Compulsion
强制
Of the ways a government's judgments land on persons, the heaviest is compulsion. This paper asks on what grounds a government's compulsion stands and where it stops. It first sets up a working framework: every class of compulsion passes along one and the same chain, normative ground, matter and authority, necessary and limited means, carrying out and being questioned. The normative ground contains two necessary conditions. One is not crossing the line: it is derived from the subject's side and holds against anyone, a government included. The other is guaranteeing the recognition-based rights a government has embedded: this one is peculiar to government; without the guarantee, the power is illegitimate, that is, it must be questioned. Both are necessary; neither is sufficient. By root, compulsion divides into three kinds: stopping, enforcement and substitute exercise; by setting, into four places, after-the-fact disposition being one setting of stopping in time. The starting material is §2.4 of the first version of How Is Institution Possible (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government), and this series re-establishes it: the "only" of its first boundary is not taken over, since it is incompatible with enforcement; "compelled obedience" is taken in the narrow sense. Stopping blocks a line-crossing under way; the one compelled need not first be one who crosses the line, but which grounded risk is to be prevented, and against whom the act is directed, must be stated. Where a rule not made to block line-crossing is enforced, the compulsion must be retraceable to a negative root; where the act falls on one who has not crossed the line, there is an additional layer of the burden of proof. After-the-fact disposition divides into three things, and compensation is grounded separately; it judges the operation, not the person; public prosecution initiates proceedings, by a valid public position, for those under protection, and does not form a "we" on everyone's behalf. Substitute exercise is the heaviest part of the paper: it enters the slot by function; its root lies in the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised, in two branches, the subject-to-be, and those whose gate already self-exercises but who for a time cannot exercise it themselves; "for a time" is a factual antecedent, and a state in which it cannot be judged whether recovery is possible is not judged here; substitute exercise is oriented toward return, is not drawn once and for all by a fixed binary threshold, and does not decide for anyone what he is to become. Compulsion itself must be a limit; compulsion may protect channels, it may not maintain a direction; protection may come before any reciprocal handling, but "protect first" says only when, not who; a government's adjudication cannot carry over directly the ceding that takes place between two persons, and where the government is itself a party, the relation of appointment must be checked, and does not automatically prove capture. The paper opens with one night and one day in Apple City, interfaces in place with Mill and Kant, and at its end converses with Mill once more. The paper has nine propositions (G9 to G16, with G12a), listed together at the end.
Introduction
Paper 1, §5 left one matter half told. One night in Year 6, outside a bar on Levee Street, two people went from quarreling to shoving, and a patrol officer walked over and had to judge: step in now, or watch a little longer.
That night the quarrel turned into a fight, and one of them picked up a bottle. The patrol officer reached them, pinned the man holding the bottle to the ground, handcuffed him and took him back to the station. The man who was pinned down suffered a broken wrist.
The same night, a social worker from the Department of Children and Families went to that child's home. She verified it: the nine-year-old was suffering continuing harm at home. That night she removed the child from the home and placed him with a foster family. The next day, the family division of the City Court appointed the Department of Children and Families as the child's temporary guardian.
In the daytime the next day, the Tax Office froze the bank account of the owner of a grocery store on Levee Street. He was two years behind on his property tax; the Tax Office had sent two written notices, one after the other, and held one hearing, and then froze the account, leaving an amount sufficient for basic living.
The three things, case by case. The patrol officer's case. Whom it concerns: the one being beaten, the one doing the beating. Which line: the body of the one being beaten is being crossed; the compulsion exerted on the one doing the beating must itself be a limit too. Baseline: before the fight began. The Tax Office's case. Whom it concerns: the owner and his family, and other taxpayers. Which line: the owner has not crossed the line, and the freeze acts on an action that may be restricted, the control of his account; the amount left for basic living bears on the freeze not pressing this family's life-substrate to the point of threat, which is the business of Institution Theory's first ought (Rights Theory P5 F21). Baseline: an ordinary shopkeeper who pays his taxes on time. The social worker's case. Whom it concerns: the child, the father. Which line: the child's body and growth are being crossed. Baseline: a home without harm.
All three are compulsion, and in none of the three did anyone wait for the consent of the person acted on. Yet what the three rest on differs. The patrol officer blocked a harm happening before his eyes. What the Tax Office blocked was no harm at all: the owner had hurt no one; he had only not paid his tax. At the moment the social worker took the child away, what she blocked was the harm at home; but from the next day on, when the Department signs for the child and handles his affairs, it is no longer blocking anyone.
When Institution Theory finished with guarding the line, it handed over one sentence at the point where it stopped: "On what grounds compulsion is warranted is the business of the Theory of Government." (Institution Theory Paper 3, "Where This Paper Stops") Paper 1 says that a government's decisions do not take effect by consent, and that their effect on persons must be answered in three layers; the third layer, on what grounds it may normatively be so, is left, on the side of compulsion, to this paper (Paper 1, §7; G6). This paper takes up exactly that sentence.
The answer runs in ten steps. §1 sets up a chain that every class of compulsion must pass along, and classifies compulsion. §2 states the starting point. §§3 to 6 take the kinds one by one: stopping, enforcement, after-the-fact disposition, substitute exercise. §7 says that compulsion itself must be a limit; §8, that compulsion does not maintain a direction; §9, when protection comes first; §10, on what grounds a government's adjudication stands and where it stops. §11 converses with Mill. The paper has nine propositions (G9 to G16, with G12a), each stated at the end of its section and listed together at the end.
Conventions follow the Prequel, §8: interfacing in place, sources in four tiers, examples from the Apple City Case File shared by the whole series; at its end this paper has a separate section in conversation with Mill.
§1 The Chain Compulsion Must Pass Along
Put the three acts of compulsion side by side, and first ask one thing they share: on what grounds may a construct, against a person's will, lay hands on him?
Institution Theory gave part of the answer, not the whole. It says that a construct's acts cross no line against any internal subject (Z9); it says that an institution guards the lines between its internal subjects, and that "Guarding is an act of the construct and falls under the first ought: the way of guarding must be a limit, and its means are bounded by the construct's authority in the matter" (Z15). These are constraints on the construct: they set how far it may go and what it may not cross. Postulate One, established in How Is Subjecthood Possible (Foundational Paper 4; cited as F4), and the five oughts of Institution Theory are all of this kind: they bound acts. They can give one class of compulsion its root, and the root of stopping lies precisely in Institution Theory's second ought (Z15; §3); but they do not, on their own, answer another question: which position, for which matter, acquires which kind of authority to compel. The Second Critique, where it hands the harm a person does to others over to external constructs, says this plainly as well: "To hand something to a construct is not to have proved that the construct is legitimate or effective" (The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §4).
So this paper sets up, for every class of compulsion, a chain of four links:
normative ground -> matter and authority -> necessary and limited means -> carrying out and being questioned
Normative ground asks why there may be compulsion here at all. This link contains two necessary conditions.
One is not crossing the line. That basic rights may not be violated is not something a government grants; it is derived from the subject's side, and holds alike against individuals, against constructs and against governments (the Prequel, §5); Institution Theory has already established the ought addressed to the construct (Z9). A government's compulsion stands under it too: compulsion that itself crosses the line has no ground left to speak of.
The other is guaranteeing the recognition-based rights a government has embedded. This one is peculiar to government. Where a right has been embedded, and a government holds its power side but does not let the rights side operate, its power at that point is illegitimate, that is, it must be questioned (Paper 3, G17, G19). Before freezing the account, the Tax Office sent two written notices and held one hearing. Suppose that the notices and the hearing are procedural positions embedded by ordinance, and that they exist only on paper: then the freeze lacks this condition.
Both are necessary conditions; neither is a sufficient condition. Not crossing the line shows only that the compulsion has not gone over the line, not that there may be such compulsion; and guaranteeing recognition-based rights does not thereby make the power legitimate. Rights Theory, on the side of recognition-based rights, has said a sentence of the same form: "Neither constitution nor operation succeeding is the same as normative legitimacy." (Rights Theory P3 F10) Each kind of compulsion still needs its own root established separately (§§2–6). Paper 1, G6 says that openness to questioning is a necessary condition of the third layer; in this chain it falls in the fourth link. Why these two conditions in the normative ground, together with openness to questioning, are all necessary conditions of the third layer is said in Paper 1, §7. Only the four links together make up the things the third layer has to answer.
Matter and authority asks on what grounds this position has this matter in its charge. The patrol officer pinning down the man with the bottle, the Tax Office freezing the account, the family division appointing a guardian: each rests on its own authority. The upstream has not given this link in full, and it is undertaken by this series: the section of the starting material that dealt with coercive force has been withdrawn (§2); and How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible (Foundational Paper 5; cited as F5) says that the three grounds of external arbitration are "possible grounds, not an any-one-of-three that automatically confers full authority" (F5 v2 §5.4). Whether a position has authority in a given matter must be stated case by case.
Necessary and limited means asks how much force, and through what procedure. Proportionality and due process belong here (§2). Once the patrol officer had pinned the man down and cuffed him, any further force had no ground; the Tax Office froze the account and left an amount for living. Proportionality, procedure and the purpose of protection are necessary boundaries, not sufficient conditions: a compulsion that is proportional and has gone through procedure may still lack a ground.
Carrying out and being questioned asks about what comes after the compulsion has been done. Institution Theory says that being able to enforce "does not prove that what is enforced, or the authority to enforce it, is warranted" (Z17). Once compulsion has been done, it remains open to questioning (Z34): the man who was pinned down can sue, the owner can ask, the child's guardianship must be reviewed.
This chain does not teach anyone how to compel. What it lists are the four things an act of compulsion must be able to answer.
Compulsion must also be classified. This paper divides it by root into three kinds: stopping, enforcement, substitute exercise. Stopping blocks a line-crossing under way; enforcement brings about compliance with a rule not made to block line-crossing; substitute exercise exercises, in a person's stead, a function that in this matter he cannot yet, or for a time cannot, exercise himself, without acquiring its first-person ownership. By setting, it divides into four places: stopping, before the event and during it; after-the-fact disposition, which is one setting of stopping in time; enforcement; substitute exercise. One action may touch several slots at once. The moment the social worker took the child away was stopping; holding guardianship afterward is substitute exercise. The Health Department isolating a patient is stopping, and, because he has not crossed the line, it must also pass the burden of proof of the enforcement slot (§§3, 4). The classification is a division of labor among questions and reasons; it does not require that each action fall into one slot only.
