ations and disfavoring others, just as TCP/IP discriminates against applications that are time-sensitive and end-to-end favors innovation at the edge over innovation in the core. As discussed in some detail below, whether mandating network neutrality would be socially beneficial is a complicated ques- tion that depends on a myriad of considerations, including the level of aggregate demand, heterogeneity of network uses, the variability in network traffic flows, end users' need for network reliability, and the extent to which technological change is reorganizing the natural boundaries between levels that were previously separated by a natural interface, notwithstanding the many claims to the contrary. In short, the desirability of complete standardization and interoperability is an empirical question that cannot be answered a priori. Indeed, the nonneutrality inherent in the choice of baseline principles becomes even clearer when the debates about network neutrality are viewed through the lens of the broader debates about jurisprudence. In essence, it is the same insight driving the critique of Herbert Wechsler's espousal of so-called "neutral principles" (Wechsler 1959) as well as the failure of attempts to advance a value-neutral concep- tion of equality (Westen 1982). The choice of the appropriate underlying baseline is an inherently normative judgment. In other words, although there is hope that principles can be neutrally applied once they have been established, the choice of foundation principles is inevitably nonneutral. It would thus be a mistake to regard network neutrality as inherently neutral, as the engineering embodiment of a competitive market, or as the best way to reflect technological humility, as some network neutrality proponents have sug- gested (Lessig 2002; Wu 2004). 19 At best, it represents a casual empirical conjecture about how competition and innovation can best be promoted under current cir- cumstances. At worst, it represents an attempt to use engineering principles to impart legitima