[blml] 40B3?

[Eric Landau]

On Jan 17, 2008, at 9:38 AM, Alain Gottcheiner wrote:

> Eric Landau a écrit :
>
> ISTM that this is not the right way to look at Law. The right way  
> is to
> consder as permitted everything they permit, and consider as forbidden
> everything they forbid.
> If they forbid two different courses of action in some specific
> situation, then two differentl courses of action are forbidden.
> If this result in a Moton Fork situation, then Morton (er, the
> Lawmakers) should do something about it.
>
> BTW, in real life, such situations lead to discharges.
> "I know A was disallowed, but I did A because B, the only other
> possibility, was disallowed, too" is a valid argument.
>
> One way out of the woods, of course, is to state explicitly a  
> priority.
> Despite many claims that this priority exist, it isn't written in  
> TNFLB.

There are two ways to look at the Law, which is why we are having  
this debate over interpretation.  One interpretation produces  
Morton's fork situations in which a player cannot continue to play  
out a deal without breaking one law or another.  The other  
interpretation raises no such difficulty.  One could argue from the  
principle of reductio ad absurdum that that is a sufficiently  
definitive difference to dictate which interpretation must be  
correct.  Alain subtly assumes his conclusion, as it is only if we  
accept the "Morton's fork" interpretation that the question of  
"priority" between "forbidden" actions arises.


Eric Landau
1107 Dale Drive
Silver Spring MD 20910
ehaa at starpower.net