Pointing back. On the relation between compulsion and law, the Law Series has already conversed with several legal theorists (Law Series Supplement §§2–5); this is not redone here, and this paper says only where it goes on from there. Hobbes ends the war of all against all with a sovereign who cannot be questioned; the Law Series parts from him there, because once power is gathered in one place, the clause "law cannot not be questionable" becomes nominal (ibid., §2). The last link of this paper's chain is precisely being questioned. Hart places the validity of law on a social fact, officials' acceptance of the rule of recognition, and separates it from moral legitimacy (ibid., §3). The Law Series declines this separation at that point, saying that for it validity and justification are not two questions but two faces of one and the same question. On a government's compulsion this paper divides "valid authority" and "normative ground" into two links; what it divides is the address of answering, not Hart's theory of social fact; this paper registers the relation between the two places and does not adjudicate it. Fuller lists eight inner conditions under which law operates as law; four of them, publicity, clarity, prospectivity and practicability, the Law Series matches with conditions of its own (ibid., §4); these four fall in the third and fourth links of the chain, as necessary boundaries. Raz's service conception agrees with the Law Series on the point that law does not set your purposes for you (ibid., §5); §§6 and 8 of this paper keep to the same direction. The step this paper takes further is not to treat compulsion as one thing: three roots, each along a chain of its own.
This section states no proposition. The four links of the chain, the two necessary conditions in the normative ground, and the division by root and by setting make up this paper's working framework: of the two necessary conditions, one is carried over from Institution Theory Z9 and the Prequel, §5, the other is a normative undertaking of this series, proved in Paper 3; the division is this series' own. The sections that follow take the kinds one by one, and the propositions are stated at the end of each section; the undertaking of the "matter and authority" link is recorded in G9.
§2 The Starting Point
This paper has one piece of starting material. The first version of How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) has a section titled "The Ontological Boundary of Institutional Coercion," namely F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government). It was later taken down; the author's ruling is that it went beyond the scope of that paper, and that its place is here. So it is starting material, not current upstream in F6. This series re-establishes it rather than copying it over.
That section's answer is blunt: "institutional coercion is defensive, not colonial." An institution exerts compulsion on a violator not because he is unfit to be a subject, but because he is infringing on others. It separates punishment from stopping: "punishment presupposes the violator is below subject status," whereas stopping "presupposes the violator is still a subject whose behavior is infringing upon others' subjecthood." From this it derives three boundaries. First, "coercion may only be used to stop infringement upon other subjects' core zones, not to compel obedience (compelled obedience is colonization, not defense)." Second, proportionality: "excessive coercion is itself an infringement upon the violator's subjecthood." Third, procedure: compulsion without due process is the institution's "unilateral violence" against the individual (F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government)).
This series accepts the direction of that section. In re-establishing it, it aligns five points.
First, the root. The first version hung the root on axioms of its own. In this series the root of compulsion hangs on Postulate One of How Is Subjecthood Possible (F4 v2), "A human being is an end in itself," connected to the construct by way of Institution Theory Z2.
Second, "colonization." The first version calls compelled obedience colonization. In this series "colonization" is taken in the narrow sense: a boundary-crossing disguised as cultivation (Rights Theory P6 F26). So "compelled obedience" is first of all a line-crossing, judged by the line; when it poses as cultivation, it is then called colonization in the narrow sense.
Third, "core inviolable zones." This series maps these onto the line of Rights Theory P5 F21: the boundary between limit and violation, "decided by structure, not by motive."
Fourth, the first version says that this section is structurally isomorphic with the previous paper's argument on the legitimacy of force. That argument has not been found in How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible: the two nearest places (F5 §2.4 and §5.4) do not provide it. This series puts no weight on it.
Fifth, the "only" in the first boundary.
This point needs a few more words. "May only be used to stop" says that compulsion has a single root: blocking infringement upon others. Were this sentence carried over as it stands, there would be nothing to say about the Tax Office freezing the account: the owner infringed upon no one. Yet for a government to run, taxation, registration, requisition, and compelling witnesses to appear in court all require compulsion, and none of them blocks an infringement under way. Whether these acts of compulsion have grounds must be asked separately (§4); the sentence with "only" shuts them all out together, and so shuts off the very question that needs to be asked. So the "only" is not taken over: it is incompatible with enforcement, and is kept only within the one kind, stopping. Within stopping it is still right: stopping is used only to block line-crossing.
The second half of the same boundary, "not to compel obedience," this series takes over, in the narrow sense. Compelling obedience means taking obedience itself as the end, or requiring the other party to take the government's ends as his own law. A grounded demand for a particular action, such as paying taxes on time, does not become compelled obedience just because it requires people to comply. §8 has an example of what compelled obedience looks like.
The second and third boundaries, proportionality and procedure, each carry their own reasons and do not depend on the previous paper; they are taken over as they stand. The sentences taken over speak of the violator, with proportionality measured against the degree of infringement. When they are extended to enforcement and substitute exercise, the one compelled is not a violator, and proportionality is judged instead by the burden of proof of §4; excessive compulsion is already an infringement on a violator, and all the more so on one who has not crossed the line (extension; own undertaking).
With the starting point re-established, each kind of compulsion has its root established separately: stopping connects to Institution Theory Z15 and Z19 and to the Conflict Treatise, §5 (§3); enforcement connects to Law Series P1 BL3 (§4); after-the-fact disposition, one setting of stopping, connects to Z19 (§5); substitute exercise has its root in the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised (§6).
With Mill. The word "only" calls John Stuart Mill to mind. The first chapter of On Liberty lays down a principle: "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection" (On Liberty, ch. 1, para. 9, per Project Gutenberg eBook #34901; tier A); "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others" (ibid.).
The common question is clear: on what grounds power is exercised over a person against his will. On this question both Mill and the first version set up an "only," and the shapes are the same. Where they agree is clear as well: Mill goes on to say that "His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" (ibid.); this series likewise does not take a person's own good as the root for compelling him (the unsafe-building case in §6).
They part at the "only." Mill's principle governs all power exercised against a person's will, not only stopping; such things as giving evidence he also brings under it (§4). This series does not take over the "only," not because the harm principle is wrong, but because enforcement has a root of its own and must go along a chain of its own. What is gained here is a difference in division, not a refutation: this paper does not claim on this basis to have overthrown the harm principle.
G9 The starting material for a government's compulsion is F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government), not current upstream in F6; this series re-establishes it and aligns five points: the root hangs on F4 v2, Postulate One, by way of Institution Theory Z2; "colonization" is taken in the narrow sense, and "compelled obedience" is read first by line-crossing; "core inviolable zones" is mapped onto the line of Rights Theory P5 F21; the argument on the legitimacy of force in the previous paper, of which the first version speaks, has not been found and bears no weight; the "only" of the first boundary is not taken over, being incompatible with enforcement, and is kept only within the one kind, stopping; "compelled obedience" is taken in the narrow sense, meaning taking obedience itself as the end, or requiring the other party to take the government's ends as his own law, and a grounded demand for a particular action is not thereby barred from being enforced. The second and third boundaries are taken over as they stand for stopping and extended to everyone compelled (extension; own undertaking): excessive compulsion is itself an infringement upon the subjecthood of the one compelled; compulsion without due process is unilateral violence. Stopping, enforcement, after-the-fact disposition and substitute exercise each have their root established anew. The "matter and authority" link of the proof-task chain (normative ground, matter and authority, necessary and limited means, carrying out and being questioned; §1) is not given by the upstream and is undertaken by this series.
§3 Stopping
Back to the bar on Levee Street. By the time the patrol officer arrived, one of them had already picked up a bottle. He pinned the man with the bottle down and handcuffed him.
This is stopping: blocking a line-crossing under way. The body of the one being beaten is being crossed; the patrol officer's hands come in between. Institution Theory says that an institution guards the lines between its internal subjects (Z15); a government is one kind of construct, and of the ways guarding the line falls to a government, the most direct is this pinning down. The Conflict Treatise, treating graded handover, has said that at the slot where one party's basic conditions begin to be substantially compressed, "Protection may come before any reciprocal handling" (Conflict Treatise §5; originally said of graded handover between two persons; extension; own undertaking; see §9). At the moment the bottle was picked up, there was no reciprocal handling to wait for. The full picture of that slot comes in §9.
The root of stopping lies here, and so does its limit. Institution Theory says that guarding itself must be a limit, and that toward the violating party it "judges the operation, not the person" (Z19). What the patrol officer pinned down was the act of holding the bottle; his pinning down does not assign this man the identity of "a man who hits people." Stopping must be proportional and must go through due process (§2); how far the force of this pinning down went, §7 and §10 will look at again.
The Second Critique sets the same thing up as a boundary: "The part the overlap cannot reach and the refuser's own law will not stop — the harm he does to others — is borne by external constructs." (The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §4) This is concurring. Of that sentence The Second Critique states that it found no original wording for it: "It is an architectural claim this book assembles from several places"; the same place also says that handing something to a construct is not proof that the construct is legitimate or effective (§1). So only the direction is borrowed here, not its weight: the root of stopping remains in Institution Theory's second ought.
Stopping governs only this class: blocking a line-crossing under way. It is not a definition of all compulsion. The Tax Office's freeze is not stopping, nor is what the social worker does for the child from the next day on. To call them all "blocking harm" would either stretch harm until it has no edge, or let them escape the questioning they ought to face.
The one compelled need not first be one who crosses the line. Another case, the Health Department's.
A traveler, after entering the country, was diagnosed with an airborne infectious disease. The Health Department required him to isolate at a designated place, for the period set by the regulations, with meals delivered every day, calls with his family permitted, and a retest at the end of the period. He did not agree; he felt his symptoms were mild and resting at home would do.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the patient; the family members who live with him, the passengers on the same flight, the people he would come into contact with. Which line: the life-substrate of others, under a grounded risk; the patient does not intend it, nor need he. Baseline: his freedom of movement before he fell ill.
He has not struck anyone, nor meant to harm anyone. Why may hands be laid on him?
Because the line is decided by structure, not by motive. Whether an action falls as limit or as violation, Rights Theory says, is "decided by structure, not by motive" (Rights Theory P5 F21). Institution Theory says this to the construct: the line is "decided by structure, not by motive" (Z9), and "crossing the line does not require that anyone intend it" (Z10). When a person carrying a disease that can pass through the air to others walks into a crowd, the action that lands on others' bodies does not fail to land because he means no harm. Z9 and Z10 were originally said of the construct's acts; using them here for the action one person may bring to land on others rests on the fact that the Rights Theory criterion they carry over pays no regard to motive in the first place (extension; own undertaking).
This step must be written narrowly. Z10 removes only one necessary condition: crossing the line need not first involve someone's intent. It does not on its own judge that a given risk is already a violation. So every act of stopping grounded in risk must state two things.
