【2023-08-01】 @whigzhou: 最近以色列的司法制度之爭鬧得沸沸揚揚，依我看，司法審查的權限寬窄其實還只是次生問題，癥結其實在法官遴選方式上，法官遴選委員會的9名委員，現任大法官占了3個，律師協會2個，議會雙方各一個，外加司法部長和一位閣員，前兩類的5個都來自法律界，只要他們行動足夠一致，加上從兩位議員中拉到一位，便可決定法官人選， 和米國相比，這種安排明顯缺乏外部輸入，讓法官遴選很大程度上變成了法律圈内同儕推舉，這會造成一個法官的立場逐漸向圈内共識靠攏而日益遠離社會共識（或精英共識）的趨勢， 而且這個趨勢會不斷自我强化，因爲（1）每次選出一位立場偏向圈内共識的新法官，就提高了未來選出更多更靠近圈内共識的發給的可能性，2）儅這種傾向變得清晰可辨時，它會影響法學院學生和未來潛在律師/法官的自我選擇，比如，如果這種傾向是向左偏的，那麽一位有志於成爲法官，正在考慮是否要報法學院的右派學生，便更可能放棄這條職業道路，因爲他對前途的預期被壓低了，於是，通往法官的那條職業道路，從起點上就吸引了更多接近法律界圈内共識的人， 對比米國，你可以發現，即便法律界整體偏左，但保守派在法律界總是有著穩固的地盤，因爲只要保守派仍有機會提名法官，那麽通往法官的那條職業道路就仍然對保守派年輕人暢通無阻（甚至他們的因爲總人數偏少而競爭壓力更小）， 由此想到，其實英國和以色列面臨同樣的問題，而且要嚴重的多，因爲英國的法官遴選幾乎是純粹的圈内游戲，遴選委員會成員絕大部分是法官和律師，未來司法系統與國會的衝突也在所難免，總有一天要解決 【2023-08-02】 @whigzhou: 假如電影業的激勵模式變成這樣：沒有票房，收入完全來自一個固定收益基金，每部片子的報酬由編導演協會打分決定，個人從中取得的份額由資歷和積分決定，不出幾年，就只剩下最莫名其妙的文藝片了

【2023-05-13】 @何不笑 看到一则一本正经搞笑的新闻。 为了保护全美约150万对芝麻过敏的人，米帝国会通过了一项立法，《食品过敏安全、治疗、教育和研究（促进）法案》，自2023年1月1日起就实施了。法案规定： a. 所有销售的食品，若含有芝麻，则必须在标签上标明“含芝麻”； b. 如果声称所销售的食品不含芝麻，则需要严格按照复杂的流程仔细清扫生产设备，确保所售食品100%不含芝麻。 搞笑的是，法案生效5个多月以来，那些对芝麻过敏的人现在几乎买到不含芝麻的面包类、披萨类等食品了。原因很简单：食品生产商受成本所限，难以保证自己能彻底清扫到不含一粒芝麻的程度，所以干脆在所有的出品上都标明“含芝麻”。于是，某大学新生在食堂向父母打电话哭诉，说食堂“所有的三明治、汉堡、面包、披萨上都贴着“含芝麻”的标签。5555~”（华邮报道） （全世界的官僚都一个德性。[挖鼻]） @whigzhou: 那些体贴备至的警示标签 headsalon.org/archives/7407.html @何不笑:回复@whigzhou:哈哈。（跑个题，败诉方付费能防碰瓷，但它本身恐怕也大有问题。） @whigzhou: 嗯，我也觉得败诉方付费不是好办法，无过错责任才是要害，我在《第三牧场》第19章里讲到了这一点 @whigzhou: 无过错责任是奶妈国家解除个体责任方案的重要元素 @Mr-Pudding:那些爱你的人，伤你最深。 @whigzhou: 你竟然認爲他們愛你？依我看，解除你的個體責任，是對你最大的羞辱，那就是赤裸裸的指著你的鼻子説：你不是人

【2021-07-16】 听了个 podcast，在聊 [[Roe v. Wade]]，我对他们聊的内容本身兴趣不大，不过这让我想到一个问题，在有关 Roe v. Wade 的各种议论中，这个问题好像都被忽视了， 我对堕胎合法性本身没有很强烈的立场，我个人的道德观与之并不抵触，不过，一个共同体若是基于其传统而加以禁止，我看也未尝不可，Roe v. Wade 让我特别不爽的是，自由派法官在这事情上表现的非常虚伪和双标， Roe v. Wade 的裁决依据是第14修正案的正当程序（due process）条款：

nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

多数意见认为，德州的堕胎禁止法律侵犯了孕妇的隐私权，而该隐私权包含在上面这个条款所提及的个人权利（liberty）里， 这显然是对个人自然权利非常宽的解释，对此我并没意见，我也向来希望对个人自然权利做宽泛解释，问题是，这些自由派法官仅仅在他们关心的那些事情上才会做如此宽泛的解释，而在其他事情上，他们对自然权利的解释都比前辈大幅收紧， 实际上，通过拓宽解释第14修正案的 liberty 来实施重大司法干预，并非 Roe v. Wade 的首创，1905年 [[Lochner v. New York]] 一案的裁决，把契约自由也纳入了第14修正案的 liberty 中，从而认定各州的最低工资法和工作时间限制违宪，因为最低工资和工作时限剥夺了契约自由， 这条原则如果存在到今天的话，那么罗斯福以来的很多管制法律都会被判违宪了，当然，实际上，它早就被推翻了，而 Roe 时代的那些自由派法官，正是推动管制国家大幅扩张、个人自然权利大幅缩减的司法能动主义者，如果他们把 Roe 案的原则也运用于其他个人权利，那我们看到的是一个比镀金时代更自由的社会， 不妨举个更加赤裸裸的例子，可以帮助我们理解这事情， 纽约市政府是出了名的 nanny state，特别替市民健康操心，所以以前酒吧是禁止向孕妇卖酒的，前几年，纽约市废除了这条法律，说是这孕妇懂得怎么做对自己最好，卖酒禁令是对孕妇的歧视， 如此说来，纽约市终于变动不那么 nanny 了吗？ 这么想你就太幼稚了，也是那几年，纽约市出了新法律，限制餐馆在餐桌上摆盐罐子，因为食客太蠢了，总是给自己的菜撒太多盐， ---------------- @小金鱼上校: Unconventional opinion: there is no constitutional right to privacy. The closest opinion which may come to recognize a claim that is similiar to a constitutional right to privacy is Katz v United States @whigzhou: 扯上隐私权确实挺强词夺理的，姑且替他修正为身体自主权 @whigzhou: 其实 Roe 还有个更可笑的地方，法官竟然临时发明了一套胎儿发育三阶段理论，扮演速成医学专家，既表现了其自以为无所不知的狂妄，也大大突破了有关法官在裁决中可以做什么不可以做什么的司法传统

【2020-07-03】 看了一些对高院最近几个判决的评论，大多很不着调，包括WSJ的，Neil Gorsuch一直就明确说自己会按法律本义判，无论这个本义是按textualism还是originalism来解读，都完全可能得出保守派不喜欢的结果，这是早就摆明的，为啥现在突然惊诧起来了呢？仅仅因为他是保守派提名的？ 评论中的另一个糊涂点是，忘了：在盎格鲁系统中，法官是没有义务为诉讼任何一方构造论点的，援引什么法律，以何种逻辑链条支持自己的主张，都是诉讼方自己的事，法官只是决定这个逻辑链条能否成立，所以，即便同一位法官，面对完全相同的案子，也可能得出截然相反的判决，因为诉讼方可能援引了不同法律，或构造了不同逻辑链，而法官没有义务把他们拉到对他们最有利的路线上来。 还有些评论分不清判决所影响的层次，规则体系是多层次的，一个判决可能在某个低层次上得到你喜欢的结果，同时却在高层次上造成你极不希望看到的结果。 说明这一点的一个经典案例是雪佛龙案（Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.），由该案判决所确立的所谓雪佛龙准则（Chevron doctrine）赋予了联邦管制机构极大的自由裁量权，导致管制国家大幅扩张，可是，当初推动这个案子的政治动机，却是里根政府希望放松有关环境保护的管制，即，通过为管制当局谋得更多自由裁量权，可以放松某些管制措施，而且他们确实得到了想要的判决，从一阶结果看，这是保守派想要的，可是他们忘了二阶后果：联邦政府是会换手的，由于该判决树立的恶劣先例，当联邦政府落到自由派手里时，上述自由裁量权就被用来疯狂扩张管制。 花絮：当初代表联邦政府打这场官司的，正是Neil Gorsuch他妈，时任EPA局长Anne Gorsuch Burford @慕容飞宇gg:有毛病的是 Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision 这句话。除非你混淆 sex 和上面两个概念，这句话没有道理。 @whigzhou: 我也不同意Gorsuch的推理，但他在这一判决中确实表达了他的textualism 把三位法官的意见放到一起看就比较清楚，我的概括： Gorsuch: textualism万岁，所以我判上诉方输。 Kavanaugh：originalism万岁，所以我判上诉方赢。 Alito: 即便我们接受textualism，Gorsuch的论证也错的离谱。 我赞成Alito。 ------------------------

