In Brutus XII, the author links the Preamble’s purpose “to establish Justice” with the tendency of federal courts to extend their jurisdiction:
The second object is “to establish justice.” This must include not only the idea of instituting the rule of justice, or of making laws which shall be the measure or rule of right, but also of providing for the application of this rule or of administering justice under it. And under this the courts will in their decisions extend the power of the government to all cases they possibly can, or otherwise they will be restricted in doing what appears to be the intent of the constitution they should do, to wit, pass laws and provide for the execution of them, for the general distribution of justice between man and man.
Brutus’s observation is brought to mind in a new context when some judges on the federal circuit courts of appeals become more active than their colleagues in writing opinions in circumstances that can reasonably be understood as aimed at attracting attention to their apprehension of the law. This kind of ambition-activated activity-level increase raises interesting questions about the unity of the virtues. One might imagine, for instance, that any activity-level increase is good for those whose office is to administer justice. The more justice, the better. But one might worry about jurisprudence being distorted into juriscraftiness. This kind of worry is not unique to ambition-activated activity-level increases, of course, but underlies many concerns about excessive judicial activity levels.
In evaluating activity-level increases activated by ambition, it may be that the vice of “solicitude for the future” provides a more precise diagnosis than craftiness. Here is Aquinas’s respondeo specifically about this vice:
No deed can be virtuous unless it is adorned with the right circumstances, one of which is the appropriate time—this according to Ecclesiastes 8:6 (“There is a time and opportunity for every business”). This is relevant not only to exterior deeds but also to interior solicitude. For to each time there belongs a proper sort of solicitude; for instance, during the summertime there is solicitude for reaping crops, whereas during the fall there is solicitude for gathering grapes. Therefore, if someone were already in the summertime solicitous about gathering grapes, he would be prematurely occupied to an excessive degree with solicitude for a future time. Hence, it is this sort of solicitude that our Lord proscribes as excessive when He says, “Do not worry about tomorrow.” That is why He adds, “For tomorrow will be solicitous about itself”—that is, it will have its own proper solicitude, which will be distressing enough for the mind. This is what He means when He adds, “The evil of the day is sufficient,” i.e., the distress of solicitude.
In light of the recent headline that “Mentions of Scalia Surge at Conservative-Dominated Court,” it may be worth noting that the concluding Scripture passage was one of Justice Scalia’s favorites: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Mt. 6:34. Indeed.