Blake Invitational 1 Kamiak nb aff

Aff Pragmatism

Syllogism:

The end of thought is the production of belief and the resolution of doubt; this requires constant revision of our beliefs through an experimental methodology. Taha:

-not majority rules but consensus of evidence

Intissar Abdelal Younis Taha, B.A. MA PRAGMATISM AND THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN THE WRITINGS OF BOYD H. BODE, WILLIAM H. KILPATRICK, AND MAX C. OTTO The Ohio State University 1958 RE

Although James transformed the original principle of Peirce yet his contribution to pragmatism is substantial. He extended it to a theory of truth, which became a leading tenet later on. He built his theory on the principle of Peirce. In his theory of meaning Peirce maintained that truth is the opinion on which the community agrees, not 62 arbitrarily, but as "the irresistible effect of inquiry," that is, 63 the opinion which is "ultimately agreed to by all who investigate." Truth is based on empirical science. Science regards a proposition as an established truth if it is confirmed to a high degree. The "established truth" is nothing more than a belief which cannot be doubted as far as the evidence for it is supported by a large and diversified number of perceptual judgments. Any belief remains secure until the growth of our experience again awakens doubt, whereupon a search for belief which meets the demands of our experience commences. The irritation of doubt is thus the reason for the struggle to attain belief. The struggle to attain belief is called inquiry. It follows that the sole object of inquiry is to settle belief or opinion. Truth is agreement and satisfaction; agreement, because it must be confirmed by all who investigate, and satisfaction, because doubt has been dispelled by the method of science. Up to this point there is implicit agreement between Peirce and later pragmatists. The difference, however, lies in his theory of reality which is the fundamental basis for his view of truth. According to him: There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; these Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion. 4 The above statement shows that the role of reasoning, or thinking, is important in knowing reality, and that it takes its premises from experience. Although there are other statements of Peirce which show that inquiry should appeal to external permanency which is not affected by human thinking, yet taking his discussion of pragmatism into account, we find that his insistence on experimental method, on the position that truth involves agreement and confirmation, and that the object represented in the true opinion is real, reveals his belief in the crucial role played by man in what is real. To take an example, Peirce said, "The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real."*'"' Add to this, another statement, "... by the True is meant that at which inquiry aims,"*'*' and it is implied that there is approximate and ultimate truth. In other words, there is reality which we cannot know but just approach the knowledge of, because reality in the perfect and complete sense is "something which is constituted by an event indefinitely future."^ Reality, though independent of our opinion, yet "is independent, not necessarily of thought in general but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it."^® Even if reality is . . that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to b e " ^ yet this does not contradict the other statements. Independent of thought, to be sure, means pragmatically, not created by thought but that which can be known by thought. Two implications may be mentioned here. First, if truth is approximate, then inquiry is continuous. This continuity is needed if we look for progress. On the other hand, this view of reality and truth gives place to Peirce's principle of fallibilism, which insists on the corrigihility even of perceptual statements and that no belief or truth can be regarded as finally verified or beyond question. Hence scientific investigation is in process of constant revision, which again leads to progress, as evidences from our present conditions show. To summarize, reality cannot be created by thought, but can only be known by it. The method of inquiry that should be used is the scientific method. The results of any investigation are true if agreed upon by all who are concerned. Truth and reality, which are identical, according to Peirce, involve community. The process by which the existent becomes a body of generalized habits and beliefs is a process of evolution and continuity.

Thus, the standard is consistency with pragmatic experimental decision procedure.

Impact calc:

Effective experiments are those that attempt to counteract biases. Anderson 15:

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

From our current moral perspective, it is easy for us to see the errors of the past, with respect to slavery. A skeptic might wonder whether we are merely begging the question in favor of our current moral beliefs. The pragmatist answers that this change can be seen to be progressive, a case of moral learning, because it was brought about through practices that tend to counteract or reduce known moral biases rooted in human psychology. As clinical conclusions reached on the basis of blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials are more reliable, due to the ways they check the biases of wishful thinking, moral conclusions reached on the basis of practical methods that counteract the biases of power are similarly more reliable. This pragmatist perspective suggests an alternative research program for moral philosophy, reaching beyond the a priori methods to which we philosophers are so wedded. My point is to expand the tools we use, and to reduce our excessive reliance on the old tools. Just as a bolt will turn uselessly without a nut to fasten it, or glued joints will be weak if they haven't been clamped, our abstract moral arguments will spin without conclusion or fall apart uselessly unless they are used in conjunction with empirically grounded tools. We can make better progress by working in close conjunction with the social sciences and history to consider empirically how different circumstances, including social relations, shape our moral thinking. If we discover an influence on our moral thinking that we can't justify, or that experience shows us to lead to untoward consequences, we have discovered a moral bias. Then we can seek empirically reliable methods to correct, block, counteract, or bypass those biases, keeping in mind that pure reasoning may not be enough. Some methods may be practical, not just speculative or theoretical, and involve concerted action in the world, sometimes collective political action. This alternative research program does not reject intuitions. They are a basic material of moral thinking; we have no way around them. But we must be alert to the possibility that our intuitions might suffer from bias and would be improved under alternative conditions. 40 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - CENTRAL DIVISION My case study raises an alarm for philosophy as we currently practice it. Without active participation of the oppressed and disadvantaged, the moral views reached by philosophers are liable to be biased-ignorant of and unresponsive to the concerns and claims of those not present. 65 Dewey and Tufts identified that problem, too. Morality, understood as what we owe to each other, arises from the need to adjudicate the claims that everyone makes on everyone else. If the claims of the subordinated are suppressed, silenced, ignored, or misunderstood, the conclusions reached on the basis of the subset of claims that are considered are liable to be systematically biased. My case study indicates that purely a priori methods of bias correction are unlikely to reliably counteract such biases. 66 There is no reason to think that ever-more-elaborate exploration of the contours of one's own moral thoughts, or of the thoughts of similarly situated persons, will capture everyone's moral concerns. Knowledge of what we owe to each other can only be generated through processes of interpersonal claim-making that include those occupying the full range of diverse situations in society. For moral philosophy to make progress, it must practice inclusion of diverse philosophers. In this lecture, I have focused on bias correction as one basic pragmatist method. Another is experiments in living. The conclusions we reach from real experiments in living are likely to be more reliable than the conclusions we reach from thought experiments. Thought experiments are at best no more reliable than deliberation. We often find that our deliberations have gone astray once we act on them and experience unexpected results-some of which may inspire us to revise the initial terms in which we formulated the stakes in our decision. 67 Ascent to the a priori offers no protection from such revision. We know from the history of morals that conceptions of value thought to be immutable do, in fact, change over time. Just as bias correction requires collaboration with history and the social sciences, so does assessing the results of experiments in living. Pragmatism thereby invites us to naturalize moral inquiry at the same time as expand the range of participants in it. It is high time that we philosophers expand our toolboxes, as well as our collaborators. In doing so, we have nothing to lose but our prejudices