One is which grounded risk is to be prevented. Here it is a disease, already diagnosed and transmitted through the air, to the life-substrate of those who live with him and of those he would come into contact with. Not "he may have some illness," nor "this man is dangerous."
The other is against whom the act is directed. The act falls on the patient, who has not crossed the line; those protected are others. When compulsion falls on someone who has not crossed the line, there is one more layer to answer: where the time limit lies, whether there is an alternative means, and how his loss is booked. This layer is the burden of proof of the enforcement slot, written in §4.
Paper 1 also left one matter here. A Health Department inspector saw, in a restaurant kitchen, a charcoal warming cabinet not on the inspection checklist, judged that in that kitchen it might let carbon monoxide build up, and ordered the restaurant closed on the spot, pending testing by the state (Paper 1, §3). The closure order is also stopping grounded in risk: what it prevents is the risk of carbon monoxide to the life-substrate of staff and diners; the act falls on the owner's business, and the owner has not crossed the line. Two weeks later the test said the level was within the limit (Paper 1, §8): the test did not support the earlier judgment of risk. If the risk had grounds at the time, the stopping could have grounds; the test not supporting it does not make the grounds retroactively nothing. Whether he judged wrongly at the time, and whether the closure was excessive, must be checked separately; but the matters to be answered have already arrived: on what grounds he judged there was a risk, why the whole restaurant was closed, and how the loss is booked. The last two questions are exactly what that layer of burden in §4 has to answer.
G10 Compulsion may block a line-crossing under way; this proposition governs only this class and is not a definition of all compulsion. Stopping is proportional and goes through due process. The one compelled need not first be one who crosses the line: the line is decided by structure, not by motive, and crossing the line does not require that anyone intend it (extension; own undertaking). This removes only the necessary condition "no crossing without intent," and does not on its own judge that a given risk is already a violation; stopping grounded in risk must state which grounded risk is to be prevented and against whom the act is directed. Stopping whose act falls on one who has not crossed the line must also pass the burden of proof of G11.
§4 Enforcement
Back to the matter of the next day. The grocery store owner was two years behind on his property tax; the Tax Office sent two written notices, held one hearing, and froze his account, leaving an amount sufficient for basic living.
The owner has not crossed the line. What the freeze blocks is no infringement under way: his unpaid tax presses on no one's body and seals off no one's exit. This is enforcement: bringing about compliance with a rule not made to block line-crossing. Taxation, registration, regulation, requisition and compelling witnesses to appear in court all belong in this slot.
On what grounds does enforcement stand? Where the Law Series establishes the four base layers of law, it has a corollary: "If law contains affirmative provisions (registration, procedure, charter), their legitimacy must be retraceable to a negative root, namely the prevention of suppression, the safeguarding of channels for questioning, or the maintenance of co-constructive space." It goes on: "Affirmative provisions that cannot be retraced to a negative root are not law but administration or colonization." (Law Series P1 BL3)
This was originally said of the affirmative provisions of law; here it is borrowed and applied to a government's compulsion in enforcement: a compulsion of enforcement must be retraceable to one of these three. This step bears weight at a point of connection; it is borrowed, and its application is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking).
Two things must be kept apart. Why property tax may be levied is the root of the tax, and that is Paper 3's business. What is asked here is something else: on what grounds the compulsion stands that lays hands on the owner's account so that the tax gets paid. The retracing of the freeze must pass through the root of this tax itself; that stretch is written in Paper 3, §7 (G20a). What is needed here is that, starting from the compulsion of the freeze, the path goes through and reaches one of the three of BL3. The Law Series clause itself says that the path of retracing may take more than one step, and that what matters is that a path exists and can be rebuilt (ibid.).
One reading of BL3's second sentence must be headed off, from the other direction. It says that affirmative provisions that cannot be retraced to a negative root are not law but administration or colonization. Once this reaches government, there is a very convenient reading: if it cannot be retraced, rename it administration and enforce it all the same. This series does not accept that. Compulsion that cannot be retraced does not come to stand by being renamed administration. The converse holds too: that an administrative aim has grounds does not on its own give the means of compulsion grounds. Paper 3 gives administration its root (G20), but only for administration that does not use compulsion; once administration uses compulsion, it comes back to this section.
On those who have not crossed the line. The compulsion of enforcement mostly falls on people who have not crossed the line. Then there is an additional layer of the burden of proof. Why an additional layer? If the object of stopping is himself crossing the line, what the compulsion blocks is his operation; the object of enforcement has not crossed the line, and what he bears was not brought on by any operation of his, so it can only be explained by the party exerting the compulsion. Stopping grounded in risk that falls on someone who has not crossed the line is the same (§3). This step is undertaken by this series. So five more things must be answered: who bears it, and who is protected; what the ground is; how necessity and proportionality are judged; whether there is an alternative means, and where the time limit lies; how loss and remedy are booked.
Let us go through a few cases.
The Tax Office's freeze. Those who bear it are the owner and his family; those protected are the common affairs this tax maintains, and those who pay on time. The ground is the ordinance and two years of unpaid tax. Necessity and proportionality: two notices and a hearing came first, the freeze after; with an amount for basic living left, the freeze does not press this family's life-substrate to the point of threat (see the Introduction). Alternative means, until when the freeze lasts, and how the shop's business is drawn in: the Tax Office's position must be able to explain these.
Land requisition. In Year 2, to build the flood levee, Apple City requisitioned a vegetable plot by the river. The plot belonged to a vegetable farmer who used it to supply two restaurants on Levee Street. Compensation was at market price, and he objected: market price could not buy land just as close to the river and as easy to water.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the farmer; the residents behind the levee. Which line: the farmer has not crossed the line, and the requisition acts on the use of the land; whether his livelihood has an alternative path is checked separately. Baseline: the riverbank with no levee.
The levee is built to hold back water from the households behind it, and the water is no one's line-crossing; this compulsion this paper reads as retracing to the third of BL3's three, the maintenance of co-constructive space (this reading is not complete; for its qualification see Paper 6, §8, the first of the six slots). Whether the levee itself ought to be built, and how, this paper does not judge.
His objection must be read in two steps. Rights Theory separates two things: "the supplier's withdrawal and the severing of the circuit are not one thing" (Rights Theory P5 §II, F20 elaboration). By that passage, actively severing a person's existing maintenance circuit, if it thereby closes a dimension he has already incorporated, is violation, not limit; however much the market price pays, it cannot pay it into a limit (§7). Yet land itself is a resource, and "resources do not enter the thick layer however important they are" (Rights Theory P5 F20). He uses this land to supply two restaurants; whether the requisition has closed anything for him depends on whether he still has an alternative path; this is just what the case file writes as "checked separately," and this paper does not judge it. Only if nothing has been closed does the requisition stay within the line, and only then does this section's burden come into play: compensation at market price answers how much the loss is worth in money; it does not answer where the alternative path is or how far the effects reach, and that part of the loss and remedy has not yet been booked. This case will come back later.
Isolation. Continuing from §3. The one who bears it is the patient; those protected are the people living with him and those he would come into contact with. The ground is the diagnosis and the route of transmission. Time limit: the period set by the regulations, with a retest at the end. Loss and remedy: meals delivered every day during isolation, calls with his family permitted; how the other things he loses through isolation are booked, the Health Department must be able to explain. Alternatives: suppose that he lives alone, with an entrance of his own, and isolating at home would achieve the same effect; then isolation at a designated place does not pass the test of "necessary." The root of stopping is still there; the means must change.
The restaurant of §3 is the same: the two additional questions are why the whole restaurant was closed rather than only that cabinet, and where the loss of two weeks' closure falls.
Compelled testimony. One thing within enforcement lies closest to questioning: compelling a witness to appear in court and testify. By BL3 it can be argued from the safeguarding of channels for questioning: for an adjudication to answer the very matter it is questioned about, someone has to say what he knows. The particular compulsion must still pass along the chain.
Mill, in the same chapter, also permits this. He says: "There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice" (On Liberty, ch. 1, para. 11, same source; tier A). The way he brings it under the harm principle is to say that "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction" (ibid.). He adds at once: "The latter case, it is true, requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception." (ibid.)
The conclusions concur: testimony may be compelled. Where they land differs. Mill counts not giving evidence as one way of causing evil to others, so it remains within the "sole end," only the compulsion applied to it must be much more cautious. This series puts it in the enforcement slot: the witness has not crossed the line, the compulsion he bears must retrace to the safeguarding of channels for questioning, and the additional layer of burden must be answered. The difference between the two placements does not lie in the conclusion, nor wholly in whether there is that additional weighting. Mill too requires grounds for exceptions of this kind: "Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception" (ibid.); and of when it is better not to hold a person to account he also speaks: the reasons must come from what is particular to the case (ibid.). The further step this paper takes is to write out, item by item, who bears it, whether there are alternatives, and how loss and remedy are booked.
G11 Where a rule not made to block line-crossing is enforced (taxation, registration, regulation, requisition, compelled testimony), the compulsion must be retraceable to a negative root: the prevention of suppression, the safeguarding of channels for questioning, or the maintenance of co-constructive space (extension; own undertaking). Compulsion that cannot be retraced does not come to stand by being renamed administration; that an administrative aim has grounds does not on its own give the means of compulsion grounds. Where the act falls on one who has not crossed the line, there is an additional layer of the burden of proof (own undertaking): who bears it, and who is protected; what the ground is; how necessity and proportionality are judged; whether there is an alternative means, and where the time limit lies; how loss and remedy are booked. The particular compulsion must still pass along the proof-task chain.
§5 After-the-Fact Disposition
One night, a sixteen-year-old smashed the glass of the bus shelter on Levee Street, and the broken glass cut a person who was waiting for the bus. The City Prosecutor's Office brought a public prosecution.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the injured person waiting for the bus; the youth; the people who use this shelter. Which line: the body of the person waiting has already been crossed; the shelter is a shared facility. Baseline: before the shelter was smashed.
The line-crossing has already happened. What a government does at this point is called after-the-fact disposition.
That section of the first version has an important sentence here: the institution is not punishing, for "punishment presupposes the violator is below subject status" (F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government)). This series accepts the negative half of this sentence: it does not accept punishment premised on "the violator is below subject status." Where a person is disposed of as something a grade below a subject, the disposition itself crosses the line.
Then on what grounds does what is done after the fact stand? This series' answer is that after-the-fact disposition is not a third root but one setting of stopping in time. It divides into three things, and the three must be kept apart.
The first is stopping effects of the crossing that are still continuing. The broken glass is still on the platform, and the next person waiting could be cut; the glass is cleared away, and the shelter closed off and repaired. This is stopping: what it blocks is an action left behind by the crossing that would still land on the next person waiting.
