Open to Questioning

Qin, Han

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23271324

Abstract

An institution's fifth ought is to keep open the channel through which it is questioned and corrected, and to keep that channel independent of the party questioned, actually within reach of those inside, and free of retaliation for its use. How Is Institution Possible establishes these three only as conditions; going from conditions to an ought, and extending "within reach" to everyone inside, are steps this series undertakes itself, on grounds carried over from Paper 1's stance and its drawing of the interior. Independence is stated relative to the party actually questioned. An institution also bears the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced. Questioning cannot stop, and the root of this is that what an institution has to answer for is what it has itself produced: every division it draws by rules, categories and belonging leaves its own unaccommodated residue, and so long as it is still dividing, it is still leaving residue. That there must be a channel rests on the stance and the three conditions, not on the sentence "constructs have remainders." Remainders are of two types: what the rules have not covered is raised by persons; what the institution has itself produced is explained by the institution. The two types can overlap, and the division of the burden of proof does not lapse because of the overlap. Unaccommodated residue and particular problems are registered in two ways: the former carries no charge; the latter is checked separately against its criteria. A particular matter can be answered and closed; answering by re-dividing does not settle division; closing off questioning does not prove that the problem has been resolved. Calling to account can be cultivation on the system side, but the ought of openness to being called to account does not wait for it first to bear the fruit of cultivation. A remediation can be completed within a clearly stated range; to infer from this that "there is no need to check again" is to falsely claim a local completion as permanent exemption from questioning. An institution may not close off the conditions of correction on the grounds that it has already reformed, that it claims to cultivate, or that its aims are right; yet it need not change for the sake of change, and this series gives no warrant that someone will always be doing the questioning. The construct's own continued existence is not an independent sufficient reason to close off questioning or to continue an arrangement automatically; where an arrangement is necessary to protect particular persons, its continued existence can be a reason to continue it; dismantling is also an act of the construct: the way of dismantling may not cross the line, and beyond that, existing rights, commitments and dependencies are checked separately. The Kingdom of Ends is a direction; it is not an ought, nor a state to be signed off as achieved. It is not presupposed: it is made by persons, in their recognizing and questioning one another; an institution cannot make it on their behalf, nor does it count as made because it is declared. An institution that goes on acting by these five oughts can always remain oriented toward it. Finally the paper returns to the main line: toward its internal subjects, an institution holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; it itself remains open to questioning. The paper has eight propositions (Z34 to Z40, with Z35a attached to Z35), each stated at the end of its section and listed together at the end.

Introduction

Something happened on that river again.

Not long after the last round of remediation had ended, the mill switched to a new dye: cheaper, and the color true. The mill's monitoring list had been drawn up several years before; it named a dozen or so substances to be sampled daily, and the new dye was not among them. The monitoring technician sampled by the list every day, and every item met the standard.

In the ponds of the household downstream, the fish began to die again, patch after patch. The household wrote a letter to the mill. The letter was passed to the environmental office, which was the very office in charge of that list. The reply was a single sentence: this mill's effluent meets the standard on every item.

The household held no registered position at the mill. The mill's anonymous complaint channel had been set up for employees, and they could not reach it. The mill also had a joint review panel, made up of the union, personnel, and a representative of the residents downstream; but the panel reviewed only cases forwarded to it by the mill's own offices, and since the letter had gone first to the environmental office, it never reached the panel.

That same year, the mill's management wrote in its annual report: after these years of remediation, this mill is now a responsible enterprise; the joint review panel has completed its task and can be disbanded. Someone at a meeting put it more bluntly: "If everything can be questioned, the mill can't get any work done."

What this paper has to answer concerns the last ought, which is also the shape the first four take in time. Must an institution go on being questioned? Questioned by whom? On what grounds can questioning not stop? Once it has answered, is the account settled? If it says it has already reformed, may it stop being questioned?

This paper writes the series' fifth ought, and brings the whole series to a close. It proceeds in eight steps. §1 says what this ought says; §2 sets out the two types of remainder and on whom the burden of proof for each falls; §3 says why questioning cannot stop; §4 says how calling to account relates to cultivation; §5 says why an institution cannot have permanent exemption from questioning; §6 says why continued existence cannot justify itself; §7 says how a direction differs from an ought; §8 returns to the main line.

