ABSTRACT
Choices between rival sets of purposes and interests can be made either on a principled, consistent basis or on a non-principled, unfettered basis in each case. This is an inescapable procedural option with respect to the mode of choice between purposes and interests in systems using rules for guidance. Mr Justice Black’s reluctance to allow judges to evaluate competing interests was confirmed by his observation that judges could not be trusted to properly recognize the nature of these interests. In the analysis of competing interests, it is, therefore, of the utmost significance that the individual and social interests be recognized to be interchangeable, and that they be recognized to be the same interest merely viewed from a different perspective. Failure to allow for this characteristic of interests carries with it the seeds for the reification of the state or of a particular form of economic order as something transcending the forms of individual life in society.
