Would prefer that people follow the letter of the law or their honest belief as to what the spirit of the law is?
Spirit of the law. As long as their interpretation is similar to mine. Which is unlikely.
So, letter of the law and temper justice with reason when it comes up.
If people feel the letter of the law doesn’t match the spirit, we have ways of changing the letter.
On the other hand, changing how people feel about the spirit of the law seems to have met with limited success in a bunch of cases.
This is why judges try to follow the letter of the law, since everyone seems to want to interpret the law to their own benefit.
I say “Follow the letter of the law. If the letter and the spirit are in conflict, work to get the letter changed.”
Too binary. Depends on the law and the circumstances.
I voted spirit, given the binary option. However, if the spirit of the law contradicts the letter of the law… then the law should be re-written. Legislators make mistakes.
Spirit for court rooms, letter for most everywhere else.
I’ll take stop signs as an example: by law, you have to come to a complete stop at a stop sign before proceeding. Most people are aware that this is to allow pedestrians or other cars to cross without causing collisions. In the spirit of this, one might not stop if the intersection appeared to be deserted, but human judgement is imperfect and it’s always possible that someone you don’t see could still be there and someone could get injured. Basically, I think there are too many people in the world to put arbitration of the law into their hands- so many decisions would be made each day that would be erroneous. I think that by necessity this mandates that laws be written with care. Blanket laws are great for removing human error from decision making, but you have to be careful that you don’t do more damage than you prevent.
I’m going letter. Some folks I would barely trust reading the laws let alone interpreting them.
Whichever is the least likely to fail due to subjective interpretation.
I believe that the need to contemplate the spirit of the law arose because the letter of the law is subject to interpretation. With the spirit of the law in the mix, we get to pick and choose allowing us to reach whatever conclusion we personally desire.
Option C: The underlying logic that went into the law.
If there is any ambiguity to it, then understanding what the moral framework upon which it was founded allows you to fill in the missing gap. It’s sort of like finding a missing case in source code. You don’t rewrite the thing, you just figure out what the code is trying to do, and insert a patch that works within the context of the existing logic.
I voted spirit but I really had to think. This is a great poll!
To me, the key is under spirit the individual has to honestly decide what the point of the law is, not what the individual wants to do or what the individual thinks is right. The individual has to decide what the maker of the law intended, not what is right or wrong in their view. Given how poorly written some laws are, this is a better thing to do then blindly follow the exact wording.
Whether anyone would or could do that is outside the binary poll. That is what the second choice means.
It is bad enough that people interpret the spirit of the law so differently through foolishness. When we add a deliberate misinterpretation, it only gets a jillion times worse.
Why bother even writing a law down, if something as nebulous as ‘spirit’ is added to it’s interpretation?
Neither. I’d prefer that people behave according to my own personal moral code regardless of the law. In fact, I hope that people will actively break laws that I consider immoral.
The letter of the law can be argued in court. The spirit of the law is open to personal interpretation. Stop at a stop sign? You mean that applies to me? I don’t think so. If two people approach a 4-way stop from different directions, and neither believes that those silly traffic laws apply to them, there’s going to be a wreck.
If the legislators could not produce an easy-to-understand law, then the legislators should rewrite the law. Or the voters can elect better legislators.
I voted spirit. My reasoning is that I have run into far too many “rules lawyers”, that damn well know they aren’t supposed to do something (or ARE supposed to do something), but will dance on the technicalities to get their way. I’d rather people use their brain and do what they’re supposed to do, rather than try to weasel their way around something.
Plus, the letter of the law is sometimes ambiguous, the spirit of the law is usually clear.
The letter of the law should not be ambiguous. If it is, then the law wasn’t written correctly and should be corrected.
The spirit of the law may be clear to you, but a prosecutor may have a different opinion of what the spirit should be. That difference of opinion could cost you your liberty or take a bite out of your wallet.
It is very difficult to find reasonable exceptions to an unwritten code.
I personally do not give two slaps whether any given person follows the letter of the law or the spirit. However, if that person (honestly or misguidedly) transgresses on the safety or property of my family, my community or myself, I want to have a clearly written set of rules to keep him from doing just that.
How is this different from the spirit of the law?