§1 The Fifth Ought

The fifth ought says: an institution keeps open the channel through which it is questioned and corrected, and this channel is not controlled by the party questioned; an institution bears the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced.

Three conditions. How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) gives three structural conditions that a chiseling channel must satisfy: "independent of what is chiseled; actually initiable by members; initiation not met with retaliation." (F6 §3.2, Proposition IV) It spells out all three concretely. Independence, because if the node under review can seal off review of itself on its own, whether questioning can continue depends entirely on whether the reviewed party is willing. Initiability, because an entrance that exists only on paper, and that people cannot reach, amounts to no entrance. No retaliation, because if using the channel itself becomes a ground for sanction, the protection cancels itself the first time it is used (F6 §3.2, Proposition IV).

That paper states: "This proposition establishes conditions only; it establishes no office and no ought." (F6 §3.2, Proposition IV) What it says is this: if an institution premised on non dubito is to preserve its members' positions, these three cannot be missing. The step from conditions to an ought is one this series undertakes itself, at the framework address; below, every such step is marked "(own undertaking)." Paper 1 has said that the oughts of this series are addressed to every construct that has institutional identity, without the condition that the construct already runs on the premise of persons' standing as ends (Paper 1, §2).

Who can reach it. The subject of that sentence in F6 is members: "actually initiable by members." This series extends it to everyone inside, including those who hold no registered position at the construct. The grounds come in three layers. The oughts of this series stand on the stance that a human being is an end, and are addressed to every construct that has institutional identity (Paper 1, §2). The interior is drawn by entanglement: the household downstream is entangled with the mill, the mill's acts fall on them, and they have no way to avoid it by exiting (Paper 1, §4). And their residue, too, is on the account the mill has to answer for (§2). If the mill's channel of questioning is open only to employees, they cannot reach it. This extension is the series' own undertaking.

What independence means. The household's letter was passed to the environmental office, and the environmental office was precisely the party being questioned. This is what "independence" is meant to prevent. The joint review panel has the same defect: it reviews only cases forwarded by the offices, so its entrance is in the hands of the offices under review. Yet independence does not mean having to be outside the mill. F6 says: "'Independent' here is functional, and does not require being physically outside the institution," and "what must be prevented is only that the object of review can seal off review of itself" (F6 §3.2, Proposition IV). The panel sits inside the mill and can still be independent, so long as its entrance is not in the hands of the office being questioned, and the office being questioned cannot decide on its own whether the matter is looked into and whether the inquiry is finished. Independence is stated relative to the party questioned: if what is questioned rises to the mill's management, or is a rule the panel itself set, independence must be checked again against the new party questioned; the union, personnel and a residents' representative sitting on the panel do not certify every level once and for all.

The burden of explanation. An institution must not only let people ask; it must also be able to answer. F6 lists three things needed for the framework address not to be hollowed out, and one of them is: "when challenged, the framework can give a public answer from its own side." (F6 §2.1, Premise V) "This mill's effluent meets the standard on every item" is an answer, but what it answers is the dozen or so items on the list, not what the household asked. To bear the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced is to answer the matter actually asked about.

This ought does not vary with relational thickness. The mill arranges almost nothing in the lives of the household downstream; yet when they ask, the channel must be just as much within their reach, and the answer must go just as much to the point.

Z34 An institution keeps open the channel through which it is questioned and corrected, and the channel meets three conditions: it is independent of the party questioned, internal subjects can actually initiate it, and initiating it brings no retaliation. Independence is functional and does not require being outside the institution; what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own; it is checked against the party actually questioned, and when the party questioned changes level, independence must be checked again. From conditions to an ought (own undertaking); "can initiate" is extended to all internal subjects, including those who hold no registered position, on grounds carried over from Paper 1's stance and its drawing of the interior (own undertaking). An institution bears the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced, and must answer the very matter it is questioned about. This ought does not vary with relational thickness.

§2 Two Types of Remainder

The word "remainder" here means the part that an institution's taking-in leaves unaccommodated. This section first says where it comes from, then which two types it falls into, and on whom the burden of proof for each lies.