RTP:

1 Current philosophical methods are too abstract and fail to account for bias and moral progress-prefer a pragmatist methodology of constant experimentation to update moral beliefs. Anderson 15:

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

Experimental philosophers have raised this challenge with 25 PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES OF THE APA, VOLUME 89 respect to nonmoral normative intuitions. 9 It applies with special force to intuitions about what we owe to each other. Public opinion polling consistently finds that people's views about justice and public policy are affected by their social identities-in particular, by ethnocentric bias in favor of groups they affiliate with- independently of the impact of these principles and policies on their personal self-interest. 10 We also have theoretical reasons for thinking that important challenges to morality arise from group interests and perspectives defined by social hierarchy, independent of self-interest. 11 Bias correction techniques for blocking self-interest need not work against ethnocentric biases. This matters for philosophy because philosophers, as already noted, are demographically unrepresentative of humanity at large, overwhelmingly drawn from advantaged social groups. Their professional situation mostly insulates them from the challenges faced by less privileged groups, and professional norms promote emotional detachment from the issues they contemplate. Research-active philosophers enjoy a leisure to contemplate that the less privileged lack. Various rationales for this exclusion and narrowness are suspect. The traditional Aristotelian view that leisure is needed for rational reflection may be challenged by the thought that direct experience of manual labor and economic necessity makes salient the importance of certain claims of justice that the privileged are liable to ignore, dismiss, or misunderstand. 12 Philosophers' emotional detachment-their confidence that reflection in the "cool hour" yields better understanding-looks suspect in view of the fact that this was a traditional rationale for excluding the propertyless from the franchise, who were thought to be too upset about their poverty. We see the same view reflected in complaints that people of color are "hypersensitive" about racial insults. Cognitive science suggests rather that emotions help us focus on normatively relevant features of urgent problems, 13 and that the lack of emotion of the privileged may reflect their indifference to the plight of others. 14 Against the thought that having practical stakes in the outcome biases moral thinking, I suggest that lacking stakes-the typical condition of philosophers when they undertake speculative thought experiments- may make moral reasoning irresponsible and unaccountable to those to whom the outcomes matter. A third question that may be raised about dominant methodologies is as follows: Why think our moral intuitions are reliable now when past ones were clearly prejudiced? Consider this intuition advanced by Hastings Rashdall, the distinguished Oxford philosopher and utilitarian theorist: "Probably no one will hesitate to agree that . . . the lower Well-being . . . of countless Chinamen or Negroes must be sacrificed that a higher life may be possible for a much smaller number of white men." 15 This is not a good start for a moral epistemology that purports to deliver, from reflection on intuitions, moral principles true in all possible worlds. A fourth closely related question is this: Why think our moral intuitions are reliable now when they have changed quite radically over time? Consider the recent dramatic changes in Euro-American views about the morality of LGBT sexuality, divorce, and premarital sex. About a century ago, beliefs about the morality of killing for honor also changed. I do not draw skeptical conclusions about the possibility of moral knowledge from such doubts about the reliability of our moral intuitions. Nor shall I argue that moral relativism is the best way to explain the phenomena. Nor do I think that we have some alternative route to moral knowledge that avoids intuition altogether. Rather, if our instruments are flawed, the task before us is to discover ways to improve them. This returns us to the pragmatist strategy of seeking methods for intelligently updating our moral beliefs. We can learn from the history of moral change how we might make progress in improving our practices of moral inquiry. Consider what may be the most dramatic worldwide progressive change in moral beliefs that has ever occurred. Three hundred years ago, few people in the world thought that slavery was morally wrong. Today, almost no one is willing to defend it. Although still practiced in many parts of the world, slavery is illegal everywhere. In this lecture, I shall take it as a fixed point that this change in moral views is progressive-a case of moral learning. 16 By studying how we managed to improve our moral beliefs about slavery, we can gain insight into how to improve our moral beliefs more generally. To make this study manageable, I focus on the U.S. case

2 Appeal to a priori knowledge is regressive and fails to guide action-ethics should focus on procedures that allow us to refine our beliefs. That commits us to the pragmatist strategy of experimentation. Anderson 15:

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

I have a pragmatist doubt about this aspiration. Our subject is principles of moral right, which tell us what we owe to each other. These principles have a function . They are tools for solving moral problems-problems that arise from the facts that people need to live together, and need each other's assistance and cooperation, to survive and realize nearly everything worthwhile in life. Because of these facts, we regularly make claims on one another to act or avoid acting in various ways, and call upon one another to affirm and enforce these claims by applying moral sanctions and expressing moral sentiments-by praising, blaming, punishing, and by expressing outrage, disgust, resentment, and other moral sentiments. The claims we make on each other frequently conflict. 22 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - CENTRAL DIVISION Morality supplies principles for adjudicating those conflicts, and for fairly and impartially evaluating and revising other tools, such as laws, nonmoral social norms, and bargaining, that we have developed for managing them. Given that our conflicts are rooted in empirical realities that differ across societies and ages, there is no particular reason to think that there is any single fundamental moral tool that would settle all our conflicts, or even all conflicts of a particular structure, everywhere. That is no more plausible than to suppose that there is one ultimate tool that will perform every task needed to build a shelter, no matter the climate, economic, and social conditions. If the quest for ultimate, fact-free, or at least highly general and abstract principles of moral rightness is dubious, how else can we advance moral inquiry? Pragmatists argue that we should replace the quest for ultimate or highly general principles with methods for intelligently updating our current moral beliefs. There are two basic types of intelligent updating. The first is bias correction. We can empirically investigate whether certain biases-thought tendencies that we have reason to reject for purposes of adjudicating moral differences-have distorted our moral thinking. Such investigation may also discover methods for blocking or counteracting these biases. Implementation of these methods may then yield different beliefs, which are more trustworthy for avoiding the biases in question. A model of this type of strategy may be found in double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trials of medical treatments. Blinding and placebo controls block the effects of wishful thinking on observation. When neither the patient nor the clinician knows whether the patient has received a drug, their hope that the treatment works will not distort observations of actual health outcomes. While clinical trials are hardly guaranteed to generate accurate causal knowledge, we have much greater reason to trust the evidence generated from double-blind, placebo-controlled trials than from other types of evidence in medicine. Conclusions drawn from less biased methods of inquiry are likely to be better. The second basic method for intelligent updating of moral beliefs consists in experiments in living. We act in accordance with new moral principles, and see whether doing so solves the problem we wanted it to solve, better than the old principles, with side effects we can live with.

Impacts:

A probability: experimentation is a reliable process which means it gives us a better chance of getting the correct answer

B takes out abstract theories: morality must be grounded in material conditions of oppression otherwise it's susceptible to biases

C takes out util--no disad has ever come true in the whole history of debate, proves it's not a reliable decision mechanism

3 My framework controls the internal link to ends-based ethics like util-only through experimentation can we reliably make predictions. Dewey 31:

John Dewey American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform, "Social Science and Social Control" 1931, The Essential Dewey Volume I: Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, Edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander, Indiana University Press, 1998, RE

It is a commonplace of logical theory that laws are of the "if-then" type. If something occurs, then something else happens; if certain conditions exist, they are accompanied by certain other conditions. Such knowledge alone is knowledge of a fact in any intelligible sense of the word. Although we have to act in order to discover the conditions underlying the "if' in physical matters, yet the material constituting the "if' is there apart from our action; like the movements of sun and earth in an eclipse. But in social phenomena the relation is: "If we do something, something else will happen." The objective material constituting the "if" belongs to us, not to something wholly independent of us. We are concerned, not with a bare relation of cause and effect, but with one of means and consequences, that is, of causes deliberately used for the sake of producing certain effects. As far as we intentionally do and make, we shall know; as far as we "know" without making, our so-called knowledge is a miscellany, or at most antiquarian, and hence without relevance to future planning. Only the knowledge which is itself the fruit of a technology can breed further technology. I want to make the same point with reference to social prediction. Here, too, the assumption is generally made that we must be able to predict before we can plan and control. Here again the reverse is the case. We can predict the occurrence of an eclipse precisely because we cannot control it. If we could control it, we could not predict, except contingently; just as we can predict a collision when we see two trains approaching on the same track-provided that a human being does not foresee the possibility and take measures to avert its happening. The other day I ran across a remark of Alexander Hamilton's to the effect that instead of awaiting an event to know what measures to take, we should take measures to bring the event to pass. And I would add that only then can we genuinely forecast the future in the world of social matters. Empirical rule-of-thumb practices were the mothers of the arts. But the practices of the arts were in turn the source of science, when once the empirical methods were freed in imagination and used with some degree of freedom of experimentation. There cannot be a science of an art until the art has itself made some advance, and the significant development occurs when men intentionally try to use such art as they have already achieved in order to obtain results which they conceive to be desirable. If we have no social technique at all, it is impossible to bring planning and control into being. If we do have at hand a reasonable amount of technique, then it is by deliberately using what we have that we shall in the end develop a dependable body of social knowledge. If we want foresight, we shall not obtain it by any amount of fact finding so long as we disregard the human aims and desires producing the facts which we find. But if we decide upon what we want socially, what sort of social consequences we wish to occur, and then use whatever means we possess to effect these in- tended consequences, we shall find the road that leads to foresight. Forethought and planning must come before foresight

Experimentation Contention:

Plea bargaining disproportionately harms minorities-something must be done. Borchetta and Fontier 10-23:

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta and Alice Fontier, 10-23-2017, "New Research Finds That Prosecutors Give White Defendants Better Deals Than Black Defendants," Slate Magazine, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/new_research_finds_that_prosecutors_give_white_defendants_better_deals_than.html RE

