Reading the ACLU Policy Guide (Pt. 8)

Series explanation and overview here.

Note: These are my summaries of the 1995 version of the guide, not the policies themselves.

Loyalty and Security

Policy 103 — Clear and Present Danger Test

Personal opinions are constitutionally protected unless they qualify as creating a “clear and present danger” by either being “an integral part of conduct violating a valid law” or “a direct incitement to specific and immediate violation of law” or they “threaten a danger of unlawful acts so great and so immediate that time is lacking for answer, or if need be, for other protective measures against the threats and acts.”

Protected speech includes speech against democracy, so long as it does not constitute a clear and present danger. I take this to mean that speech against free speech rights is still protected by free speech rights.

Policy 104 — ACLU and Totalitarianism

The ACLU is opposed to “any governmental or economic system which denies fundamental civil liberties and human rights.” (This is consistent with the ACLU supporting the right of other groups and individuals to express support for totalitarian systems.)

Policy 105 — Smith Act and Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950

This policy actually concerns three federal acts:

• The Alien Registration Act of 1940 (aka the Smith Act)
• The Internal Security Act of 1950 (aka the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act)
• The Communist Control Act of 1954

Besides requiring legal, adult aliens to register with the government, the Smith Act made it a crime to advocate for the violent overthrow of the US government. At first glance, this might not sound like such a bad thing to criminalize, but citizens who don't have the slightest chance of putting such ideas into action could have been imprisoned for twenty years for expressing the opinion. Furthermore, entire organizations could have been deemed in violation and all members and tangential supporters would be made criminals, without even expressing the condemned opinion personally.

Further acts specifically hounded anyone with communist associations, or who supported broadly communist ideas whether those ideas were related to violent political change or not.

The ACLU's position is that "there should be no governmental restriction on advocacy of any sort, unless the adovcacy [sic] shall cause, in the existing circumstances of its utterances, a clear and present danger of illegal action." Merely increasing the probability that listeners may choose to commit a crime later is insufficient. Regarding organizational guilt: "Guilt is personal; it may not be attributed by association." The ACLU also opposed the McCarran Act because it required members of communist organizations to report themselves, a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Policy 106 —Wartime Sedition Act

I'm a little confused about this policy. It references the "Wartime Sedition Act of 1917", but I'm finding information on the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 (a set of amendments to the first). I agree that the Sedition Act could have been "used against anyone, at virtually any time, to suppress criticism of the government in the name of national security," but I'm seeing multiple sources claiming those parts were repealed a long time ago. Recent ACLU concerns appear to be about last year's WikiLeaks fiasco, as it relates to the original espionage sections.

Policy 107 — Emergency Measures in Peacetime

The ACLU is opposed to indefinitely continuing civil rights-related measures put into play during "genuine war emergencies." This is applied to the Cold War and — I suspect — would apply to our perpetual War on Terror.

Policy 108 — House Internal Security Committee

This policy explains the ACLU's opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee (later renamed to Internal Security Committee). Instead of doing much in the way of starting legislation for the House, this Committee made a big public show of investigating citizens for expressing "un-American" ideas by a standard "so vague that a citizen cannot know whether the citizen's political activity runs afoul of the Committee's private definition of Americanism." These non-trial trials took away due process rights and chilled free speech. The Committee was dissolved by the mid 70s.

Policy 109 — State and Local Legislation

The ACLU opposes non-federal laws "dealing with advocacy of political doctrine" because there is (or was) already federal legislation in the area, and adding further restrictions just makes the civil liberties situation worse.

Policy 110 — Federal Employee Security

While the ACLU recognizes that some federal jobs directly related to national security warrant security screening, they oppose extending such screening to the many federal "non-sensitive" jobs which only require candidate fitness for the work.

The ACLU specifically opposes investigation into candidates' sexual orientation as a security matter. Apparently, it was claimed that homosexuals were a security risk because they could be blackmailed into betraying their country out of fear of expose. (Notice anything self-fulfilling here? Such investigations create or greatly increase the very motive they seek to exclude.)