Where it comes from: division carries a shortfall. The First Critique, treating the boundary, says this: of the shortfalls an act of demarcation leaves, three kinds can be handled locally: the strays can be retrieved, the missing condition fixed into the criterion, the field widened; but "each treatment is itself a new demarcation, leaving its own intake-deficit," because "correcting, condition-fixing, field-changing are all still intakes, still deviating" (The First Critique, Ch. 2 §2). F6 carries this over to social order, and states that it is stronger there: an object being cognized does not resist, but those taken in by a social order can themselves say "no"; "'Every act of handling is itself another cut' therefore acquires an additional source here — the negation of those who are classified" (F6 §2). It sets the scope of this transfer, "the divisions drawn by rules, categories, and belonging," and registers four shapes of shortfall: "shortfall of intake, misplacement, dual belonging, and exclusion by judgment" (F6 §2).

This series takes it up to this point and no further: every division an institution draws by rules, categories and belonging leaves its own unaccommodated residue. This generalization has already been made, upstream and in that transfer; it is not something this series adds. But it governs only this kind of division, division by rules, categories and belonging. Classifying people as employees or contract workers, and settling who may use which channel, are divisions of this kind. The mill's monitoring list needs one more word: what it divides is substances, not people, and its shortfall is in the first instance epistemic. It becomes residue the mill has to answer for because it acts on people. When F6 registered this transfer, it stated the aim of such an order: to arrange, stably, "members' standing, belonging, and the ways they may be treated" (F6 §2). The list acts on people precisely in the ways they may be treated: harm outside the list cannot be booked to those who suffer it, and the household's voice, along with it, falls outside the criterion. Acts outside this kind, such as providing a resource or carrying out a decision, are not governed by this sentence; their residue has another place to be registered: through the configuration of relational slots that Paper 2 speaks of, or through the part that operates as constraint, which Paper 1 speaks of (Paper 2, §4; Paper 1, §7).

The object domain. In F6's transfer, the object domain is "the taking-in that a persisting order performs on its members in the relevant matters" (F6 §2); the subject term is still members. This series extends it to everyone inside, including those with no registered position. Why it ought to be extended to them has its grounds in Paper 1: this series stands on the stance that a human being is an end, and its oughts are addressed to every construct that has institutional identity; the interior is drawn by entanglement, not by identity (Paper 1, §2 and §4). The First Critique shows something else: such redrawing is possible, and redrawing does not settle the matter. A construct that leaves those its acts reach outside the field in which they are judged has thereby incurred a shortfall, called exclusion by judgment; "out-of-field is the field's own debt, the field itself being an earlier construct with its own remainder"; and "out-of-field can be relocated — widen the field, and a sound too can come under verdict" (The First Critique, Ch. 2 §2). If the mill takes only its employees as the field, the voice of the household downstream falls outside the field, and the criterion has nothing to say about it. To draw the interior by entanglement is to change the field to entanglement. The field moved to still has its own remainder; drawing by entanglement does not finish the drawing either.

Typing handed on. Shortfalls are an epistemic account; whether they are harm, violation, colonization or oppression, F6 hands on: "whether they constitute harm, violation, colonization or oppression is judged by the corresponding normative series." (F6 §2.1, note to Lemma IV) What this series takes up is the institutional-layer share.

Two registrations. Two things must be kept apart here, or there will be errors on both sides.

One is unaccommodated residue: what is left by the divisions an institution draws under its aims, objects and range. The monitoring list cannot name every substance in the world; this is not an error but the shortfall that division itself carries, and, on this series' reading, it is registered without a charge.

The other is a particular problem: something the institution's configuration or handling has actually caused. The mill changed its dye but did not update its list; the fish downstream died, and the letter was passed to the office in charge of the list, which sent back a sentence beside the point. Here one must say specifically where it came from, which item was not met, and which ought it touches; whether it amounts to violation, negligence or dereliction is checked separately, each against its own criteria.

With the two kept apart, a new registration need not be a new problem that has never appeared before; remainder is not shrunk to "only what has been proved a violation counts"; and no ordinary classification carries a charge in advance.

Two types and the burden of proof. Remainders fall into two types by source.