Countless people like this young man face tremendous pressure to accept a prosecutor's plea offer. And most criminal punishment results-not from a trial by a jury of your peers-but in convictions imposed through plea deals. Against this backdrop, a new study showing racial bias in the plea bargaining process demands attention and action. A new study from Carlos Berdejó of Loyola Law School demonstrates for the first time that there are significant racial disparities in the plea deals white and black people receive on misdemeanor charges-with black people facing more severe punishments. Berdejó analyzed 30,807 misdemeanor cases in Wisconsin over a seven-year period and found that white people facing misdemeanor charges were more than 74 percent more likely than black people to have all charges carrying potential prison time dropped, dismissed, or reduced. And white people with no criminal history were substantially more likely to have charges reduced than black people who had no criminal history. This suggests, as Berdejó concludes in his report, that prosecutors use race to judge whether a person is likely to recidivate when deciding what plea to offer. Countless people like this young man face tremendous pressure to accept a prosecutor's plea offer. Prior studies have found racial disparities in the plea bargaining process. The Berdejó study differs, however, in that it analyzes a detailed statewide data set of the entire life of criminal cases, from charging to sentencing, making it more reliable and expansive. The majority of arrests nationally are for misdemeanor charges. At The Bronx Defenders, where we provide public defense services to low-income people in the Bronx, New York, we had more than 18,000 new misdemeanor cases in 2016 alone. That was more than three-quarters of our cases, and about half of all cases that we closed last year resulted in plea deals. If there are racial disparities in pleas in misdemeanor cases that lead to worse punishment of black people, it means a significant proportion of our criminal justice system is meting out punishment in a racially biased manner. Prosecutors wield enormous power and total discretion in deciding whether and how to charge people, whether to request pre-trial detention or money bail, and what plea to offer. One factor guiding this decision is whether the attorney believes the person will be held on bail. Frequently, people charged with misdemeanors accept pleas just to go home. A young black man from the South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in the country, may have almost no chance of paying bail, so the only option is a criminal record and probation. Contrast that to a wealthier white man who knows that if the judge sets bail he can pay his way out. This man has no pressure to accept a plea, and his lawyer can investigate his case and negotiate a better plea. Immediate interventions could stem racial disparities in pleas. New York must eliminate money bail for misdemeanors to end the threat of pretrial incarceration that disparately extracts guilty pleas. Prosecutors should state the reasons for plea offers on the record to create transparency and be required to collect and share data about their offers to expose any disparities. It is only through established facts and data that we can educate prosecutors and judges, as well as work to combat implicit and overt bias. Prosecutors have virtually unchecked power in the plea bargain process. It's the power to take away freedom, destroy livelihoods, and tear families apart. Ultimately, it's the power to devastate low-income communities already suffering from aggressive and discriminatory law enforcement tactics. In a place like the Bronx, unfair police and prosecutor practices combine to create a situation in which nearly all of the people facing criminal charges are black or brown men, even though one-third of the population is white. This power must be grounded in fundamental principles of fairness rather than the drive to rack up convictions. Otherwise, the criminal justice system simply administers punishment, rather than justice, and in the process continues to destroy communities of color and further erode its own legitimacy.

Attempts at abolition are shot down by those in power who are lazy and want to maintain the status quo-proves the aff is a valuable form of experimentation. Fine 87:

Ralph Adam Fine, Judge, Circuit Court of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin "Plea Bargaining: An Unnecessary Evil" Marquette Law Review Vol. 70 Issue 4 Summer 1987 RE

Plea bargaining exists only because it is thought to be essential to the efficient functioning of the criminal justice system: "Whatever might be the situation in an ideal world, the fact is that the guilty plea and the often concomitant plea bargain are important components of this country's criminal justice system."59 The experiences of Alaska, Ventura County, Oakland County, New Orleans and Judge O'Farrell prove that it is not essential. Perhaps Judge Stern put it best when he compared the system of plea bargaining to a "fish market" that "ought to be hosed down." 60 We do not need plea bargaining - we should not tolerate it. Abolition, however, will require work and dedication. As Robert C. Erwin, then Associate Justice of the Alaskan Supreme Court, told Professor Alschuler in a June, 1976 interview: A no-plea-bargaining policy forces the police to investigate their cases more thoroughly. It forces prosecutors to screen their cases more rigorously and to prepare them more carefully. It forces the courts to face the problem of the lazy judge who comes to court late and leaves early, to search out a good presiding judge, and to adopt a sensible calendaring system. All of these things have in fact happened here., 6 1 They can happen everywhere as well, if those in the system only try. As Judge Stern told me, recalling his days as a federal prosecutor, "It worked for me, and I tell you, it would work for anybody.

The aff is a radical experiment that ruptures the status quo of mass incarceration and forces change to occur-this impact turns court clog and efficiency arguments. Alexander 12:

Michelle Alexander author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." "Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System" NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/go-to-trial-crash-the-justice-system.html, 3-10-12 RE

AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: "What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn't we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?" The woman was Susan Burton, who knows a lot about being processed through the criminal justice system. Her odyssey began when a Los Angeles police cruiser ran over and killed her 5-year-old son. Consumed with grief and without access to therapy or antidepressant medications, Susan became addicted to crack cocaine. She lived in an impoverished black community under siege in the "war on drugs," and it was but a matter of time before she was arrested and offered the first of many plea deals that left her behind bars for a series of drug-related offenses. Every time she was released, she found herself trapped in an under-caste, subject to legal discrimination in employment and housing. Fifteen years after her first arrest, Susan was finally admitted to a private drug treatment facility and given a job. After she was clean she dedicated her life to making sure no other woman would suffer what she had been through. Susan now runs five safe homes for formerly incarcerated women in Los Angeles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, supplies a lifeline for women released from prison. But it does much more: it is also helping to start a movement. With groups like All of Us or None, it is organizing formerly incarcerated people and encouraging them to demand restoration of their basic civil and human rights. I was stunned by Susan's question about plea bargains because she - of all people - knows the risks involved in forcing prosecutors to make cases against people who have been charged with crimes. Could she be serious about organizing people, on a large scale, to refuse to plea-bargain when charged with a crime? "Yes, I'm serious," she flatly replied. I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel. But in this era of mass incarceration - when our nation's prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement - these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty. "The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used," said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged. In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. No wonder, then, that most people waive their rights. Take the case of Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two who was arrested at age 30 in a drug sweep in Hearne, Tex., in 2000. In jail, with no one to care for her two young children, she began to panic. Though she maintained her innocence, her court-appointed lawyer told her to plead guilty, since the prosecutor offered probation. Ms. Stewart spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea. She was sentenced to 10 years' probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Then her real punishment began: upon her release, Ms. Stewart was saddled with a felony record; she was destitute, barred from food stamps and evicted from public housing. Once they were homeless, Ms. Stewart's children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she lost everything even though she took the deal. On the phone, Susan said she knew exactly what was involved in asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. "Believe me, I know. I'm asking what we can do. Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?" The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, "if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos." Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial "emergency" fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash - it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid. In telling Susan that she was right, I found myself uneasy. "As a mother myself, I don't think there's anything I wouldn't plead guilty to if a prosecutor told me that accepting a plea was the only way to get home to my children," I said. "I truly can't imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk - even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?" Susan, silent for a while, replied: "I'm not saying we should do it. I'm saying we ought to know that it's an option. People should understand that simply exercising their rights would shake the foundations of our justice system which works only so long as we accept its terms. As you know, another brutal system of racial and social control once prevailed in this country, and it never would have ended if some people weren't willing to risk their lives. It would be nice if reasoned argument would do, but as we've seen that's just not the case. So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives."

