Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes
Evidence
Whether Bentham was right, however, depends on whether the existing rule, true to the very idea of a rule, is entrenched firmly enough to resist or tolerate at least some suboptimal results. … If common-law rules will be modified when they produce very bad or substantially suboptimal results, but not when they produce only somewhat or slightly suboptimal results, then the rules will operate as rules do, even if they allow at times some number of somewhat or slightly bad or moderately suboptimal results. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 223
Categorization
- XREF: Ties to prior notes on silence-as-positive-presence: the value of what a system withholds/endures, not what it optimizes. — connects to: Law deliberately accepts suboptimal answers to maximize long-term institutional correctness. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 431; Rules necessarily overreach their justifications because of their intrinsic generality — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 46; Rules that always yield to rule-free optimization cease to function as rules — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 222 (+10 more)
Related
- Rules that always yield to rule-free optimization cease to function as rules (similarity 0.88)
- Law deliberately accepts suboptimal answers to maximize long-term institutional correctness. (similarity 0.86)
- Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes (similarity 0.81)
- Rules necessarily overreach their justifications because of their intrinsic generality (similarity 0.80)
- Power functions only when few problems actually require power (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Optimal action under ideal assumptions can be useless under real conditions
#corroborates(0.70) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 1033 - Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes
#exemplifies(0.65) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284 - Judicial rules should not be applied to dryly logical extremes
#corroborates(0.60) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 144 - Courts sometimes reach wrong outcomes to avoid bad future rules
#corroborates(0.60) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 548