Type A is what the rules have not covered, and it is raised by persons. The new dye is not on the list, the fish die, the household writes in: this is an item of Type A. It also lies in the intersection: the mill itself changed the dye, and the list was not changed with it; that side is Type B (see below). F6 says: "counter-instances that in fact re-emerge must be handled case by case." (F6 §2.1, Lemma IV)

Type B is what the institution has itself produced, and it is explained by the institution; both registrations above fall within it. The mill opened its anonymous channel only to employees; that division drew both the contract workers and the household downstream outside the channel, and the mill produced this itself. Type B has some visible forms. There are the three modes of degradation F6 describes, closing off questioning, the text remaining while its substance is hollowed out, and covering domains that should not be covered; a match with any one of them is a finding. "A non-match does not entail 'no degradation'" (F6 §4.1). There is exit friction the institution deliberately creates, which that paper calls artificial exit cost (F6 §7, fourth open question); a structure of guarding that, after its conditions have changed, keeps being renewed after its conditions have changed, without being re-examined (Paper 3, §8); and residue produced by the way demands, authority and answering are configured together (Paper 2, §4).

The two types can overlap. A matter that the institution itself produced and that the rules have not covered lies in the intersection from the start. Nor do the four shapes of shortfall map one-to-one onto A or B: the same exclusion by judgment may be one where the field of the rules did not count someone in and he raises it, or one where the institution's own division drew him out; which type it falls under depends on its source and on the relation of coverage. The division of the burden of proof does not lapse because of the overlap. Two more sentences must be kept in place: "no one has raised it" does not mean that Type A does not exist; "the institution has not explained it" does not mean that Type B has been proved absent.

Z35 Every division an institution draws by rules, categories and belonging leaves its own unaccommodated residue; this generalization governs only this kind of division, and other acts are registered elsewhere. The object domain is extended to all internal subjects: the normative grounds are carried over from Paper 1's stance and its drawing of the interior (own undertaking); that exclusion by judgment can be relocated shows that the object domain can be redrawn, and redrawing does not eliminate remainder. Whether a shortfall amounts to harm, violation, colonization or oppression is judged separately by the normative series; this series takes up the institutional-layer share. Unaccommodated residue and particular problems are registered in two ways: the former carries no charge; the latter is checked separately against its criteria. Remainders are of two types: what the rules have not covered is raised by persons; what the institution has itself produced is explained by the institution. The two types can overlap, the four shapes of shortfall do not map one-to-one onto the two types, and the division of the burden of proof does not lapse because of the overlap. That no one has raised it does not mean that Type A does not exist; that the institution has not explained it does not mean that Type B has been proved absent.

§3 Why Questioning Cannot Stop

Someone at the mill asks: the letter has been answered, the list will be changed, the matter is over; why keep this channel open all the time?

Persistence: the root is in Type B. Type A is where the rules failed to cover something at some point: found at one point, raised at one point. Type B is different: it arises along with the divisions an institution draws by rules, categories and belonging; so long as the institution is still dividing, it is still leaving unaccommodated residue. So long as the mill is still drawing up lists, sorting categories and arranging shifts, it is still producing things it must itself answer for. So what must persist is the conditions of the channel and of the burden of explanation; not that new problems spring up at every moment, nor that the same matter must go on being asked, still less that someone must always be asking.

Independence: the reason lies in the fifth ought. The source of Type B lies with the party questioned, so that party has to account for its own handling. But this does not show that every self-check it makes is void. The environmental office can check for itself, find a problem, and fix it. The reason for independence lies not in "self-checking cannot be trusted," but in this: the node under review may not monopolize the decision on "whether a challenge exists and whether it is over." Self-checking can be done; it cannot be used to replace the position of being questioned independently; the node under review cannot single-handedly shut down review of itself.

Raised but not answered. If no one had answered the household's letter at all, the original item of Type A would still be there; being ignored does not change where it came from. If the mill's non-response, in this matter, amounts to a residue in its handling, a separate item of Type B, formed by that handling, is recorded, and the original A and the new B are on the account at the same time. This too must be stated precisely: not every failure to reply counts. A reply still pending; a referral, within its remit, to the body that has authority to handle the matter; a suspension on conditions; or the same matter having already been handled, so that it need not be repeated: none of these is included.

