government's decisions are often neither.
Yet it acts on him all the same: the ticket was written; if he does not pay it, his car may be towed.
This acting must be answered in three layers.
The first layer, its effect in fact: the ticket, the tow. This layer says only that it has acted on him, not that it may.
The second layer, under what authority and procedure it is valid: whether the City Council has authority over street parking in the old quarter, whether the rule went through the procedure it should have, whether the penalty was imposed according to the rule. This layer speaks of validity, not legitimacy. A valid decision can also be illegitimate.
The third layer, on what grounds it may normatively be so. This paper cannot finish answering this layer. It has several necessary conditions: not crossing the line (the first ought, Z9); guaranteeing the recognition-based rights embedded, with no de-righting, no empty shell, and withdrawal or amendment made in public and open to questioning (Paper 3, G17, G19, G22); openness to questioning (the fifth ought, Z34). Why the three are necessary conditions is said condition by condition.
- Not crossing the line. The third layer asks on what grounds something may normatively be so; crossing the line is violation (Rights Theory P5 F21); by the first ought, the construct's acts cross no line against any internal subject (Z9), and for the stretch that is violation there is no ground that could be used to answer "on what grounds" (Paper 2, §1). Where this condition is missing, that stretch is read by the first ought. And not crossing the line only passes this one gate: when Rights Theory drew this line, it said that "staying within the limit makes a constraint neither legitimate nor illegitimate" (Rights Theory P5 F21).
- Guaranteeing the recognition-based rights embedded. This is the undertaking this series sets in Paper 3 (G17): where a right has been embedded and the government holds its power side, yet does not let the rights side operate, its power at that point is illegitimate. Without the guarantee, it must be questioned (Paper 3, §1); with it, the power is not thereby legitimate (Paper 3, G22).
- Openness to questioning. A government can never be perfect (§8, G7; this is this series' undertaking); a lapse is always somewhere, so there must always be a place for correction. If a decision has no channel through which it can be questioned, then even if its content is reasonable, those it acts on have no institutionally initiable position of answering and rectification; the party questioned having checked itself does not count as having answered (Z35a). Lacking this condition is itself a lapse of the fifth ought, and must be questioned; so, under the normative demands this series undertakes, reasonable content or valid procedure alone cannot finish answering the "on what grounds" that the third layer asks. Fallibility explains why correction must go on; it does not say that every decision without a channel is wrong, nor that its content is beyond anyone's judgment.
Taken together, the three are necessary, not sufficient: with all three in place, on what grounds a decision may normatively be so has still not been fully answered; on what grounds compulsion stands is written in Paper 2 (G9 to G11). The step from these oughts to necessary conditions of legitimacy is undertaken by this series, and its reasons are those just given condition by condition. This paper establishes only the place of this layer; of the three, openness to questioning as a necessary condition of the third layer is established in this paper (G6); of the other two, not crossing the line carries over the first ought, and the guarantee is established in Paper 3. Openness to questioning is something the third layer must have, not the completion of the third layer.
With the three layers kept apart, one sentence can be stated precisely: that one person disagrees does not by itself cancel the validity at the second layer of a decision made under valid authority and procedure. This resident disagrees, and the rule takes effect on him all the same.
This sentence has its range, and it must be stated at once. It speaks only of actions that may be restricted. Suppose that the rule also had a clause: anyone who publicly opposes the new rule is fined double. What that clause penalizes is not parking but his saying "I disagree"; this touches a position that cannot be overwritten, crosses the line, and is judged by Institution Theory's first ought, not here (on the limits of compulsion itself, Paper 2, G13).
Within actions that may be restricted, his disagreeing does not leave him with nothing. He keeps his own law: he may disagree, may say so, may question. He did question, and the City Council replied in writing with its reasons for the fees. What he keeps also includes not having this rule legislate for him: the rule can require him not to park at night; it cannot require him to identify with the view that "not parking at night is right."
To extend that sentence of the Conflict Treatise, said between two people, to a public decision is a step of this series (extension; own undertaking). Between two people, binding force either passes through each one's own law or comes from a procedure both have acknowledged; with a public decision, often neither is present, so validity and legitimacy must be written apart, and openness to questioning established as a necessary condition of the third layer.
