Week 6 debate topic - Spirit vs Letter of the law
Debate partially sponsored by @FullTimeGeek
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The winner of last weeks debate is @dubem-eu and I will forward the SBD from last weeks debate to him. The voter receiving the steem from the post is @temmy8284.
However, I do feel that the spirit of the debate was manipulated in order to collect the reward as neither of the two individuals voted, comment or participated with any other participants. The spirit of the debate is to engage one another, give freely of our votes to encourage meaningful thought and discussion so that those with little or no steem can also benefit from the exchange as well. If people cannot see the 'spirit' and act accordingly, but instead look for loop holes to manipulate the process for their own gain, then that brings great sadness to my heart. If life is about money, then you have missed the point of life. I will honour the payout for the debate, but if I feel that people are manipulating the debate for financial gain and not following the spirit of the debate, I will disqualify them from any future debate rewards. @debem-eu and @temmy8284, I encourage you to evaluate your participation in the debate and if you feel that you took advantage of the debate in order to win the rewards, then I will leave it to your own heart to do what you feel is right. I forgive you and thank everyone else for seeing the spirit of what we are doing with these debates and doing your best to participate within that scope.
I thought that last weeks debate went well and some participants raised some good points and brought even more clarity to the scope of the issue. I learned a lot from the debate. Thank you.
Week 6 debate topic - Spirit vs Letter of the law
In the spirit of last weeks debate, I will raise the question about Spirit vs Letter of the law. There are some who feel that it is important to look past the letters that make up the words and peer deeply into the spirit of the intent that legislators had when they drafted the statutes or regulations. Some lawyers would argue that mind reading is not a part of state governance. They would instead focus on the details of what the statutes and regulations outline to let the letters speak for themselves. This becomes important for citizens when the courts are then mandated by the executive branch to adjudicate cases or even petitioned by the citizens themselves to mediate disputes.
This weeks Debate Forum question: Should the courts be focusing on interpreting the spirit of the statutes and regulations or the letter of the documents as drafted by the legislators?
The rules of this debate:
- Keep comments on topic.
- No personal attacks, name calling or yelling.
- Be respectful, thoughtful and articulate with your thoughts and views.
- Participants can ask questions but lets limit the discussion threads to three deep. That means the individual can respond to the question posed and then the thread must stop.
- The post with the highest vote count will win the debate. Highest value will not be used to determine the winner but will naturally reward commenters who make excellent points. That way everyone's vote counts the same when it comes to the final prize. I will break any ties.
- Debate deadline is 10pm MST January 6, 2018. At which point I will then tabulate the results and send the prize to the winner.
- Curators are encourage to vote as well, giving higher percentage upvotes for well thought out and written responses, lower or no vote for anybody who breaks the rules or fails to articulate their position.
- Winner will receive all the SBD that I receive from this post, complements of the curators who are participating and partially sponsored by @FullTimeGeek.
- Out of the winning post, the voter on the bottom of the list with 100% upvote will receive all the Steem from the debate post, to encourage more voting!
- I am the moderator and as such I disqualify myself from winning. My decisions are final. I will not tolerate covert or overt violence in this debate. Please keep it respectful and on topic.
- For this debate, I will disqualify those who fail to follow the spirit of the debate.
The spirit of this contest is to engage the readers with thoughtful debate and to explore ideas that are not commonly made available to the average Jane and Joe. I also want to see if this is a good way to get low steem users participating and being rewarded with steem to help them build influence on this platform. Readers are reminded that all comments are the opinions of those who are posting and as such it is your responsibility to do your own research and make up your own mind on these topics. There is no write or wrong answer. Let us debate this issue with respect, honour, dignity, heart and intelligence.
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I love that the debate is over letter of the law while simultaneously talking about the spirit of the debate.
So on to the debate lets start with the lawyers its quite clear that both spirit and letter are just tools to leverage when ever it suits their needs wether appealing to a judge for maximum penalty or imploring the jury that surely the spirit of the law was never meant to punish their client.
So should courts care about the spirit? Hell yes, in fact they are duty bound to that's how we get common law or case law as some call it.