The second is preventing recurrence. It too is stopping: what it blocks is the same kind of operation in the future. It is grounded in risk, and so it too must state which grounded risk is to be prevented (G10), and may not put "this person is dangerous" in its place. Its limit lies in Institution Theory's proposition on guarding: toward the violating party, it "judges the operation, not the person"; particular operations that have been established can be attributed to the person, but "no permanent identity is assigned to him" (Z19). What is prevented is the recurrence of this kind of operation, smashing a shelter; it is not assigning a sixteen-year-old the identity of "a vandal," to follow him all his life.
The third is responding to harm already done: the medical costs of the person waiting, the cost of repairing the shelter. This is not stopping. The harm has already happened, and compensation cannot block it; even if the youth never smashes anything again, this compensation still has to be reckoned. So it is grounded separately. The candidate is the retracing of §4, to what BL3 calls the maintenance of co-constructive space: if no one bears harm already done, the layer on which people live together cannot be kept. How this retracing is carried through to the end, this paper only states as a candidate and does not complete (for its qualification see Paper 6, §8, the first of the six slots); the cost of repairing the shelter and the medical costs of the person waiting do not necessarily go by the same path.
The ground of the third may not be covertly swapped for preventing recurrence. If it is, two errors follow. One is that compensation rises and falls with "the likelihood that he will do it again": the more dangerous a person looks, the more he pays, and this slides from judging the operation to judging the person. The other is treating compensation as an instrument of deterrence, the amount reckoned not by the harm but by what will frighten people off; that is precisely the punishment the first version rejects, under another name.
Public prosecution. In this case the one who initiated proceedings was not the injured person waiting for the bus, but the City Prosecutor's Office. On what grounds does a public position prosecute?
The Law Series, treating the two forms of law, says that to annihilate a being that knows it exists threatens all subjects, and so "it must be prosecuted by public authority on behalf of all subjects." "A breach of the floor is not something the victim can forgive," and so the victim cannot withdraw the prosecution (Law Series P1 §5.1; the original carries the series' internal numbering, so what surrounds the quotations is paraphrased here). At the other end is a collision of purposes, which is a matter between two persons, and they may settle it between themselves (Law Series P1 §5.2). The Apple City case is an injury to a person, and falls between the two ends. This section does not borrow that passage to prove that this case must be publicly prosecuted; whether it should be, and through what procedure, belongs to specific theories of institutions and to jurisprudence. What is borrowed is one thing only: how "on behalf of all subjects" is to be read. Applying this reading to public prosecution in general is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking).
The reading is: initiating proceedings, by a valid public position, for those under protection. The City Prosecutor's Office rests on its position and its authority, and acts for that person waiting for the bus and for the people who use this shelter. It does not form a "we" on everyone's behalf. Institution Theory says that "an institution cannot produce a 'we'" (Z31); the Prequel says that a government's rules do not generate a third first person that completes each person's inner legislation on his behalf (the Prequel, §3). In a matter like this, some in the city will always be angry, some will not care, some will think it should be forgiven; public prosecution legislates for none of them, nor does it avow on the injured person's behalf how that person sees the matter inwardly. Whether to forgive is the injured person's own law; public prosecution does not forgive in that person's stead, nor refuse to forgive in that person's stead. This case falls between the two ends; what place the wishes of the person waiting have in the procedure, and whether there can be a settlement, belongs to specific theories of institutions and to jurisprudence.
"On behalf of all subjects" does not issue arbitrary authority either. The name of representation does not let the Prosecutor's Office acquire, in this matter, more authority than its position has; where the authorization comes from and where adjudication stops are explained by the chain of §1 (§10).
G12 Punishment premised on "the violator is below subject status" is not accepted (F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government)). After-the-fact disposition is not a third root but one setting of stopping in time, and divides into three things: stopping effects of the crossing that are still continuing; preventing recurrence; responding to harm already done, such as by restitution or compensation. The first two are stopping; the third is grounded separately, the candidate being the retracing of G11 (the maintenance of co-constructive space), and its ground is not covertly swapped for preventing recurrence. Toward the violating party, it judges the operation, not the person, and no permanent identity is assigned to him. Public prosecution is read as initiating proceedings, by a valid public position, for those under protection (extension; own undertaking); it does not form a "we" on everyone's behalf, does not avow anyone's inner law, and does not acquire arbitrary authority from "on behalf of all subjects"; the range of authorization and of adjudication is explained by the proof-task chain.
§6 Substitute Exercise
After the night the child was taken away, things took on a different shape.
The next day, the family division of the City Court appointed the Department of Children and Families as the child's temporary guardian. During the guardianship, the Department does these things for the child: consent to medical treatment, school enrollment, and statements on the child's behalf in proceedings before the family division. What the child can already do himself: say whether he wants to see his father, choose his after-school activities, make friends day to day. The Department's protocols require that the child's views be heard on every decision concerning him and recorded in the case file. The foster family looks after the child's daily life; the Department makes the decisions of guardianship; the family division reviews the case once every six months. Housing, meals and school fees are paid from the Department's funds.
The three things once more, because this stretch and the moment of removal are not the same matter. Whom it concerns: the child. Which line: substitute exercise may not occupy the functions the child can already exercise himself; the guardianship is oriented toward return. Baseline: the child exercising these functions himself, or returning to a home without harm.
The moment of removal is stopping, and the root of §3 suffices: harm is happening at home; block it. From the next day on, the harm has been blocked, and the child is no longer in that home. When the Department signs the medical consent form for the child and enrolls him in school, it is no longer blocking anyone; it is doing things in the child's stead. On what grounds?
This is the third root of compulsion: substitute exercise.
Entering the slot by function. What substitute exercise examines is one thing: a function that properly belongs to the self-exercise of the person in whose stead it is exercised, which in the present matter he cannot yet, or for a time cannot, exercise himself, is exercised for the time being by a public position, without its acquiring that function's first-person ownership.
Entering the slot goes by function, not by the name of the setting. Guardianship, treatment and education are settings in which substitute exercise may occur; whether something is substitute exercise must be judged by the particular functions within them. The Department signing medical consent for the child is substitute exercise; whether the child wants to see his father is not, for that he can say himself. Where one and the same disposition also has a side of stopping or of enforcement, each side passes its own check. In this child's case, the earlier harm is one matter, and what is done about it belongs to after-the-fact disposition (§5); the removal is another, and belongs to stopping; the guardianship afterward is a third, and belongs to substitute exercise. Each of the three passes its own check.
Nor is a person judged to need substitute exercise because he disagrees. Someone who can judge for himself and merely disagrees with a government's aims is not registered as needing substitute exercise because of his disagreement. This sentence will be needed for the unsafe-building case at the end of this section.
The three items to be proved. Substitute exercise must pass along the chain of §1, and on the chain three things must be answered: which function; why substitute exercise is needed at this moment; who exercises it for the time being, and under what authority. The part the person can exercise himself, independent checking, and the paths of re-examination and return are checked along the chain as well.
In this child's case they can be written out one by one. Which function: medical consent, school enrollment, statements in proceedings. Why at this moment: in these matters a nine-year-old cannot yet exercise them himself; at home, it was that home that exercised them for him, and the harm was happening in that very home. Who, under what authority: the Department of Children and Families, appointed temporary guardian by the family division. The part he can exercise himself: whether he wants to see his father, after-school activities, friendships; the Department does not act for him there, and its protocols require that his views be heard and recorded in the file. Independent checking: the family division's review every six months. The path of return: the guardianship is temporary, and every review is a fresh judgment.
The root: the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised. The root of substitute exercise lies neither in the government's benevolence nor in the government's knowing better than he what is good for him, but in the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised. Standing gives the answer to whom substitute exercise must serve and what it may not cancel. It does not on its own answer why this function must at this moment be exercised in his place by this public position; that is what the three items above must answer. The root has two branches.
One branch is the subject-to-be. On Rights and Entitlements (Rights Theory, Specialist Paper) says: "The rights of the subject-to-be are grounded in its already being an end, its standing equal to a present subject's, not in its coming-to-be a subject." (On Rights and Entitlements F33) A child does not have standing because he will grow up someday; he has it now. The same study sets out the structure in the infant: for a recognition-position, the host of standing is in the infant itself, its negation-gate is exercised by the guardian network, and the operating-host lodges for now in the network; this is called delegated-holding (On Rights and Entitlements F34). Not for a moment has standing been transferred to the network; what is transferred is only the function.
The other branch is those whose gate already self-exercises but who for a time cannot exercise it themselves. On Rights and Entitlements says that once the gate takes a stable first-person ownership, that ownership does not return to the network; but the gate's actual operation "may still be interrupted for a time by sleep, anesthesia, coma, or crisis," at which point the network can again provide help with the function, and this is "a re-delegation of function that is no regression of qualification and no return of standing to the network" (On Rights and Entitlements F35). Meaning Theory draws the boundary of this branch: "Temporary incapacity, an interruption in expression, or a reduced bandwidth of exercise is not by itself enough to entail that the first-person position of carrying-forward has exited" (Meaning Theory P4 Y28). Value Theory says: "A value content already avowed does not vanish on the instant through sleep, anaesthesia, unconsciousness, or other temporary incapacity." (Value Theory P2, the V20 section)
Each of these originally has a place of its own: F33 and F34 in the generation-gate of the subject-to-be and in the infant; F35 in the interruption of function in those whose gate already self-exercises; Y28, V20 and the V20 section, and the V38 section in the carrying-forward of meaning and of value. Extending them to substitute exercise by a public position is a step of this series (extension; own undertaking). The ground for the extension lies in the upstream itself: the network it speaks of is not confined to the family. F34 says of caregiver, guardian network and review node that "they may in fact coincide," while in analysis they must be told apart; F35, on the gate's operation being interrupted for a time, has the clause "when the network may again furnish functional assistance or procedural representation," and the same proposition writes in, for an arrangement, "whether a guardianship structure is still needed" and "with a court's enforceable ruling where needed." A guardianship structure and a court lie within what the upstream already envisages. What is added by extending this to a public position is the compulsion in its hands, and so it is subject in addition to the limits of §7.
Example two: coma. An adult who lives alone was hit while cycling, suffered a brain injury, and fell into a coma. The doctors judge that he can be expected to wake within a few weeks. The emergency treatment the doctors gave in the emergency room is a matter for the doctors and the City Hospital, not substitute exercise by the government. There is also an operation that is not urgent, but if it is put off beyond two weeks it will affect his later recovery, and someone has to decide whether to do it. His relatives cannot be reached, and he never appointed a proxy in advance. Three years earlier, on a visit to the City Hospital, he left a written statement of his wishes: "If there is a choice, I would rather have conservative treatment and no unnecessary surgery." The City Hospital applied to the City Court. Under the State Guardianship Act, the City Court appointed a public guardian from the Office of the Public Guardian to act for the time being on this one medical decision only, for a term lasting until he wakes or sixty days have passed, whichever comes first.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the man himself. Which line: it may not be inferred from his coma that his first-person position of carrying-forward has exited; what he has already expressed is not erased; substitute exercise may not rewrite it. Baseline: he makes this decision himself while conscious.