Gorsuch: An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit. Alito: Alito wrote, "Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not."[36] Alito further stated that "even if discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity could be squeezed into some arcane understanding of sex discrimination, the context in which Title VII was enacted would tell us that this is not what the statute's terms were understood to mean at that time." Alito was critical of the majority decision: There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive ... A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Kavanaugh: Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and law... They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today's result. Under the Constitution's separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congress's role, not this Court's, to amend Title VII.

【2021-06-18】 Alito在最近的 Nestle v. Doe 一案里又强调了原帖第二点，此案以8-1裁决支持上诉人，Alito是唯一反对者，他在dissenting里说，他完全同意多数方的裁决理由，可是上诉人并未提出这个理由，法院不能替他们动脑筋，而他们提出的那个理由他又不同意  

【2021-06-12】 Basu 在《信念共同体》中提出了改进法律经济学的一种方案，他认为，以往的法经济学在分析一项法律规则的引入造成的影响时，采用的是直接修改收益矩阵的办法，这使得他们无法解释为何有些法律会得到遵守并产生预期效果，而另一些则不会， 他的解决方案是，把执法者和立法者也作为参与者纳入博弈矩阵，并据此分析，该矩阵中是否存在两个（或更多）均衡点，如果只有一个，那么立法不会带来任何改变，如果存在两个以上，那就再看立法是否会将参与者引向（不同于当前的）另一个均衡点， 归结起来，他的方案有几个要点： 1）必须把执法和立法者作为参与者引入博弈问题，才可能通过博弈分析理解立法影响， 2）任何立法若要实现其意图，其目标状态必须是某个从博弈矩阵中事先可知的均衡点， 3）目标均衡点必须优于当前均衡点，否则就没必要立法了（除非立法者想故意恶化事态）， 4）由于目标均衡点事先可知，因而即便没有立法，参与各方若能达成协调，同样可以转移到这个新均衡上，立法的唯一作用就是在存在多重均衡的情况下，通过标识其中某个均衡，令其变得醒目凸显，因而有望成为协调博弈各方所达致的谢林点， 这套方案里有不少好点子，特别是前两点， 将执法和立法者视为和其他参与方一样有着自己的偏好和利益的行动主体，这一点非常重要，就像公共选择理论将镇痔活动的参与方视为同等行动主体一样， 第二点我也非常赞同，我曾在一篇旧文里表达过类似的意思， 不过依我看，Basu 的方案距离解释现实还比较遥远，他的第4点显然是不切实际的， 关键的问题是，把执法和立法者视为博弈主体，并不等于非要把他们纳入到同一个博弈矩阵里，把执法和立法分别作为单独的博弈问题来处理，然后将其结果以参数形式输入到主要的那个博弈矩阵中，效果会更好，因为这几种博弈的结构大不相同，特别是在重复性和与之有关的信任关系方面，混在一起无法处理， 让我构造一个例子来说明这一点， 设想一个社会，有100位成员，其中90位个体农民，10位工匠，这10位工匠由于职业上的需要，之间存在高频率且高回报率的重复合作博弈，我们知道，熟人间的无截止期的重复博弈中，合作比较容易达成，而对博弈历史的共同记忆会强化信任，所以，10位工匠之间建立了强合作强信任关系， 相反，个体农户之间不存在这样的关系， 工匠间的这种关系一旦建立，他们发现可以用这一信任资源实现更多目标，比如组织集体行动，他们决定每个月聚会一次，讨论是否可以有什么好机会，通过一次集体行动为每个成员都带来好处， 现在假设，他们确实经常能找出这样的机会，并且10次里有9次行动都成功了，所有人都遵守了诺言，付出了努力，获得了事先约定的回报， 久而久之，这种集体决策与行动机制成为常规，也就是说，这些工匠头脑里建立了这样的牢固信念：只要我们10个人经商议表决后决定发动某一集体行动，所有人都会遵守诺言，付出他承诺的努力，获得他约定的回报， 然后有一天，他们在讨论中发现这样一种集体行动的机会：通过扮演执法者的角色，迫使社会全体（100人）改变行为方式，从而确立一种新规范，以期将社会从当前均衡点转移到另一个更高水平的均衡点，同时，利用他们的集体行动能力，强迫其他90人每人上交10块钱，这笔钱占他们从均衡迁移中获得的利益的一小部分， 假设他们这次尝试成功了，于是激励他们做出了更多类似尝试，每次都成功，于是我们得到下一个合理的推定—— 久而久之，该社会所有成员的头脑里都建立了这样一个牢固信念：只要工匠帮做出决定，宣布开始执行某项新规则，我便相信他们会付出巨大努力认真执行，而且很可能会成功，而且这一成功还很可能改善人们的处境，因而得到普遍顺从、配合或支持，因而更可能成功， 我的要点是，若是仅仅用一个博弈矩阵来描绘上述过程，是无法把这事情说清楚的，必须分解成多个博弈问题，而且依时序处理：首先是工匠间有关日常业务的博弈（A），接着是基于从A中建立起的信任关系而发生的集体行动博弈（B），然后是基于从B中建立起的集体决策与行动机制而发生的立法/执法博弈（C），最终，在C重复发生多次之后，整个社会有关立法与执法的信念全都改变了， 也就是说，从博弈A中产生的信念作为参数输入博弈B，从博弈B中产生的信念作为参数输入博弈C，如此一来，当前法经济学家直接修改收益矩阵的做法并没有根本毛病，只是需要把分析过程往前推，用另一类博弈问题来回答凭什么修改收益矩阵的问题 【2021-06-13】 读到后面发现，Basu在第5.5节里也试图将执法者之间的博弈单独拿出来分析，即所谓的分块博弈（partitioned game）思路，不过他对此没有充分展开，而且依我看此路不通，要给出贴近现实的分析，必须引入时序、重复、信念循环强化等动态和进化的视角，在任何剖切面上，许多东西只能描述而无法分析  

【2021-06-05】 最高法院的案子里经常出现阅读理解题，前天裁决的 Van Buren v. United States 的是个很好的例子， 此案起因是佐治亚一位警察收了贿赂帮人在州刑事数据库里查询一个车牌主人是不是警方卧底， 争议焦点是 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act （CFAA） 所规定的越权访问（exceeds authorized access）的涵盖范围，CFAA 对越权访问的定义是：

accessing a computer with authorization and using such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accessor is not entitled so to obtain or alter.

