It seems reasonable to me to describe laws as “rules that the government acts as if all citizens have agreed to abide by”, at least for values of ‘acts as if’ that apply to the judicial system. The government acting that way results in a system that works reasonably well as far as I can tell, and the fact that the government acts that way makes it generally reasonable to act as if one has agreed to follow those rules. But that’s not the same as actually agreeing to follow those rules, and the most rational way of handling the situation is to keep that in mind and actually do a cost/benefit analysis when something illegal seems like it might be worthwhile anyway—and, such a cost/benefit analysis should take all the results of the action into account, including e.g. the possibility of the laws being changed to restrict further behavior of that type, or the possibility of getting a problematically bad reputation, or more subtle issues.
Does this C/B analysis include anything at all that doesn’t impact proximally or distally on the person doing the analysis? Eg: “I could get away with this scot free, but it would hurt someone. Although not anyone I particularly care about”.
The point was that the convicted person did not agree to the rules.
I don’t think Bernie Madoff was making a principled protest against the inquities of the financial regulators: he was quite happy for other people to abide the rules. (Reliant on that: if everyone cheats, cheaters have no edge). I chose him
as an example, rather than, eg Mandela for a reason.
Also, not all people convicted in a court of law actually did the thing they were convicted of.
I know. I hoped I could take all the side-conditions about fair trials etc as read.
The point was that the convicted person did not agree to the rules. That some other people agreed on them is irrelevant to Adelene’s point.
Also, not all people convicted in a court of law actually did the thing they were convicted of.
Yes, exactly this.
It seems reasonable to me to describe laws as “rules that the government acts as if all citizens have agreed to abide by”, at least for values of ‘acts as if’ that apply to the judicial system. The government acting that way results in a system that works reasonably well as far as I can tell, and the fact that the government acts that way makes it generally reasonable to act as if one has agreed to follow those rules. But that’s not the same as actually agreeing to follow those rules, and the most rational way of handling the situation is to keep that in mind and actually do a cost/benefit analysis when something illegal seems like it might be worthwhile anyway—and, such a cost/benefit analysis should take all the results of the action into account, including e.g. the possibility of the laws being changed to restrict further behavior of that type, or the possibility of getting a problematically bad reputation, or more subtle issues.
I don’t think Bernie Madoff was making a principled protest against the inquities of the financial regulators: he was quite happy for other people to abide the rules. (Reliant on that: if everyone cheats, cheaters have no edge). I chose him as an example, rather than, eg Mandela for a reason.
I know. I hoped I could take all the side-conditions about fair trials etc as read.