Experimentation with controversial policies is key to adequately revise moral beliefs and helps us implement policies better in the future. Dewey 31:

John Dewey American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform, "Social Science and Social Control" 1931, The Essential Dewey Volume I: Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, Edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander, Indiana University Press, 1998, RE

Wherever purposes are employed deliberately and systematically for the sake of certain desired social results, there it is possible, within limits, to determine the connection be- tween the human factor and the actual occurrence, and thus to get a complete social fact, namely, the actual external occurrence in its human relationships. Prohibition, whether noble or not, is not an experiment in any intelligent scientific sense of the term. For it was undertaken without the effort to obtain the conditions of control which are essential to any experimental determination of fact. The Five Year Plan of Russia, on the other hand, whether noble or the reverse, has many of the traits of a social experiment, for it is an at- tempt to obtain certain specified social results by the use of specified definite measures, exercised under conditions of considerable, if not complete, control. The point I am making may be summed up by saying that it is a complete error to suppose that efforts at social control depend upon the prior existence of a social science. The reverse is the case. The building up of social science, that is, of a body of knowledge in which facts are ascertained in their signifi- cant relations, is dependent upon putting social planning into effect. It is at this point that the misconception about physical science, when it is taken as a model for social knowl- edge, is important. Physical science did not develop because inquirers piled up a mass of facts about observed phenomena. It came into being when men intentionally experimented, on the basis of ideas and hypotheses, with observed phenomena to modify them and dis- close new observations. This process is self- corrective and self-developing. Imperfect and even wrong hypotheses, when acted upon, brought to light significant phenomena which made improved ideas and improved experi- mentations possible. The change from a passive and accumulative attitude into an active and productive one is the secret revealed by the progress of physical inquiry. Men obtained knowledge of natural energies by trying deliberately to control the conditions of their operation. The result was knowledge, and then control on a larger scale by the application of what was learned.

Constitution Contention:

The Court's reasoning has been circular and shuts off possibilities for change. Schehr 13:

Dr. Robert Schehr, professor in the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University "The Emperor's New Clothes: Intellectual Dishonesty and the Unconstitutionality of Plea-Bargaining" Texas AandM Law Review, Vol. 2 2013 RE

The Author initiated this Article with a reference to the well-worn fable made famous by Hans Christian Andersen. The Author suggested that it was absolutely crystalline that the system of plea-bargaining in the United States appears nakedly before us as an institutional mechanism for enhancing an out-of-control criminal-justice system. In order to establish plea practice as constitutional, the Supreme Court was forced to employ a juridic discourse that shifted from the language of due process found in criminal law, especially the protections afforded by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and toward contract law where defendants were "free" to negotiate away their rights. This legal maneuver is akin to the Bush Administration's use of the term "enemy combatants" rather than "prisoners of war" because the latter would have invoked Geneva Convention protections. 281 The Supreme Court applied an entirely novel standard to the adjudication of criminal cases, and it rationalized its decision as being based on the need for efficiency. Post-1970 Supreme Court decisions, as the Author revealed in Section III, generated legitimacy for the plea system by referencing its 1970 precedent. Reasoning by circulus in propando, plea-bargaining was considered constitutional because it existed, and it existed because it was constitutional. Since the late 1960s, the Court has failed to address the constitutionality of pleas forthrightly without shifting the narrative away from due process and toward contract law. The reason for this, the Author contends, is because the Court's rationale would not bear the weight of 500 years of Common Law, U.S. constitutional mandates, and opinions of the Court extending to 1930. With the deftness of the magician's slight of hand and the invocation of rhetorical deception, the Court disappears criminal procedure and due process afforded by the Constitution to all who are facing the loss of liberty and in its place returns an entirely new rhetorical device-the law of contracts. Those who participate in the proliferation of legal narrative justifying and rationalizing the plea system, the Author argues, are analogous to the vain king who, naked before all observers, continued despite what was obviously transparent to rationalize his conviction. The Supreme Court, prosecutors, judges, and even defense attorneys turn to rationalization from legitimate plea practices. They have to because, as demonstrated in this Article, neither our Common Law heritage, our founding documents, colonial and state constitutions, nor Supreme Court decisions until 1930 permitted plea waivers on constitutional grounds. Each of these federal and state institutions turned to our founding commitment to natural law and natural rights as constitutive of our philosophical understanding of personhood and liberty. As demonstrated, the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were considered by most to be natural rights and, as such, were inalienable. What explains this philosophical shift? It appears that it was the need for increased efficiency with regard to case litigation. But how did this happen? Do rights trump privileges with regard to the administration of pleas? Or put another way, Does our pre-political commitment to preservation of personhood under the law, with all its attendant qualities of liberty, freedom, and security, eclipse institutional demands for efficiency? Remember that until 1930 the Supreme Court issued opinions that emphatically ruled in the affirmative. Starting in 1930 with Patton v. United States, however, the Supreme Court did a dramatic about-face and shifted the course of plea jurisprudence.282 Why? Because the dramatic increases in criminal caseloads meant increasing demand for prosecutorial and judicial efficiency. But there remains a cart-and-horse problem. Why were there so many cases putting nearly insurmountable pressures on the legal system? Where did and do they come from? The problem of enhanced prosecution was and still is a direct by-product of legislative decision-making. The more legislators at the state and federal level define behaviors as criminal and in need of prosecution, the greater the resource pressures confronting law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the courts to investigate and adjudicate them. Is it really that simple? By saying so, the Author is at risk at being labeled incompetent and stupid. Clearly, by drawing attention to this simple fact, the Author proclaims that the emperor stands naked before us. There really is not any need for plea-bargaining if there are fewer cases to litigate. How is it that all other Common Law countries manage to get by with a plea regimen that is the inverse of ours, and yet still manage to generate quite orderly civil society?

