Mediated Judgment Under Constraint: Operative Representation, Authority, Burden, and Correction under Finite Action

David T. Swanson · 2026

Abstract

Judgment in real systems does not proceed over cases in unconstrained fullness. It proceeds through operative representations: files, categories, scores, records, profiles, thresholds, summaries, dashboards, model outputs, and other structured renderings through which cases become actionable for finite agents and institutions. This paper develops Mediated Judgment Under Constraint, a framework for explaining what follows once such renderings already function with standing conditions and decisional force inside judgment regimes, and why the resulting judgment is structurally fallible. Its central claim is that finite action is mediated through operative representations produced under selective constraints and acted upon within judgment regimes. Because such mediation is selective, scope-bounded, and residue-bearing, mediated judgment is vulnerable to patterned misfit not by accident but by structure. Once operative representations govern consequences, their omissions, burden distributions, and reflexive effects become consequential in their own right. The paper argues that traceability, scope discipline, and correction are therefore not optional administrative virtues but constitutive conditions of responsible mediated judgment. Its aim is not to provide a complete ethics or a full political theory, but to specify the structural layer through which already-operative renderings guide consequence-bearing judgment over cases without ever fully exhausting what they govern.

Citation

@misc{Swanson2026MediatedJudgment,
  author       = {Swanson, David T.},
  title        = {Mediated Judgment Under Constraint: Operative Representation, Authority, Burden, and Correction under Finite Action},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Zenodo},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.19078805},
  url          = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19078805}
}