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None of the permutations of a law can coexist with each other with regard to the same flow of conduct from Source to Recipient through circumstances. A Lawmaker picks one permutation and rejects the other two.
Be warned. The legal thinker can fall into a trap of misunderstanding by considering only one polarity of conduct instead of considering both polarities of conduct.
Polarity is a property of a flow of conduct from Source to Recipient through circumstances. Polarity is binary, that is, a flow of conduct is either on or off. When on, the flow of conduct is affirmative. When off, the flow of conduct is negative. Moreover, there is no difference between affirmative and negative conduct except its polarity.
The trap is set because the deregulation of one polarity of conduct is ambiguous. A legal thinker must take a look at the opposite polarity in order to ascertain the state of a law. When a Lawmaker deregulates one polarity of conduct, the other polarity can be either regulated or deregulated. Only by looking at the opposite polarity can a legal thinker know whether a Lawmaker reserved the decision whether to engage in a course of conduct to herself or delegated it to the Source of conduct. A Lawmaker's "hands off" approach to one polarity of conduct tells us nothing about the Lawmaker's approach to the other polarity of conduct. Towards the other polarity of conduct the Lawmaker can either be hands off or hands on.
John Bosco
Project Director
The Legal Literacy Project
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This work is licensed by John Bosco under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 3.0), and is an Open Educational Resource.
Last edited by John Bosco on Feb 16, 2011 9:53 am -0600.