Answering one matter does not settle division. Suppose the mill responds in earnest: it adds the new dye to the list, and further rules that concentrations below a certain value count as "trace" and need not be reported. This one matter can be answered and closed. But the response is a re-division. By that sentence of The First Critique, each treatment is itself a new demarcation and leaves its own shortfall of intake (The First Critique, Ch. 2 §2). The new list still cannot name every substance in the world, and the new line of "trace" will also draw some things below it. This share is unaccommodated residue, registered under the first registration; whether it has caused a particular problem that must be corrected is checked separately. So the conditions of being questioned cannot be withdrawn, and this does not depend on whether anyone fails to respond: however good the answer, the answer is itself a new division.

Two senses of "persisting." F6 splits the word "persisting" in two: "'Persisting' is read by its object: the persistence of an account that is not cleared by being forgotten, and the persistence of how long some relation or procedure actually runs, are not the same thing and do not share one warrant." (F6 §2) Both are present here, each with its own grounds. One: past residue is not written off because no one asks any more, and what happened in the past does not un-happen because its record is erased. That paper says: "closing off questioning does not itself constitute evidence that the earlier problem has been resolved." (F6 §4.1) The other: new divisions go on leaving unaccommodated residue; whether particular problems have occurred is checked separately, under the second registration.

The burden of explanation and being questioned independently, as this section speaks of them, are oughts this series takes up at the framework address (own undertaking). One misreading must be guarded against here. When F6 sets out the three conditions, it says outright that there is one reason it does not use: "One reason is not used here: 'an institution is a construct, constructs have remainders, hence every institution must contain a channel for chiseling itself.'" Its reason is: "A premise that holds of all objects may be part of an argument, but it cannot by itself yield this institutional constraint." (F6 §3.2, Proposition IV) This series does not take that road either. That there must be a channel rests on Paper 1's stance and the three conditions of Proposition IV (§1); what Type B explains is only why the channel cannot stop. That there is residue is one of the grounds of this ought, not the whole of them.

Z35a Questioning must persist, and the ground is in Type B: so long as an institution is still dividing, it is still leaving unaccommodated residue; what persists is the conditions of the channel and of the burden of explanation, not the endless re-asking of the same matter. Questioning must be independent, and the reason is that the party under review may not monopolize the decision on whether a challenge exists and whether it is over; self-checking can be done, and does not replace the position of being questioned independently. When something raised goes unanswered, the original item remains; if the non-response amounts to a residue in the handling, a separate item of Type B is recorded. A particular matter can be answered and closed; answering by re-dividing also leaves new unaccommodated residue, so the conditions of being questioned cannot be withdrawn, and this does not depend on whether anyone fails to respond. "Persisting" has two senses: past residue is not written off by closing off questioning; new divisions go on leaving residue. That there must be a channel rests on the stance and the three conditions, not on the sentence "constructs have remainders."

§4 Calling to Account and Cultivation

The household's letter did not, in the end, go only to the mill. They photographed the dead fish and sent the photographs to the river authority. The authority looked into it and added this dye to the public standards for effluent permits. From then on, not only this mill but every mill on the river had to test for it.

In this matter, something that had never been registered became something that could be claimed publicly. Rights Theory calls this the second form of cultivation, the one on the system side: "a piece of questioning spreads some not-yet-registered remainder into the public field, makes it a position that can be claimed publicly"; and it names its instances: "News interviewing, public questioning, and institutional accountability belong to this form" (Rights Theory P6 F25). What this form raises is not some individual who was questioned; it is that the public space of rights gains one more position.

So institutional calling to account can be cultivation on the system side. But this ought does not wait until every calling to account has borne such fruit before it holds. Not every questioning spreads something into the public field: some only clear up one matter, and some lead to nothing. The channel is to stay open whether or not, this time, it has achieved cultivation.

One more point must be secured. Whether to ask is the affair of those inside. The household can write a letter, or not; the workers can use the channel, or not. This series writes no oughts for persons (Paper 1, §1), so it does not say "those inside ought to question"; it says only that, if they want to ask, the construct must make it possible for them to ask, and must answer.

Z36 Institutional calling to account can be cultivation on the system side: it spreads a not-yet-registered remainder into the public field and makes it a position that can be claimed publicly. The ought of openness to being called to account and to correction does not wait until each instance has already borne the fruit of cultivation. Whether to ask is the internal subjects' own affair.