重点是这句话里那个 so，要是没这个 so，意思就很清楚，被告有权访问他查询的这个信息，所以完全没毛病（至于收钱把信息透露给别人是不是犯了其他法，是另一码事，与本案无关），可是一 so 就麻烦了，so 的究竟是什么？ Barrett 写的多数方意见认为，so 的只是手段，比如，假设查询这种数据有两种手段：1）去档案室翻资料，2）用电脑在线查，如果某人只被授权使用其中一种，那么他使用另一种手段查询的做法便是越权访问， 少数方不同意这种狭窄解读，认为 so 的是整个行动情境，包括行动者的意图，这样的话，*收了贿赂后以非法泄露为目的而查询* 就被排除在授权访问之外了，  

【2021-01-10】 有关 Big Tech 正在进行的大清洗，几点看法： 1）他们的做法当然是非常恶劣，令人恶心的， 2）但我仍坚持认为，私人企业有权拒绝为特定人提供服务， 3）如果这种拒绝违反了双方的（明文的或默示的）契约，那也只须承担违约责任，没有其他责任， 4）同时，我赞同修订 Section 230，因为依我看，230其实有个隐含前提，由用户贡献内容的网络平台，是对内容中立的，所以才能享受与内容相关的法律责任的豁免，相反，传统纸媒的内容是由其编辑挑选的，因而没有豁免，目前的条文中没有明确表达出这一前提，所以需要修订， 5）假如230按上述方式修订，那么 Big Tech 必须二选一：要么保持（或恢复）内容中立，要么丧失230豁免， 6）中立的意思是除非被司法系统或监管当局要求，否则不得删帖封号， 7）依我看，假如这一变更得以实现，足以消除目前公众对 Big Tech 霸权的绝大部分担忧，因为失去230豁免是非常致命的，很快会被海量官司淹没，

【2019-04-05】 @whigzhou: bear问：『对Google, Facebook, Twitter甚至airbnb这些公司封保守派活动家的账号，你怎么看？这些已经类似于水电那样的公共服务公司有权拒绝向特定人提供服务吗？』，说几点看法： 1）我不赞成立法者向水电等基础设施服务商施加普遍服务义务（即不得拒绝向接受并遵守服务契约的特定个体提供服务），这是对自由选择的无端干涉， 2）一个看起来相似但其实不同的问题是：超市有权拒绝特定个体进店购物吗？我认为没有，因为依习俗，超市饭馆之类设立于开放公共区域的商家，其开门营业这一事实本身已构成了一种要约（offer），我们不能合理期待每位顾客进店前都要先跟商家谈判确定契约条款，所以必须默认上述要约的存在，除非店家明示了符合某些条件的个人不受欢迎，或者顾客违反习俗为购物契约施加的默认条款，比如裸体进入， 3）但是水电服务与此不同，它们有着明确的书面签约过程，因而无需依习俗认定要约和契约的存在与否， 4）即便从（我并不赞同的）福利主义立场看，也没有向水电服务商施加普遍服务义务的必要，因为这类问题完全可以在社区（通过物业公司或city council之类代理者）与服务商订立的契约中解决，在允许该服务商接入时便要求他承诺为社区居民提供普遍服务，这是很自然的要求，也很自然会被接受， 5）但有个例外，假如服务商是国营的，或被政府授予了特许垄断权，那么普遍服务就是很正当的要求，当然，这种情况最好不存在， 6）我不认为Google等公司提供的服务已达到了水电这样的基础程度，所以即便我不情愿的接受了水电公司负有普遍服务义务这一现实，也反对将此义务如此扩大延伸，这是欧盟的做派， 7）Google们的这些做法是非常恶劣无齿的，结果也令人厌恶，但我不能因此就放弃比这事情重要的多的原则，所以我只会骂他们下溅，不会赞成限制他们的自由， 8）Google们的压制固然会让保守派处境不利，可是，一旦将这些服务认定为『公共基础服务』，立刻会引来洪水般的管制，这些管制只会让美国（在这方面）变得更像欧洲，那么，保守派在欧洲是什么处境呢？ 9）这些压制实际上是在为他们自己培育竞争对手，目前培育成果还不明显，假如未来某天，压制强度达到众多保守派重量级人物都被封杀的程度，却仍然培育不出像样的竞争对手，那我只能说，保守派实在太弱太无能太无关紧要没人搭理了，果真如此，我也只能认命，而不会赞成通过改变基本游戏规则来扶助弱小无能者，否则我岂不是变成另一个SJW了？ @_bear_:2)在公共互联网上设置网站，允许任何人注册使用，并且要求用户同意预设用户条款。我觉得这比商店拒客的情况更恶劣，因为用户条款相当于契约，在用户没有违约的情况下禁用是毁约 @whigzhou: 我的意见都是基于Google们依据用户协议封账号这个前提的，否则当然是毁约 @whigzhou: 若把问题转变成『这些封账号行动是否违反了当初他们要求认可的使用协议』，那我就无力下判断了  

【2017-10-10】 下午课上分组讨论婚姻话题，不出意料，焦点很快汇聚到当下正热门的同性婚姻上，同样不出意料，nayster在我的新移民同学中占压倒多数（除了香港同学表示不在乎，日本同学的意见没听到），为避免讨论变成异口同声宣示倾诉，我主要扮演倾听者、提问者和质疑者的角色，结果就不幸被认定为yesster了。 不过我确实不太接受nayster们最常提到的那些理由，我不相信同婚合法化会危及传统婚姻，传统婚姻是在衰弱，但和同性恋或同婚都没什么关系。 『会confuse孩子』也没多大说服力，首先，孩子恐怕没这么容易被confuse，其次，当前使劲confusing孩子的是女权主义、多元主义、相对主义乃至整个进步主义运动，只要他们仍然统治着媒体和教育系统，孩子们被confuse的风险是一样的，无论同婚是否合法化。 对收养问题的担忧更有道理一些，但这之所以成为问题主要是因为国家权力在收养事务上插手太深，我的立场是：如果我是孤儿院院长，我会拒绝任何同性恋者的收养请求，如果我是法官，我不会禁止孤儿院院长将孤儿交给同性恋收养者，如果我是议员，我会对任何扩大国家对收养事务干预权的法案投反对票…… 当然，如果有投票权，我肯定会投nay，因为尽管我不认为同性恋和同婚本身是什么洪水猛兽，但当前推动他们的那个政治运动和意识形态体系却是货真价实的洪水猛兽，特别是到他们在推进这一议题时所表现出的蛮横、不宽容、不可理喻、得寸进尺，更让我不愿看到他们又一次得手。 假如回到十年前，我可能会想，这事情没那么重要，最好满足他们吧，好让这议题从政治空间中消失，但近十几年的经验告诉我，事情不会这么发展，他们只会得寸进尺，得到同婚权之后，他们会进而要求同婚蛋糕权……他们总会找出办法让这议题延续下去，真正的伤害随后便会到来。  

【2016-11-07】 最近闹得沸沸扬扬的亚裔细分，无非暴露了平权法的种族主义实质，所谓平权本来就是赤裸裸的种族歧视嘛，只不过没平到自己头上就体会不到，如今不光要歧视，还要细细的歧视。 ​​​​  

在墨尔本，要想预防你家房子未来被council列入历史遗产名单，最好把它盖的无比平庸……一栋二十年历史估价一千万的房子最近在拍卖前两天被列入名单，比轰炸惨多了，不少city有1/5到1/4的房子已被列入名单，将来打起仗来估计大家都翘首期盼炸弹落到自家屋顶上，呵呵 ​​​​

【2017-02-21】 ​​​​@whigzhou: 如果让你列出五件东西，没了它们美国（在你眼里）就不再是美国了，你会选哪五件？我的选择：持枪权，[[stand your ground]]，陪审团，最高法院，州权。 @都市学派:宪法必须排第一。 @whigzhou: 宪法很难判定怎么算『没了』，我列的五件都很容易判别 @慕容飞宇gg:辉总的意思是没了其中一件还是全部没了？ @whigzhou: 每少一件就更远离一点啊（幸亏我不是本质主义者） @银色子弹V5: 那不也很好嘛，变成加拿大了 @whigzhou: 说到点子上了，没这些就是加拿大了，我之所以选这几件，不是说其他（比如言论自由、私人财产权）不重要，而是认为这些才是让美国比盎格鲁世界乃至自由世界的其他部分更自由的东西，是特别美国的东西  