This is the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises. The three items to be proved: which function, only this one medical decision; why at this moment, because he is in a coma, the operation cannot wait beyond two weeks, no one else can act for him, and there is no advance appointment; who, under what authority, a public guardian, appointed by the City Court under the State Guardianship Act, for the matter appointed and within the term appointed.
A few points must be stated precisely.
Living alone does not automatically authorize any public position. That he lives by himself does not on that account give the city a position from which to act for him; this substitute exercise exists only through the court, for one matter, and when no one else can act for him.
The sentence he wrote three years ago does not vanish because he is in a coma. The public guardian makes this decision for him under his name, and that sentence is under his name too. Whether this operation counts as "unnecessary" is for the public guardian to judge, and to explain, in this position; but that sentence cannot be treated as though it had never been written.
Who checks this substitute exercise must be looked at as it actually is. The Office of the Public Guardian is attached to the City Court, and it was the City Court that appointed the public guardian; independence between the two must be checked against the party actually questioned (Institution Theory Z34). Here only what is to be checked is written; no adjudication is made in anyone's place.
The term is this substitute exercise's path of return: when he wakes, the function returns to his hands; if sixty days pass and he has not woken, there must be a fresh judgment, and it does not continue on the strength of "an appointment has already been made." Institution Theory has a sentence of the same form: "A temporary structure of guarding must be re-examined after its conditions change, and is not renewed automatically on the strength of its origin" (Z22). That sentence originally concerns the structure of guarding; here it is cited only as concurring. What is checked first in the fresh judgment is whether the antecedent "for a time" still holds (see below).
"For a time" is a factual antecedent. "For a time" is in origin an antecedent of F35 ("interrupted for a time"), and must be met by the facts of the case; Y28 does not supply it. In this example, "for a time" comes from the doctors' prognosis: he can be expected to wake within a few weeks. The Meaning Theory proposition says so itself: "This proposition is a one-way negation." What it blocks is the inference from incapacity to the exit of the position; "it does not say of every state that cannot be judged that the relation must continue"; the distinction it borrows, between the thickness of standing and the bandwidth of exercise, holds only while the carrier remains within the domain of quantification, and "whether the carrier still does, it itself places outside its criterion" (Meaning Theory P4, the Y28 section).
So one branch must be considered. Suppose that the doctors' judgment turns into "whether he can recover cannot be judged." Then neither branch is entered: he is not a subject-to-be, and the factual antecedent "for a time cannot exercise it himself" is no longer there. This kind of state, a persistent disorder of consciousness, a progressive decline, this series does not judge; it leaves it unanswered, as Meaning Theory does. "Not entered" says that the root this paper gives does not cover it; it does not say that nothing may then be done, nor that anything at all may be done. Where substitute exercise has already begun and the antecedent turns into one that cannot be judged, the next review must state, on the facts, that the root this paper gives no longer covers its continuation.
Care and substitute exercise kept apart. Back to the child. The Department pays for his housing, meals and school fees, and the foster family looks after his daily life: this is care. Care has a face of supply, and also a face of convergence. On Rights and Entitlements, treating the infant, says: "Being reared divides, by whether the vector of action is converged, into two faces—the supply-face landing at entitlement, the converging-face at a delegated-holding recognition-based right" (On Rights and Entitlements F34). The decisions a caregiver makes for an infant "really do converge the infant's vector of action, and that is a real power" (ibid.); the gate by which the infant should recognize or refuse this power is for now exercised by the network. Applied to this child: signing for him and fixing where he goes are converging his space of action, and that is a real power; the gate by which he should recognize or refuse this power is for now guarded for him by the Department, and that is substitute exercise, which falls under this proposition. The converging face of the foster family's daily care also lies within this gate. Housing, meals and school fees are supply, and belong to Paper 3 (G21). One and the same thing can have both faces; this is a division of analysis into faces, not a cutting of care into two heaps. F34a speaks of exactly this division: for a maturing child, drawing once and for all, by a fixed threshold, what counts as entitlement and what as recognition-based right risks misclassification (On Rights and Entitlements F34a).
The same place also says: "Caregiver, guardian-network, and reviewing node must be told apart in analysis" (On Rights and Entitlements F34). The foster family is the caregiver, the Department the guardian network, the family division the review node. The reason for keeping them apart that study writes out concretely: a caregiving node in the act of crossing a boundary cannot at once colonize and, independently, withdraw its own power on the infant's behalf; "the function of replacement must fall on another node not crossing" (ibid.). Independent checking has its upstream here. In this example the Department both makes the decisions of guardianship and guards the gate for the child, so the function of replacement can fall only on the family division; the family division and the Department both belong to Apple City, and independence between the two is checked, by Institution Theory Z34, against the party actually questioned.
Three limits. Substitute exercise has a root, and it also has limits. There are three.
The first: oriented toward return. Institution Theory, treating asymmetric assistance, set a direction: "Asymmetric assistance has a direction: what is withdrawn is dominating dependence, the occupation of another's office of constitution, and local restrictions that have lost their grounds" (Z26). This proposition originally stands in Institution Theory Paper 4 and speaks of assistance under the third ought; applying it to substitute exercise is a step of this series (extension; own undertaking). The ground for the extension is that the two share a form: in both, one party does for another what the other cannot do at this moment, and the relation is asymmetric by nature. The difference is that assistance gives, while substitute exercise converges in his stead; so of the three items, two can be carried over directly, and "dominating dependence" cannot (below). In being extended, the modality changes too. The third ought lies on the side of "striving for," and the conditions on that side can be prioritized (Paper 3, G24); once orientation toward return is extended to substitute exercise, it is a limit on compulsion, belongs through G13 to the first ought, and lies on the side of "holding to" ("holding to" is taken in the wider sense; see the Prequel, §8); it is not discounted for lack of resources, and it is not a condition on the third ought's side that can be prioritized. This assignment is derived; the two items carried over directly each go by one sentence of G13: to act for him in an item he can already exercise himself is to ghostwrite his function, and goes by the F21 line in G13 ("exclusion, ghostwriting, or redrawing by an outside force is violation without exception," Rights Theory P5 F21); to go on restricting him once the root is gone is what G13 calls excessive compulsion. A shortage of staff and funds is no reason to go on acting for him and be slow to hand back.
One item is the occupation of another's office of constitution. What the child grows during the guardianship is his, not entered under the Department's name, and the Department does not thereby acquire a position from which to decide for him where he is going. Whatever he becomes able to do himself, the Department withdraws from that thing. The statements in the family division's proceedings are now made for him by the Department; as far as he can speak for himself, so far they are handed back to him (see also Value Theory's first signal below).
Another is local restrictions that have lost their grounds. Institution Theory Z26 says: "Whether a restriction has lost its grounds is judged by whether the problem it was meant to solve is no longer there; its origin does not vouch for it." Suppose that a year later the father applies to resume visits, and the child says he is willing. This restriction has two faces. The face directed at the father is stopping, and whether it stays depends on whether the harm is still there (G10); only the face that keeps the child from seeing his father when he himself wants to is a local restriction within substitute exercise, checked by this clause of Z26. Here the two faces come down to one question: is the problem that restricting their meetings was meant to block still there? That is for the family division to check, and this series does not judge it in the court's place. What must be held is this: why the restriction was set up in the first place does not vouch for whether it should still be there today. That the child is willing is something he can say himself; it does not on its own decide the outcome, but it cannot be left out of the count.
The remaining item, dominating dependence, cannot be carried over directly. Institution Theory Z26 states that dominating dependence "has as its antecedent a grid that the construct has actively imposed within this relation." Dependence within substitute exercise mostly arises from the person's not being able to exercise the function himself at this moment: a nine-year-old needs someone to sign for him; a person in a coma needs someone to decide for him. Dependence of this kind is no grid. Whether it is dominating must be checked separately by Z26's antecedent: whether the Department has, within this relation, imposed some further barrier that leaves the child able to depend only on it, for instance by cutting off contacts he had before that did not need to be cut. That the child depends on the Department does not license judging that the Department dominates him.
The last sentence of Institution Theory Z26 applies as well: "Not all continuing supply is judged incomplete, nor is unlimited supply required" (Institution Theory marks it there as its own undertaking). That a substitute exercise lasts a long time does not by itself show that it is not heading toward return; nor does it on that account have to go on without limit.
For the subject-to-be branch there is one readable signal. Value Theory, treating pre-occupation, lists three signals readable in the present, the first of which is "whether there is an arrangement transferring the authority to interpret as the first-person position matures" (Value Theory P3 V38). The Department's protocols require that the child's views be heard and recorded in the file, and the family division reviews every six months; whether these together make an arrangement that hands matters back to him as he grows must be looked at as it actually is.
Power Theory has marked a class of intermediate states, and its examples are exactly education, administrative trusteeship and therapeutic restraint: "the lock is temporary and self-liquidating, with a scheduled path of return" (Power Theory P6 §I). The same paper reads this path of return as an appeal path: where there is one, the temporary lock does not constitute means-position (Power Theory P6 §III). That is a structural reading and issues no normative license; that paper also states of itself: "This paper does not unfold the intermediate states; it only marks their place." "A scheduled path of return" is a structural feature of that class of intermediate states in Power Theory P6, not a requirement; taken as a requirement, it would demand more than Institution Theory Z22; it and Z22 are not a strong and a weak form of one and the same thing; it is neither taken by default nor left to the Theory of the State. Here it is taken only as concurring: a substitute exercise that has neither a path of return nor a path of appeal is already no longer in the intermediate state.
The second: not drawn once and for all by a fixed binary threshold. This limit is written in two branches.
