trc@houti.UUCP (06/14/83)
Response to Guy Harris, on the nature of government:
How many times is it necessary to re-write a law declaring the
intent of a government to forbid and punish murder? Once
should be enough. There is little need for further political
consideration of the question. All the laws that I consider
to be proper for government CAN be done once and mostly
correctly. There may be some need for adjustments, but such
should not be left to a small body of men, nor to a simple
majority. Only unanimous agreement of the governed people
should cause the creation of laws.
It is true that judges are men, but there is a vast difference
between a judge that serves his own whims and one that follows
the law to the letter, no matter what his personal feelings.
You write of interpretation as if you thought it was some sort
of "trick" by which judges are able to get around a clearly
written law. Do you also see interpretation of BASIC by a
computer in this light? And yet, that is a fairly good
analogy - a small, fixed set of rules for interpreting all
circumstances and determining the appropriate action. It is
not always as simple to do with the law, but people are a lot
smarter than computers. It is true that a judge might be
crooked and so deliberately render a misinterpretation of the
law. That can be true no matter what system of laws one has.
Is such a crook more likely to get away with it in a system of
a few clearly stated principles, understood by all; or in a
system with a tangle of vague, contradictory, and
incomprehensible laws?
Tom Craver
houti!trcguy@rlgvax.UUCP (06/15/83)
How many times is it necessary to re-write a law declaring the
intent of a government to forbid and punish murder? Once
should be enough. There is little need for further political
consideration of the question. All the laws that I consider
to be proper for government CAN be done once and mostly
correctly.
This is merely an assertion; do you have any evidence for it? And even
if the laws YOU consider proper for government can be done that way,
that does NOT mean that those "are" the all the laws that are proper
for government. The proof of such a proposition cannot come purely from
philosophy; governance, like science, includes the experimental as well
as the theoretical. Merely saying some scheme of government will work is
not proof that it will.
Also, can you define a set of laws that is 1) small enough that they all
fall into the same category as laws against murder and 2) is sufficient
to cover all cases encountered now and in the future?
And, to pick a hypothetical example, suppose we were able to construct
computers that passed the Turing test with flying colors. Is pulling the
plug murder? Would you expect the Founding Fathers to have written a law
that would UNAMBIGUOUSLY answered this question?
Only unanimous agreement of the governed people should cause
the creation of laws.
I suspect this is equivalent to saying "long live anarchy", but that's neither
here nor there. You would certainly have few enough laws; somebody who was
honked off at his brother-in-law might decide that a law against murder
would get his way. And given the requirement for unanimous agreement of the
governed people, you'd see people calling for recounts for a long time after
the election. Unless you forbade recounts, in which case you'd merely have
to settle for laws which weren't unanimously agreed to being passed anyway...
It is true that judges are men, but there is a vast difference
between a judge that serves his own whims and one that follows
the law to the letter, no matter what his personal feelings.
Yes, it would be nice if we could have judges that followed laws to the
letter. Then again, it would be nice if we had laws that were so simple
and unambiguous that they could be followed to the letter with NO contro-
versies about interpretation. Would you care to propose a full code of laws
for the U.S. that fits this criterion? - no single examples, please, that's
begging the question; you can always pick specific situations that can be
fit by such laws.
You write of interpretation as if you thought it was some sort
of "trick" by which judges are able to get around a clearly
written law. Do you also see interpretation of BASIC by a
computer in this light?
No, but then I don't see judges and laws as computers and programs either.
And yet, that is a fairly good analogy - a small, fixed
set of rules for interpreting all circumstances and determining
the appropriate action.
No, it's a very poor analogy. First of all, it's historically naive - that's
not what the law has historically been, and if you want to make it something
radically different I'd suggest you set aside AT LEAST a couple of hundred
years for this project. And second of all, I repeat that you have provided
NO evidence for your assertion that such a set of rules is possible.
It is not always as simple to do with the law, but people are a
lot smarter than computers.
People are not only more devious than computers, as well, but they are FAR
less literally-minded. Again, give me an example of a COMPLETE CODE of law
that you think is not subject to ANY misinterpretation whatsoever, and we'll
see how many different defensible interpretations we get.
It is true that a judge might be crooked and so deliberately
render a misinterpretation of the law. That can be true no matter
what system of laws one has. Is such a crook more likely to get
away with it in a system of a few clearly stated principles, understood
by all; or in a system with a tangle of vague, contradictory,
and incomprehensible laws?
I repeat, for the Nth time, my call for something more than the bald assertion
that this ideal code of law can exist. A couple of hundred years ago (and
even more recently than that), people thought there would be such a set
of laws to describe the natural world. To (mis-)quote Alexander Pope, "Nature
and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was
light." Unfortunately, the response written to this goes, "It did not last;
the Devil crying 'Ho! Let Einstein be!' restored the status quo!" Admittedly,
this is unfair to Einstein - Heisenberg or Bohr might have been a better choice,
as it was quantum mechanics rather than relativity that really put "realism"
aside - but it illustrates the point; it's not clear that the world is as
as our systems of philosophy would like them to be, and it's definitely clear
that that the world is under no "obligation" to be that simple.
So, using your "CHECK #n" scheme, I differ at:
There can be a simple set of unambiguous laws to govern human behavior
in society. (CHECK #0).
It is this implicit assumption (never stated in your comments) that I disagree
with; the burden of proof is on YOU to show that such a set of laws is
possible, as you are the one proposing a different scheme of government
that the one we have.
Guy Harris
RLG Corporation
{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy