conspiracy theorist
Well-known member
Ok, I get it now. I think there is some danger in it because spirit of a law could be different from one person to another based on several factors. Letter of the law can be objective and better.
I can respect that view, and there are a lot of people in agreement that it is better for the majority to adhere to orthodoxy because it will result in less mistakes from a constituency who may not have the sufficient virtues (whether it be moral or intellectual) to live faithfully, if they were given the opportunity to freely interpret the law for themselves.
But, we know that fundamentalism has its dangers as well. ISIS is a current day example a strict letter of the law approach. And even then in physics it is demonstrated that the observer affects the outcome of experiments. We can't escape subjectivity and it can be dangerous to rely on an objective reading of law since there are many factors that makes the process insidiously subjective - on philological grounds and your interpretation of the meanings of words (you might think you are reading a word objectively but when you trace the etymology of a word it connotes a different meaning and resonance from your "objective" understanding), cultural, age, psychological state etc.
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