Reasonable person is often a test in legal cases and in this case no reasonable person could believe that original legislation often decades (sometimes century's) removed from today can cover everything to the letter.
So all that is left is the spirit and sometimes in the name of justice even the spirit of the law must be challenged and discarded.
I like this idea of a reasonable person, because yes, any reasonable person in this day and age would interpret words differently then when the law was created a long time ago.
However, as @wwf points out, what a reasonable person is may indeed have been diminshed! This is funny in a way because we are discussing just this issue. In this case, it might be obvious that what a reasonable person is is up for debate!
What in the world is average care, skill and judgment in our modern world? That could be a low standard indeed, and so it may be important to take into account the spirit of this definition in order to use it effectively.
@wwf @skycae didn't know which to respond to.
Personally I don't accept the idea of that over time comparative standards has diminished either ethically or morally.
The law books are filled with obsolete and unjust legislations whos spirit at time of writing was acceptable by the moral standards of the day.
The list goes on highlighting what is arguably increased moral and ethical standards.
This super connected world we are in has increased awareness and empathy but media leads us to believe there is decay that there is a ganster on every corner and a pedophile at every window because for them if bleeds it leads and if its good its gone.
Then again perhaps my optimism exclude me from being a reasonable person
So it would depend on who is making the determination. Leaving a 'judge' to do that is one thing, but each individual also has the capacity to determine what is reasonable or not. That is where we each have a duty to make that determination and not leave it to others as that does lead to corruption. Nice argument!
the idea that we can know what a reasonable person would think is flaw in the face of corruption. And how often do we do the unreasonable thing, and defer to past judgments as reasons for upholding current even when it is outside the realm of reasonable judgment?
Your bring in the legal concept of 'reasonable person' into the debate. Well done. A 'reasonable person' is:
So how would this standard be used when, over time, that comparative standard has diminished on an ethical and moral standard? When Spirit has highlighted the highest moral and ethical standard, then how come use the reasonable person standard instead?
It's the spirit of the law that counts!
Law uses legal words to describe the spirit of its authors. But we know that words by themselves have their limit so we should look beyond the words and look into the spirit of the law, instead.
If we just look at the letter, we would be like the Pharisees who were rebuked by Jesus in the Gospels of Luke 11:37-54 and Matthew 23:1-39. They used the law to their advantages rather than following its spirit. And the result was the death of their spirit!
So why were the Pharisees rebuked then? Can you explain in more detail what Christ was trying to get at when he rebuked them? What was the purpose or reasoning behind the rebuke?
In short, because they followed the law to the letter but ignored the spirit. They 'cleaned their bowls and hands' but had wickness and greed in their hearts.
they kept most of the money and neglected the true spirit of Love and Justice of God.
read Woes on the Pharisees and the Experts in the Law - Luke 11:37-54 and Matthew 23:1-39 . I think it is
Seems pretty clear to me he speaks of thinking for ourselves, and worry not about even the letter of the law in the face of truth.
wow, I sorta love this! They did the physical act but did not read into it enough, and therefore used it to their advantage. This is a good example. What is keeping the courts from using the definitions and word of law in the same way? They could be doing great injustices of spirit, but are still following the law. hmmmm.
Yes. I've seen many cases where people are speaking in court and due to their own ignorance spoke of words in the wrong context or misunderstood their meaning. The judges see it, but don't ask to clarify. Instead they use their ignorance against them. The judges too are supposed to protect the vulnerable, but they don't. Lawyers are the same way, which does not surprise me as judges were once lawyers. What moral responsibility do they have if they witness ignorance? Are they there to teach or just pass judgement? I think we all have a duty and obligation to confront people's ignorance.
Yet it should not matter the words being spoken, it is the meaning behind the words, as they are believed to be by the man speaking them, that count. That was part of common law. So a judge who chooses not to take the words in the spirit that they were meant, but instead uses their lack of knowledge against them is going against the common law.
