There was no reason to limit Jews to ghettos in the Middle Ages except to cause harm (in sense 2).
The medieval allegations against Jews were so persistent and so profoundly nasty that they constitute a genre of their own; we still use the phrase “blood libel”. It seems plausible that some of the people responsible for the ghetto laws believed them.
They were entirely wrong, of course, but by the same token it may well turn out that Chesterton’s fence was put there to keep out chupacabras. That still counts as knowing the reason for it.
That falls under case 1. It is always possible to answer (given sufficient knowledge) “why did X do Y”. Y can then be called a reason, so in a trivial sense, every action is done for a reason.
Normally, “did they do it for a reason” means asking if they did it for a reason that is not just based on hatred or cognitive bias. Were blacks forced to use segregated drinking fountains for a “reason” within the meaning of Chesterton’s fence?
No, I don’t think it does. We can consider that particular cases of what we now see as harm may have been inspired by bias or ignorance or mistaken premises without thereby concluding that every case must have similar inspirations. Sometimes people really are just spiteful or sadistic. This just isn’t one of those times.
It seems clear to me, though, that Chesterton doesn’t require the fence to have originally been built for a good reason. Pure malice doesn’t strike me as a likely reason unless it’s been built up as part of an ideology (and that usually takes more than just malice), but cognitive bias does; how many times have you heard someone say “it seemed like a good idea at the time”?
The medieval allegations against Jews were so persistent and so profoundly nasty that they constitute a genre of their own; we still use the phrase “blood libel”. It seems plausible that some of the people responsible for the ghetto laws believed them.
They were entirely wrong, of course, but by the same token it may well turn out that Chesterton’s fence was put there to keep out chupacabras. That still counts as knowing the reason for it.
That falls under case 1. It is always possible to answer (given sufficient knowledge) “why did X do Y”. Y can then be called a reason, so in a trivial sense, every action is done for a reason.
Normally, “did they do it for a reason” means asking if they did it for a reason that is not just based on hatred or cognitive bias. Were blacks forced to use segregated drinking fountains for a “reason” within the meaning of Chesterton’s fence?
No, I don’t think it does. We can consider that particular cases of what we now see as harm may have been inspired by bias or ignorance or mistaken premises without thereby concluding that every case must have similar inspirations. Sometimes people really are just spiteful or sadistic. This just isn’t one of those times.
It seems clear to me, though, that Chesterton doesn’t require the fence to have originally been built for a good reason. Pure malice doesn’t strike me as a likely reason unless it’s been built up as part of an ideology (and that usually takes more than just malice), but cognitive bias does; how many times have you heard someone say “it seemed like a good idea at the time”?