The subject-to-be branch. On Rights and Entitlements says that "to impose on a subject-to-be on the continuous stretch between exercise-by-network and exercise-by-self an externally fixed, non-defeasible, cross-situationally uniform binary threshold, dividing once and for all what counts as entitlement and what as recognition-based right, systematically produces a risk of misclassification"; the last sentence of the same proposition says: "A threshold that can be overturned by the facts of a case, judged item by item, and kept open to appeal and review is not in this class, and does not necessarily misclassify." (On Rights and Entitlements F34a) That proposition draws the line between entitlement and recognition-based right; in this series' use, the threshold draws which functions are exercised in the person's stead and which by the person himself. The ground for carrying it over lies in F34a's own reason: misclassification comes from the range of the gate's self-exercise shifting gradually, by matter and over time; F33 says: "What is gradual is the negation-gate's function—the range of its self-exercise, its stability, its capacity to partition domains." The line between substitute exercise and self-exercise is this range of self-exercise itself, and a fixed threshold cannot keep pace with it either. Value Theory, on the domain-wise division of avowal, has already read F34a and its own criterion this way: "The two are one mechanism read out in two places" (Value Theory P3, the V38 section); this is the third reading (extension; own undertaking). A threshold that cuts by age alone, regardless of the matter, and cannot be rebutted, is a threshold of that kind. This child's list is drawn up by matter and reviewed every six months; whether the child, or someone speaking for him, can appeal against this list, and whether it can be overturned by the facts of a case, must be looked at as it actually is. Only if all three are there is it in the exempt class.
This limit governs only the line between substitute exercise and self-exercise; the line of the child's body and growth is not blurred on that account. The elaboration of F34a draws this edge itself: the blur there "licenses only the line's shifting gradually in time, and licenses no fudging at any moment," and "covers only the axis of care and authority, and does not spill onto basic rights" (On Rights and Entitlements, F34a elaboration).
For the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises, the corresponding limit lies in F35 itself: re-delegation of a function is no regression of qualification. Add Y28: it may not be inferred from a coma that his position has exited. The public guardian making this one decision for him does not make him, from then on, someone treated as needing a substitute in other matters too.
The third: it does not decide for him what he is to become. This is Institution Theory's proposition on guarding: toward the protected party, "it does not draw his lines for him; once the violation is blocked, it does not decide for him what he is to become" (Z19). That proposition originally speaks of the protected party in guarding; in substitute exercise, the person in whose stead it is exercised stands in the same position: someone does things for him, and where he goes is still his own (extension; own undertaking). When the Department enrolls the child in school, which school, and what is taught first, it may decide; Value Theory says these do not bring a guardian network under pre-occupation: "A guardian network may arrange a great deal of what a subject-to-be can come into contact with, may choose what to teach and what to teach first, and none of this brings it under this judgment" (Value Theory P3, the V38 section). After-school activities are the child's own. What may not be done is to fix something as what he has already avowed, as the person he is going to be. Value Theory states this measure very finely: "The guardian network can maintain the accessibility of candidate contents, maintain their expression, maintain their future revisability"; "it cannot fix any candidate configuration as a first-person value content the subject-to-be has already completed" (Value Theory P2, the V20 section).
The boundary with stopping. The moment of removal is stopping; holding guardianship afterward is substitute exercise. The two are not mixed: the root of stopping lies in the harm being blocked, the root of substitute exercise in the child's own standing. Once the harm is blocked, stopping has reached its end; substitute exercise starts a chain of its own and must answer the three items afresh. Substitute exercise is likewise subject to the limits on compulsion itself (§7).
Example three: the unsafe building. The Housing Department assessed an old building on Levee Street as structurally unsafe. A resident in his seventies refused to move out. His mind is clear; he has heard the explanation through and knows the risk; he simply does not want to leave the home he has lived in for forty years.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the resident himself. Which line: where only he himself is endangered, no one else's line is being crossed; his own life is his, and the government does not draw his lines for him. Baseline: he lives here while the building is sound.
This example enters neither slot. He can judge for himself and merely disagrees, so it does not enter substitute exercise: a person is not judged to need substitute exercise because he disagrees. The half that endangers only himself does not enter stopping either: no one else's line is being crossed. What the government can do in this half is explain and provide conditions: explain the risk, explain what it can provide, and let him know where the paths are.
Suppose that the outer wall faces the street, with a risk of bricks falling and injuring passers-by. That part is a risk to others, and passes its check as stopping: close the sidewalk along the street, shore up the wall. The root is the passers-by's line. One point here is easy to slide past: if the stopping is carried all the way, it may in the end require him to leave the building; but the outcome "moving out" may not determine the root in reverse. The means are set by the passers-by's line and go only as far as blocking the bricks; one may not, because one was hoping all along that he would move, pack "hoping he will move" into the stopping.
With Kant. On a government deciding for people what is good for them, Kant has a very weighty sentence. In On the Common Saying he writes: "A government established on the principle of benevolence toward the people, as of a father toward his children, that is, a paternal government (imperium paternale), in which the subjects, as minor children who cannot distinguish what is truly useful or harmful to them, are compelled to behave merely passively, waiting, as to how they ought to be happy, merely upon the judgment of the head of state, and, as to his also willing it, merely upon his kindness: this is the greatest despotism conceivable" (my translation; Eine Regierung, die auf dem Prinzip des Wohlwollens gegen das Volk als eines Vaters gegen seine Kinder errichtet wäre, d.i. eine väterliche Regierung (imperium paternale), wo also die Untertanen als unmündige Kinder, die nicht unterscheiden können, was ihnen wahrhaftig nützlich oder schädlich ist, sich bloß passiv zu verhalten genötigt sind, um, wie sie glücklich sein sollen, bloß von dem Urteile des Staatsoberhaupts, und, daß dieser es auch wolle, bloß von seiner Gütigkeit zu erwarten: ist der größte denkbare Despotismus; On the Common Saying, Part II (On the Relation of Theory to Practice in the Right of the State), item 1 (Freedom as a Human Being), per the Weischedel edition, Werke in zwölf Bänden, vol. 11, pp. 143–165, as collected on zeno.org, the sentence spanning p. 145; sentence tier A; Academy edition page AA 8:290–291 given per the conventional citation). He goes on, in parentheses, to say that this is a constitution that abolishes all the freedom of the subjects, who then have no rights at all; and, against it: "Not a paternal but a patriotic government (imperium, non paternale, sed patrioticum) is the only one that can be thought for human beings capable of rights, at the same time with regard to the benevolence of the ruler" (my translation; Nicht eine väterliche, sondern eine vaterländische Regierung (imperium, non paternale, sed patrioticum) ist diejenige, welche allein für Menschen, die der Rechte fähig sind, zugleich in Beziehung auf das Wohlwollen des Beherrschers, gedacht werden kann; ibid.). Action Theory Paper 0 cites this sentence (at second hand) and says that "Kant's sentence is about government" (Action Theory Paper 0, §3.2). Here the original is taken.
The common question: may a government judge for people what is good for them, and on what grounds? For those who can judge for themselves, it is the same question; of children, and of those who for a time cannot exercise a function themselves, Kant's sentence does not speak directly, and here the difference is one of scope, not opposition.
How far the agreement goes: this series accepts the judgment of this sentence. To treat people who can judge for themselves as children who cannot tell what helps them from what harms them, leaving them only to wait on the head of state's judgment and the head of state's kindness, this series too judges to be a line-crossing: for a dimension a person has encapsulated, "exclusion, ghostwriting, or redrawing by an outside force is violation without exception" (Rights Theory P5 F21). The old man in the unsafe building is just what Kant's sentence calls one of the "human beings capable of rights."
They part at the slot of substitute exercise, and what parts them is scope. Kant's sentence speaks of a government that governs people capable of rights as though they were minor children; substitute exercise speaks of a child, or of a person who cannot at this moment exercise a function himself, and of one function in one matter. Their roots differ: the principle of paternal government, in Kant's own word, is "benevolence" (Wohlwollen); the root of substitute exercise is the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised. Their limits differ too: paternal government decides for people "how they ought to be happy"; substitute exercise is precisely barred from deciding for him what he is to become (the third limit), and does not register him as needing a substitute because he disagrees (the clause on entering the slot).
This paper drafts the strongest objection from Kant's side: every paternal government will say this of itself: "we act only in these few items," "there is a term," "we will hand it back when you grow up." The name has changed; a government judging for people what is good for them has not.
Reply: the difference lies not in the name but in a structure that can be checked. The three items to be proved must be written into the chain, and if which function, why at this moment, and who under what authority cannot be answered, there is no substitute exercise; the part the person can exercise himself must be recorded and not acted for; checking must fall on a node other than the one exercising in his stead; return rests on re-examination when the term runs out, not on origin; and someone who can judge for himself and merely disagrees does not enter. If these are missing, substitute exercise falls back into the judging-for-others that Kant opposes, and this series judges it a line-crossing. Nor does the name "substitute exercise" itself exempt it from inspection. Institution Theory says that an institution "may not close off the conditions of questioning and correction on the grounds that it claims to cultivate, that it has already reformed, or that its aims are right" (Z37); to claim "this is only substitute exercise" cannot close them off either.
With Mill. Mill's harm principle sets up an exclusion here. He says that "this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties" (On Liberty, ch. 1, para. 10, same source; tier A); he is not speaking of children; "Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury" (ibid.).
This series does not rely on this exclusion. Mill places children and the like outside the domain to which his doctrine applies, and says separately that they are to be protected; this series handles substitute exercise item by item within its own framework of standing and function: the child's standing is there now (F33). Of the adult in a coma this passage of Mill does not speak; this series places him within the same framework too (F35). Substitute exercise has a root of its own and limits of its own. Mill's sentence does not divide into items, and "protected against their own actions" reads as given all at once; substitute exercise is given item by item, and the items the child can exercise himself are not acted for. This is where they part.
The converse must also be made clear: this series cannot claim to have overthrown the harm principle by deleting his exception. That exclusion is part of his principle, and he himself states its range; that a principle carries an exception does not mean it is wrong.
Handover and taking on. In the slot of substitute exercise, the upstream has sent out one item. Value Theory, treating pre-occupation, says: "How a guardian ought to act, and what obligations it bears, this paper does not judge. That is the object of the practical critique." (Value Theory P3 V38); and in its §VIII it sends "what obligations a guardian network bears at a subject-to-be" to the practical critique as well (Value Theory P3 §VIII). The Second Critique has examined these two items (The Second Critique, Ch. 5 §3) and registers: of the first, "If what is asked is an ought addressed to the guardian, it is lateral and is not discussed"; of the group in which the second stands, "the other two belong to the group and institutional layer, no address yet" (The Second Critique, Appendix II; see also Ch. 6 §7).
This series takes on part of the "guardian network" slot, the part that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch: what the upstream sent out is guardianship at the subject-to-be. The upstream asks what duty is borne; this series does not write "the government's duty"; to the construct it answers with ought and limit, and to the positions within the construct with accountability (the Prequel, §8), and in this series' sentence forms it answers the part of that question that falls in the government's slot. It is registered in the Prequel (the Prequel, §9) and answered in this proposition. The branch of those whose gate already self-exercises is not within what was sent; this series derives it from F35 (extension; own undertaking), and it is not within what is taken on. The guardian's personal ought is not taken on: the social worker, the foster family and the public guardian each have their own law, and this series writes no ought for persons; the public positions in which the social worker and the public guardian sit hold accountability (Paper 1, G2). Nor does this series settle the item on the Critiques' behalf: the parts of the guardian-network slot other than the government as a construct remain, as The Second Critique registers them, with no address yet.
