HOW JOHN LOCKE CREATED REASONABLE MEN. Anna Wierzbicka attributes the distinctive use in English of the word “reasonable” to the influence of John Locke. Locke believed that our knowledge of most things in the world was “very short and scanty.” “Reason” (using logic) was appropriate for a world of certainty. Locke concluded that since our knowledge was limited, it was important to specify in our speech our “degrees of assent from full assurance and confidence, quite down to conjecture, doubt and distrust.” If each man’s knowledge is limited, reasonable men can differ—can come to different opinions. And so, after Locke, there was a shift in the use of the word “reasonable.”
Archive for July, 2008
HOW JOHN LOCKE CREATED REASONABLE MEN.
Thursday, July 31st, 2008WERE THERE REASONABLE MEN IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME?
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008WERE THERE REASONABLE MEN IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME? Anna Wierzbicka says no. She says that in Shakespeare’s works, the word “reasonable” was still had a close association in meaning with “reason.” The English language has changed since Shakespeare’s time. Now, she says, a “reasonable man” does not have reason in the sense of “systematic thought” or “sustained logical reasoning” but something more akin to “common sense.”
ARE THERE REASONABLE MEN IN PLACES WHERE THEY DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH?
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008ARE THERE REASONABLE MEN IN PLACES WHERE THEY DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH? Anna Wierzbicka says no. She is a linguist, and she says in ENGLISH: MEANING AND CULTURE that “other European languages do not have words corresponding to the English word ‘reasonable.’” She quotes the legal scholar George Fletcher in support: “‘There is no way to convey the connotations of “due process,” “reasonable doubt,” and “malice aforethought” in any language except English.’”
THE CHANGING ROLE OF JURIES.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008THE CHANGING ROLE OF JURIES. We are all familiar with the fact that jurors who know any witness are excluded from a jury. This reverses historical practice. Norman Cantor in THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES says about the period when Henry II ruled (beginning in 1154): “The man who was ‘ill-famed’ in his community had little chance when the opinion of the neighborhood was the determining factor in criminal proceedings and when the investigation of evidence by the court was unknown.” (page 317). A friend who was a scion of a distinguished family once remarked that he thought that juries should go back to their historical roots. He said that in the county he came from everybody knew who was a liar and who was truthful and that if jurors knew the witnesses, that would promote justice.
THE BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS: THE ANTICLIMAX.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008THE BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS: THE ANTICLIMAX. My father’s war story ended successfully, but without drama. At that time, over 70 years ago, the sheriff and his family lived over the county jail. My father’s client was diagnosed with tuberculosis. My father did what he could to make this widely known. The sheriff— or rather the sheriff’s wife— was very upset by the presence of tuberculosis in the building, and a favorable disposition of the case was negotiated.
MY FATHER AND THE BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS.
Monday, July 28th, 2008MY FATHER AND THE BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS. Just because you have a right to a jury trial if there is an issue as to the credibility of different witnesses doesn’t mean that you have a good shot at winning at that jury trial. This is the story of what must have been my father’s toughest case. Actually, it was not literally a busload of bishops. My father once ran as a Democrat for state’s attorney in what was one of the most Republican counties in the country, with a well-established Republican organization. He was critical of the performance of the Republican incumbent. My father’s war story begins with a Russian wedding in suburban Illinois. It was a grand wedding which went on for two or three days. A young man and a young woman had gotten to know each other, and toward the end of the festivities, they went for a ride in the young man’s car. It got later and later. Dawn was breaking when the young man began to sexually assault the young woman. A large number of monks at Saint Procopius were going to morning services and were witnesses to the assault. The court— perhaps, as my father suspected, influenced by my father’s criticisms of local law enforcement— assigned my father to defend the young man. At this point in the story, my father would pause.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ISSUES THAT REASONABLE MEN COULD DIFFER ON?
Sunday, July 27th, 2008WHAT HAPPENED TO ISSUES THAT REASONABLE MEN COULD DIFFER ON? The concept that reasonable men can differ about factual issues is still good doctrine in the courts, but I rarely encounter it in public discourse. Even the most complicated factual issues (and most public policy issues are complicated)—issues which historians will still be debating a century from now— are usually treated briefly, and disagreement is dismissed as unreasonable.
A BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS.
Sunday, July 27th, 2008A BUSLOAD OF BISHOPS. I spent much of my life dealing with the distinction between issues that should be decided by a jury and issues that were properly for a judge to decide. Any issue of fact—an issue upon which reasonable men could differ—was for the jury. Fact issues often involve the credibility of witnesses. The hypothetical often used by law teachers is of a “swearing match” between eyewitnesses—on one hand a busload of bishops and on the other hand, a lowlife or known liar. The answer to the hypothetical is that a jury should decide whether to believe the busload of bishops or the liar. The general rule is that reasonable men can differ on assessments of credibility so those assessments are for a group of reasonable men.
HOW THE FREE TRADE MOVEMENT CHANGED POLITICAL ARGUMENT.
Saturday, July 26th, 2008HOW THE FREE TRADE MOVEMENT CHANGED POLITICAL ARGUMENT. In 19th century England, there was a dramatic change in the way that people looked at government and society. The language of Utilitarianism is so familiar today that we forget how radical was Jeremy Bentham’s phrase, “The greatest good for the greatest number.” I now realize that in reading about the centuries that came before Bentham, I just have not come across the concept that it was good to advance the interests of the majority of citizens. Peter Clarke, in his review in the July 18 Times Literary Supplement of Frank Trentman’s FREE TRADE NATION, writes about how the movement for free trade (Clarke and Trentman refer to the movement as “FREE TRADE”) changed the terms of political debate forever. Arguments for free trade weigh large losses to producers (land owners) and small gains to a much larger number of consumers. Clarke says, “At root, then, the argument was about living standards for the mass of the people—regarded always as consumers and citizens.” Clarke quotes Trentman: “’The achievement of Free Trade was to invent a much more generalized language of the consumer as a public, national interest.’”
LOOKING BACK: NEW HAMPSHIRE AND IOWA.
Friday, July 25th, 2008LOOKING BACK: NEW HAMPSHIRE AND IOWA. At the beginning of the year, I posted a number of times, including here, about one of my hobby horses— my hope for improvements in the way that we choose our nominees for President. I hoped that more than a small percentage of voters would have a meaningful vote and that the nominees would be chosen by more than the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and a two or three other states. Things worked out better in one of the paries than I had hoped or thought possible (I had thought that in the long run, not this year, favorite sons might prolong a race). Every state but Michigan and Florida had a vote in the Democratic primary, and they remain symbols of how strong the forces are which want to limit voting in primaries to only a few states. I think it will be a little more implausible after seeing what happened this year to insist on a system that forces a choice before all the votes are counted.