One more boundary must be drawn here. Action Theory says that it "does not prove the standing of one person to pass a verdict on another's case and claim his assent" (Action Theory Paper 0, §9.3); this item has already been reassigned to the Critiques (the Action Theory Prequel, §5 (V-4)). This series does not prove it either. The Second Critique cuts this item into two halves: acting on one's own judgment of another is the practical half; "requiring the other to assent to that judgment is the half that belongs to judgment, and it goes to the critique of judgment" (The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §6). Apple City's parking rule does not take effect by requiring this resident's assent; it rests on authority and procedure, and is bound by questioning. What the Theory of Government has to answer is on what grounds this acting without consent stands, and where it stops; the standing to claim assent belongs to the critique of judgment, and is not taken up here.
With Hart and Raz. Separating the second layer from the third has a near neighbor in jurisprudence: Hart places whether a law is valid on the social fact that officials accept the rule of recognition, and separates it from the law's moral merit. The Law Series has already conversed with Hart, and there it does not make this separation: validity and justification are, in it, not two questions but two faces of one and the same question (Law Series Supplement §3). What this paper separates in the second and third layers is the address of answering: under what authority and procedure something is valid, and on what grounds it may normatively be so, must be answered separately; this is not Hart's social-fact thesis, nor does it change the Law Series' non-separation in the genesis of law. The relation between the two this paper registers, and does not rule on. Raz holds that the legitimacy of authority comes from its helping people better conform to reasons they already have; the Law Series has also conversed with him (Law Series Supplement §5); here this paper only points back to it.
With Kant and Arendt. Kant treats the relation between judgment and assent in the Critique of Judgment: a judgment of taste demands everyone's agreement. To explain on what grounds it can make this demand, he speaks of common sense (sensus communis), and in passing writes three maxims of common human understanding: to think for oneself; to think in the position of everyone else; always to think in accord with oneself; and he says that they do not belong to the critique of taste itself (§40). The Beauty of Non Dubito has already read this place, and written where it meets it and where it parts from it (The Beauty of Non Dubito (Aesthetics, Ray 12), §4); here this paper only points back to it.
The Beauty of Non Dubito has already conversed with Hannah Arendt's enlarged mentality, together with her saying that judgment rests on a potential agreement with others (§7); here this paper only points back to it, and takes up only the two models of her theory of judgment, and the separation between a judgment's holding up and a decision's being valid. Her theory of judgment has two models: the earlier one stands on the side of the actor, and judgment is the capacity of those who decide how to act in the public realm; the later one stands on the side of the spectator, and judgment is non-participants looking back on what has already happened (per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (hereafter SEP), "Hannah Arendt," §6.4; tier C).
What intersects with this section is her earlier model: judgment belongs to those who act. Two things must be told apart here. What she cares about is whether a judgment can hold up among many people; what this section speaks of is a decision's being valid under authority and procedure. The latter does not rest on the assent of each person, but that does not answer her question: whether a valid decision is a judgment that has taken others' standpoints into account can still be asked. This series does not write this question as an ought for officeholders; that would be writing an ought for persons, and teaching judgment. What it can do is make this question askable: the burden of explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about (Z34). Whether the answer was to the point is checked against the matter questioned, not against how the one answering thought it through. The two intersect here; they are not equal. Her later, spectator's judgment does not lie where a government's judgment lies: a government's judgment is an actor's judgment, and once made it acts on people.
G6 A government's decisions do not take effect by the consent of those they decide upon. Their acting on people is answered in three layers: its effect in fact; under what authority and procedure it is valid; on what grounds it may normatively be so. That one person disagrees does not by itself cancel the validity at the second layer of a decision that is made under valid authority and procedure and restricts only actions that may be restricted; he keeps his own law, and may disagree, and may question. Subject positions that cannot be overwritten are not among these; a decision that crosses the line is read separately under the first ought. Openness to questioning is a necessary condition of the third layer, not its completion (extension; own undertaking). Not crossing the line and guaranteeing the recognition-based rights embedded are likewise necessary conditions of the third layer (the first ought; Paper 3, G17); why the three are necessary conditions, §7 says (own undertaking).