That affirms: the court's dismissal of inquiry is inconsistent with pragmatism. Ralston 12:

Shane J. Ralston, Pennsylvania State University-Hazleton and World Campus "Can Pragmatists be Constitutionalists? Dewey, Jefferson and the Experimental Constitution" Contemporary Pragmatism, 2-15-12 RE

Still unaddressed is a major difference between Dewey and many constitutional theorists, including Ackerman and Buchanan (excepting Sunstein). While these constitutionalists insist that constitutional norms are produced by meta-level constitutional rule-making under minimal constraints, Dewey believes that constitutional norms emerge from within broader and more inclusive set of social and political practices. For Dewey, constitutional politics are continuous with, not privileged over, day-to-day politics. In addition, constitutional norms are the products of 24 experimental inquiry. Though they are comparatively more stable than the norms codified in ordinary legislation, constitutional norms are still contested, fallible and thus potentially revisable through an amendment procedure. Indeed, they are similar to the highly, though by no means absolutely, stable forms that guide inquiry-what Dewey creatively describes as the "operationally a'priori" (LW 12, 21). Contrary to the views of most constitutional theorists, the testing of proposed constitutional norms does not occur at a higher theoretical plane-what Ackerman, Buchanan and others eulogistically call the 'constitutional level.' Instead, on an experimental pragmatist's account, norms are tested and determined through inquiry.25 According to Larry Hickman (2008, 25), Dewey's "experimentalism involves active, systematic, and controlled attempts to determine . . . which norms . . . are best positioned to achieve the desired balance between goals of freedom and equality." For Dewey, determining the content of constitutional norms is no different than the creation and valuation of other norms; it occurs through observation, analysis, manipulation and reflection upon the conditions and consequences of problematic situations, whether in ordinary or constitutional politics-or in what pragmatists simply refer to as "experience."

Trials and due process are a crucial element of democracy-a lot of warrants. NJC:

The National Judicial College, "Why Jury Trials are Important to a Democratic Society" http://www.judges.org/uploads/jury/Why-Jury-Trials-are-Important-to-a-Democratic-Society.pdf, n.d. RE

The American jury trial is a constitutional right. The founding fathers believed that the right to be tried by a jury of your peers was so important that it merited inclusion in the highest law of the land. Amendments 6 and 7 of the Bill of Rights contain this right: Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. Amendment VII In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. 2. The jury trial is a vital part of America's system of checks and balances. "Checks and balances" means that the judicial branch of government is equal to the other two branches (executive and legislative) and the courts can overturn laws or acts of government that violate constitutional rights. Our system of checks and balances requires a strong judicial branch. A strong judicial branch requires a healthy jury trial option. Jury service is your chance to have a voice in the judicial branch of government. 3. The founding fathers included jury trials in the constitution because jury trials prevent tyranny. The denition of tyranny is oppressive power exerted by the government. Tyranny also exists when absolute power is vested in a single ruler. Jury trials are the opposite of tyranny because the citizens on the jury are given the absolute power to make the nal decision. Prepared by www.judges.org The National Judicial College is grateful for the support of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. 4. Trial by jury is a unique part of America's democracy. Most countries do not have jury trials. It is one of the things that make us unique as a country, and something we should be proud of. 5. Jury trials provide an opportunity for citizens to participate in the process of governing. Serving on a jury is the most direct and impactful way for citizens to connect to the constitution. It is more active and participatory than voting. Citizens can help perpetuate our system of laws, and stabilize our democracy. 6. Jury trials educate jurors about the justice system. People who serve on juries have a greater respect for the system when they leave. Serving on a jury gives people insight into the justice system and their own communities, and corrects misapprehensions about what takes place in a courtroom. 7. Jury trials provide a method of peaceful dispute resolution. Most citizens will be impacted at some point in their life by a con ict, such as a divorce, a personal injury due to negligence, a contractual dispute, an employment dispute, etc. There are many ways to resolve such disagreements, but if other methods fail, a jury trial is one way to have nal resolution in a peaceful manner. 8. Jury trials oer the voice of the people to the civil and criminal justice systems. If you are accused of a crime, you have the right to ask for a jury of your peers to judge your guilt or innocence. In a civil case, a jury of citizens will determine community standards and expectations in accordance with the law. We do not want judges and lawyers making every important decision; they are not representative of the people of the United States. Juries provide the voice of common sense and the perspective of the citizen to our developing body of law.

Democracy is a crucial form of experimentation and inquiry. Festenstein 05 summarizes Dewey:

Festenstein, Matthew, 2-9-2005, "Dewey's Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," No Publication, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-political/ RE

This way of viewing the desirability of democracy is instrumental and minimal; instrumental, in that the desirability of democracy derives from its protecting the interests of each individual against the depredations of an elite class, and minimal, in that the rationale for popular participation is limited to the need for the elite to be informed where the shoe pinches, if its policies are not to be misguided. Dewey deepens this minimal and instrumental justification by taking democracy to be a form of social inquiry: Democracy as public discussion is viewed as the best way of dealing with the conflict of interests in a society: 'The method of democracy - inasfar as it is that of organized intelligence - is to bring these conflicts out into the open where their special claims can be discussed and judged in the light of more inclusive interests than are represented by either of them separately' (Liberalism and Social Action, LW11, 56). Democratic societies are thought of as both seeking to attain desirable goals, and arguing over how to do so, and also as arguing over what a desirable goal is. In other words, democratic politics is not simply a channel through which we can assert our interests (as it is for the first argument), but a forum or mode of activity in which we can arrive at a conception of what our interests are. As the experimentalist conception of inquiry insists, this does not imply that we need a priori criteria in order to establish if this process has been successful. Rather, criteria for what counts as a satisfactory solution may be hammered out in the process of searching for one. Democracy is experimental for Dewey in that it allows, or should allow, a profound questioning of the idées fixes of the established order, even if, of course, much democratic politics will not take the form of such questioning.