G12a Substitute exercise enters the slot by function, not by the name of the setting: where a function that properly belongs to the self-exercise of the person in whose stead it is exercised cannot yet, or for a time cannot, be exercised by him in the present matter, a public position exercises this function for the time being, without acquiring its first-person ownership. Neither the name of the setting nor the person's disagreement establishes that substitute exercise is needed; where one and the same disposition also has a side of stopping or of enforcement, each side passes its own check. The three items to be proved stay within the proof-task chain: which function; why substitute exercise is needed at this moment; who exercises it for the time being, and under what authority; the part the person can exercise himself, independent checking, and the paths of re-examination and return are checked along the chain as well. The root is the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised: it gives the answer to whom substitute exercise must serve and what it may not cancel, and does not on its own answer why this function must at this moment be exercised in his place by this public position; that is what the three items to be proved must answer. The root has two branches: the subject-to-be; those whose gate already self-exercises but who for a time cannot exercise it themselves (extension; own undertaking). "For a time" is a factual antecedent to be checked separately case by case, not derived from Meaning Theory Y28; a state in which it cannot be judged whether recovery is possible enters neither branch, and this series does not judge it. The supply face of care and the converging face of substitute exercise are kept apart, the supply face belonging to Paper 3, G21; caregiver, guardian network and review node are kept apart. There are three limits. The first is orientation toward return (extension; own undertaking): "the occupation of another's office of constitution" and "local restrictions that have lost their grounds" are carried over directly, "dominating dependence" is checked separately by the antecedent in Institution Theory Z26, and not all continuing substitute exercise is judged incomplete, nor is it required to go on without limit; once extended, orientation toward return is a limit on compulsion, belongs through G13 to the first ought, and lies on the side of "holding to"; it is not discounted for lack of resources, and it is not a condition on the third ought's side that can be prioritized. The second: for the subject-to-be branch, which functions are exercised in the person's stead and which by himself is not drawn once and for all by a binary threshold externally fixed, non-rebuttable, and used uniformly across situations (extension; own undertaking); for the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises, the limit is that re-delegation of a function is no regression of qualification. The third: it does not decide for him what he is to become (extension; own undertaking). The moment of removal is stopping; holding guardianship afterward is substitute exercise; substitute exercise is likewise subject to the limits of G13. This proposition takes on part of the "guardian network" slot, the part that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch; it does not take on the guardian's personal ought, nor does it settle the item on the Critiques' behalf.
§7 Compulsion Itself Must Be a Limit
Apple City has a residential complex called Orchard Court. The complex has an owners' assembly, which adopts and amends the complex's covenant, and an owners' committee, elected by the owners, which makes decisions enforcing the covenant and gives instructions to the property-management company; the contracted property-management company provides property services under the service contract. The owners pay the management fee into the complex's (the owners' committee's) account, and the owners' committee pays the service fee to the property-management company. The complex's facilities include a clubhouse, surface parking spaces, and the entry systems of its buildings.
In Year 3, the owners' assembly adopted a new covenant. It provides that a household six months in arrears on the management fee is fined monthly and loses the use of the clubhouse and of the surface parking spaces; the owners' committee makes the decision, and the property-management company carries it out on its instructions. How the period is counted, how much the monthly fine is, and from which day the suspension runs, the owners' committee sets in detailed rules. The covenant has a further clause: an owner who sells a home must have the owners' committee's written consent, and the owners' committee may refuse "to maintain harmony in the complex." A household in arrears can sue the owners' committee in the City Court, but must hire a lawyer, and a first-instance case usually takes a year.
This series counts the residential complex as a government, bringing it in by the public decision-making and carrying-out functions it actually carries (the Prequel, §7). When the property-management company carries out the suspension and the fines under the covenant and on the owners' committee's instructions, this counts as the complex enforcing the covenant itself; when the company acts on its own under the service contract, it is a construct, not a government. Whether the enforcement of the covenant requires a separation of powers is taken up in Paper 4 (G26); the clause on selling a home will also come back in Paper 4 (G28).
In Year 6, one household in the complex was twelve months in arrears on the management fee. The owners' committee decided to deactivate this household's entry cards for its building; each time the household goes in or out, a member of the property staff opens the door, and after 10 p.m. no one opens it. The household's elderly mother lives with them.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the household in arrears and the family members living with them. Which line: what is cut is the way in and out of their own home, not some facility subject to agreement. Baseline: the coming and going of residents who pay their fees on time.
First, matter and authority. The dispositions the covenant lists are fines and suspension from the clubhouse and the surface parking spaces; the entry system is not among them. But this case goes beyond authority: even if the covenant had written in the entry system, this cutting off would not pass.
Because it crosses the line. Of the three conditions Rights Theory sets for a limit, one is that a constraint "closes no dimension already incorporated into the thick layer" (Rights Theory P5 F21). A home is itself a resource; resources "do not enter the thick layer however important they are" (Rights Theory P5 F20; §4). But the same proposition goes on to draw the other half: "that resources do not enter the thick layer does not mean that action through resources cannot reach it"; "Actively severing, intercepting and gatekeeping, or exclusively monopolizing the subject's existing maintenance circuit, so that an already incorporated dimension is closed, is typed by the dimension it closes, and is violation." (Rights Theory P5 §II, F20 elaboration)
The clubhouse and the parking spaces are facilities subject to agreement; with them suspended, the household still lives at home. The entry system is different: the building's door is the household's way home. Deactivating the household's entry cards is exactly the gatekeeping spoken of there. This is not suspending a service: with the cards deactivated, the door stays locked, whether it is opened is decided each time by the property staff, and after 10 p.m. it is not opened. The door is the household's way to its own home, not something the owners' committee supplies; the committee has not withdrawn from a supply, it has taken hold of whether the door opens. Being able to get in and out of their own building's door is the existing maintenance circuit by which this family lives settled in its own home; every night after 10 p.m., whoever comes home late cannot get in, and whoever is at home cannot get out, and this circuit is cut at night. What is closed is the night-time maintenance of one dimension of the life-substrate: this family's bodily rest and safety depend on being able to get in and out of their own home. This is not a matter of whether a facility can be used: "the substrate dimensions themselves lie within the thick layer" (Rights Theory P5 F19).
"Closing" has its threshold. The elaboration of F21 says: "Closing is not one exercise being restricted, nor a local constraint within one field; it is rendering an incorporated dimension no longer able to unfold as a dimension, or structurally severing the subject's practice, capacity, and channels of recovery in that dimension. Constraints that are local, reversible, open to questioning, and re-concretizable at the encounter boundary can still be limits; only the structural severing of a dimension's unfolding or recovery is closing." (Rights Theory P5 §III, F21 elaboration) This cutting off is not a single instance: it happens every night, set unilaterally by the owners' committee. Nor is it a local constraint within one field: what they are shut out of is their own home, not a facility that can be gone around. Nor is recovery in this family's own hands: the elderly mother who lives with them owes no fee, and has no account of her own to pay off; and even if the door were reopened once the arrears were paid, being let through on payment is precisely the gatekeeping itself, not the channel of recovery F21 speaks of. The paths of asking that are open are representations to the owners' committee that made the disposition, or a lawsuit whose first instance takes a year, and the cutting off at night cannot wait for either. This is structural severing, not a single restriction. So it falls under that clause of F21: this family's practice of exercise and channels of recovery in this dimension are structurally severed at night; by the elaboration of F21, this is closing, and is violation.
That a family, an elderly woman among them, cannot get in or out of their own door at night makes this cutting off heavier. This is only an aggravation; the criterion does not rest on it: whether this cutting off has pressed anyone's life-substrate to the point of threatening the bearer, this paper does not judge. And there is the elderly mother: she does not owe this fee, and another's arrears cannot simply be made the whole ground for restricting her; who bears it, who is protected, alternatives and remedies must still be answered separately (§4). In this example, this cutting off has already been checked by F20 and F21 above and found to cross the line.
Pressing for real arrears can have grounds; fines, if they can be retraced to a negative root (§4), can have grounds too. But here grounds cannot save the means. Institution Theory says that guarding itself must be a limit: "Guarding is an act of the construct and falls under the first ought" (Z15); the line of the first ought governs all of a construct's own acts, compulsion included (Z9). An act of compulsion must first pass the first link of the chain of §1.
The limits on compulsion have one layer toward each of the two parties.
Toward the party compelled: compulsion likewise does not cross the line of F21, and does not seal off his channels of exit, refusal and revocation. The second boundary of that section of the first version is here too: "excessive coercion is itself an infringement upon the violator's subjecthood" (F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government)); by the extension of §2, it covers everyone compelled. The pinning down outside the bar is the same: once the man with the bottle had been pinned and cuffed, what was to be blocked had been blocked; any force added after that has no ground to retrace to. Whether that pinning down was excessive is for the lawsuit of §10 to judge.
Toward the protected party: it does not draw his lines for him, and once the violation is blocked, it does not decide for him what he is to become (Institution Theory Z19; §6).
One reading must also be headed off here. The channels of F21 are not an individual's immediate veto over every order. Rights Theory sets a threshold for "sealing off": "it is not the presence in a relation of terms, procedures, conditions, or costs of exit; it is the subject no longer holding a structural channel for refusing, revoking a standing bond, or passing into a reviewable procedure" (Rights Theory P5 §III, F21 elaboration). The household in arrears cannot make a fine lapse by refusing it; the grocery store owner cannot void the freeze by saying "I do not agree." What F21 requires them to keep is that, after refusing, there is still a path by which the matter can be passed into a reviewable procedure. A fine has consequences; that is not sealing off.
So an act of compulsion must be checked segment by segment. Within one and the same disposition, the segment that acts on actions that may be restricted and the segment that touches a subject position or line that cannot be overwritten are judged separately. The Tax Office's freezing of the account acts on an action that may be restricted, the control of the account; leaving an amount for basic living is the segment that keeps this disposition off the line. Suppose that the owners' committee merely gave this household a different way of opening the door: that is one segment; making the household unable to get home at night is another. The latter is not carried through because the former has grounds. Paper 1 says that one person's disagreeing does not by itself cancel the validity at the second layer of a decision that is made under valid authority and procedure and restricts only actions that may be restricted, and that subject positions that cannot be overwritten are not among these (Paper 1, G6). What this section says is how that "not among these" is checked.
