Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to mark me down as . . . an adherent to the view that outcomes (ends) do not justify methods (means). Respectfully, it seems to me an assiduous focus on text, structure, and history is essential to the proper exercise of the judicial function. That, yes, judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views, always with an eye on the outcome, and engaged perhaps in some Benthamite calculation of pleasures and pains along the way. Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure.
(Neil M. Gorsuch, "Of Lions and Bears, Judges and Legislators, and the Legacy of Justice Scalia," Case Western Reserve Law Review 66 [2016]: 905-20, at 908-9)
