Convictions: Slate's blog on legal issues

M-Box/C-Box and the Old Logic vs. Experience Chestnut

Eric—I just played your logic game. It's fun. But here's my question: Why do you prefer the M-Box? After all, nothing in logic makes it any better than a C-Box. Both could be accurate, and both could be inaccurate. And yet, I see from your earlier posts that deference to the executive (the M-Box!) is one of your guiding principles. You must have not thought up the C-Box/M-Box game at the time. Or maybe you reached that conclusion because you think there's actually more than logic to this game, and that experience makes the M-Box better than the C-Box. But if that's so, then the M-Box/C-Box game isn't doing much work. There are those, like Phil (and now a majority of the court), who think, when it comes to detention practices, experience indicates there's a value in having courts look over the judgments of executives. And there are, of course, those who draw a different lesson from history. But I don't think it's a confusion over logic that explains the divide.