Contribution to the handbook
Supporting · Assessed 2026-10-27
Goal contribution: supporting. The distinction can inform how governance decisions and their consequences are evaluated, but the question primarily explains a conceptual boundary rather than specifying a governance mechanism or test.
Does this challenge the goal?
In-scope gap
The question clarifies how process and results can be considered when assessing public decisions. It neither contests the handbook’s goal nor establishes a different desired outcome.
The evidence reports the author’s account and preference for considering both process and results, but supplies no rule for weighing conflicts between them.
Why this category?
- boundary
The supplied material is a source interpretation, not an agreed evaluation standard or evidence that one approach produces better governance.
This is an AI assessment of contribution to the goal, separate from whether the question has an answer.
Authority, accountability and resilience →
Tests, stop conditions and unresolved work →
Read the exploration goalNew evidence is being assessed. Any answer below is provisional; parts whose evidence changed or was withdrawn are withheld.
Explain the author’s example of a witness’s longer-term suffering, why its classification as a result or a process concern is unclear, and how considering both avoids depending on that classification.
What we can say so far
The author says it can be unclear whether a witness’s longer-term suffering belongs among a decision’s results or is instead a concern about the process. An outcome-focused view might count the suffering as a result because inhumane treatment can undermine the process’s legitimacy. A combined approach avoids having to settle that classification: it treats the witness’s treatment as relevant either way, while still requiring a judgment about how process virtues and results should be weighed.
What remains open
No material gap is recorded within this part’s current scope.
Conditions and limits
- The account is based on the author manuscript in an accessible mirror, not the publisher typeset version.
- The combined approach makes the witness’s treatment relevant either way but does not settle how to weigh process virtues against results.
Evidence and related ideas
Supporting evidence, qualifications and context play different roles in this answer.
supports
Where process and results overlap The author says it can be unclear which effects belong under “results” and which belong under “process.” For example, it is unclear whether a witness’s longer-term suffering should count among a decision’s results. An outcome-focused view might include it because inhumane treatment seems to undermine a process’s legitimacy. The author argues that a combined approach can treat the witness’s treatment as relevant either way, though it may still need to weigh process virtues against results.
Directly supports all three elements of the obligation.
The Threat of Algocracy: Reality, Resistance and Accommodation
Read full source: The Threat of Algocracy: Reality, Resistance and Accommodation (opens in a new tab) ↗Read source discussion: The Threat of Algocracy: Reality, Resistance and Accommodation →
context
Considering process and results The author favors judging both the process and its results. He argues that an outcome-only view could excuse cruel treatment of witnesses if it improved accuracy, while a process-only view could accept clearly bad results if people were treated with respect and given meaningful participation.