Due process must be given to candidates denied positions for security concerns.

Policy 111 — Private Employment Security

The ACLU opposes the practice of any private employers investigating the national security risk of employees or requiring loyalty oaths. If a private employer is contracting with the government in a sensitive area, then the government itself should be the party to conduct security investigations of employees involved in such work.

Policy 112— Professional Associations' Membership Qualifications

Mere association with other organizations should not be grounds for removing a member from a professional association (particularly bar associations). It must be shown that a lawyer, for example, is actually not doing his or her duty as a legal professional because of "external obedience" to another organization.

However, the ACLU does recognize some latitude for not admitting a new member to a professional organization if there is thought to be a high probability he or she will not be able to conform to professional duties. This risk still needs to be evaluated on a person by person basis, not as a sweeping prejudice against the membership of other organizations.

Policy 113 — Federal Benefits and Loyalty Tests

"Loyalty oaths or disclaimers of membership in certain organizations violate the First Amendment rights of freedom of belief and association, and may never be required for participation in government-funded programs such as public housing or subsidies, welfare benefits, veteran's benefits, Social Security or Medicate."

Yes, that's the whole policy.

Policy 114 — Military Discharges

Members of the military should be treated as other federal employees, i.e. screening for security should only be done if that individual's job directly relates to national security.

Discharges must be based on job performance, not merely for exercising constitutional rights before or during service.

Policy 115 — Loyalty Oaths

Swearing non-membership in certain organizations has been required "for employment of government workers and teachers, for students seeking government aid, and for Social Security and Medicare recipients and the like." The ACLU opposes such oaths because they suppress free speech and association rights. Plus, they penalize any citizens with a conscientious objection to swearing these kind of oaths, whether they have had the associations in question or not.

Policy 116 — Governmental Surveillance

Police infiltration of organizations is contrary to the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures," i.e. those not carried out through the use of a targeted warrant issued on probable cause. Otherwise, "[e]verything that is said and everything that is done over an unlimited period of time comes into the hands of the government, no matter how private, how unconnected with a legitimate state interest."

Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there weren't a history of the government collecting files on individuals, and this to their detriment either by denying them government employment or by publicly condemning them without due process in Congressional hearings.

The ACLU does recognize the proper use of "informers" placed or recruited from organizations, if there is probable cause shown that the organization is involved — or is planning to be involved — in "serious criminal acts." A judge must issue a warrant specifying which part of the organization is to be surveilled and for how long. Warrants should be renewed by the original judge and a limit should be set on the number of renewals.

This policy also speaks against using the military to spy on citizens, against building files on citizens merely for protesting government actions, and against keeping attendance lists of lawful gatherings.

Policy 117 — Controlling the Intelligence Agencies

Bill of Rights violations on the excuse of "national security" need to end. The ACLU has a list of specific measures to remedy the situation. Some highlights:

• Implement only three categories of classified information. (1) Details of defense tech which would help other nations. (2) Tactical military details during declared war. (3) Defensive contingency plans.
• Explicitly state that any information about the US government engaging in illegal behavior is ipso facto declassified.
• Allow Congress to "unilaterally" release Executive branch information.
• Make intelligence agency budgets public.
• Create detailed charters for government agencies, and prohibit any agency activity beyond these limits.
• Rename the CIA to the FIA: Foreign Intelligence Agency. Keep it out of the domestic intelligence business entirely.
• Prohibit all CIA operations intended to secretly manipulate (or just plain overthrow) foreign governments.
• Prohibit the NSA from monitoring US-to-foreign communications.
• Destroy all current files kept on citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Policy 118 — Secret Government Aid to Private Agencies

I'm curious what circumstances prompted this 1967 policy. Apparently a government agency was secretly funding a citizen advocacy group...or something like that.  This endangers free discussion "by the clandestine introduction of ulterior motives of government policy into a supposedly open debate."