【2016-09-09】 @海德沙龙  《一场轰轰烈烈的反娼妓战争》 无论从哪个方面都很难论证禁娼的合理性，在性交易合法化的地方（比如澳洲），它并未带来风气败坏和道德沦丧，相反，禁娼总是恶化妓女的处境，将其推入黑帮之手，所以禁娼法已逐渐失去支持，然而在过去十几年，禁娼运动又戴着一副新面具卷土重来…… @whigzhou: 宗教保守派和进步主义者在这件事情上结成了奇特的联盟，这是宗教保守派的一个污点，和他们在禁酒和禁毒问题上的污点类似，这不禁让人感慨，基督徒什么时候又堕落到需要国家强制力来执行他们的教规了？ @whigzhou: 相比之下，有些教派（比如阿米绪人）就从不诉求于国家强制，他们对自己的德行更有信心，也更值得得尊敬  

When Courts Compete for 'Business,' Liberty Wins 当法庭之间争夺“生意”时，自由就是赢家 作者：Sheldon Richman @ 2015-12-06 译者：Luis Rightcon（@Rightcon） 校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy） 来源：Reason，https://reason.com/archives/2015/12/06/competition-produces-liberty Those who insist that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisdiction are wrong. 那些坚持认为市场无政府主义因为缺乏垄断性法庭的终审管辖而行不通的想法是错误的 Considering that what liberty we continue to enjoy in the West is a product in large part of competing legal institutions operating within overlapping jurisdictions hundreds of years ago, it's curious that so many libertarians still believe such an order—an essential feature of free-market, or natural-law, anarchism—would be inimical to liberty. Why wouldn't that which produced liberty be up to preserving it? 考虑到我们在西方所持久享受的自由其实很大一部分是数百年前管辖界限互相重叠的司法制度之间相互竞争的结果，很奇怪的是，现在却有许多自由意志主义者依然相信这样一种秩序——核心特征是自由市场、或自然法、或无政府主义——将对自由不利。为什么那些产生了自由本身的事物无法承担起维持自由的责任呢？ When I say that competition produced liberty, I of course do not mean that liberty was anyone's objective. Yet liberty emerged all the same, as if by an "invisible hand." That's how things often work. Good (and bad) consequences can be the result of human action but not of human design (to use a favorite phrase of F. A. Hayek's, which he borrowed from the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson). 当我说竞争产生自由时，我当然并不是说自由是谁人的目标。然而自由还是一样产生了，就像一只“看不见的手”创造出来的一样。这就是很多情况下事物的运作方式。好的（和坏的）后果可能是人类行为而不是人类设计的结果（这是哈耶克从著名苏格兰启蒙主义思想家Adam Ferguson那里借用的口头禅）。 We should be delighted to know that something so wonderful as liberty can emerge unintentionally. It should give us hope for the future; if the libertarian movement is deficient, we need not assume that liberty has no chance. (I have more to say about liberty as an unintended consequence in the context of Magna Carta here.) 得知像自由那样美好的事物会非意图地产生，我们应该感到高兴。这会给我们的未来带来希望；如果自由意志主义运动是有缺陷的，我们却不必认为自由已经没有了机会。（关于自由在《大宪章》语境中是个意外产物，我还有更多的话要说，戳这里。） Many authors from the 18th century onward have written about the unintended good consequences of competition, i.e., the absence of central control. They emphasized that in the West the rivalries between church and state, between nobles or parliament and crown, and between nation-states yielded zones of liberty that endure to this day, however diminished in particular matters. 18世纪以来，许多作者已经描写过竞争（即中央控制的缺失）所带来的意外好处。他们强调，西方世界中教会和世俗国家的斗争，贵族或议会和王权的斗争，以及民族国家之间的斗争，产生了延续至今的自由空间，不管这一空间在一些特定方面衰减得有多么厉害。 Competition among legal institutions—courts and bodies of law—within overlapping jurisdictions played a large role in this centuries-long beneficent process. These of course are not examples of anarchism; on the contrary, states existed. But competitive overlapping legal regimes are an element of market anarchism. 管辖界限互相交错的司法制度——各法庭和各法体【编注：一个法体是指有着独特渊源和内在一致性的一组法律规则，比如衡平法、海事法、战争法分属不同法体。】——之间的竞争在这场持续数个世纪的有益历程中扮演了重要角色。这些当然不是无政府主义的例证，恰恰相反，国家是存在的。但是司法制度之间的交叉竞争是市场无政府主义的一个组成元素。 So where a state coexisted with a polycentric legal order, we may say, with Bryan Caplan, that there existed "less than the minimum" state, that is, something that fell short of the nightwatchman state favored by limited-government libertarians. 所以当一个国家存在一种多中心的法律秩序时，我们可以用Bryan Caplan的话来说，这里就存在着一种“比最小国家更弱一点”的国家，也就是说，比喜欢有限政府的自由意志主义者所期待的守夜人政府更弱一点的东西。 A good place to read about competition in law and dispute resolution is Todd J. Zywicki's highly accessible Northwestern University Law Review article "The Rise and Fall of Efficiency in the Common Law: A Supply-Side Analysis." Todd J.Zywicki发表在Northwestern University Law Reviews上的文章“普通法中的效率兴衰史：一种供给侧分析”是一篇了解法律和争端解决机制中的竞争情形的深入浅出的文章。 An important feature that "influenced the common law's evolution," Zywicki writes, "was the competitive, or 'polycentric,' legal order in which the common law developed. During the era that the common law developed, there were multiple English courts with overlapping jurisdictions over most of the issues that comprise the common law. As a result, parties potentially could bring a particular lawsuit in a variety of different courts. In turn this created competition among these various courts for business." 一个“影响到了普通法进化的重要特征”，Zywicki写到：“是竞争性的，或者说是“多中心”的法律秩序，普通法就是在其中演化的。在普通法产生的时代，在构成普通法的绝大多数问题上都有很多管辖界限重叠的英格兰法庭（存在竞争）。结果就是当事人有可能从很多不同的法庭中选择一个来进行特定的诉讼。于是，这些法庭之间就产生了生意上的竞争。” The idea of courts competing for "business" sounds strange to modern ears, but it was commonplace before the 20th century. (The extent of private arbitration in international commerce is largely unappreciated.) 对于现代人来说，法庭在“生意”方面进行竞争这个想法听起来很怪，但是在二十世纪之前这是很常见的。（在这方面，私人仲裁在国际贸易中的普及程度并没有受到应有的注意）。 Zywicki's paper shows that the common law, which featured this competition, was efficient in the eyes of those who used its services. Monopoly is inefficient even (especially?) in matters of security, dispute resolution, and justice. Moreover, it's a mistake, as Hayek explains in Law, Legislation, and Liberty (volume 1)  to assume that government is the source of law. Zywicki的论文指出，有这种竞争特色的普通法在那些使用其服务的人们眼中是有效的。垄断性司法甚至（或者说尤其是？）在安全、调解纠纷和司法制裁方面都是效率低下的。此外，哈耶克在《法律、立法与自由》中指出，认为政府是法律源头的想法是极其错误的。 Moves away from competition and the common law, then, aren't adequately explained by shortcomings in its services to its consumers. Political ambition provides a more satisfactory explanation. (In the case of the criminal law, see this.) 因此，对司法竞争性与普通法传统的偏离，单从当事人所得服务有所欠缺这一角度是不能充分解释的。政治野心是一个更为令人满意的解释（至于刑法的情况，参见这里） Zywicki draws on the legal historian Harold Berman, who wrote, "Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the Western legal tradition is the coexistence and competition within the same community of diverse jurisdictions and diverse legal systems." Zywicki引用了法律史学家Harold Berman的话：“也许西方法律传统的最与众不同之处在于多样化的司法管辖权和多种法律体系在同一个共同体内部共存和竞争。” The legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller went further: "A possible objection to the view [of law] taken here is that it permits the existence of more than one legal system governing the same population. The answer is, of course, that such multiple systems do exist and have in history been more common than unitary systems." (Emphasis added.) 法哲学家Lon L.Fuller进一步指出：“对这种（法律）概念的一个可能的反对意见是，它允许多个司法体系管辖同一个人群。当然，对此的回答是：这样的重合体系确实存在，并且在历史上比一元化的（司法）体系更为常见”。 The limited-government libertarian who insists that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisiction is like the apocryphal aerodynamicist who calculated that a bumblebee couldn't possibly fly. One needed only to point out the window, saying, "Behold!" Likewise, the anarchist need only point to history. 有些相信有限政府的自由意志主义者坚持认为，市场无政府主义行不通，因为它缺乏能够实行最后裁决的垄断性法院。这就像假冒的空气动力学家计算得出大黄蜂根本无法飞起来一样。实际上我们只需要朝窗外指指说：“看呐！”。同样，无政府主义者只需要拿出历史事实。 Berman also wrote (quoted by Zywicki), "The same person might be subject to the ecclesiastical courts in one type of case, the king's courts in another, his lord's courts in a third, the manorial court in a fourth, a town court in a fifth, [and] a merchants' court in a sixth." This sounds as though the courts were not really competitive, but rather that the variety of courts constituted specialization and a division of labor. Berman又写道（引用自Zywicki）：“同样的一个人可能在某种案子中服从于宗教法庭，在另外一种案子中则可能服从国王的法庭，也可能是其领主的法庭，又可能是庄园的法庭，城镇法庭，甚至是商人法庭。”听起来好像各个法庭并不存在真实的互相竞争关系，不同法庭之间存在专业区分和劳动分工。 But that inference would be wrong. To see this we may turn to a keen contemporaneous observer, Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations Smith notes that despite a de jure division of labor, courts in fact competed with one another, even to the point of entrepreneurially finding ways to lure cases from other courts. 但是这样的推断是错误的。为了了解这一点，我们可以求助于同时代的一位敏锐观察者，亚当·斯密。在《国富论》中，斯密提到，尽管从法理上来说，法庭之间存在劳动分工，但事实上他们是相互竞争的，竞争甚至到了多方钻营以从其他法庭中诱拐案件的程度。 Why do this? Because the courts obtained their revenues from fees paid by parties to cases. The more cases a court heard, the more money it earned, a state of affairs that Smith, no anarchist of course, approved of: "Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them." 为什么要这样做呢？因为法庭的经费来自案件各方所支付的费用。一个法庭开审的案件越多，那么得到的金钱就越多，斯密当然不是一位无政府主义者，但他赞成这样的一种状态：“公共服务办好才给予酬劳，并且按勤勉的程度决定酬额，这样才能办好。” Smith described the legal environment of his day: 斯密这样描述他那个时代的法律环境：