§8 Judging Wrongly Is Possible
Two weeks after the restaurant on Levee Street was closed, the state's test results came out: under that kitchen's ventilation, the charcoal warming cabinet did not exceed the carbon monoxide limit.
The test did not support the risk the inspector had suspected. Whether he judged wrongly at the time has to be checked: what exactly he judged, whether his grounds at the time stand, and whether the scope of the closure and its two-week duration had grounds.
When Action Theory placed judgment, it put this sentence up front: "Judging wrongly is possible; this series does not guarantee that anyone judges right" (Action Theory Paper 0, §1.4). So it is with a government's judgments. Rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place (§3), so judgment can be wrong; this is not some inspector's carelessness, it is the shape of judging itself. So this sentence does not depend on this case to be borne out: even if, once checked, this judgment of the inspector's stands, a government's judgments are fallible all the same.
Fallibility does not exempt a judgment from answering.
Not being exempt from answering does not mean that the inspector must be punished. When he judged, what he saw was a kitchen with only one small vent, and a cabinet not on the checklist; to close first and wait for the test may have had its reasons at the time. How this entry of his is recorded is checked by his authority and by the facts he saw at the time (Z6). What not being exempt says is this: a judgment can be wrong, and it lands on others, so someone must explain, and the loss must be booked. The Health Department must explain: on what grounds it judged at the time that there was a risk, why it chose closure rather than some other measure, and whether, now that the test does not support it, the original judgment still stands. The owner's loss from two weeks' closure must have a place where it is reckoned: whether it is compensated, who compensates, how much, and on what grounds. On what grounds a closure order, as a form of compulsion, stands, and whether it is compensated, Paper 2 sets out in detail (G10, G11). All this section has to say is: answering is not waived because "there were reasons at the time," nor does it wait until a wrong judgment has been established; whether the judgment was wrong is exactly what is to be checked in the answering, not settled by a single sentence from the test results.
Even a right judgment must be able to say on what grounds (Z34); fallibility is a further reason. Precisely because judgment can be wrong, and a wrong judgment lands on others, there must be a path by which those it acts on can ask, and by which errors can be found and corrected. The owner can ask, the Health Department must answer, and once the test results are out the closure order must be lifted: this path must be open. The step from "judgment is fallible" to "public judgment must be open to questioning" is a step of this series (own undertaking): Action Theory speaks of one person's judgment being fallible, and gives no warrant that anyone judges right; with public judgment, a wrong judgment acts on others, and the path of asking cannot depend only on whether the one who judges is willing to be asked.
This must be said through to the end. No department of Apple City will always judge right; nor will its government. Here this series undertakes one sentence: a government can never be perfect. This is not a discouraged sentence; it says that being questioned is the normal state, not the exception. And from this: wherever perfection is claimed, the claim itself is a place where questioning is due. Institution Theory says that an institution cannot acquire the standing of permanent exemption from questioning, and "may not close off the conditions of questioning and correction on the grounds that it claims to cultivate, that it has already reformed, or that its aims are right" (Z37). If the Health Department said, "Our inspections are never wrong, so there is no need for review," that sentence would be the first thing to be questioned.
G7 A government's judgments are fallible. Fallibility does not exempt them from answering; fallibility is precisely one of the reasons they must be open to questioning (own undertaking). A government can never be perfect; a claim to perfection is itself a place where questioning is due.
§9 Judgment Handed to a Machine
An Apple City ordinance provides a heating subsidy for low-income households: a household whose income is below a set line can receive a fixed sum each month in winter, applying to the Housing Department, with a decision within thirty days. In the ordinance's second year, the Housing Department contracted a scoring company to carry out the initial assessment of applications by algorithm: each application was given a score, those with low scores were automatically moved into a "further documents" queue, and assessors looked only at those with high scores.
In the winter of the third year, one applicant had waited fifty days when she found that her application was in the further-documents queue, yet she did not know what she was to supply. She went to ask, and the person at the counter said: "The system gave the score."
