Um . . . I think you are still misunderstanding my objection. From the same sentence as the point I’m criticizing:
[A law] is costly to implement, and in general would cause . . . bad effects
Those are good points in favor of a libertarian perspective on public policy. Interpretive difficulties don’t belong on that list. To quote Sesame Street, one thing on your list just isn’t like the others.
OK. I might be misunderstanding you. I thought you were saying that a problem with Unbreakable Vows is that they would go by a strict, literal, genie-like interpretation of whatever you say, which would cause bad results. But I might just have been thinking of that because Desrtopa raised an argument of that type a couple of posts ago. If that is not your objection, feel free to restate it in a clearer way. But ultimately, I do suspect we are mostly in agreement, and that there is no particularly major difference between our opinions.
Sure. I’m saying that it is extremely difficult to reduce intended outcome to words.
Both statutes and contracts are attempts to reduce intention to words, and they have a roughly equivalent failure rate. Thus, problems arising from mismatch of word and intent (i.e. interpretive problems) are not a reason to prefer contracts over statutes.
Um . . . I think you are still misunderstanding my objection. From the same sentence as the point I’m criticizing:
Those are good points in favor of a libertarian perspective on public policy. Interpretive difficulties don’t belong on that list. To quote Sesame Street, one thing on your list just isn’t like the others.
OK. I might be misunderstanding you. I thought you were saying that a problem with Unbreakable Vows is that they would go by a strict, literal, genie-like interpretation of whatever you say, which would cause bad results. But I might just have been thinking of that because Desrtopa raised an argument of that type a couple of posts ago. If that is not your objection, feel free to restate it in a clearer way. But ultimately, I do suspect we are mostly in agreement, and that there is no particularly major difference between our opinions.
Sure. I’m saying that it is extremely difficult to reduce intended outcome to words.
Both statutes and contracts are attempts to reduce intention to words, and they have a roughly equivalent failure rate. Thus, problems arising from mismatch of word and intent (i.e. interpretive problems) are not a reason to prefer contracts over statutes.