CommentsADR and Public Values Again

This comment revisits a long-standing debate about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and public values. In Against Settlement, Fiss argued that ADR would undermine popular commitments to “public values” (1984). For Fiss, public values are moral truths about rights, justice, and social cohesion that all who comprise “the public” should want to uphold, and which the state is obligated to enforce. Fiss distinguished public values from subjective preference, or what any one individual actually desires. He submitted that by resolving disputes according to individual preference, ADR would replace public values with individual interests and replace state power with private social ordering. Hence, Fiss declared himself against settlement....