Bobbitt’s appeal to conscience is not an escape hatch from the modalities.
Evidence
It is a different kind of misreading to conclude that the role I have described for the conscience is a kind of trap door for a grammar of decisionmaking otherwise confined to decisions according to the rules of the various modalities. Here, the misreading occurs not out of an inattention to differences of nuance among similar things, but out of a severe expectation that everything can be analyzed in the same way. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 536
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines what the conscience role in constitutional decisionmaking is NOT: a trap door, clarifying the boundary of the modal grammar.
Related
- Conscience resolves conflicts only at the final unreasoning act, never arbitrating between modalities. (similarity 0.83)
- Critics of Bobbitt’s constitutional theory fall into three identifiable camps (similarity 0.82)
- Portraying constitutional conscience truthfully requires offering a moral choice (similarity 0.80)
- Opinion arguments rationalize decisions rather than explain how they are reached. (similarity 0.80)
- Legal indeterminacy is inherent and requires a justified role for conscience (similarity 0.78)