There’s a sense in which a lot of rules are attempts to solve coordination problems across time. A rule may work most of the time, but not in specific edge cases. But it may be the case that even in those edge cases its best to continue to follow the rule, because the benefit you get from consistency is higher than the harms of enforcing it in the edge cases, or the costs of building in more discretion.
E.g. if you allow for this reasonable excuse you then have to allow for all equally reasonable excuses, removing the benefit of the rule. Or if you allow the lowest level decision maker more discretion you risk them using that discretion corruptly or incompetently. And either accept those costs or build in additional oversight structures which are costly.
Often what seems like blind rule following from the outside is someone who has correctly made a utilitarian tradeoff, you are just on the wrong side of it.
There’s a sense in which a lot of rules are attempts to solve coordination problems across time. A rule may work most of the time, but not in specific edge cases. But it may be the case that even in those edge cases its best to continue to follow the rule, because the benefit you get from consistency is higher than the harms of enforcing it in the edge cases, or the costs of building in more discretion.
E.g. if you allow for this reasonable excuse you then have to allow for all equally reasonable excuses, removing the benefit of the rule. Or if you allow the lowest level decision maker more discretion you risk them using that discretion corruptly or incompetently. And either accept those costs or build in additional oversight structures which are costly.
Often what seems like blind rule following from the outside is someone who has correctly made a utilitarian tradeoff, you are just on the wrong side of it.