That runs into the problem that if you say the rules are absolute many people will ‘follow their spirit’ and if you say ‘follow the spirit of the rules’ then people will be way too lax about the rules. Eliezer mentions this issue in his meta-honesty.
I feel like you might be appealing to consequences here a bit. Whether or not it is tractable in theory to follow the rule as an absolute (that is, to the letter) is a different problem from whether or not people will actually choose to do so.
It seems that Scott is more concerned about finding a formulation that can be followed to the letter in theory, while at the same time he has already conceded that most people will not choose to do so regardless of the formulation (and will thus follow the spirit instead).
That runs into the problem that if you say the rules are absolute many people will ‘follow their spirit’ and if you say ‘follow the spirit of the rules’ then people will be way too lax about the rules. Eliezer mentions this issue in his meta-honesty.
I feel like you might be appealing to consequences here a bit. Whether or not it is tractable in theory to follow the rule as an absolute (that is, to the letter) is a different problem from whether or not people will actually choose to do so.
It seems that Scott is more concerned about finding a formulation that can be followed to the letter in theory, while at the same time he has already conceded that most people will not choose to do so regardless of the formulation (and will thus follow the spirit instead).