Policy 119 — Prior Restraint in National Security Situations

"The true test of our devotion to that principle [i.e. freedom of thought and expression] comes in times of stress or alarm, when those who would suppress the interchange of ideas can appeal for supposed justification to some imminent menace threatening the public welfare."

Citing United States v. The Progressive and the Pentagon Papers as instances when prior restraint "safeguarded nothing more than governmental overreaction, embarrassment, and the desire for secrecy," the ACLU believes prior restraint cannot be tolerated at the very times it is most critical that citizens have access to information.

Unprotected Speech

Depictions of animal cruelty are not, as a class, categorically unprotected by the First Amendment. [...] Since its enactment, the First Amendment has permitted restrictions on a few historic categories of speech—including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct—that “have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572. Depictions of animal cruelty should not be added to that list. While the prohibition of animal cruelty has a long history in American law, there is no evidence of a similar tradition prohibiting depictions of such cruelty.¹ [boldface added]

The First Amendment itself does not even hint at "permitted restrictions.” However, legal tradition has allowed restrictions in the categories listed above. The unfortunate effect of this situation is that citizens can't take the Constitution at face value.

Categories of unprotected speech aren't automatically made illegal. It's just that states can pass laws restricting speech in these categories without the Supreme Court raising a fuss. Or it would work like that if the categories were more clear. Obscenity, for example, has been defined by different tests which are themselves unclear.

The Hicklin Test

From ~1870 to 1957, the definition of obscenity in the United States was often based on a British formulation:

[A]nd I think the test of obscenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall. Now, with regard to this work, it is quite certain that it would suggest to the minds of the young of either sex, or even to persons of more advanced years, thoughts of a most impure and libidinous character.²

The Roth Test

In 1957, the Supreme Court declared the Hicklin test unconstitutional:

The Hicklin test, judging obscenity by the effect of isolated passages upon the most susceptible persons, might well encompass material legitimately treating with sex, and so it must be rejected as unconstitutionally restrictive of the freedoms of speech and press.³

...and recognized a new standard which some courts had already been applying:

whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.⁴

One major difference here is that the average person rather than “the most susceptible persons” is considered. It also matters whether the offending material occurs throughout a work or just in some parts. And the standard is allowed to change to fit “contemporary community standards” regarding speech about sex.

All of this makes the Roth Test problematic. Who is this theoretical “average person”? How large is the community under consideration? And do we count the community of the writer/speaker, the reader/listener, or anywhere the work is advertised or sold? At what point do elements in a work count as “the dominant theme"?

The Miller Test

In an attempt to “formulate standards more concrete than those in the past,” the 1973 Supreme Court established the test which is currently in use.

We acknowledge, however, the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression. State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited. [...] As a result, we now confine the permissible scope of such regulation to works which depict or describe sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. A state offense must also be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.⁵

On the plus side, the requirement of specific definition in state law – depending on how state laws are written – might actually provide citizens with some idea of what is legal, without waiting to find out how some judge feels about it.

The problem of vague standards persist, however, because the question of whether a work appeals to “the prurient interest in sex” is still dependent on what a hypothetical “average person, applying contemporary community standards" would decide (see context of the quote above). What counts as a "patently offensive" portrayal? And what does it mean for a work to have “serious” value in one of the areas mentioned?

...

If you couldn't tell already, I'm not a fan of subjective laws. A citizen should be able to read the laws to find out ahead of time whether a given action or expression can be legally condemned. As Justice Douglas wrote in his dissent:

Obscenity - which even we cannot define with precision - is a hodge-podge. To send men to jail for violating standards they cannot understand, construe, and apply is a monstrous thing to do in a Nation dedicated to fair trials and due process.⁶

1. United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. ___ (2010).
2. Regina v. Hicklin (1868). [full text]
3. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957). [full text]
4. ibid.
5. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). [full text]
6. ibid.