Due Process:

http://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1250andcontext=scholarlyworks

Anderson:

Appeal to a priori knowledge is regressive and fails to guide action-ethics should focus on procedures that allow us to refine our beliefs. That commits us to the pragmatist strategy of experimentation. Anderson 15:

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

I have a pragmatist doubt about this aspiration. Our subject is principles of moral right, which tell us what we owe to each other. These principles have a function . They are tools for solving moral problems-problems that arise from the facts that people need to live together, and need each other's assistance and cooperation, to survive and realize nearly everything worthwhile in life. Because of these facts, we regularly make claims on one another to act or avoid acting in various ways, and call upon one another to affirm and enforce these claims by applying moral sanctions and expressing moral sentiments-by praising, blaming, punishing, and by expressing outrage, disgust, resentment, and other moral sentiments. The claims we make on each other frequently conflict. 22 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - CENTRAL DIVISION Morality supplies principles for adjudicating those conflicts, and for fairly and impartially evaluating and revising other tools, such as laws, nonmoral social norms, and bargaining, that we have developed for managing them. Given that our conflicts are rooted in empirical realities that differ across societies and ages, there is no particular reason to think that there is any single fundamental moral tool that would settle all our conflicts, or even all conflicts of a particular structure, everywhere. That is no more plausible than to suppose that there is one ultimate tool that will perform every task needed to build a shelter, no matter the climate, economic, and social conditions. If the quest for ultimate, fact-free, or at least highly general and abstract principles of moral rightness is dubious, how else can we advance moral inquiry? Pragmatists argue that we should replace the quest for ultimate or highly general principles with methods for intelligently updating our current moral beliefs. There are two basic types of intelligent updating. The first is bias correction. We can empirically investigate whether certain biases-thought tendencies that we have reason to reject for purposes of adjudicating moral differences-have distorted our moral thinking. Such investigation may also discover methods for blocking or counteracting these biases. Implementation of these methods may then yield different beliefs, which are more trustworthy for avoiding the biases in question. A model of this type of strategy may be found in double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trials of medical treatments. Blinding and placebo controls block the effects of wishful thinking on observation. When neither the patient nor the clinician knows whether the patient has received a drug, their hope that the treatment works will not distort observations of actual health outcomes. While clinical trials are hardly guaranteed to generate accurate causal knowledge, we have much greater reason to trust the evidence generated from double-blind, placebo-controlled trials than from other types of evidence in medicine. Conclusions drawn from less biased methods of inquiry are likely to be better. The second basic method for intelligent updating of moral beliefs consists in experiments in living. We act in accordance with new moral principles, and see whether doing so solves the problem we wanted it to solve, better than the old principles, with side effects we can live with.

Impacts:

A probability: experimentation is reliable process which means it gives us a better chance of getting the correct answer

B takes out abstract theories: morality must be grounded in empirical conditions otherwise it's susceptible to biases

Morality is distinct from math-takes out their a priori knowledge args and proves that their use of reason is tainted. Anderson 15:

-answers all reasoners know 2+2=4 arg

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

Let's turn our attention to the social conditions of the practice of moral philosophy. While it is doubtful whether these have been designed to counteract biases, in practicing moral inquiry under these conditions, philosophers presuppose that those conditions are not themselves distorting our moral thinking. Philosophers engage in moral reflection in the "cool hour," at points and sometimes on whole matters in which we do not have immediate stakes. Often, philosophers undertake moral reflection monologically, or simulate dialogue in their own minds. Even when dialogue is actual, it typically takes place around a seminar table or classroom composed of largely relatively privileged people- faculty and college students who have leisure to reflect, and who are overwhelmingly white, male, and middle class. The dominant methods appear to presuppose either that the social position of philosophers doesn't matter, or that whatever biases social position imparts are easily correctable by the table-turning and veil of ignorance thought experiments. If moral inquiry were like mathematical inquiry, these conditions might make sense. With respect to mathematics, it is plausible to suppose that the social identities of inquirers are irrelevant to how we think about the subject matter. This idea is harder to credit with respect to moral inquiry. Moral reasoning is supposed to help diverse people live together, come to terms with their differences, and promote peaceful cooperation on fair terms by supplying mutually acceptable principles for adjudicating the conflicting claims they make on each other, and for coordinating our moral sentiments to fit the demands of living together. We should expect that people's social positions affect the claims they regard as intuitively legitimate, as well as their moral sentiments.

Abstract phil does nothing in the real-world-just think how ridiculous it would be if you went up to a slaveholder and said 'this is non-universalizable.' Anderson 15:

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

The first white Anglo-American abolitionists were Quakers. They held that the fundamental principle of morality was the Golden Rule. John Hepburn argued that slavery and the slave trade violated the Golden Rule and led to the violation of every one of the Ten Commandments. 21 His tract is a splendid piece of analytic moral philosophy, packed with logically rigorous arguments. David Brion Davis, the great intellectual historian of slavery, writes of Hepburn's pamphlet that it "anticipated and answered virtually every proslavery argument that would appear in the next century and a half." 22 Given his commitment to the Golden Rule, Hepburn used table-turning arguments-a key method still used to check self-interested bias. He challenged slaveholders to consider whether they would want to be enslaved: "The Tyranizing over and making Slaves of our Fellow Creatures, the Negroes, every one knows, or may know, this is not the way they would be done unto." 23 Table-turning enables us to see the immorality of the slave trade as well. 24 Yet proslavery thinkers had a ready answer to table-turning arguments. Presbyterian preacher James Henley Thornwell argued that the Golden Rule, as interpreted by abolitionists, reduced morality to the "caprice" of subjective desire. Of course, slaveholders do not want to be slaves; but criminals don't want to be punished, either. The Golden Rule must be interpreted in light of the unequal social stations ordained by God and necessary for social order: If I am bound to emancipate my slave because if the tables were turned and our situations reverse, I should covet this boon from him, I should be bound, upon the same principle, to promote my indigent neighbors around me, to an absolute equality with myself. That neither the Jews . . . nor the Apostles . . . ever applied it in the sense of the Abolitionists, is a strong presumption against their mode of interpretation. . . . Our Savior directs us to do unto others what, in their situations, it would be right and reasonable in us to expect from them. . . . The rule then simply requires, in the case of slavery, that we should treat our slaves as we should feel that we had a right to be treated if we were slaves ourselves. 25 Thornton Stringfellow, Baptist pastor of Virginia, agreed: the Golden Rule, if interpreted to reject slavery, would require leveling all social inequalities. 26 Properly interpreted, it leaves them intact. 29 PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES OF THE APA, VOLUME 89 Abolitionists also used the method of reflective equilibrium against slavery advocates. Yet, for every intuitive wrong charged against slavery, proslavery thinkers pointed to the intuitive permissibility of the same act in other domains. Abolitionist arguments were to little avail in a society where such practices were accepted against other subordinate groups. For example, abolitionists objected to the chaining of runaway slaves. James Hammond, former representative and governor of South Carolina, and soon to be its senator, replied to abolitionist Thomas Clarkson: "Look to your army and navy." Soldiers and sailors, too, were put in manacles if they deserted their posts. 27 Abolitionist classics such as Theodore Weld's American Slavery as It Is (1839) stressed the shocking violence of slavery, with its floggings and other physical punishments. But proslavery writers observed that workers, wives, and pupils were subject to violent discipline at the hands of bosses, husbands, and schoolmasters. 28 Abolitionists objected that slaveholders forcibly separated husbands from wives and parents from children when they sold their slaves to different plantations. Proslavery thinkers replied that impressed seamen were also torn from their families, as were criminals sentenced to transportation. 29 Abolitionists complained of the injustice of forcing slaves to work for no wage. Proslavery thinkers noted that fathers had the right to force their children to labor for them without pay. 30 Abolitionists documented the meager food, ragged clothing, and miserable shelter of slaves. Proslavery thinkers pointed to the misery of wage slaves in England, who were materially worse off, they claimed, than American slaves. 31 But what of the fact that slaves, even those of talent, were deprived of all opportunities for advancement? Former senator of South Carolina William Harper replied, "Females are human and rational beings. They may be found of better faculties, and better qualified to exercise political privileges, and to attain the distinctions of society, than many men; yet who complains of the order of society by which they are excluded from them?

Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor "Moral Bias and Corrective Practices" https://www.academia.edu/19622919/Moral_Bias_and_Corrective_Practices, 2-20-15 RE

From our current moral perspective, it is easy for us to see the errors of the past, with respect to slavery. A skeptic might wonder whether we are merely begging the question in favor of our current moral beliefs. The pragmatist answers that this change can be seen to be progressive, a case of moral learning, because it was brought about through practices that tend to counteract or reduce known moral biases rooted in human psychology. As clinical conclusions reached on the basis of blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials are more reliable, due to the ways they check the biases of wishful thinking, moral conclusions reached on the basis of practical methods that counteract the biases of power are similarly more reliable. This pragmatist perspective suggests an alternative research program for moral philosophy, reaching beyond the a priori methods to which we philosophers are so wedded. My point is to expand the tools we use, and to reduce our excessive reliance on the old tools. Just as a bolt will turn uselessly without a nut to fasten it, or glued joints will be weak if they haven't been clamped, our abstract moral arguments will spin without conclusion or fall apart uselessly unless they are used in conjunction with empirically grounded tools. We can make better progress by working in close conjunction with the social sciences and history to consider empirically how different circumstances, including social relations, shape our moral thinking. If we discover an influence on our moral thinking that we can't justify, or that experience shows us to lead to untoward consequences, we have discovered a moral bias. Then we can seek empirically reliable methods to correct, block, counteract, or bypass those biases, keeping in mind that pure reasoning may not be enough. Some methods may be practical, not just speculative or theoretical, and involve concerted action in the world, sometimes collective political action. This alternative research program does not reject intuitions. They are a basic material of moral thinking; we have no way around them. But we must be alert to the possibility that our intuitions might suffer from bias and would be improved under alternative conditions. 40 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - CENTRAL DIVISION My case study raises an alarm for philosophy as we currently practice it. Without active participation of the oppressed and disadvantaged, the moral views reached by philosophers are liable to be biased-ignorant of and unresponsive to the concerns and claims of those not present. 65 Dewey and Tufts identified that problem, too. Morality, understood as what we owe to each other, arises from the need to adjudicate the claims that everyone makes on everyone else. If the claims of the subordinated are suppressed, silenced, ignored, or misunderstood, the conclusions reached on the basis of the subset of claims that are considered are liable to be systematically biased. My case study indicates that purely a priori methods of bias correction are unlikely to reliably counteract such biases. 66 There is no reason to think that ever-more-elaborate exploration of the contours of one's own moral thoughts, or of the thoughts of similarly situated persons, will capture everyone's moral concerns. Knowledge of what we owe to each other can only be generated through processes of interpersonal claim-making that include those occupying the full range of diverse situations in society. For moral philosophy to make progress, it must practice inclusion of diverse philosophers. In this lecture, I have focused on bias correction as one basic pragmatist method. Another is experiments in living. The conclusions we reach from real experiments in living are likely to be more reliable than the conclusions we reach from thought experiments. Thought experiments are at best no more reliable than deliberation. We often find that our deliberations have gone astray once we act on them and experience unexpected results-some of which may inspire us to revise the initial terms in which we formulated the stakes in our decision. 67 Ascent to the a priori offers no protection from such revision. We know from the history of morals that conceptions of value thought to be immutable do, in fact, change over time. Just as bias correction requires collaboration with history and the social sciences, so does assessing the results of experiments in living. Pragmatism thereby invites us to naturalize moral inquiry at the same time as expand the range of participants in it. It is high time that we philosophers expand our toolboxes, as well as our collaborators. In doing so, we have nothing to lose but our prejudices