The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to draw to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account, willing to take cognisance of many suits which were not originally intended to fall under its jurisdiction. 英格兰各法院最初似乎主要仰赖于法院诉讼费。各法院都尽可能兜揽诉讼事件，那怕本来不是归自己管辖的案件，也乐于受理。例如，单为审理刑事案件而设的高等法院，居然接受民事案件，而以原告声称被告对他所行不义是犯了非法侵害罪或轻罪为受理的口实。 The court of king's bench, instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognisance of civil suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing him justice, had been guilty of some trespass or misdemeanour. The court of exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king's revenue, and for enforcing the payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took cognisance of all other contract debts; the plaintiff alleging that he could not pay the king because the defendant would not pay him. 王室特别法院的设立，本来单是为了征收国王收入和强制人民偿清对于国王所欠债务的。但它后来居然受理关于一切其他契约债务的诉讼，原告陈诉的理由是，被告不偿还对他的债务，所以他不能偿还对国王的债务这个理由。 In consequence of such fictions it came, in many cases, to depend altogether upon the parties before what court they would choose to have their cause tried; and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could. 由于这种种的假托，结果许多案件，究竟归哪个法院审理，全由诉讼当事人选择，而各法院要想为自己方面多多招徕诉讼案件，也在审理上力求迅速公平。 The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure formed by this emulation which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law would admit for every sort of injustice. [Emphasis added.] 英格兰今日的法院制度，是值得赞赏的，但一探其究竟，恐怕在很大程度上须归因于往昔各法院法官的相互竞争，对一切不正当行为，各个力求在自己法院就法律许可的范围内给予最迅速最有效的救济这个事实。

Zywicki also quotes from Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence: Zywicki也引用了斯密在《法学讲稿》中的话：

Another thing which tended to support the liberty of the people and render the proceedings in the courts very exact, was the rivalship which arose betwixt them. 另一件倾向于支持人民的自由和使得法庭程序更为严谨的事务，是法庭之间的竞争关系。

It may be argued that the state provided a backdrop to the competitive legal order, such that a forum of last resort was always available. This argument loses its force, however, when one realizes, as Edward Stringham teaches, that private dispute-resolution procedures arose in matters where states abstained from involvement, such as the nascent stock markets. (For more on the weakness of the "shadow of the State" argument, see this.) 有人可能会认为，竞争性的法律秩序总有国家站在后面，因此终极的裁决平台总是存在。然而，就如Edward Stringham教导的那样：当国家放弃参与时，私人的纠纷解决程序才会出现，就像最初的股票市场那样。只要意识到这一点，上述论调就变得苍白无力。（关于“国家的影子”论调的弱点，详见这里）。 "In short," Zywicki sums up, "a market for law prevailed, with numerous court systems competing for market share in order to increase their fees. This competitive process generated rules that satisfied the demand of consumers (here litigants) for fairness, consistency, and reasonableness." “总而言之，”Zywicki总结道：“法律市场繁盛起来了，很多法庭系统为市场占有率和从中所获费用进行竞争。这一竞争过程产生了符合顾客（这里指诉讼当事人）对公平性、一致性和合理性的需求的规则。” Bumblebees fly and reasonably pro-freedom dispute resolution emerges without the state, no matter what a cloistered theoretician may think. 不论纸上谈兵的理论家们怎样思考，大黄蜂会飞，公道的、促进自由的纠纷解决方式无需国家也能产生。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

