The US code is fundamentally inaccessible to the public. It is too intrinsically confusing to clarify the law to relevant audiences.

V. DUTTON'S SIX AESTHETIC UNIVERSALS APPLIED TO U.S. LEGAL DOCUMENTS

Dutton's six aesthetic universals based on cultural psychology and developed with the goal to outline an objective approach to aesthetic understanding does not fail the instrumentalization test like Kant's. As above, United States Code will be contrasted with the Constitution, both as a control and to highlight the differences in Kant and Dutton's approaches when applied.

Dutton's first universal is expertise or virtuosity. Expertise is recognized in “all technical areas of human activity ... from cooking to *193 public oratory to marksmanship” and other disciplines not traditionally viewed as art.105 The observation that humans commonly appreciate technicality and expertise is useful because it ends the severance between why we like art and why we like anything else. This helps to clarify what “signal characteristics” of United States Code (or other legal works) must be changed to increase appreciation of such works.106

United States Code represents varying degrees of expertise. There is no doubt that some statutes are better written than others, that some regulations are frustratingly ambiguous, and that some laws are so poorly conceived as to be totally immoral. How then should we assess the expertise of United States Code as a single artifact? It seems that the only practical assessment is by considering whether the thing that makes United States Code separate from its many statutes is particularly virtuosic. That is, does the way United States Code organizes the many, often disparate, statutes within it represent the expertise of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel (“OLRC”) in a manner deserving universal or objective praise?107

According to the OLRC, the purpose of United States Code is “to develop and keep current an official and positive codification of the laws of the United States.”108 United States Code is not the primary source of American law, but is instead a representation of the permanent law of the United States with the twenty-seven titles enacted into positive law receiving the status of “legal evidence,” much like the United States Statutes at Large.109 To become positive law, a Statute at Large is restated in a clearer and better organized manner, and any obsolete portions are removed.110 This means the primary goal of the OLRC is to better clarify and reformat existing law, as well as to make it more accessible in terms of linguistic clarity, readability, and online availability. Considering that since 1974 only twenty-seven of the fifty-four (or fifty-three, not counting the reserved Title Fifty-Three) titles have been codified as positive law, the task seems daunting to an outsider. Under Dutton's criteria of expertise, it is clear that United States Code stands for the expertise of those undertaking the project of codification, and therefore the Code as a work of art exemplifies this *194 expertise, despite misgivings about the specific content within. The skill required to revise the often archaic language and poor organization of Statutes at Large highlight the technicality of the Counselors who have undertaken such a task and suggest that they have “a knack for” statutory construction and revision that other officials lack.111

The Constitution, of course, is often praised for being expertly drafted. An author for the BBC referred to it as “a superb example of Enlightenment philosophy in pragmatic form ... [and] elegantly written and succinct.”112 The author of that same article mentions, however, that reverence for the Constitution exists in spite of its flaws because it symbolizes “a national ideal.”113 The Constitution, therefore, may very well be considered less representative of Dutton's expertise--while the technical skill required by the Counselors who undertake the codification of Statutes at Large is manifest, our ability to assess the Constitution's technicality as Americans may be too clouded by our cultural bias to offer an objective reading of the document as a work of art.

Dutton's next universal, non-utilitarian pleasure, is similar to Kant's beauty. Does the artifact grant pleasure beyond its benefits as a practical tool or source of knowledge? United States Code does not seem to embody this idea of aesthetic pleasure for its own sake. Much of this analysis would be the same as when analyzing the sensory pleasure of the Code or when considering its beauty. By failing to be accessible, and by failing to have some additional cultural purpose beyond codifying the law, it fails to evoke non-utilitarian pleasure. The reverence for the Constitution, both as embodiment of a national ideal and as a succinct emblem of American values, does evoke this universal. The Constitution has a following greater than any other piece of American law. Portions of it have been turned into memorabilia, tattoos, and other forms of identity expression.

Dutton's next question is one of style. Is United States Code formed according to “rules of form and composition?”114 Within the limited class of persons who have worked on United States Code (only four Counselors have been appointed since 1974)115 there is clearly some sense of recognized rules of form. Dutton highlights that style “may derive from a culture, or a family, or be the invention of an individual” and may “involve borrowing *195 and sudden alteration [or] slow changes.”116 Stylistic consistency among the four Counselors of the OLRC is enough for this artistic feature to be recognizable in the Code. Although questions of whether a style exists may be different from questions of the attractiveness of a style, the recognition of a style is important because it is the foundation of uniform revision of an art form. By understanding that each new Counselor creates their own simulacrum of the ideal Code, future Counselors can try to adjust the style of the Code to better appeal to the American populace.

In a broader sense, United States Code and the Constitution both represent the larger artform of legal construction. As legal documents, both occupy a style117 distinct from traditional literature. Distilling the positives and negatives of legal style is the first step to amplifying the positive attributes of artifacts within the category. Regardless, this universal is well-fulfilled by both documents which increases the ability of future artists to participate in their revision.