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the applicants given low scores. Which line: no line-crossing is involved; what is at stake is whether an embedded recognition-based position can operate (the guarantee, Paper 3, G19). This section asks where the bearing falls once judgment has been handed to a machine. Baseline: the Housing Department's assessors assessing each application one by one.
"The system gave the score" is a new form of "I was only following the rules." It pushes the judgment onto a machine, as if the machine had made the judgment and the people only passed the word along.
That a tool holds no bearing has several layers of grounds upstream. Only a subject can hold a duty, and construct and subject alike can hold accountability (On Accountability F39); a tool is neither. Power Theory says: "Apparatuses do not wield power; key-node individuals invoke apparatuses to wield power." (Power Theory P2 M2) On algorithms it has a further sentence: "The algorithm does not wield power; designers, deployers, invokers, and maintainers wield power through the algorithmic apparatus." (Power Theory P2 §VI) Institution Theory says that the construct is the address of attribution (Z7a): the bearing falls on the Housing Department as a construct and on its positions. The Law Series, treating how law is carried out, set down a penetration principle that concurs with these: when algorithms, automated systems and corporate processes are used by people as instruments of suppression, law must trace back to the hand behind the tool; tools have no subjecthood: "Algorithms do not suppress. Corporate processes do not suppress." (Law Series P1 §9)
But what is wrong with "The system gave the score" is not only that it pushes the account onto a machine. Within this judgment, several things were set by people: the Housing Department decided to hand the initial assessment out; it agreed with the scoring company on what to score and how; it laid down that low scores go to further documents and that assessors look only at high scores; on the basis of these scores, it kept a family waiting fifty days. Each of these steps is a judgment made at a position. The bearing falls on these positions, not on the algorithm.
And the scoring company? It has a contract with the Housing Department, and holds its own accountability toward the Housing Department; that is accountability of one construct toward another, checked by the conditions under which a construct's accountability stands (On Accountability F47). It does not answer to applicants in the Housing Department's place. As a construct, the scoring company has its own burden of explanation for what it has itself produced (Institution Theory's fifth ought speaks to every construct, Z34); that is what Institution Theory says to it, and it is not developed here. What is said here is that its share does not settle the Housing Department's account. When an applicant asks "Why this score?", it is the Housing Department that must answer; if the Housing Department cannot answer, because it does not itself know why the algorithm gave this score, then it has configured itself into a construct that cannot answer. The burden of explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about (Z34). When a construct hands judgment out to a place it cannot itself explain, its burden of explanation is not handed out along with it; it simply goes unmet, and where it goes unmet, the account is the construct's own.
To extend the Law Series' penetration principle from the carrying out of law to the judgments of a government is a step of this series (extension; own undertaking): that principle of the Law Series says how law traces back to the person behind the tool; what is said here is where the answering lies once a government has handed judgment to a tool. Law Series P1 §9 was originally about suppression; what is borrowed here is only its premise, that tools have no subjecthood, and this premise does not depend on whether there is suppression.
This section takes up only the side of tools and contracting. The machine as a participant in institutions has another side: How Is Institution Possible, among its open questions, asked: "Is an institution operated by AI still 'the institutionalized expression of inter-subjective co-construction,' or has it become something different?" (F6 §7, first open question). That question this series does not answer. What is said here is that, before that question has been answered, a machine holds no bearing; the position that handed out the judgment must still answer.
G8 When judgment is handed to a machine, the bearing is not handed over with it. A tool holds no bearing; the contractor holds its own accountability toward the contracting construct, and does not answer, in the contracting construct's place, to those the decision acts on. The bearing falls on the positions that hand the judgment out, set how it is to be used, and act on its results; those positions must be able to explain the results, and answer the very matter they are questioned about. This proposition takes up only the side of tools and contracting; the machine's qualification as a participant in institutions this series does not answer (extension; own undertaking).
§10 With Weber
§2 said that the answering of a judgment is set out in three layers, and §4 that "I was only following the rules" fails on both sides. Both places run into the same interlocutor. In 1919 Max Weber gave the lecture Politik als Beruf, and in one passage of it he divided responsibility in a political order between two kinds of person.