Remember the Common Law 勿忘普通法 作者：Jim Harper  @ 2016-4 译者：小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 校对：小橘子 来源：Cato Institute，http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2016/remember-common-law Good economists are familiar with Frédéric Bastiat’s parable of the broken window, which illustrates that visible economic activity may have unseen costs. When a broken window leads to the purchase of a new window, it’s easy to think that the broken window helped society by increasing production and trade. In fact, breaking a window makes society worse off; wealth has been destroyed, not increased. Bastiat’s essay on this topic was titled “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.” 优秀的经济学家都熟知弗雷德里克•巴斯夏的破窗理论，这个理论说明了，在可见的经济活动之下，可能潜藏了不可见的成本。打破一扇窗户，就要买一扇新的，所以人们很容易认为，通过促进生产和贸易，打破窗户会改善社会境况。而实际上，打破窗户使社会境况恶化了；财富被破坏了，而不是增加了。巴斯夏给讨论此问题的那篇论文起的标题正是“看得见的和看不见的”。 A similar dynamic exists in the legal world. Legislative and regulatory processes are easy to see. Elections routinely draw public attention to legislative and administrative government. Elected and unelected regulators have media operations to tell reporters what they are doing. Common-law rules, on the other hand, are mostly unseen. Legal doctrines such as property and contract emerged quietly from series of court decisions over decades and even centuries, so they often go unconsidered and unspoken. Many people may believe that legislation and regulation do most of the work of ordering society. 在法律领域，类似的情况也同样存在。立法与监管程序是显而易见的。大选会定期让民众注意到立法与行政机构，选举的与非选举的官员会通过媒体来阐述他们的举措。相比之下，普通法下的规则绝大部分是看不见的。有关财产与契约等范畴的法律原则，在数十年甚至数百年来的法庭判例中悄无声息地形成，因此往往既不为人留意，也未经言明。许多人可能会认为，规范社会的，主要是法典与规条。 Libertarians should remember the common law and generally prefer it. The common law process for making the rules of a free society has much to commend it. And where it falls down, it is more readily fixable than legislation and government regulation. 自由意志主义者应该谨记普通法，并将其置于优先地位。普通法体系在形成自由社会规则方面确有不少令人赞许之处。而且与成文法和行政规制体系相比，普通法在其失足跌倒之处也更便于调整修正。 American law students learn early that the common law is an important inheritance from England that differs from the civil-law tradition dominant on the European continent. In the common-law tradition, the basic rules that govern our interactions arise from years of experience over generations. Our forebears learned that justice is served and benefits accrue when people avoid violence, stick to their promises, and allocate things in an orderly way. 美国法学学生很早就认识到普通法体系是继承自英国的一项重要遗产，该法系与欧洲大陆盛行的民法传统大相径庭。在普通法传统下，基本法律规范由一代代人的长期经验积累而来。我们的祖先发现，当人们免于暴力，信守承诺，分配有序时，正义便得到伸张，福祉便得到增长。 The law of battery, contract law, and property law all emerged as common practice solidified into common law. It’s often called “judge-made” law, but at its best common law is “judge-found” law— that is, judges discover law in common practices that are deeply ingrained in society. 有关殴打的法律、契约法以及财产法，都是由惯例凝结固化而成的普通法。普通法常被称为“法官制造的”法律，但最恰当的说法应该是“法官发现的”法律——意思是说，法官们发掘出社会上根深蒂固的惯例中所蕴含的规则。 In contrast, the source of rules in civil-law countries is the code books issued by rulers and governments. Civil codes establish the rules governing contracts, trade, property, criminal law, and so on. The civil-law tradition extols the great law-givers—Solon, Hammurabi, Napoleon—who wrote down the law codes purporting to govern their societies. 对比之下，民法体系国家的规则来源是统治者与政府颁布的法律条文。有关契约、商业、财产、刑法等各方面的规则，均由民法法典确立。民法传统推崇伟大的立法者——梭伦、汉穆拉比、拿破仑——他们一手制订治理社会的法典。 But the founding of civil law is something of a myth. In the times when civil law originated, the bulk of most populations was illiterate. These citizens did not have copies of the civil codes that purported to govern them. The civil-law tradition relies on the fiction that certain powerful men produced laws—but they actually arose like common law from the time-worn habits and customs of their subjects. 然而，民法起源于一个神话。在民法最初形成的时候，大部分民众还是文盲，他们并没有读过那些用来管辖他们的民法法典。民法传统建基于强人立法的虚构故事——实际上它们和普通法一样，源自于古老的习惯与惯例。【编注：作者的意思大概是，有关强人立法的虚构故事为民法赋予了其被广泛接受所需的权威性。】 Part of the genius of the common law is its mix of adaptability and consistency. When new circumstances arise, common-law courts, urged on and educated by the parties to disputes, adapt existing rules in ways that they believe produce the most just and fair outcomes. 普通法的优越之处，部分表现在它在适应性和连贯性之间的平衡。当新的环境条件出现时，普通法的法庭在争讼各方的敦促与启发下，会灵活理解运用现有规则，以期达到一个他们都认为公正公平的结果。 They look for comparable cases in their own and other jurisdictions to learn what adaptation of existing law will produce the best results. Over time, new doctrines emerge and old ones may die out. But at any given time there is a stable rule-set people can use to organize their lives and business activities. 法庭将在本身与其他司法管辖区中查找可供比附的案例，以研究如何调整现有规则才能达致最佳的结果。随着时间的推移，新的法律原则形成，旧的则被淘汰。但在任何一个时间点上，人民生活经商都有一套相对稳定的规则可供遵循。 THE COMMON LAW OF PRIVACY 有关隐私的普通法 The field of privacy protection illustrates how common law develops. In 1890 a Harvard Law Review article entitled “The Right to Privacy” made the original argument that law should address privacy. Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, later to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, catalogued the legal doctrines that might control certain abuses of private life arising from photography and mass circulation newspapers. They argued that the law should explicitly protect privacy. 普通法规则的发展演变，从保护隐私领域就可觅一斑。1890年，一篇刊载在《哈佛法学评论》上题为《隐私权》的文章首次提出，法律需要处理隐私问题。萨缪尔•沃伦与后来成为美国最高法院大法官的路易斯•布兰代斯，整理出了能够制止因拍照和大发行量报纸而引致侵犯私生活的法律原则。他们认为法律应明确保护隐私。 Over time, a new branch of common law was born. Courts across the country began to recognize privacy torts—legally recognized wrongs that give victims of privacy invasions the right to sue invaders. In 1960 eminent legal scholar William L. Prosser documented how privacy as a legal concept had come to constitute four distinct torts: intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into private affairs; public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; publicity that places a person in a false light in the public eye; and appropriation of name or likeness. 随着时间推移，普通法的一个新分支出现了。全国的法庭都开始承认隐私侵权——从法律上确认侵犯隐私是错的，受害者可以控告侵权者。1960年，杰出的法律学者威廉•普罗萨总结了隐私权这一法律概念，并界定了四种不同的侵权类型：侵扰他人独处或私人领域；曝光令人困窘的私人信息；不当报道，以造成对个人的错误印象；盗用人名等个人标记。 The common law of privacy continues to develop and advance. In 1998, the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized invasion of privacy as a tort in that state for the first time. The case was Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores. The defendant’s photo-developing shop failed to deliver two women their vacation photos, but an employee distributed a photo of the two showering together, spurring the court to adopt the “public disclosure” branch of the privacy torts. 有关隐私权的普通法不断地发展和推进。1998年，明尼苏达州最高法院首次裁定侵犯隐私在该州构成民事侵权行为。该案为“莱克诉沃尔玛”（Lake v. Wal-Mart）案。被告的照片冲印店未能交付两位女顾客度假时拍的照片，但被告的一名员工却对外散布了这两名女顾客一起淋浴的照片。法庭认为此举适用于隐私侵权分类中的“公开泄露私人信息”。 Like most law, the privacy torts work in the background, through the threat of lawsuits and not actual days in court or big damage awards. The rarity of lawsuits under the privacy torts may show how consistent these baseline privacy rules are with society’s general mores. Some would argue, of course, that they’re not strict enough and that debatable uses of information should produce successful privacy lawsuits more often. Legal evolution will decide who is right. 与大多数的其他法律一样，隐私侵权的法规在社会背景中默默运作，通过潜在的诉讼威胁，而不是大量的实际庭审或高额赔偿来发挥作用。有关隐私侵权的实际案件之少，可能正说明了保护隐私的法律规则与社会上普遍的道德观念高度一致。当然，可能有些人会认为这些法规不够严厉，信息的争议性使用应该产生更多的隐私案胜诉。孰是孰非，在法律演变中自有定夺。 