Two Kinds of Intrinsic Value

There are at least two major, distinguishable meanings for “intrinsic value.” Unfortunately, these meanings often go unspecified, which results in a lot of unnecessary confusion. Christine Korsgaard covered this in her 1983 paper, “Two Distinctions in Goodness" from which I'll be borrowing.

The first kind of intrinsic value is contrasted with instrumental value. Instrumental value is the value something has because it's helpful or supportive of something else which has value; think “derivative value.” For example, an important point in how we treat (other) animals is whether there is any reason to consider factors beyond the value of animals to human well-being.

The second kind of intrinsic value is value that is located inside as opposed to outside the thing that is valuable. As Korsgaard put it, “It refers, one might say, to the location or source of the goodness rather than the way we value the thing.”¹ This kind of intrinsic value might be, for example, a property of the valuable thing itself which does not depend on anyone in the world valuing it.

So if I claim old trees have intrinsic value, it's not clear whether I'm saying that old trees have non-derivative value or whether I'm saying old trees have value regardless of anyone valuing them. Suppose I personally and directly value old trees. Also suppose that old trees need someone to value them in order to have value. In this situation, old trees have the first kind of intrinsic value but lack the second kind of intrinsic value.

Korsgaard considers the first kind of intrinsic value to be something of a misnomer, since only the second kind of intrinsic value contrasts with extrinsic value. Whether value is derived or not is simply another issue.


1. Korsgaard, C.M. (1983). Two distinctions in goodness. The Philosophical Review. 92(2). [search link]

Expressive-Assertivism

Expressivism is a type of moral theory which says that moral judgments are expressions of desire-like attitudes, rather than true/false assertions of fact. This straightforwardly explains why it would be odd for a person to judge something to be morally right or wrong and then be indifferent towards it.

For simple moral utterances like "Slapping children is wrong" or "You ought to watch out for pedestrians," it can make sense to understand these as expressions of attitudes. The big problem for expressivism is explaining what's going on in other sorts of moral utterances like:

• Is it wrong to slap children?
• If it's wrong to slap children, then it's wrong for my neighbor to slap her son.
• Either it's wrong to slap children, or I've been misinformed.

These sure seem to involve true/false logic! While some expressivists have tried to show that appearances are deceiving and these sentences don't — after all — involve true/false logic, others have embraced a hybrid view which includes both the expression of attitudes and some true/false logic in the meaning of moral language.

Daniel Boisvert's Expressive-Assertivism is one of these hybrid forms of expressivism.¹ It was inspired, of all things, by the way ethnic slurs work (which I'll explain as I go over the three core features of Expressive-Assertivism).

First Core Feature: Dual-Use Principle

In normal circumstances, a person who speaks a simple moral sentence like "Slapping children is wrong" is performing two distinct speech acts (two "direct illocutionary acts"). One speech act is expressive and the other is assertive.

Likewise, the simple use of an ethnic slur "John is chink" simultaneously asserts something about John (that he's of Chinese descent) and expresses contempt for people of Chinese descent.

Second Core Feature: Extensionality Principle

In normal circumstances, a person who uses moral terms in any so-called extensional context still performs the same kind of expressive speech act as in simple moral sentences. The three "problem" sentences above are examples of extensional contexts, but "wrong" in "Lisa thinks that slapping children is wrong" is in an intensional context which falls outside the scope of this core feature.

The hateful attitude expression is still present when people use slurs in sentences like "Is John a chink?" and "Either John is a chink, or I've been misinformed." And notice how it's the same sort of contempt for people of Chinese descent we saw in the simple case.

Third Core Feature: Generality Principle

In normal circumstances, the expressive speech act is not aimed directly at the object of moral judgment, but at everything in a broader category.

Using the word "chink" normally expresses a contempt for all people of Chinese descent. This is why the negative attitude expression is still at full force when John's membership in the hated category is uncertain.