He says: "The honor of the official lies in the ability, when, despite his dissent, the authority above him insists on an order that seems to him wrong, to carry it out on the responsibility of the one who gives the order, conscientiously, exactly as if it corresponded to his own conviction" (my translation; Ehre des Beamten ist die Fähigkeit, wenn – trotz seiner Vorstellungen – die ihm vorgesetzte Behörde auf einem ihm falsch erscheinenden Befehl beharrt, ihn auf Verantwortung des Befehlenden gewissenhaft und genau so auszuführen, als ob er seiner eigenen Überzeugung entspräche; MWG I/17, p. 190 [B 25], per the digital critical edition of the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe, Bavarian Academy of Sciences; tier A); "without this discipline and self-denial, ethical in the highest sense, the whole apparatus would fall apart" (my translation; ohne diese im höchsten Sinn sittliche Disziplin und Selbstverleugnung zerfiele der ganze Apparat; ibid.). The honor of the political leader, that is, of the leading statesman, is exactly the opposite: it lies in "exclusive personal responsibility for what he does" (my translation; die ausschließliche Eigenverantwortung für das, was er tut; ibid.), a responsibility "which he cannot and may not refuse or shift onto others" (my translation; die er nicht ablehnen oder abwälzen kann und darf; ibid.). Later in the same lecture he distinguishes the ethic of conviction from the ethic of responsibility, the ethic of responsibility requiring one to answer for the consequences of one's actions; he says that the two ethics are not absolute opposites, and that the person with a vocation for politics combines them (per SEP, "Max Weber," §6.3; tier C).
The common question. In a political order made up of many positions, who answers for a decision? This paper asks the same thing. The question is the same as far as "who answers for a decision": Weber answers from the honor and the ethics of persons, this series from positions and the construct.
How far the agreement goes. At three points.
- Neither lets those above push the account onto the one who carries it out. Weber's leader has a responsibility that he "cannot and may not refuse or shift onto others"; Institution Theory says that the construct cannot disappear behind the executor (Z12).
- Both leave the one who carries it out a place to speak. Weber's official may state his dissent; How Is Institution Possible, among the floors it sets for members, writes of expression: "A member can raise dissent, and can raise it somewhere" (F6 §3.3). The permit examiner of §4 referred the matter up; that was not yet dissent.
- Both know that without carrying out, nothing gets done.
Where they part. Also at three points.
First, how responsibility is divided. Weber divides it by kinds of person: one kind for officials, one for leaders; once an official has stated his dissent, his superior has insisted, and he has complied, the responsibility for the order's content lies with the one who gave it. This series does not divide by leader and official, but by position and source: each position is booked by its source, authority, registration and conduct (G2; Z6). Compliance does not transfer the share of the one who carries it out to those above.
Suppose that what the section chief minuted was not "Proceed per the rules" but "Reject all successions; do not apply the note"; the permit examiner had read the note, stated his dissent, the section chief insisted, and he complied. For Weber, the responsibility for this rejection lies with the section chief. In this series, the section chief's entry is not reduced in the least, and the permit examiner's is not moved away by his compliance: he had read the note, he knew this judgment could have gone otherwise, and compliance does not prove the judgment right (Z12; for the extension, see §4); his share that has independent grounds is not shielded by the construct's name (Z6). If the content of the order crossed the line, this parting would be at its most direct, and would lie within Z12's original range: that a demand bears the name of procedure does not prove that complying with it is within the line. Weber's official complies on the responsibility of the one who gives the order; in this series, the one who gives the order bears his share, and the one who complies bears his.
Missing the note is not where they part. Weber likewise requires the official to carry out conscientiously; on this reading of the passage, careless oversight is, for him too, the official's own entry, not transferred to the one who gave the order; in this series, too, it is recorded under the permit examiner's name (§4).
Second, where dissent is sent. Weber's dissent goes upward: the official states it to his superior; if the superior insists, he complies. What §4 requires is a path for passing the question into a reviewable procedure (Z12). What has to be compared is whether stating dissent upward and a review procedure that can be independently initiated carry the same function. In general, they do not. The endpoint of stating dissent upward is the very superior who insists on the order, and the superior is exactly the party this question is asking about. Institution Theory says of independence that "what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own" (Z34). The permit examiner's referral had exactly this shape: its endpoint was the section chief; the section chief was both the party questioned and the one who alone decided whether the matter was over, and the referral stopped with him. It might be useful, but it is not independent. The review officer of §6 is different: he does not belong to the Approvals Section, and is not the place that made this judgment and is being questioned about it; whether to look into it and whether it has been fully answered are not for the Permits Office to decide, and the Permits Office cannot change his reply either.
