Values, Principles, Policy

Values have been described, perhaps surprisingly in this post modern world, as objective. They might rest on assumptions, be normative, and essentially relative (culturally speaking) but we believe in them. The existence of a value shapes the relations in our society (See Shiffren, 192) And we weigh these values when they conflict. While the personal values we have might change, the values themselves (as they are understood) may not. For example, I might hold the value of freedom higher during one part of my life over equality. Certain values, and you’re calling them subject attributes, seem to be made up of more
than these static values. Honor, dignity, integrity are behaviours. We must invest ourselves. Principles, therefore, are operative. Principles are guidelines by which we put values into practice. The result is policy.

As I have been taught, law is designed to address a conflict (it may not always function as designed, however). Laws are not created out of whole cloth, but using tools and principles that we already have around us. This is true for case law and statutory law. Case law is particularly tools based; lawyers make arguments based on other cases, other statutes, and relevant cultural understandings. Judges base their opinions on these arguments as well as their own personal interpretion of the principles cited. Sometiimes laws do seem new, however--new and threatening. It's intersesting to look at criticism of certain laws and see what they are based upon. Often, the complaint is that a court misinterpreted a previous law, case or regulation. If there is widespread enough agreement, the laws might change.

For example, the Dred Scott case of 1857, in which the Supreme Court ruled that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. Slavery and rights of blacks in free states was debated before the case, and it was debated after the case. The constitutional arguments on both sides had some so-called merit in terms of how the founders understood rights of people who were not universally considered people but property. Nothing new. The same can be said of Brown vs. Board of Education and Roe vs. Wade. These court judgements did not solve a cultural, values-based conflict.

While there are certainly issues that have been 'solved', case law, as a tool, does not always work. So we come to legislation, which is written by elected representatives (presumably at the behest of their constituents, but of course, not always). Legislation is another tool we build to address a conflict or potential conflict. Perhaps it describes how we would like things to be. Amending state constitutions to prevent or allow same-sex marriage, for example, or allow or disallow gambling of certain kinds.

So what other tools do we have? Policy. Policy outlines the route to our goal. It's more specific than a path, a principle say, but gives a concrete 'how'. Our goal is sustainable economic growth, than we will support specific laws, regulations and ideas that encourage this. (Discouraging gambling as a source of income for the state seems like a good public policy, now that I think of it).

I was recently sent an article about Russia's foreign policy principles. I do welcome the straightforward announcement of Russia's foreign policy aims -- it's transparent, and I like that. , but I also wonder. How many different ways can these be interpreted? The BBC correspondent makes a stab at one or two interpretations, but I bet any one of us could come up with so many more for any individual foreign policy conflict Russia might face. These principles make sense to me; they do not seem far different from the United State's aims (although I'd probably have to add the asinine "spreading democracy' to them to accurately reflect the current administration's thought process. The US still has it's Monroe Doctrine, we still support our allies, and protect our citizens (a duty of every sovereign state by some interpretation, less citizenship become meaningless).

Sources, see Notes: Jurisprudence of Values, Shiffren.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol41_1/shiffrin.pdf