Eh, not really. That would depend on the whim and on the caprice of the personal opinion of the judge. That is a recipe of arbitrariness, since what is fair to one person is different to what is fair to another. And a judge could then intentionally give an unfair decision since he does not have to explain why he came up with that decision.Thank you for an excellent post, even though I suspect we have a fair amount of disagreement.
Okay, let me ask you this, the example from the early American colonies in which a man with no legal experience was asked to accept a judicial appointment. He was advised, listen carefully and sincerely to both sides and come to what in your mind is a fair resolution. You will almost always be correct. But do not give your reasoning, for you’d almost always be incorrect.
Or if a skilled poker player is asked to provide a running commentary of their thinking, he or she is likely to play worse. Or a doctor, if he or she is asked to provide a full running commentary, say on when they’re feeling their way on what to do next with a tricky case of pneumonia, it’s likely to get in the way of their best doctoring.
A simple law is often inadequate because clever people find loopholes. So you amend your law to plug loopholes. But that create new loopholes so more laws a created to plug those loopholes. Then you have a complex and complicated law.
Also simple laws are often absolute. Thou shall not kill is very simple. But then you need exceptions like war and self defense. So that gets added to laws. But someone would abuse it by killing someone claiming self defense by provoking the other to attack first. Another is contract law. Contracts are suppposed to be binding between parties. But what if that contract was procured by fraud? So you make a law, etc. What if you are selling a human being? So you make another law banning contracts. What about interest? Collateral? What is reasonable and unreasonable?
Laws are complex and complicated because life is often complicated. Things like insurance, inheritance, loans,and securities, corporations, land ownership, labor relations, military and naval forces, etc need laws. Laws governing them can never be so simple.
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