Next, Dutton considers the importance of the existence of a mode or tradition of criticism in the aesthetic value of an art piece. If United States Code is capable of being criticized utilizing a well recognized “critical vocabulary,” then it is easier for it to be appreciated and rejected-something necessary for developing community appreciation.118 This is true for two reasons: first, without an intelligible, critical discourse about an artifact it loses an important connection to the intrinsic human need to rationally judge activity; and, second, without criteria for “excellence, mediocrity, competence/incompetency, and for failure” it is nearly impossible to discern the value of an artifact.119

The OLRC states that the purpose of restating Statutes at Large into United States Code is to better conform the existing law along criteria such as: improved organizational structure, relevancy, clarity, consistency, technical correctness, and conformity with congressional intent.120 Therefore, if a Statute at Large is entered into positive law and fails to be organizationally clear and technically correct, or happens to be out of step with congressional intent, United States Code is failing its purpose (which speaks to its role as an artifact). The OLRC via its mandate has created an intelligible critical language for United States Code, meaning that the Code *196 conforms to this aspect of Dutton's aesthetic universalism. The Constitution seems lacking in this aspect. Partially because of the American attitude against criticizing much of the document, there seems to be an absence of critical language about the document specifically. However, constitutions generally, and legal documents more broadly, have a robust parlance associated with their criticism that the Constitution and the Code comfortably fit within. Like the criteria used by the OLRC, many legal documents are scrutinized because of their ambiguity, relevancy, understandability, and more. When combined with an analysis of stylistic consistency, it is easy to see where aesthetic criticism can be used to improve the Code by scrutinizing its failings and reforming it in line with the positive attributes of its style.

Dutton's next universal is imitation. An “art object ... represent[s] or imitate[s] real or imaginary experience[s] of the world.”121 How well an imitation represents its principle is typically how we assess its value.122 Humans rationally connect representations with the objects thereby imitated, and Dutton argues that the significance of imitation “extends into all areas [of] human intellectual life.”123 United States Code is essentially an imitation of the Statutes at Large. By revising the Statutes into positive law, United States Code becomes a better version of the statutes. Since onlookers can assess United States Code against the original Statutes at Large, it is possible to assess the representational value of the Code against its source material. Therefore, despite the Code not being an imitation of a real or imaginary “experience of the world” in a colloquial sense, it is still a successful imitation of something.124 United States Code not only exhibits this important universal artistic feature, but it does so exceptionally well. Even when compared to the Constitution, it would be hard to suggest it might better represent American statutory law. The Constitution, as mentioned before, is essentially a successful distillation of Enlightenment thought, and carries much of its aesthetic value from its ability to be a catalyst for that era of western political philosophy. The Code, however, is a continued project in improvement and imitation, something the Constitution cannot claim to be.

Finally, Dutton determined that art is more aesthetically pleasing when it has a “special” focus. This seems to be the Code's greatest failing and why it is so inaccessible. To be “special” something must be bracketed off from ordinary life. Artifacts are “often imbued with intense emotion and *197 sense of community.”125 This is a characteristic of aesthetic universalism that is near universally recognized in the Constitution. The Constitution is so tied to the American national identity that American military services members must swear to defend the Constitution.126 Not only is the Code denied the same respect in the oath of enlistment, but the general laws of the United States are likewise denied such treatment. This intense emotional and cultural investment in the Constitution means that Americans not only find it hard to criticize the document, but often simply refuse to do so. This in turn bleeds into how actively Americans attempt to understand and access the document. The extreme feeling of banality (or disregard) displayed toward the Code by the general public and its association with the perceived failings of our legal system combine to remove it from such a special place.

VI. CONCLUSION

This special place problem is the one most critical to address if there is any hope of making the Code into the kind of artifact that Americans will want to seek out. This, and many of the issues presented in the Kantian perspective, are intrinsically linked to cultural perspectives on United States Code. Because the Code is considered a normal, uninteresting part of the American experience, people have not made the same strides to access and understand it that they have the Constitution. The Code will still be viewed as occupying a place in society that only lawyers or legislators ought to access even if it is made more pleasing to the senses through improvements to its website or physical layout; made easier to understand (better font choices or clearer language); and is better developed stylistically. As a niche piece of legal art and a continuing project, it can be considered the apogee of codification, but this does not help the broader American public.

The best possible outcome would be to use this recognition of its major aesthetic failing to initiate a shift in how American civic education is done. By teaching that United States Code is as special alongside the Constitution and discussing it in similarly reverential terms, Americans may be more likely to seek it out. This effort naturally ought to begin with the youngest Americans, because the same system that can successfully inculcate within them an interest in the Constitution can do the same for United States Code.

This is also a necessary first step to resolving major issues of legal literacy in the United States. The Code and how it is enforced more immediately impacts the daily lives of Americans than the Constitution, but *198 it is rare that anyone, (excluding lawyers and judges) ever pour through any part of United States Code.

Finally, practical reforms in the Code's presentation can help with the lesser issues of providing non-utilitarian pleasure, increasing the sensory value, etc. The website United States Code is hosted on, for example, is antiquated, awkward, and difficult to navigate, especially when compared to other archival sites or legal search engines. For example, developing an easy-to-browse, free mobile app would help Americans access the Code in a manner much less daunting than wandering through a law library or Boolean searching through the Code website. Quick and comfortable access is key to helping Americans navigate their day-to-day interactions with federal law. Educational games or examples of how the law is applied, such as those present in the Restatements of common law or textbooks, make it easier to understand complicated statutes, even for children.

These changes and others are of course easier proposed than implemented. United States Code, unlike the Constitution, is a daunting collection of statutes that will never be relevant to any but a specific niche of American commerce, or the criminally accused. The practical benefit to any American may feel disproportionate with the difficulty, especially when lawyers and legislators have a vested interest in gatekeeping the law for the sake of their own pocketbooks. Simply convincing the legislature to expand the OLRC for the sake of increasing legal literacy may be an insurmountable task.