[jfengel]

It makes sense to me that the law would have to frequently refer to "reasonableness". It's hard to be absolutely rigid about human behavior. We're programmers; we know how hard it is to properly think through every possible case even in the highly confined world of software. Humans are so, so much harder. I'm OK with that.

But that makes me not OK with it when lawyers pretend that they are being rigorous. I've never seen a single Supreme Court decision that I did not consider utterly appalling -- even the ones I agree with. If they were to write "because that's what I think is reasonable" I'd have some respect for it. They call it an "opinion"; go ahead and say that.

[treetalker]

Reasonable, as used in the law in many if not most situations, has become a contronym. Reasonableness should be rigorous: it's in the term itself (capability of being reasoned / derived through reasoning). The intent behind the term is to use logic to ascertain / derive / apply the (sometimes tacit) social rule; but many judges turn that into "I'm reasonable (i.e., I'm not unreasonable, meaning clearly wrong much of the time), and this is my decision (whether or not I explain my supposed reasons to expose them to analysis and criticism), so therefore my decisions (and the things at issue) are reasonable; or, in my view, the thing at issue was not reasonable." Of course, such reasoning is itself illogical and, in my view, therefore unreasonable.