Solving 'The Moral Problem'

Michael Smith famously characterizes the central problem of metaethics as finding a way to show that the following two propositions "are both consistent and true" with regard to each other and with a Humean theory of motivation:

1. Moral judgments of the form 'It is right that I φ' express a subject's beliefs about an objective matter of fact, a fact about what it is right for her to do.

2. If someone judges that it is right that she φs, then ceteris paribus, she is motivated to φ.²

Expressive-Assertivism provides an account for both elements. The assertive speech act concerns the "objective matter of fact" of whether the judged action, practice, etc. has a certain property. The expressive speech act directed at all things which have that property explains an individual's motivation.

It also helps that the way Expressive-Assertivism goes about solving the moral problem is so similar to the way another kind of value judgement — the ethnic slur — plausibly works.

Answering the Objection from Missing Expressives

These next three sections break what is commonly known as the Frege-Geach problem (aka the embedding problem) into three more specific objections.

The 'missing expressives' objection concerns sentences like:

If it's wrong to slap children, then it's wrong for my neighbor to slap her son.

where it may seem like the speaker can't be expressing his own attitude at that moment. At least not like someone who says "Slapping children is wrong." But Expressive-Assertivism explains both cases as expressions of attitude toward things that are wrong in general (whatever 'wrong' means). This is the Generality Principle at work. Just because a speaker isn't sure whether an action or a person belongs to a despised category, doesn't mean his use of moral language (or the language of ethnic slurs) is expressive free.

In short, the expressives are there. They're just aimed more broadly.

Answering the Objection from Incomplete Semantics

Simple versions of expressivism run into trouble when they claim sentences like "Slapping children is wrong" only expresses an attitude, because this leaves at least some of the meaning of "slapping children is wrong" unexplained in sentences that start "If slapping children is wrong, then ...."

Compare:

[expression of attitude].

with

If [expression of attitude], then ....

What the heck is the second kind of sentence supposed to mean? Happily, this isn't such a problem for Expressive-Assertivism since the true/false 'assertive' component makes normal sense in an 'if..then' context. A full reading with a reduction of 'wrong' might go something like this:

If slapping children is harmful on balance [expression of negative attitude toward things that are harmful on balance], then ...

I should be clear that Expressive-Assertivism as a theory doesn't have anything to say about whether wrongness is a property that can be reduced like this. A philosopher who agrees with G.E. Moore about moral properties being indefinable can adopt Expressive-Assertivism. She would just have the usual issue of explaining why we have strong attitudes toward such properties.

Answering the Objection from the Ambiguity of Attitude-Attribution Verbs

Consider these two sentences:

Sarah believes that her brother pickpockets.
Sarah believes that pickpocketing is wrong.

The first sentence attributes a true/false belief to Sarah. Under simple expressivism, the second sentence could only attribute an attitude to Sarah. But it would be odd if the phrase "believes that" is associated with true/false belief unless it's followed by ethical vocabulary.

As a hybrid theory, Expressive-Assertivism's account of the two sentences isn't quite so disparate, but the objection could still be pressed by saying it would be odd for "believes that" to only attribute a true/false belief, unless followed by ethical vocabulary in which case an attitude attribution is suddenly tacked on.

Boisvert responds by saying "believes that" attributes a psychological state potentially composed of both true/false belief and attitude to the subject. The same psychological state, in fact, that a person normally possesses when they utter just the clause after "believes that."

For example, when Sarah says "Pickpocketing is wrong" she would normally hold an attitude toward things that are wrong and also hold a true/false belief that pickpocketing fits in that category. If Jack says "Sarah believes that pickpocketing is wrong" then he would be attributing both the belief and the attitude to Sarah as part of her overall psychological state (try removing either element and Jack's claim is weaker than we normally understand it). Here's the key point: if Jack says "Sarah believes that her brother pickpockets" then Jack is still attributing a psychological state to Sarah, even if the state happens to lack an attitude component.