You cannot unknowingly break a law, because there has to be intent for that law to be broken. This is why someone who does not know the culture of the people and unknowingly breaks their laws is called an idiot and cannot and should not be punished for his or her ignorance.
Ecellent, i'm so pleased you remembered this - there are 3 parts to breaking a law,
All three need to be proved for a guilty verdict in court of law. In a common law court, you are innocent until proven guilty, and in an administrative court with acts and statutes, you are automatically guilty until you prove your innocence. Not knowing the difference between the two courts and which jurisdiction you are in can see you loosing lots of money especially on lawyers. Lawyers that have taken an oath to the bar and who's first obligation is to the court and not the client. If you know what you are doing in court , a judge will run two courts at the same time which can be confusing if you don't know if you are a man or a person. And just to explain the term idiot that you used for the other readers, it comes from the Greek idios which originally translated as "personal, private," properly "particular to oneself." before it was changed with new meanings to what we now believe is something akin to fool.
I'm a bit of topic for the debate but
Is a guilty mind truly required ? I have never heard that and will have look into it.
The problem with this is so many offenders don't have a guilty mind in fact lack of remorse is common.
Unless it means intent in which case I understand
I agree. They used the letter of the law to trick, manipulate and hoodwink people to feed their own greed, lust for control, power, rape and pillage. However, even they knew that if they followed the spirit of the law, they could not engage in this manner.
@klevn From our conversations on your post I would suggest that the disdain shown for the hypocrite in Mark and Luke would fully extend to those lacking what I called a spiritual faith.
However luke 12:57-59 is more like Jesus giving legal advice that coming to agreement with our accuser may be better than putting it before a judge that may issue a harsher punishment feels like he recomends out of court settlements.
God set up the law in the first place out of His abundant love for us - to teach us, to guide us, and most importantly as a key to knowing Him. That's the spirit of the law. However, the Pharisees used the letter of the law to load people down with burdens they could hardly carry and ignored the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They not only had taken away the key to the knowledge of God but also had hindered those who were entering the kingdom of God.”
Just to clarify, the common law of the land is the King James Bible and has been the law of the land since 1614 - taking over from Magna Charta 1215 which took over from the Triad. Although the Magna Charta can still be pleaded in court as the common law. The King James Bible has 613 commandments/laws, (i believe 3 have been removed) and of those 613 commandments/laws we have the 10 commandments/laws that good people choose to follow. Other faiths follow more of the commandments/laws than Christianity. Commandments are written by man yet inspired by God. Remember God created man not a person or mankind. i don't wish to offend your faith or the faith of others as long as that faith is for moving love and happiness to all i'm happy for you, as a Heathen, it's not whether i believe or not, it's that the courts believe.
Excellent point. I'm not sure this can be debated... lol.
Haha ... you are absolutely right. Even though we can argue over the interpretation or the translation of the scriptures, we are not going to debate with God. ;-)
No debate with God, but the point is to know this stuff so that we can comprehend why this is so important to 'know' physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. :) <3
Absolutely :-)
Love this post - this is why i joined steemit - i'm not a human, or a person and definitely not a citizen - so acts and statutes don't apply to me. To the people that read this, please understand the meaning of the words that you use. As an example - If you have an old dictionary, the older the better, look up the word hu'man. that's right it was originally hyphenated and is defined as "of or pertaining to man, not a man, profane".... When you say you are human, what your actually saying is that you are property.... And in any court property has no rights, property is what rights are exercised over. Courts use the original meaning of most words to your disadvantage - spiritually unethical i know but they exist to make money. Hopefully - some of you may claim to be non hu'man too after you look up the meaning of the words . You could also use an online law dictionary... In my experience, most courts are nothing more than a money making business. It would be difficult to find justice in most courts as most legal practitioners don't know the basics of law and have had their ethical standards poisoned by false law. Of the 613 laws that are current in all common law countries, only around 20 or so could be applicable to me as i'm not Jewish. With regards the spirit of law as long as i cause no harm, loss or injury to another, any claim against me would be against the 9th law. Statute law has no standing in a common law court and is merely used to remove your rights. This is still a common law country - but won't be for long.