To check Z12's path by Z34's independence is a step of this series. Z12 requires only that the path lead into a reviewable procedure; it does not say that it must be independent. But the one who carries it out is also an internal subject; Institution Theory's first ought says so plainly: "executors included" (Z9); his sending a demand for review is one use of the fifth ought's channel, so Z34's independence is checked against this path as well, and being within reach and no retaliation are checked likewise (extension; own undertaking). The item of no retaliation must be aligned with Z12. Z12 says that this requirement is checked by the threshold of sealing off, and "does not mean that refusal has no consequences": refusal may have consequences. But sending a demand for review may not, on that ground alone, bring retaliation or adverse penalty; accountabilities and consequences of conduct that have independent grounds are checked separately. Refusing is his not complying; sending a demand for review is his asking through the fifth ought's channel.
In Weber, the force that holds the bureaucracy in check lies elsewhere: in political leaders who emerge from electoral competition, strong enough to control the bureaucracy (per SEP, "Max Weber," §6.2; tier C). This series does not say that those places do not matter; revocation of authorization and interruption are written in Paper 6 (G37, G40); what it says is that at the place of the one who carries things out there must also be a path.
Third, "as if it corresponded to his own conviction." What Weber says is "as if": in the carrying out, as though it came from his own conviction, without discount; not that the official is to exchange his conviction for another. He set this discipline up as the official's personal honor, an ethic; this series sets up no honor for persons, and does not set up this one. Apple City can require the permit examiner's position to proceed per the rules; it cannot require him as a person to take the rules as his own conviction; How Is Institution Possible says: "A construct may require a position to do something; it may not require a person to think something." (F6 §3.3) When he complies, it can be mere compliance; what he holds in his heart is his. So it is with the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility: both are addressed to the person with a vocation for politics, and this series writes no ethics for persons. That a mayor acts by the ethic of responsibility is his own law; his position has, besides, its burden of explanation and its burden of bearing. On Accountability F57 is titled "Accountability and Duty Can Coexist," and goes on: "The two can land at once upon one and the same act." The two coexist, and neither stands in for the other.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). Without the official's discipline, the whole apparatus falls apart. You want each position to answer for itself, and also want to give the one who carries things out a path for sending orders to review; the result is that administration bogs down: anyone can hold up an order with "I want it reviewed," and anyone can say "this entry is not wholly mine." Moreover, once responsibility is divided, no one is truly responsible; Weber concentrated responsibility in the leader precisely so that people would know whom to go to.
Reply. At three points.
- Z12's path is checked by the threshold of sealing off, and "does not mean that refusal has no consequences, nor that no post may ever end" (Z12). It does not require that every order can be sent for review: where the one who carries it out can refuse, no further path is needed; where he cannot, there must be a path into a reviewable procedure. Refusal can have consequences, and a post can end through a procedure that can be reviewed (Institution Theory Paper 2, §5). An apparatus without this path is not necessarily more stable either: wrong orders get complied with all the way down, and when something goes wrong, the accounts are all the harder to sort out.
- Booking accounts separately is not dispersing responsibility. The leader's entry this series does not reduce in the least: he cannot shift it onto others, and on this sentence the two agree. What booking separately blocks is transfer in the opposite direction: compliance does not settle the account of the one who carries it out; nor does the construct's failure fall automatically on any one person (Z6). Letting people know whom to go to does matter; in this series, that is a matter of revocation of authorization (Paper 6, G37); interruption has only been given a structural position in Paper 6 (G40).