In programming terms, Boisvert would be saying "believes that" is like a single function which takes a structure rather than a simple variable as an argument. It wouldn't be like multiple, overloaded functions as the objection alleges. (I hope at least one person finds this analogy helpful!)

Wrapping Up

Expressive-Assertivism has two more attractive features covered in Boisvert's paper which I won't elaborate on: "it holds that the descriptive content of moral sentences is non speaker-relative" and "it is consistent with, but is not forced to accept, minimalism about truth."

Overall, I think Expressive-Assertivism is on the right track. Not surprising since I intentionally set out looking for something like it because I've held a rough kind of hybrid expressivist view for a while and knew someone had to be advocating a theory in the neighborhood. Boisvert isn't the only one working on hybrid theories, so you can expect to see more comparing and contrasting from me in the near future.

Added: "Near" turned out not to be so near. I still plan on getting back to this topic eventually.


1. Boisvert, D.R. (2008). Expressive-assertivism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 89(2). p. 169-203. [direct link]
2. Smith, M. (1994). The moral problem. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 184.

Lingo: Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Acts

John: "Darling, do you want to go out to the show tonight?"

Laura: "I'm feeling ill."

John: "That's ok. You stay there and I'll make soup."

Notice how Laura didn't respond to John's question by saying, "No, I don't want to go out to the show tonight." What she actually said — her locutionary act — was "I'm feeling ill."

An illocutionary act is what a person does in saying something else. Locution is speech. In-locution (in speaking) becomes il-locution through phonetic assimilation. In saying that she feels ill, Laura was telling John that she doesn't want go out.

Beyond communicating the state of her health and the answer to John's question, Laura accomplished one more thing through saying "I'm feeling ill." She got John to make her some soup. A perlocutionary act (per-locutionary, through speaking) is focused on the response others have to a speech act.

These terms from J.L. Austin's 1962 book How to Do Things with Words are used extensively in philosophical literature today. And in fiction, having a character who is deaf to the illocutionary force of language is always good comedy.

Words Defined by Words Alone

In Chapter Three of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Gleick (2011) wrote:

The dictionary ratifies the persistence of the word. It declares that the meanings of words come from other words. It implies that all words, taken together, form an interlocking structure: interlocking, because all words are defined in terms of other words. This could never have been an issue in an oral culture, where language was barely visible. Only when printing—and the dictionary—put the language into separate relief, as an object to be scrutinized, could anyone develop a sense of word meaning as interdependent and even circular. Words had to be considered as words, representing other words, apart from things. (p. 66)

This passage had the unintended effect of moving me farther away from Gleick's views than I was before reading it. It's an old rule to "define" words by using any other words but the one currently being defined, and a synonym for "definition" is "meaning," so it can be easy to think that some correct string of other words is what constitutes the meaning of a word. Gleick carries this to the conclusion that any given word only has meaning by virtue of other words which themselves only have meaning by still more words, or maybe the original word. He considers this as an insight gained through literacy and dictionary making; preliterate people simply weren't in a good position to notice that word meaning arises from a network map of individually meaningless words.

I consider this sort of view an illustrative overreaction to the crude philosophy of language that all words stand directly for things. Gleick would have us believe, instead, that all words stand for words. Not only would this fail to hook up to the world of things, it fails to hook up with the world of ideas. (At least, any ideas which can't be captured by graph theory.) A moderate take is that perhaps some words stand only for words or only for things, but many words stand for ideas. If I want to convey a certain idea to you, I select words intended to evoke that idea — or a similar enough idea — in your mind when you hear my speech or read my writing.

What are dictionary entries under this moderate view? Acts of communication. Dictionary writers are trying to evoke the ideas which are usually intended to be evoked by the use of a word. A good dictionary definition does two things: it correctly identifies the list of commonly-intended ideas behind the use of a word, and it successfully communicates these ideas to dictionary readers. Dictionaries may be artifacts of literate culture, but I would find it very hard to believe everyone waited for dictionaries to be invented before thinking to ask speakers for clarification of strange words. So under the moderate view, an analogue of dictionary use was probably already happening in oral culture. I suspect the major difference in written dictionaries is that authors were expected to define common words, and may have found unexpected challenges in that task.


