Principles and Consequences

Recently Stanley Fish wrote a column on the Supreme Court decision in F.E.C. v. United Citizens . In it he explained very clearly the difference in the arguments of the Court's liberal minority and conservative majority. The conservative majority, Fish explained, made a "principled" argument, while the liberals relied on a "consequentialist" approach. These two approaches are often present in left/right debates in the political arena as well. Health insurance reform provides a clear example of a debate between left and right to which the principled-consequentialist theoretical framework can be applied productively to sort through the complexity, confusion, and intensity of the clashing rhetoric.

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