- Discipline and answering do not conflict. The permit examiner can keep discipline and proceed per the rules; the judgment he makes in complying must be able to answer all the same.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has proved only these things: that judgment within a government is made by the person who sits in a position, and takes effect in the government's name, as an act of the construct; that its answering is set out in three layers, ought said to the construct, accountability said to the position, and no ought written for the person; that rules cannot do it in anyone's place, and "I was only following the rules" cannot shield it either; that the front line is included; that when the line is not crossed and the channel is there, whether those affected have actual control is one of this series' main questions; that a government's decisions act on people even without consent, and that this acting must be answered in three layers, with why the three necessary conditions of the third layer are necessary also said condition by condition; that judgment is fallible, and that this is one of the reasons it must be open to questioning; and that when it is handed to a machine, the bearing is not handed over with it.
What it has not proved: what good judgment looks like, this series does not write; the standing to pass a verdict on another's case and claim his assent belongs to the critique of judgment; where judgment is placed belongs to Action Theory; how judgment is formed, this series does not write. The third layer of G6, on what grounds a decision may normatively be so, this paper has not finished answering: it has established only its place, and said condition by condition why the three necessary conditions are necessary, the three together not being sufficient; on what grounds compulsion stands is written in Paper 2 (G9 to G11); what the guarantee consists of, in Paper 3 (G17, G19, G22). As for control within the line, this paper has taken the three questions this far on Levee Street; the functions of control are answered in Paper 6 (G36a).
The stall on Levee Street, that restaurant, and the Housing Department's subsidy will be used again in the papers that follow.
The Eight Propositions of This Paper
G1 A judgment within a government is made by the person who sits in a public position, and can be attributed to his doing; it takes effect through the position, in the government's name, as an act of the construct, and the construct is the address of attribution, not the subject of the act. This does not mean that every official judgment issues from his own law, nor does his law issue legitimacy to a public decision; the case layer of which Action Theory D5 speaks has its premise in where a person stands, and that premise is not tacitly imposed on everyone who holds a position. This series does not judge in his place, nor teach him how to judge well; it writes to whom, and for what, this judgment answers once it has acted on others through the position, and when necessary through compulsion (extension; own undertaking).
G2 The answering of a judgment is set out in three layers; those to whom it answers are those it acts on who come to ask. To the construct: it ought to give judgment a place to be made (from the floor of Z6 and Z12 to this positive demand; own undertaking), and also to let it be open to questioning. To the position: it holds the burden of explanation and the burden of bearing; explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about, and bearing is booked separately by source, authority, registration and conduct; the construct's name does not shield an individual's account, and the construct's failure is not automatically transferred onto an individual. To the person: no ought is written.
G3 Rules can enter a judgment, yet applying, weighing and taking up remain the work of the one who judges; rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place. "I was only following the rules" fails on both sides: it cannot make the executor disappear into the construct, and it cannot make the construct disappear behind the executor. A government's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure; this is checked by the threshold of sealing off, and does not mean that refusal has no consequences. That reviewable procedure is checked by the three conditions of Z34: it is independent of the party questioned, the executor can actually reach it, and sending a matter to it for review brings no retaliation (extension; own undertaking; §10).
G4 The front line is included. Whether a patrol officer steps in, whether a social worker takes a child away, whether a permit examiner grants an application: all are judgments, and all must answer. The construct's configuration ought to keep it clear whether explanation and bearing fall on the front-line position or on the positions that set rules and allocate resources for the front line; neither is made to carry the other's account.
G5 When the line is not crossed and the channel is there, whether those affected have actual control over the relevant power is one of this series' main questions (taking on Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the fourth slot). Explanation and questioning are necessary, not sufficient. What must be asked is: who can activate which procedure on what matter; what actual efficacy this procedure has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own. Control does not mean that every person affected has a veto, nor that each time a change must be made; that no decision has been reversed over a period does not by itself diagnose a failure of control. The functions of control are answered in Paper 6.
G6 A government's decisions do not take effect by the consent of those they decide upon. Their acting on people is answered in three layers: its effect in fact; under what authority and procedure it is valid; on what grounds it may normatively be so. That one person disagrees does not by itself cancel the validity at the second layer of a decision that is made under valid authority and procedure and restricts only actions that may be restricted; he keeps his own law, and may disagree, and may question. Subject positions that cannot be overwritten are not among these; a decision that crosses the line is read separately under the first ought. Openness to questioning is a necessary condition of the third layer, not its completion (extension; own undertaking). Not crossing the line and guaranteeing the recognition-based rights embedded are likewise necessary conditions of the third layer (the first ought; Paper 3, G17); why the three are necessary conditions, §7 says (own undertaking).