Since I feel I have no say in the creation of the laws... and I see they create laws that clearly violate what is right... This article by @larkenrose perfectly addresses this issue.
I would say doing what is right is the true spirit of anything, I would argue that we can always discover what is right and that we only need one rule.
"Do what you will as long as you don't violate another's will."
I believe we could be discussing this to more fruitful gains. I'm not saying it would always be simple, but I do think we could have discussion, much like a Isaac Asimov book, that we discuss the logical nature of what it means to violate another's free will, how far it extends, and what is agreeable to all those involved. I don't think we should have a 'jury of our peers' as we do now, a jury of strangers who absolutely don't know us at all, but a jury of true peers, people that do know us. Seems to me right now, we get a jury of people that are ignorant and easily manipulated by lawyers... what a strange system we have.
I totally agree with @shai-hulud's comment about lawyers vacillating between spirit and letter of the law based upon whatever serves them best. And I totally believe that is against what is right, to fight so hard just to win..
So in the end, the letter of the law versus the intent skips the foundation of what is right, and ultimately will end up violating peoples rights.
And you know, I speak from experience, in which a disagreement came up with my rent against my renter and found the courts cared about one thing, and one thing only, that I owed them money. It didn't matter the circumstances or the violations that existed, that was irrelevant for them, it was only and only about had the money been paid, they took no argument, no discussion. That is when I learned, that unless I spent thousands on a lawyer, I could not recoup the hundreds lost, and the courts just followed the law to the letter, and no it was not about what was right, and they didn't care at all...
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." - Aleister Crowley self proclaimed evilest man in the word.
Now to be clear I personally think do as tho wilt is already the law but not including the magical power of being able to mind read the will of others.
Take the story of the good Samaritan who finds a man beaten half to death bandages his wounds and took care of him.
Lovely story of compassion right? So having come across the man who being half dead and fair to say probably unconscious with no knowledge of the cause the good Samaritan may already have broken the law.
"Do what you will as long as you don't violate another's will."
First he may have violated the will of the robbers who's will it may have been that the man die.
Second since the has no knowledge of the cause he cannot know the man didn't injure himself and by helping him violates his will to death.
Even applying the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is flawed If your a man the gets pleasure from recieving pain the golden rule would have you inflict it that others might do unto you.
Ah, see this is where the Asimov type debate enters. The robber already violated the will of another's right to life.
There is no 'right of the robber' because he violated the first law, by attacking a man.
If a man has lost the ability to speak, to save his life is no crime, you have no obligation to do so either, but I would say that all beings choose to live, and if you want to die at least do it right and don't leave yourself half-dead.
yes, it is flawed, because how you treat yourself may not be how I want to be treated.
You are correct. but it would be right for two people that like pain to inflict it upon each other if that be their will. but as soon as they step on another's will then they have violated the law.
A man dishevelled in appearance looking just like your vision of a psychopath declares his intent to harm or murder you and proceeds to walk towards with a knife in his hand as any sane man would you restrain him before the implied attack can happen in order to protect yourself.
Now you have broken the law you have used your will to remove his despite that no actual attack was made merely words spoken.
When we argue that the robber no longer has a right to his will because he first violated the law we are making an amendment to the law and this is the birth of legislation and government.
THE LAW: Do as tho will so long as you don't violate the will of another.
First Amendment: Where a man exercises his will in violation of an others his right to will shall be forfeit.
Second Amendment: Where a man exercises his will in violation of an others for the purpose of defence of body or person that man shall be considered just in his actions and not in violation of the law.
Is this conversation not the perfect example of letter vs spirit?
Yes, it is the perfect example. I feel as long as the first law is understood in spirit and applied fully we could find a solution. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to make amendments, but this type of discussion would be what was discussed should such thing need to judged by an outside party.
Seems to me as soon as we make amendments than people will try and use the words to get around the spirit, so in the end I believe it is the spirit of the law that must be followed/understood. If we begin to think in terms of letter of the law, injustices will be committed.