§5 No Permanent Exemption from Questioning

That sentence in the annual report, "after these years of remediation, this mill is now a responsible enterprise," was followed by a proposal: the joint review panel can be disbanded, and there is no need to check again.

This series' answer is: it cannot be disbanded. F6, treating the false claiming of exhaustiveness, lays down that one act of maintenance cannot buy a claim of exhaustiveness permanent exemption from inspection, and that "counter-instances that in fact re-emerge must be handled case by case" (F6 §2.1, Lemma IV). It also supplies the ruler by which a false claim is diagnosed: "What it diagnoses is a mismatch between the grounds held and the range claimed" (F6 §2.1, Lemma IV). A remediation completed under a clearly stated object, range and conditions of testing has its grounds for saying "this remediation is complete." To disband the panel and say "there is no need to check again" is to claim a range larger than those grounds: this is to falsely claim a local completion as permanent exemption from questioning. The matter of the new dye happened precisely after "the remediation was done."

So an institution 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. Here too structure and ought must be told apart. The joint review panel is a structure; it can be changed, and replaced by some other arrangement; Paper 3 has said that what is held to is the ought, not a particular structure (Paper 3, §8). But after the change, the three conditions must still be there: independence, reach, no retaliation. To disband the panel without leaving a route that meets these three is to close off the conditions of questioning.

What persists is being open to questioning and able to be corrected, not change for the sake of change. The mill need not change its rules every year to prove that it is still being questioned; an arrangement that has been questioned and has held up can simply stay. When a matter has been closed, its closing is not upgraded into permanent exemption from questioning: when there is new evidence, or a new problem arises, it can be questioned again.

Nor does this series say "someone will always be doing the questioning." F6 states the three things it gives no warrant for: "When a counter-instance will emerge, who will handle it, and how long the handling lasts — this paper gives no warrant." (F6 §2.1, Lemma IV) What this series establishes is an ought: the construct must make it possible for questioning to happen, and must answer when it does; it does not establish a prophecy that questioning will certainly happen, or that someone will certainly take it up.

Z37 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; structures can change, but the three conditions cannot be withdrawn. A remediation can be completed within a clearly stated range, and a particular matter can be closed; to infer from this that no further questioning of the corresponding kind is needed is to falsely claim a local completion as permanent exemption from questioning, and under new evidence or new problems the matter can be questioned again. What persists is being open to questioning and able to be corrected, not change for the sake of change. This series gives no warrant for when questioning will happen, who will take it up, or how long it will last.

§6 Continued Existence Cannot Justify Itself

Behind that remark at the meeting, "If everything can be questioned, the mill can't get any work done," lies a reason: the mill has to survive.

The construct's own continued existence is not such a reason. The first premise of F6 is exactly this: "Any institution, including the most elegant constitution, is a means, not an end." (F6 §2.1, Premise I) The continued existence of a means can be a condition for getting things done; it cannot be a reason to close off questioning. This holds for structures of guarding as well: the temporary arrangement in Paper 3 suspending the veteran technician's eligibility to take apprentices does not continue automatically because "it is keeping order"; nor is the anonymous channel exempt from being questioned because "it has to survive." Paper 4 has already declined to take "the institution's survival baseline" as a ground of legitimacy (Paper 4, §3); this is the same stance, applied to questioning.

This is not to say that continued existence carries no weight at all among reasons. A complaint channel still in use, a continuing arrangement of care: if they are necessary to protect particular persons, they still have to exist, and that is precisely a reason to go on arranging them. What is excluded is this: "because the construct has to survive, the construct is entitled not to answer, or to carry on any arrangement as before." Continuation and dismantling are both checked against the persons protected, the task, the authority, the cost, and existing commitments.

This has another side too. Dismantling an arrangement also has to face the existing rights, commitments and dependencies of those inside. If the mill decides to close the training program, what of those still in the middle of learning; if it removes a channel, what of the complaints already being handled; if the mill itself is to shut, what of the workers' wages, their accumulated entitlements, the cleanup of the river downstream. Continued existence does not by itself prove that something should continue, nor does it mean that dismantling needs no reason. Dismantling is itself an act of the mill. The way of dismantling may not cross the line: for instance, first cutting people off from the ways they used to sustain themselves, so that they can rely only on it, and then simply pulling out; Rights Theory says of such a move that "splitting the act in two does not change the reading" (Rights Theory P5 F20); this part falls under the first ought and is not discounted (Paper 1, §8; Paper 2, §2). Beyond that, those existing rights, commitments and dependencies are checked against the persons protected, the task, the authority and the cost. Writing this side into this ought is a step this series undertakes itself.

