When conservatives hear the suggestion that they should do something good, they hear it as an accusation and a threat. Instinctively, they turn it around on the accuser, exhorting them sarcastically to do this supposedly good thing and predicting that disaster will fall on their heads as a result — and rightly so.
When liberals hear the suggestion that the law should directly pursue just ends, they hear it as an accusation and a threat. Instinctively, they turn it around on the accuser, predicting that they themselves will be excluded and violated in a legal order that sought substantive justice — because the only alternative to empty formalism is a positive evil.
When neoliberals hear the suggestion that they should do something good or the law should directly pursue just ends, it doesn’t even register and they just continue on with their “best practices,” oblivious and content.
An und für sich 