Gleick, J. (2011). The information: A history, a theory, a flood. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

The fields of Knowledge Management, Information Systems, and Information Science use a theoretical model called the knowledge hierarchy, the information pyramid, the DIKW model, and several other mix-and-match terms along these lines. Not only the name of the model but the details of the model itself change significantly depending on who is teaching it,¹ so it would be more accurate to say it's a family of models.

Three core features of these models:

• Data, information, and knowledge are distinct concepts (as opposed to synonyms).
• Information is higher-level than data. Knowledge is higher-level than information.
• There is at least one more level above knowledge.

From what I can tell, the relationship between data and information is the most common focus of this theorizing, with less agreement on what knowledge is and how it's supposed to relate to information, and even less agreement beyond that.

Data vs. Information

There is a lot of emphasis on the etymology of "data" as something which is "given"; it's there from the start and needs to be processed, refined, selected, vetted, etc. in order to produce information. A common analogy is the refining of pure metals (information) from ore (data). Sure, someone had to mine the ore or collect the data, but it's only useful as raw material for the process of creating information.

Problems with Data vs. Information

"Data" and "information" are both common words in non-technical English which don't convey the kind of sharp contrast used in DIKW models. We can already talk about "raw data" as opposed to "processed data" or "organized data." There's nothing odd about using "personal information" to refer to a Social Security Number, though this would fall under the data category in many DIKW models.

Considering (1) these are fairly close synonyms in non-technical English, and (2) the important distinction captured by DIKW's contrast of data vs. information can be conveyed by a variety of evocative phrases like "raw data" vs. "processed data," I argue that re-using these words in a technical sense muddies up communication without a good reason.

Plus, one person's given data is another's processed data. For example, the global average temperature in 1845 may look like a simple point of data to someone collecting such numbers for use in climate research. But that number has a complex origin story involving instrument calibration, tree ring measurements, statistical analysis, etc. There isn't a natural distinction between input stuff and output stuff when data/information is so often processed in an iterative or recursive way.

Information vs. Knowledge

According to different versions of DIKW, knowledge concerns the application of information, or "know-how" as opposed to "know-what," or expertise that exists within a human being, or an understanding of how different kinds of information relate. I'm seeing all sorts of ideas here, usually (but not always) about the transition from inert facts to taking action.

A Problem with Information vs. Knowledge

In non-technical English and in mainstream philosophy of knowledge, we do understand that what we know — or at least what we believe — has a profound effect on the way we take action, but also that knowledge is more-or-less inert before adding motivation or goals. "The application of knowledge" is synonymous with "the application of information."

The most charitable way I can see knowledge working as a "next step" to information is to focus on the implication that knowledge is internal to a decision-maker. The word "information" seems to more easily allow disembodiment; but then again, we don't think it strange to point at shelves of books and talk about "all that knowledge."

Overlapping Meanings, Not Hierarchy

You may have figured out by now that I'm not a fan of the DIKW hierarchy. I believe its success is due to the way it suggests new value or new information can be added to existing data/information/knowledge by doing some work with it. Information professionals would, of course, want to promote this general idea. It is an important idea!

However, the DIKW hierarchy doesn't seem to reflect either the common usage of its terms or how the world works. Nor are the technical uses of its terms well-defined enough to let professionals in these fields communicate precise concepts without further clarification. Its vices outweigh its virtues as a conceptual model.

If someone could come up with a catchy way (besides a pyramid chart) to convey the key idea about adding value through working with information, I think we could manage to do away with DIKW.


1. Rowley, J. (2007). The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy. Journal of Information Science, 33(2), 163-80.