Privacy law may be in tension with free speech and the First Amendment, so it’s not clear that the privacy torts are a permanent fixture in the common-law pantheon. On the other hand, privacy-law professors and others often use the phrase “privacy harm” in a tacit effort to impress into common language— and ultimately common law—that more offenses against privacy or data security should be recognized as legally actionable harms. It’s all part of a quiet but important debate about our privacy values and what may become our privacy laws. 隐私法也许与言论自由和宪法第一修正案有一定的矛盾，因此隐私侵权能否成为普通法神殿的永久基石之一，并未有定论。而在另一方面，隐私法领域的教授与其他学者经常引用“隐私伤害”来试图与普通用语挂钩——最终与普通法挂钩——并试图将更多侵害隐私或信息安全的行为纳入可采取法律行动的伤害行为。 这些争论虽然悄然进行，但对于我们确立有关隐私的价值观，以及确立针对隐私的法律，都非常重要。 But people don’t often ask how common law torts, property rights, and contracts protect privacy. They ask: “What will Congress and our state legislatures do?” Legislation and regulation get most of the attention. 但人们并不会经常过问，隐私权如何得到普通法的侵权法、财产法，以及契约法的保护。他们会问：“国会和我们的州立法机构会怎么做？”。引人注目的是立法与规制。 The top-down process that established federal privacy regulation of health information illustrates some differences between understated common-law development and cacophonous civil-law-style rule-writing. 有关健康信息隐私的联邦管制规则，是通过一个由上至下的程序确立的，从中可以看出低调的普通法发展与喧闹的民法式规则制定之间的某些区别。 In 1996 Congress revamped the rules around health insurance. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) also addressed health privacy, but it didn’t set new privacy rules. Instead, Congress instructed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make recommendations about the privacy of individually identifiable health information. It told HHS to go ahead and write privacy regulations based on those recommendations if Congress did not act. 1996年，国会对有关医疗保险的法规进行修订。《健康保险隐私及责任法案》（HIPAA）也涉及健康隐私，但其并未对隐私做出新规定。相反，国会要求卫生及公共服务部（HHS）部长就个人可辨识医疗信息的隐私提供建议，并指示HHS，如果国会没有采取相应行动，该部可根据这些建议撰写隐私相关规定。 When HHS reported back to Congress, it downplayed many safeguards for privacy that already existed. These included medical ethics, explicit and implied contract rights, malpractice claims, and state privacy torts— non regulatory privacy protections that got only a few cryptic lines buried deep in the report. In addition to largely ignoring them, HHS advocated eliminating some of them. 此后，当HHS向国会汇报时，对已有的隐私保护措施予以淡化处理，这些措施包括医疗道德，明确及隐含的契约权利，针对专业失当的索赔，以及各州的隐私侵权法——即非行政的隐私保护，仅在报告的某个角落以寥寥数行隐晦提及。HHS不仅对其几近无视，甚至建议将它们当中的一部分予以剔除。 Today, with the HIPAA privacy regulations in place, people seeking health care sign a lot of forms and see a lot of notices discussing health privacy—but it’s not at all clear that their privacy is well protected. The HIPAA rules preserved and helped solidify behind the- scenes information-sharing practices in the health care industry that may or may not serve consumers and society well. Every year, it seems, there is less and less of a free market in health care to test for and discover consumers’ true interests in health privacy and every other dimension of health care. The common law of health privacy is widely ignored. 如今，由于HIPAA的隐私条文已付诸实施，人们接受医疗保健服务需要签署大量表格，阅读大量讨论健康隐私的告示，但他们的隐私是否得到很好的保障，却根本不清楚。医疗行业幕后的信息共享机制未必能很好地满足消费者和社会整体的要求，而HIPAA的条文则保护了这一机制，并使之更加稳固。年复一年，自由的医疗保健市场似乎正在日益萎缩，我们难以探知与发掘消费者在健康隐私乃至医疗保障其他方面的真正利益之所在。健康隐私方面的普通法原则被普遍忽略了。 INDUCTIVE COMMON LAW VS. DEDUCTIVE REGULATION 归纳式的普通法与推论式的立法 Common law is inductive. Building on experience in case after real-world case, common- law courts accrete knowledge about the rule-set that best serves society. Because rule development occurs with reference to real life cases, it takes advantage of local knowledge about the precise disputes that occur. This allows better approximation of what the truly just rules will be for most cases. 普通法是归纳性的。在众多真实案例的经验基础上，普通法法庭在不断积累认知，寻求最适合社会的法则。由于规则在参照真实案例的过程中发展，其优势是能够利用实际发生的真切争议中所包含的局部知识。在绝大多数情况下，这种方式都能达致较为接近公平法则的效果。【编注：此处作者援引的是哈耶克在1948年的论文《社会中的知识利用》中阐述的思想，哈耶克认为，中央计划者或理性建构者的根本困难在于，无法收集和利用作出正确决定所需的分散的局部知识。】 Hayek emphasized the value of local knowledge in economic decision making. He also emphasized the distinction between common law and top-down legislation in his three-volume work Law, Legislation and Liberty. The Italian lawyer Bruno Leoni is another great thinker in this area. His book Freedom and the Law extolled the virtue of English common law compared to Roman jus civile. The two systems have very different ways of developing rules. Common-law systems hew closer to common justice. 哈耶克强调过局部知识对于经济决策的重要价值，也在他的三卷本著作《法律、立法与自由》中强调了普通法与由上至下立法的区别。意大利律师布鲁诺•莱奥尼在这一领域也颇有研究，他在其著作《自由与法律》中赞扬了英式普通法较之罗马市民法的优点。两套体系在发展法规方面大相径庭，普通法更倾向于追求常理上的正义。 Legislation and regulation more often produce rank re-ordering of rights and liabilities because legislation is deductive. At a single point in time, based on all the knowledge it has drawn together at that moment, a legislature establishes the rule-set that it believes to make the most sense. This is often what it perceives as pleasing the most— or the most important—constituencies. That imperative to please constituencies means that the information legislatures codify often comes from well-organized interests with substantial resources. Special- interest pleading is a hallmark of legislation and regulation. 由于立法是演绎性的，因此权利与义务的轻重经常通过订立法律与规章来编排。在某个给定的时点上，立法机关基于当时所知，建立一整套它认为最合理的法规。这又被认为是在迎合最多数或者最重要的选民。迎合选民，意味着立法机关为之编写法规的诉求，经常会来自于掌握重要资源的有组织团体。因而，制定法律与规章带有满足特殊利益诉求的印记。 Judges in common law courts have fewer of the perverse incentives that legislators and regulators do, particularly when judges are appointed for life terms. A tenured judge gets professional acclaim from developing a reputation for fairness, from clearing dockets, and from suffering few reversals in higher courts. Judges generally don’t anticipate growing their courts’ budgets, getting post-service perks, or being re-installed in office due to the outcomes in their cases, as legislators and regulators often do. Legislation and regulation are systematically subject to a kind of intellectual corruption in which self interest diverges from the public interest. 与立法者和监管者相比，普通法法庭的法官带有的不当动机较少，尤其当法官职位是终身制的时候。为赢得专业上的赞誉，一个终身制的法官需要建立断案公正的名声，避免案件积压，以及减少其裁定被高一级法院推翻的案件。与立法者和监管者不同，法官一般来说并不需要担心他们的判决会对法庭的收入，个人离任津贴，或者恢复职位造成影响。而立法与监管机构则由于自身利益与公众利益有所偏离，容易系统性的滋生智识上的腐败。 WRITING THE RIGHT RULES 编写正确的规则 Rules produced by the deductions of legislators and regulators don’t always fail, of course, and they aren’t always wrong. But it is better to arrive at just rules through a long, society-wide deliberation than through a legislative debate. To illustrate this subtle point, consider the rules that govern the liability of interactive computer services like YouTube, Yelp, craigslist, and Facebook. 当然，立法者与监管者通过推导演绎编写的规则并非必然失败，也并非总是错的。但为了得到公正的规则，经由全社会参与的长期讨论始终还是比经由立法辩论为好。为了体现这当中的微妙之处，让我们来研究规管诸如YouTube、Yelp、Craigslist和Facebook等电脑互动服务供应商之责任的规则。 In the mid-1990s courts were considering whether interactive online services would be considered publishers of the information people uploaded and posted to them. If they were publishers, websites might be liable for defamation and other causes of action because of the material users contributed to them. Had this rule taken hold, operators of online services would probably have allowed only tightly controlled and monitored interactions among users. The rollicking, interactive Internet we know today would have been sharply curtailed. 1990年代中期，法庭在研究在线互动服务是否应该被视为其用户张贴上载信息的发布人。如果是的话，这些网站可能将会因为其用户所提供的信息，而负上诽谤及其他法律责任。如果确立了这一规则，在线服务运营商就很可能会对用户间的交流进行严密的控制与监视，我们今天所见到的生动活泼、积极互动的互联网必将大打折扣。 In response to this concern, Congress passed legislation saying that interactive computer services are not publishers or speakers of any information others provide using their services. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is one of the most important protections for online speech in the United States. 出于这一顾虑，国会通过法案表明，电脑互动服务供应商并非其用户上载信息的发布人或发言人。《通信规范法案》（CDA）第230条，便是美国网上言论最重要的保障之一。 