Precision in legal-method measurement has limits beyond which it becomes absurd.
Evidence
An old friend describes how, when living in Paris and both hungry and impoverished, he went into a boulangerie and asked for just 200 grams of patg. When the butcher gave him too much, my friend objected, knowing he could not pay for it. But when the butcher then gave him too little, my friend objected again, because he was so hungry. After several of these exchanges, as the butcher put more back on the thin paper, and then took less away, always getting closer to the maximum my friend could afford, the butcher finally said, in exasperation, “Monsieur, I am not a jeweler.” — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 447
Categorization
- XREF: The butcher’s exasperation echoes the tension in interpretive theory between exactness and practical judgment — connects to debates on originalism and textualism’s pretense of precision. — connects to: Precision and breadth are independent dimensions of any legal rule — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 370; Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284; Judicial rules should not be applied to dryly logical extremes — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 144 (+1 more)
- SEED: Essay angle: the ‘not a jeweler’ maxim as a critique of any method that over-claims precision, from legal interpretation to software estimation to editorial word counts.
Broader Connections
- Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes
#corroborates(0.80) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284 - Judicial rules should not be applied to dryly logical extremes
#corroborates(0.75) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 144 - Law lacks fixed major premises unlike math and science
#expands(0.60) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1309