G7 A government's judgments are fallible. Fallibility does not exempt them from answering; fallibility is precisely one of the reasons they must be open to questioning (own undertaking). A government can never be perfect; a claim to perfection is itself a place where questioning is due.
G8 When judgment is handed to a machine, the bearing is not handed over with it. A tool holds no bearing; the contractor holds its own accountability toward the contracting construct, and does not answer, in the contracting construct's place, to those the decision acts on. The bearing falls on the positions that hand the judgment out, set how it is to be used, and act on its results; those positions must be able to explain the results, and answer the very matter they are questioned about. This proposition takes up only the side of tools and contracting; the machine's qualification as a participant in institutions this series does not answer (extension; own undertaking).
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
Qin, H. (2026). Not Doing and Cannot-Not-Doing (SAE Action Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22970752
Qin, H. (2026). What Action Is Not (SAE Action Theory, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22970747
Qin, H. (2026). The Place of Judgment (SAE Action Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22974154
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662
Qin, H. (2026). What an Institution Is Not (SAE Institution Theory, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269330
Qin, H. (2026). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270384
Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324
Qin, H. (2026). Institution Theory and the Tradition: The Address of the Ought (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23272468
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
Qin, H. (2026). On the Morphology of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20455221
Qin, H. (2026). On the Limitation and Violation of Basic Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21212595
Qin, H. (2026). On Accountability · Wei (SAE Rights Theory, Specialist Paper) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22853810
Qin, H. (2026). One's Law Meets One's Law: The Structural Origin of Law from 14DD Showdown (SAE Law Series, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548237
Qin, H. (2026). A Posterior Dialogue with Western Jurisprudence (SAE Law Series, Supplement) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19551526
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Non Dubito (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 12) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22992615
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. W. D. Ross. The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
Kant, I. The Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Project Gutenberg, EBook #4280. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4280
Weber, M. (1992). Politik als Beruf. In W. J. Mommsen & W. Schluchter (eds.), Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe I/17. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Digital critical edition: https://mwg-digital.badw.de/de/politik-als-beruf/
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Interfaces
- Main upstream: Institution Theory (Paper 1, Z4, Z5, Z6, Z7a; Paper 2, Z9, Z12; Paper 6, Z34, Z35a, Z37; Paper 0, §4.2, and §11, the fourth and sixth slots); Action Theory (Paper 1, D5, D6; Paper 0, §1.3, §1.4 and §9.3; the Prequel, §5 (V-4)).
- Also used: Conflict Treatise §24; Rights Theory P5 F21; The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §6; On Accountability F36, F37, F39, F47, F57; Power Theory P2 §V.3, M2, §VI; Law Series P1 §9; F6 §1.3, §3.3, §7; Action Theory Paper 0, §1.1.
- Interfacing: Aristotle (political wisdom and practical wisdom; equity); Kant (determining judgment: the example of the physician, the judge and the statesman); Scott; Lipsky; Pettit; Arendt (the two models of judgment); Weber (at the end). Pointing back: Aristotle on judgment lying in particulars (Action Theory Paper 0, §3.1); Kant on judgment not being teachable by rules (Action Theory Paper 0, §3.2); Xunzi and Huang Zongxi (Institution Theory Paper 0, §8); Pettit (Institution Theory Paper 0, §4.2); Hart and Raz (Law Series Supplement §§3, 5); Critique of Judgment §40 (The Beauty of Non Dubito, §4); Arendt's enlarged mentality (The Beauty of Non Dubito, §7).
- This series: takes on "control within the line": the question is posed in this paper, G5, registered in the Prequel, §9, and answered in Paper 6, G36a. For the three necessary conditions of the third layer, §7 points back to Paper 2, §1, and to Paper 3, §1, G17 and G22.
- Handed to Paper 2: of the ways judgment lands on people, the heaviest is compulsion.