In the end it is only as good as those that choose to uphold it. If people have not faith in good will and choose to violate it, it will be violated, as the laws today do not do justice.
I too think that this is a great example of the difference between the 'letter' and 'spirit'. You both argued that the following passage has flaws and came up with great arguments to demonstrate those flaws:
It has flaws because when we look at the letter of it, we can always punch holes in what ever we read. However, the spirit of this passage requires that we read into it with love in our hearts. The spirit of this message is founded on love and if we love ourselves then we would only do unto others with love. Of course there are psychopaths out there. How can we apply this passage to them? If we do, then that would justify psychopathic behaviour towards them as that is what they do to others. But that violates the spirit of what this passage is trying to tell us. The spirit of the passage is to do good, be loving, caring, compassionate, peaceful, patient and all those other qualities that we all strive to achieve in our lives DESPITE the evil works of man. That is, in my view, the spirit of the passage and only each individual is responsible for making that determination within their own life. It can never be granted to another to determine, despite the efforts of most people to give that responsibility to legislators.
When we start trying to codify the meaning by outlining the exceptions, are we not missing the point of spirit and getting caught up in the letter of what is being said?
I absolutely believe this to be true.
Thanks for commenting and upvoting. I appreciate how you handle this blog, it provides thought provoking conversations, and gives me a chance to see how my ideas hold up ; )
You are welcome. I am grateful that you appreciate my efforts and see the spirit of my actions. peace to you.
Wow! Great debate. Thanks again @WWF for an amazing avenue for these types of discussions. I loved reading through the responses. Reading through them made me think, what is the point of writing something down? It is to communicate or convey an idea or thought. So I don't think you can separate the letter of the law from the intent. At least not when you don't have the author(s) to ask. Unfortunately when we write something down we don't usually define the terms. Probably because we assume our audience knows what we mean or at least what we are talking about. However after a long time the language changes and the newer audience might not be good at putting the writing in the original context or time reference. Because of that the courts need the letter of the law to figure out the intent or spirit of the law. So to answer the question:
Should the courts be focusing on interpreting the spirit of the statutes and regulations or the letter of the documents as drafted by the legislators?
I am with the majority of the responses in that they should be focusing on interpreting the spirit of the statutes and regulations, though I would add by using what is written. Unfortunately, like has already been pointed out they do what is in their best interest and not the best interest of others.
So essentially you are saying they should use both to get a balance? That would makes sense and I suspect that originally was the idea behind it, but it has become somewhat perverted.
Actually I'm saying that the purpose of the written law is to describe the intent or the spirit of the law. So the written is a tool given by the writer so that we have a chance of getting to the intent of what they were trying to say.
At times when debating, I can tell if I have an audience that is open to new ideas, and who is simply defending an old one with disregard for all further input. So the debate is then dead.
So I think any true discussion relies upon both parties being open to being wrong, then a real discussion can happen, but if one has a vested interest in the outcome, then a true discussion is destroyed !
Thoughts that came to me while reading your response. I do believe we are all talking about the same thing.
Peace.
Ok i am ready to debate on this topic guys!
Both spirit of the statutes and regulations Vs Letters of the documents are essential for the functionality of courts but i will prefer to chose letters of the documents over spirit.
Well Laws are the socially defined parameters to limit the human behavior and spirit can be defined as the situation in which someone has to behave in more proper way like to be more positive. Positive can be elaborated in term of Right thing according to the given situation.
Letters are written norms through which one tries to go under the comparison when it comes to punish someone on law breaking matters of any society. So, i would like to go with Letters strongly because Legislators are human beings and can understand the human nature in more practical way. @wwf !
unfortunately when going with the letter of the law, then those who apply it can decide which definition is used. It always returns to the merits of those that apply the law, it still returns to the spirit of those that apply it. If the creators of the law pass, they cannot stand and say that was not their intent, and already even while alive there will be those that choose to apply it as they see fit. There are no words that can overcome this.
consider how even Christians have been persuaded to go on crusades while the very heart of Christianity says to love your neighbour as yourself. If the word was truly enough this could never have happened. Yet still to this day we have those professing to be Christians killing. It truly is a bizarre world we live in where such is the case...