Z38 The construct's own continued existence is not an independent sufficient reason to close off questioning, or to continue a particular arrangement automatically: an institution is a means. Where an arrangement is necessary to protect particular persons, its continued existence can be a reason to continue it; continuation and dismantling are both checked against the persons protected, the task, the authority, the cost and existing commitments. Dismantling is also an act of the construct: the dismantling itself may not cross the line, for instance by first sealing off people's pre-existing self-maintained or substitute circuits, so that they can depend only on that supply, and then withdrawing; this part falls under the first ought and is not discounted (own undertaking); beyond that, existing rights, commitments and dependencies are checked as in the preceding sentence.

§7 A Direction, Not an Ought

All five oughts of this series have now been stated. One word remains to be placed: direction.

This series has a direction, called the Kingdom of Ends. Two things need to be made clear: its place in this series, and which layer of its meaning this series takes. Its place is this: it is a direction; it is not an ought, nor a state to be signed off as achieved.

It is not written as an ought because, once a direction is written as an ought, someone will use the direction's name to do the work of means: suppressing today's questioning "for the sake of that day," waiving today's explanation because "we are on our way there." The five oughts of this series are all demands on the construct today, each of which can be checked today; the direction does not go on this list.

It is not written as a state, and for this there are upstream grounds. Rights Theory, treating how rights unfold in time, lays down a crucial gate: "The additive path gives direction, not a historical guarantee" (Rights Theory P6 F24). What it speaks of there is the unfolding of the spectrum of rights, and the direction there is necessary, its necessity coming from the additive path; here only its structure is borrowed, not that necessity: having a direction does not mean having an endpoint that will necessarily be reached, still less a timetable. Nor does F6 provide a goal for this series: it says outright that it sets no such terminal station as a state of "full development" (F6 §2.3), and in its note on how to read it, it treats the last station as neither a premise nor a terminal station (F6, "How to read this version"). So orienting toward this direction is this series' own step, not taken from that paper.

With the orientation set, there is one upstream sentence to rely on for what it means. The First Critique, speaking of this kingdom, lays down: "the kingdom is not presupposed; it is what ends actually make when they recognize and interrogate one another" (The First Critique, Ch. 1 §3). This sentence says what this kingdom is; it does not set an orientation for institutions. That layer is what this series takes. The passage goes straight on: "Whether mutual recognition and mutual examination can grow into common legislation, rather than stopping at recognition, is left to the practical critique"; this series does not answer that question on the practical critique's behalf. This series reads the "ends" in that sentence as persons who are ends: an institution is a means (F6 §2.1, Premise I), and is not among them. The Kingdom of Ends is not something set out in advance, waiting for institutions to build it; it is what is actually made when persons recognize and question one another. Where it has not been made, an institution's declaring it does not make it count. So this series writes only its name, its orientation and this layer of meaning, not what it looks like.

Nor is this direction walked, in anyone's stead, by something larger. Moral Law, speaking of the trajectory humankind is on, says that the trajectory is made up of the operations of particular persons, one by one: "the trajectory is the statistical aggregation of individual operations, not a metaphysical force operating above them." (Moral Law P7 §3.5) Paper 1 has said that a construct has no first person (Paper 1, §1). Those who walk in that direction are always persons, one by one; what a construct can do is what these five oughts say. An institution that goes on acting by these five oughts can always remain oriented toward this direction; being oriented toward it is neither walking it in anyone's stead nor having already arrived.

Z39 The Kingdom of Ends is a direction; it is not an ought, nor a state to be signed off as achieved. This series takes this layer from The First Critique: the kingdom is not presupposed, and is what ends actually make when they recognize and question one another; it is made by persons; an institution cannot make it on their behalf, nor does it count as made because an institution declares it. What the same passage goes on to ask, namely whether mutual recognition and mutual examination can grow into common legislation, this series does not answer. There is a direction, the endpoint is open, and there is no historical guarantee; the structure is borrowed from Rights Theory, but not the necessity in "the direction is necessary." Orienting toward it is this series' own step, not taken from How Is Institution Possible. Those who walk there are always persons, one by one, and the construct does not walk in their stead; an institution that goes on acting by the five oughts can always remain oriented toward this direction, and being oriented toward it is not having already arrived.

