Help Spirt/Letter Law

[God Emperor]

Can anyone here give me an example of were the spirt of the law is bias, or give me some argument for the pro of this resolution: When in conflict the letter of the law ought to be valued above the spirt of the law. Any help would be appreciated.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

If the Spirit of the Law is unjust then every attempt should be made to circumvent the law through its letters.

If the Spirit of the Law is Just then every attempt should be made to emulate its Spirit in spite of any loopholes presented in its letters.

[Queeb Salaron]

Can anyone here give me an example of were the spirt of the law is bias, or give me some argument for the pro of this resolution: When in conflict the letter of the law ought to be valued above the spirt of the law. Any help would be appreciated.

Sure. In Massachusetts sodomy, fellatio and cunnilingus are explicitly outlawed. These laws were created in a rampantly Puritan society, and when Massachusetts became more and more secular, the laws just got grandfathered into state legislature. Which means that the letter of the law explicitly states that you can't have anal sex, give blowjobs, or eat a girl out. The law was created, however, to instill some kind of moral uprightness in society. In essence, it was trying to scare people into only having sex when they wanted to have babies. So you could say that the spirit of the law is long dead, but the letter remains. And boy was the spirit biased.

[God Emperor]

I need info in suport of the law.

[Queeb Salaron]

I need info in suport of the law.

Oh oh oh. Misunderstood. Ok... lemme think on this a bit...

[think]

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[/think]

Nope. I can only think of situations that apply the other way around; when the letter of the law is biased, and the spirit must be implemented in order to achieve justice. Sorry.

[God Emperor]

But the spirt of the law leaves to much room open to interpetation, allowing individual to put their own biases into the law.

[Frank_Scenario]

Can anyone here give me an example of were the spirt of the law is bias, or give me some argument for the pro of this resolution: When in conflict the letter of the law ought to be valued above the spirt of the law. Any help would be appreciated.

Well, this sounds like a Lincoln-Douglas resolution - and, lo an behold, it is! I remember the happy days of high school debate...

Anyway, it looks like you're putting together an aff case. Here's roughly how I'd do it, and keep in mind it's been a long time since I've done this:

1. The resolution includes an "ought;" it's asking a normative question. You could argue that we have a moral imperative to follow the letter of the law, since the spirit is unclear. It could probably be phrased as a Kantian moral maxim, but I'm not capable of formulating one right now.
2. Related to the above: the spirit of the law may not be knowable. The negative position would thus be incoherent. Two versions of this:
- The negative cannot offer a clear criterion for the spirit of any given law, except in the scenario where it was made by one person, or a group of persons in complete agreement, and these persons have explicitly stated their itent and this intent is in some way not found in the language of the law. Force the negative to meet this standard, and you've got the upper hand. Conversely, the letter of the law is obvious to all; it is perfectly clear. Ostensibly, it's written a certain way because the legislators wanted it to be that way.
- To know the spirit of the law requires you to get inside the thought processes of the legislators, and this is plainly impossible. Thus, the negative position is not even possible.

These tactics stop the debate before it can even begin, and they are possibly unsporstmanlike. A good example of a letter/spirit issue in the modern day is the 2nd Amendment; there are arguments on both sides there. Aside from that, I'm drawing a blank.

[kojikun]

i'd say constitutional ability for the government to enforce slavery defeats the ideal that this country would uphold freedom.