Interesting that you took the other side. Wonderful to see. So are you suggesting then that because legislators and citizens are human beings, they comprehend human nature and as such are capable of addressing the frailties of being human within their legislation?
If this is your position, then that comprehension would also recognize that other people will attack the documents, find loop holes, technicalities, etc in order to get away with wrong behaviour. As such, how do you propose that your legislators deal with the frailties of the 'letter of the law' that is exposed by these charlatans?
You asked basically two questions let me answer the first one;
Well there could be some frailties by legislators in establishing Laws for a particular society but still my point is they are much aware of the human behavior and they know how can one behave in certain situation. Like there are certain rules of penalties to kill someone at the same time there are certain Laws to proof someone innocent, it all depends upon the situation. Actually situation does matter a lot for which legislation you're talking about. So i do believe justice should be given according to the nature of humans. That is why Laws are made according to human behavior and legislators play vital role in it.
well you asked another question about the frailties of the 'letter of the law' which is established by the legislators.
My take on it there could be NO OBJECTION to the rules set by the legislators. Because Legislators are always neutral and it is the Spirit which can damage those rules and laws.
OK let me give you an example What is the point to curse the letter of documents or written rules when The Worthy Judge takes bribe from one party and delivered spread the injustice in a society.
This thing makes me more clear about the importance of the letters of documents and the legislators. They are purely responsible for transparent justice within a society :) @wwf
I think when he talks about the frailties of the letter of the law he means how the language can be twisted to suit our whims. An example is a "Road work ahead" sign. This could mean that there are people working on the road ahead, or it could mean that the road ahead is in working order.
Week 6 already?
Well that flew by...
Iwe got all distracted with family stuff (bday and holidays) and missed so much of the discussion ^_^;;;
Thanks for keeping it up dear sir.
I am Still transitioning between the old social media (and observing its slow demise as the net neutrality thing has been premeditated for most of the main platforms for a while.)
Thank you thank you for being here, more then ever this is the time.
Ty for being a Healer during times of uncertainty for many.
Blessings and love and all the best in the new year.
This would definitely enhance the level of knowledge through peaceful means of discussion. Good Job you're doing @wwf with the collaboration of @FullTimeGeek
Thanks for indicating If life is about money, then you have missed the point of life
I will take part in the discussion but guide me how I have to start the point of discussion?
Also i want to clear my confusion whether we have to debate on this topic till 6th of Jan, 2018? Or we have only 1 day to do so?
The debate closes on the 6th, but those that get in early have a better chance of catching the voters. So in this debate, the early birds usually do get the worm. :)
As for starting, just write what you think about the question. The 'spirit' is usually in reference to the intent of what somebody is trying to say, where the 'letter' is the mechanics which is often attacked to find loop holes or technicalities. What are your thoughts about the two in regards to the courts and law?
Thanks @wwf for elaborating this concept.
Hiii @wwf,
My first ever comment on your post. This week topic is wonderful "Spirit vs Letter of the law"
I think you do great work for the growth and development of community. I am not a good debator because these are GOD gifted skills, which i think i have not. any how i impressed from your positive thinking. also great part doing @FullTimeGeek partially sponsor of debate.
Stay Blessed for Ever.
"Happy New Year"
Hi @rabeel you should give it a go any way just share your thoughts with us.
A gift for language might be natural ability but it only truns into a skill with practice.
The absolute worst that could happen is you get to stretch your brain and improve your skills
Agreed. <3
I agree with @shai-hulud, give it a shot. There is nothing to lose and the experience will build skills so that you can fine tune your views and position in life. This forum can also help you articulate your position so that it becomes easier to communicate with others, especially with the written word. So give it a shot. Nobody has been teased or rebuked for sharing their opinions here. If they were, then they would be violating the rules of the Debate Forum and get flagged AND disqualified.
so much thanks @wwf and @shai-hulud
for encouraging, motivating and supporting, i will try to participate and always take a guideline from you. thanks a lot sir.
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