§8 Back to the Main Line

The main line of this series can now be stated once more.

Toward its internal subjects, an institution holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; it itself remains open to questioning.

"Holding to" names the first two oughts. They are divided by what they govern. The mill crosses no line against anyone inside it: the monitoring technician, the shift supervisor, the household downstream, not one left out; crossing the line needs no one's intent, several operating rules each within the line can together cross it, and when they do, the mill is the address of attribution (Paper 2). The mill guards the lines between those inside it: when the veteran technician bears down on the apprentice, the mill has to step in, without waiting for the apprentice to grow up, for the veteran technician to back off, or for the apprentice himself to admit it; when it steps in, it judges the operation, not the person, and does not decide the apprentice's future path for him; stepping in is itself an act of the mill and falls under the first ought (Paper 3). Whether these can be achieved this series does not judge; it hands that to specific theories of institutions; and where they cannot be achieved, no ought is on that account withdrawn or discounted. "Colonization" in the main line is taken in the narrow sense, a boundary-crossing disguised as cultivation; the line that "holding to" keeps is wider than that (Paper 1, §8).

"Striving for" names the third and fourth oughts. The mill provides conditions for people's cultivation to the degree that it actually organizes their lives, concerned with conditions, not with outcomes; those who leave once they have learned are not entered in the failure column (Paper 4). The mill leaves places for people to meet one another, does not seal off their ways of refusing, turning to someone else and changing direction, does not require them to cultivate one another, and cannot produce a "we" (Paper 5).

"Open to questioning" names the fifth ought, and is also the shape the first four take in time. The mill will produce problems of its own: a list, a classification, a channel open only to employees; it has to answer, so the conditions of being questioned cannot be withdrawn; a matter that has been answered can be closed, yet the answer is another new division; and its saying it has reformed does not exempt it from being questioned (this paper).

The river still runs past the mill's west wall. The household downstream still farms fish at the water's edge. The people in the mill have turned over a few times, the operating rules have been through a few versions, the list has gained a few lines. Not one of the five oughts this series writes can turn this mill into a good person; it has no first person. What they can do is see to it that the people entangled along this river are, in this mill, still treated as ends throughout: no line crossed against them; when one is crossed, someone guarding; conditions in which to grow; the chance to reach one another; and, when something goes wrong, a place to ask and someone to answer.

Z40 Toward its internal subjects, an institution holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; it itself remains open to questioning.

Where This Paper Stops

This paper has proved these things: an institution ought to keep open the channel through which it is questioned and corrected, meeting the three conditions of independence, reach and no retaliation, extended to everyone inside, with independence checked against the party actually questioned; it bears the burden of explanation for what it has itself produced; remainder comes from division and falls into two types, each with its own place, and the two registrations are kept apart; questioning cannot stop, because what an institution has to answer for is what it has itself produced: particular matters can be closed, but division cannot be settled; that there must be a channel rests on the stance and the three conditions, not on the sentence "constructs have remainders"; calling to account can be cultivation on the system side, and the ought does not wait for results; local completion is not to be falsely claimed as permanent exemption from questioning, and this series gives no warrant that questioning will certainly happen; the construct's continued existence is not an independent sufficient reason to close off questioning or to continue anything automatically, and dismantling is not exempt from reasons either; the Kingdom of Ends is a direction, not an ought (its meaning taken from one layer of The First Critique: made by persons; an institution cannot make it on their behalf, nor does it count as made because it is declared).

The whole series stops here. It has not proved how an institution is possible; that is the work of How Is Institution Possible. It has not written oughts for persons: how a person ought to be is each person's own law, and how one person is to treat another is the work of the Critiques. It has not written how to achieve any of this, or whether it can be achieved; that is the work of specific theories of institutions, such as the Theory of Government or a theory of the firm. How this series meets existing theory, what it has handed on, and what accounts it still holds itself, are left to its Paper 0.

The Eight Propositions of This Paper