But CDA section 230 is often talked about as an “immunity” Congress gave to online service providers, a carve-out from general liability rules, put in place to advance a certain public policy goal. The perception of CDA section 230 as a special-interest favor means that other interests are on relatively strong footing when they come to Congress seeking to overturn it. Today, CDA section 230 is under attack from groups who would like to see it reversed. The rule against liability for online service providers would be stronger if courts had arrived at a rule of “no liability” based in considerations of natural justice. 但CDA第230条经常被认为有异于一般的责任条款，是国会旨在推动某一特定的公共政策，而赋予网络服务运营商的“豁免权”。该条款给人以一种照顾特殊利益的印象，这意味着当其他利益的代表寻求在国会推翻这一条款的时候，将会有较强的理据。如今，一些持反对立场的团体正在挑战该条款。如果在线服务供应商的“免责”是经由法庭考虑自然正义原则之后确立的话， 该规则就将会有较强的说服力。 When the rules that organize our society are temporal products of legislation, they may always be “in play” for a legislative reversal. Online service providers must always remain vigilant in Washington, D.C., for attempts to undercut their special “immunity.” The rules that govern online liability were established quickly, which is good, but they are less settled than they otherwise would be, and there is one more reason for private businesses to maintain a stable of lobbyists and lawyers in Washington. 如果规制社会的规则是因应时势的立法产物，那么这些规则就处于一种随时可能被立法推翻的状态之下。在线服务供应商就必须在华盛顿特区保持高度警觉，以防有人破坏他们的特殊“豁免权”。迅速订立规制网上责任的规则是好事，但这些规则的认受性本来可以更高一些，而且这也为私营企业在华盛顿豢养着一班说客和律师提供了多一个理由。 There is no guarantee, of course, that the common-law rule would be the same right now as what CDA section 230 produced. The common-law process might still be searching for the right rule. Common-law development would probably find, though, that online service providers are not liable for the acts of others. 当然，普通法体系下订立的规则，未必就和CDA第230条的内容一样。在普通法程序下，我们可能仍在寻找恰当的规则，当然，普通法体系很可能会认为在线服务供应商无需为他人的行为负责。 FAR FROM PERFECT, BUT BETTER IN PRACTICE 虽远未完美，但在实践中占优 This is no argument that common-law courts are perfect. They are not. It takes a very long time for just rules to be found out and settled on through common-law development. Elected judges often have incentives to please powerful constituencies. The class-action mechanism is prone to abuse and often used to reward plaintiffs’ lawyers. Punitive damages are too often a source of windfalls to lucky plaintiffs. The rules about who pays for litigation may be changed to improve the delivery of justice in the courts. 没有人会认为普通法法庭运作得很完美。并非如此。在普通法体系下，确立公平规则，并得到认受，需要很长的时间；选举产生的法官常有动机去迎合强大的利益团体；集体诉讼机制容易被滥用，而且常常有利于原告的律师；幸运的原告经常从惩罚性赔偿中大捞一票；为了正义能更好地在法庭上体现，诉讼费用的分担规则可能需要进行修改。 But these challenges are more correctable than the dynamics in legislation and regulation. Public choice economics teaches that actors in all these rule-making processes will pursue their own self-interest, but the interests of legislators and regulators are likely to diverge from justice more often than the interests of judges. 但这些难题，要比立法与规制过程中的纠葛易于解决。公共选择经济学指出，在规则制定的过程中，相关各方会追求自身的最大利益，但与法官比起来，立法者与监管者的利益很可能更容易与社会公义有分歧。 There is a fair argument that legislation and government regulation create certainty, which may make it worthwhile to accept their many costs. This is particularly acute in the area of high tech, where the application of common law may be unclear. 一种意见认为，明文立法与政府规章带来了确定性，因此随之而来的众多代价也就变得可以接受。这不是没有道理，特别在普通法的适用性并不明确的高科技领域，这显得尤其突出。 But regulation produces certainty in theory better than it does in practice. Witness the recent “BitLicense” fiasco in New York State. When Bitcoin, a digital currency, first captured public attention a few years ago, New York superintendent of financial services Ben Lawsky saw it as an opportunity to make his mark in a hot new area. He proposed an ill-defined “BitLicense” that would require registration of Bitcoin businesses in New York. During the rule-making process, his office declined to release “research and analysis” backing the necessity of a BitLicense, in violation of New York’s Freedom of Information Law. 成文法规理论上能带来确定性，但在实践中却未必。近来“比特登记证”（BitLicense）在纽约州的惨败便是一例。当电子货币比特币在几年前引起公众关注的时候，纽约金融服务主管本•洛斯基将其视为他在这个炙手可热的新领域留名的机会。他提议推出含混不清的“比特登记证”条例，要求纽约的比特币业务进行注册登记。在条例制定过程中，他的部门不惜违反纽约的《信息自由法》，拒绝提供与证明“比特登记证”之必要性相关的“研究与分析”。 The final “BitLicense” was a hodgepodge of regulations like the ones that burden the mainstream financial services sector. They were an ill fit with this emerging technology and a hindrance to innovation because they drove up the cost of starting new businesses. They didn’t acknowledge the technology’s inherent capability to provide consumer protections that surpass existing financial services. Shortly after the “BitLicense” was finalized, Lawsky stepped down from his post to establish a financial regulation consultancy. 和那些为主流金融服务增加负担的规章一样，最终出台的“比特登记证”条例是个大杂烩。这些条例完全不适应这一新兴技术，并且因提高创业成本而妨碍了创新。它们无视新技术内在的保护消费者的能力，这种保护超越了现有的金融服务。“比特登记证”条例推出不久，洛斯基就下台创立了一家金融监管咨询公司。 Today, it is anyone’s guess whether and how the New York Department of Financial Services will amend or enforce the technology- specific regulation that Lawsky produced. The “BitLicense” did not create certainty about the rules of the road for Bitcoin businesses in New York, and it did not create an upwelling of Bitcoin business activity in New York. America’s financial capital appears to be ceding ground on financial innovation to London, in the birthplace of common law. 今天，大家都在猜测纽约的金融服务管理局是否会修订或者执行洛斯基留下来的这一针对特定科技的条例，以及具体如何修订或执行。“比特登记证”并没有为比特币业务在纽约的发展之路带来确定性，也没有令比特币业务在纽约蓬勃发展。美国的金融之都在金融创新方面似乎正在让位于伦敦，普通法的发源地。 Common-law rules foster innovation because they allow anyone with a new idea or process to experiment with it, subject only to background rules, such as “stick to your promises” and “do no harm.” There are no forms to fill out or licensing fees. There is no oversight body that must examine how an innovation fits into pre-existing regulation. “Permissionless innovation” does mean some more risk to consumers and society, but our experience with high tech shows just how great the reward is when behavior is controlled with light-touch, simple, fair common-law rules. 普通法规则有利于创新，因为它允许人们去试验新主意和新方法，只要遵守诸如“履行承诺”、“避免伤害”等基本规则即可。不需要填表格，不需要付牌照费，也没有监管部门去检验一项创新在现行规章下如何自处。“免许可创新”的确意味着消费者和社会将面对较高的风险，但经验已经告诉我们，当我们的行为处于简单、公平的普通法规则的规制之下时，高科技将会给我们带来多么巨大的回报。 The United States and England today live under a dual system. In many areas, they continue to enjoy the benefits of the common law. But legislatures increasingly insert themselves, making temporal judgments that rejigger the rules that people and businesses must live by. In many fields, people look to legislation and regulation first, rather than examining how time-honored rules can be adapted to solve new problems. 现今的美国与英格兰生活在一个双重体系之下。在很多方面，她们继续享受着普通法的益处。但立法机关正不断强化自己的作用，用世俗的判断来改变日常生活与商业活动所需遵守的规则。在很多领域，人们首先寄望于立法与规管，而不是去审视自古以来的规则可以如何调适，以解决新生的问题。 Legislatures and regulatory agencies have a lot of smart people working in them. They universally believe they are pursuing the best interests of their jurisdictions. But the system they work in has perverse incentives, and they have little of the knowledge that common-law processes gather and pass down through the ages. “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience,” wrote jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in his 1881 book, The Common Law. 立法机关与监管部门当中不乏能人，他们普遍认为他们在为其辖区的最大利益而努力。但他们所供职的体系有着不当的激励，并且他们对普通法体系经年累月累积传承下来的知识知之甚少。法学家小奥利佛•温德尔•霍姆斯在他1881年所著的《普通法》一书中写道，“法律的生命从不在于逻辑，而在于经验，” The common law is an important part of structuring and ordering a free and prosperous society. It is preferable to legislation and government regulation. Even when we confront new problems, we lovers of liberty should remember the common law. 构建与规范一个自由繁荣的社会，普通法体系乃重要一环，它比成文的法律与政府规章更为可取。即便遭遇新的挑战，热爱自由的我们也不应该忘记普通法。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

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