Friday, July 9, 2004

Maureen Cavanaugh (Penn State) presented Are Tax Shelters the Necessary Consequences of the Rule of Law? at the Critical Tax Conference at Rutgers-Newark. Among the 13 quotations she discussed was this from Aristotle:

We thus arrive at law; for an order of succession implies law. And the rule of law, it is argued is preferable to that of any individual. On the same principle, even if it is better for certain individuals to govern, they should be made only guardians and ministers of the law. For magistrates there must be – this is admitted; but then men say that to give authority to any one man[,] when all are equal[,] is unjust. There may indeed be cases which the law seems unable to determine, but such cases a man could not determine either. But the law trains officers for this express purpose, and appoints them to determine matters which are left undecided by it, to the best of their judgment. Further, it permits them to make any amendments of the existing laws which experience suggests. Therefore he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire. (Politics, 1287a)