A few weeks ago, Stanley Fish made a distinction that could cut through a lot of the confusion and posturing in the debate over Sonia Sotomayor's statement about what a wise Latina could bring to the bench. Perhaps it was wise, or at least prudent, for Sotomayor to distance herself from that statement at yesterday's confirmation hearings. But if Fish is right, she needn't have:
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) complains, She seems willing to accept that a judges rulings may be influenced by the judges personal backgrounds or feelings. But whether this is a matter of concern depends on just what Sotomayor is imagined to be accepting. Is she accepting an account of the way human beings invariably perform.? Is she endorsing a psychology? Or is she accepting a view of how judging should be done? Is she endorsing a method? Is she being descriptive or prescriptive?
If Sotomayor is being prescriptive, if she is saying, I will actively (as opposed to involuntarily) consult the influences that have shaped me at every point of decision, she is announcing a method of judging that invites Sessions's criticism.
But if she is being descriptive, if she is saying only that no one can completely divest herself of the experiences life has delivered or function as an actor without a history, she is announcing no method at all. She is merely acknowledging a truth (as she sees it) about the human condition: the influences Sessions laments are unavoidable, which means that no one can be faulted for viewing things from one or another of the limited perspectives to which we are all (differently) confined.
In fact—and this is what Sotomayor means when she talks about reaching a better conclusion than a white man who hasn't lived her life—rather than distorting reality, perspectives illuminate it or at least that part of it they make manifest. It follows that no one perspective suffices to capture all aspects of reality and that, therefore, the presence in the interpretive arena of multiple perspectives is a good thing. In a given instance, the Latina Judge might reach a better decision not because she was better in some absolute, racial sense, but because she was better acquainted than her brethren with some aspects of the situation they were considering. (As many have observed in the context of the issue of gender differences, among the current justices, only Ruth Bader Ginsburg knows what its like to be a 13-year-old girl and might, by virtue of that knowledge, be better able to assess the impact on such a girl of a strip-search.)