G13 Compulsion itself must be a limit. Toward the party compelled: compulsion likewise does not cross the line of Rights Theory P5 F21, and does not seal off his channels of exit, refusal and revocation; excessive compulsion is itself an infringement upon the subjecthood of the one compelled (extension; own undertaking; see G9). Toward the protected party: it does not draw his lines for him, and once the violation is blocked it does not decide for him what he is to become. The channels of F21 are not an individual's immediate veto over every order: terms, procedures, conditions and costs of exit do not amount to sealing off. An act of compulsion is checked segment by segment: the segment that acts on actions that may be restricted and the segment that touches a subject position or line that cannot be overwritten are judged separately; the latter is not carried through because the former has grounds.
§8 Compulsion Does Not Maintain a Direction
In Year 6, the City Council passed an ordinance: new public-housing tenants must attend six sessions of the "Apple City Spirit" course and, at its end, sign the Declaration of Identification with Apple City Values; those who do not sign are fined, and their lease is not renewed the following year.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: new public-housing tenants. Which line: requiring a signature of identification touches the tenant's own law; punishing someone for not wanting to avow it inwardly crosses the line. Baseline: moving in with no direction attached.
This case is not hard to judge. The fine and the non-renewal punish no particular action; they punish not identifying. This is just what the compelled obedience of §2, taken in the narrow sense, looks like: requiring the other party to take the government's ends as his own law. For a dimension a person has encapsulated, "exclusion, ghostwriting, or redrawing by an outside force is violation without exception" (Rights Theory P5 F21). In form, the course looks like teaching; that this case crosses the line is judged not by name but first by the line. The side of it that poses as education can, in the narrow sense, be called colonization.
Institution Theory, treating the provision of conditions, set up the same line: "once a condition carries the demand 'accept this direction of development,' it becomes ghostwriting by an outsider"; an institution's support may hope that people develop, but "it may not require the other party to take a designated direction of development as his own" (Z27). It also says: "writing 'identify with us' as a demand oversteps the blank that support leaves" (Z31). This case is one layer heavier than those two places: they speak of support with conditions attached, this case is compulsion with a direction attached. If support with a direction attached is already ghostwriting, compulsion with a direction attached is all the more so (a fortiori; extension; own undertaking). Public housing is a supply, and tying lease renewal to a declaration of identification is checked separately by G19 and Institution Theory Z27 (Paper 3 lays down only the three things and does not take up this example again); here only compulsion is spoken of.
Moral Law, treating a stage of community not yet arrived, draws a very clear dividing line: "Default = topological availability, not physical enforcement." And: "Separating 'default availability' from 'enforcement' is critical." It goes on to say that a community that uses compulsion to maintain that "default" becomes an authoritarian utopia (Moral Law P8 §3.4.2; this sentence in the original carries the series' internal numbering, so it is paraphrased here). "Maintain" there means using compulsion to make people take that channel, which the original calls "enforcement," not blocking those who obstruct the channel. That place speaks of one stage of a community, and "default" means a channel always open and accessible to anyone. Extending it to government is a step of this series (extension; own undertaking): a government has compulsion in its hands, and for it this point matters most.
So compulsion may protect channels; it may not maintain a direction. A government may use compulsion to block those who obstruct a channel (§9); it may not use compulsion to make people walk into a direction. The direction is the Kingdom of Ends, which "is made by persons; an institution cannot make it on their behalf, nor does it count as made because an institution declares it" (Institution Theory Z39). A direction maintained by compulsion is no longer that direction.
Suppose that the course were only an explanation of fire safety and waste sorting, requiring attendance and no signature. That is a demand for external action, and does not enter this proposition. It goes back to §4 to be checked separately: what the compulsion requiring attendance can retrace to; how that layer of burden is answered toward new tenants who have not crossed the line. Institution Theory also says that particular skills, role tasks and service agreements with a fixed term are checked separately, each by its own source (Z27).
G14 Compulsion may protect channels; it may not maintain a direction. Once a condition or a penalty carries the demand "accept this direction," taking not identifying or not signing as the ground for a penalty, it is ghostwriting by an outsider and crosses the line (extension; own undertaking); a government has compulsion in its hands, and for it this point matters most. A rule that requires only external action does not enter this proposition and goes back to G11 to be checked separately.
§9 Protect First
In one building at Orchard Court, the neighbors upstairs and downstairs had quarreled for three months over a leak. One evening the resident upstairs blocked the resident downstairs in the stairwell and said: "Go to the management again and you won't get out of this door." The resident downstairs called the police. The City Police Department sent a patrol officer to the scene, who separated the two and helped the resident downstairs apply to the City Court for a temporary protection order.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the resident downstairs; the resident upstairs. Which line: the interrupting, exiting and speaking of the resident downstairs, together with the path of raising matters with the management, begin to be compressed. Baseline: an ordinary dispute between neighbors before the threat, which can be handled reciprocally.
Three months of quarreling is a matter between two people. Who should fix the leak is something they can talk over themselves, take to the management, or take to court; the government need not step in. After that sentence in the stairwell, the situation changed.
The Conflict Treatise, treating graded handover, wrote of this slot: "Once asymmetric operations begin to compress my capacity to interrupt, to exit, to speak, or my basic conditions, this treatise no longer hears the case alone." "At that point it runs in parallel with, or hands over to, the Power Series, rights mechanisms, law and safety mechanisms." "Protection may come before any reciprocal handling." (Conflict Treatise §5) How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible writes the same place as a handover: when physical safety, basic livelihood or the exit channel suffers actual suppression, "protect first, then transfer to a procedure with the corresponding authority" (F5 v2 §5.4).
That section of the Conflict Treatise speaks of graded handover between two persons: two laws collide, and on reaching this slot, that treatise no longer handles it alone. This series extends it to a government's stopping (extension; own undertaking). The ground for the extension lies in the original itself: it states that at this point it "runs in parallel with, or hands over to, the Power Series, rights mechanisms, law and safety mechanisms"; a government's stopping is one of the law and safety mechanisms spoken of there. This is where a government's stopping is called in. The patrol officer separating the two is protecting first; helping to apply for the protection order is then handing over to a procedure with the corresponding authority. The dispute over the leak has not disappeared on that account, and can still be handled reciprocally as before; protecting first does not settle its account.
"Protect first" says when, not who. Not every compression automatically authorizes any government at all to intervene. Who protects goes back to the second link of the chain of §1: matter and authority.
In this case, protection comes from the City Police Department, and the protection order is issued by the City Court. The owners' committee does not thereby acquire compulsion. The residential complex counts as a government in this series, but what its covenant lists is management fees, facilities and the sale of homes (§7), and threats to the person in the stairwell are not among them; the owners' committee may not "protect" the resident downstairs by deactivating the entry cards of the household upstairs, a cutting off already judged in §7. The threat the resident downstairs faces falls precisely on the path of "going to the management again"; guarding that path depends on a position with authority over threats to the person, not on the layer where the management sits stepping in by itself.
G15 When asymmetric operations begin substantially to compress one party's interrupting, exiting, speaking or basic conditions, protection may come before any reciprocal handling: protect first, then hand over to a procedure with the corresponding authority. This is where a government's stopping is called in (extension; own undertaking). "Protect first" says when, not who: not every compression automatically authorizes any government to intervene; who protects goes back to the link of matter and authority.
§10 Adjudication and Its Limits
On that night outside the bar, the man who was pinned down suffered a broken wrist. He later sued the City Police Department, saying the patrol officer had used excessive force. The judge hearing the case was nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. The losing party can appeal to the state court.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the plaintiff; the patrol officer; the City Police Department. Which line: compulsion itself must be a limit; whether the force went beyond what was necessary. Baseline: restraint within the necessary limit.
An act of compulsion often ends up in an adjudication. Adjudication is itself an act of the government. On what grounds does it stand, and where does it stop?
The Conflict Treatise, treating removal, wrote the conditions for handing the power of adjudication to an outside body. To cede the power of adjudication to an outside body is not a failure of subjecthood but an awareness of its boundary; but this holds only for a certain class of outside body: "a procedure both parties have acknowledged, a mechanism with lawful authority, or an institution with legitimate authority for the protection of basic rights." What is ceded must also be specified precisely: "What is ceded is the procedural power of adjudication over disputes about action, not the constitutive power over one's own law." (Conflict Treatise §27)
A government's court cannot carry this sentence over directly. The Conflict Treatise speaks of two parties handing over the power of adjudication; a government's court often adjudicates under compulsory jurisdiction, and the defendant has handed over nothing. The sixteen-year-old of §5 did not consent to being judged by the court; the court may judge him all the same. So on what grounds a court's adjudication has authority cannot be drawn from "ceding by both parties"; it must go back to the chain of §1. How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible, at the corresponding place, states that those three are "possible grounds, not an any-one-of-three that automatically confers full authority," and that "a mechanism meeting one of them must still be examined for whether it holds applicable authority in this particular matter" (F5 v2 §5.4). Extending ceding between two persons to a government's adjudication is a step undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking).
The range of adjudication is drawn by the Conflict Treatise. Arbitration can decide who uses which resource when, which action may be carried out, and how procedure is arranged; "It cannot decide which law is truer in the first person, and it cannot decide whose subject standing is higher." (Conflict Treatise §27) What the City Court has to judge is whether the force of that pinning down went beyond what was necessary. It does not judge whether the patrol officer is a rough man, nor whether the plaintiff had it coming that night; it judges the operation, not the person (Institution Theory Z19).
This case has one more layer. The defendant is the City Police Department, which is part of Apple City; the judge hearing the case was nominated by Apple City's mayor. The government is itself a party.
The Conflict Treatise has warned: "A third party selected unilaterally by the stronger side may be only an extension of that side's power." (Conflict Treatise §27) How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible states the converse just as precisely: "that a third party was nominated by one side does not by itself prove it has been captured by that side; what must be examined is whether it still acts solely on that side's will, and whether it holds independent procedure and applicable authority" (F5 v2 §5.4).
So the judge's nomination by the mayor is a relation to be checked; it does not automatically prove capture. What is to be checked follows Institution Theory's fifth ought: of independence, "what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own," and "it is checked against the party actually questioned, and when the party questioned changes level, independence must be checked again" (Z34). In this case the party questioned is the City Police Department, together with Apple City, to which it belongs. What must be looked at is: that nomination and confirmation are divided between two places, the mayor and the City Council; whether, after the appointment, the mayor can still unilaterally determine whether this judge stays or goes; whether this judge, in this case, has independent procedure and applicable authority. Appeal to the state court is a path at another level, and its independence is checked separately (Paper 4, G25: when the level changes, independence must be checked again). This paper writes only what is to be checked; it does not adjudicate this case in anyone's place.
G16 The limits of external adjudication. The Conflict Treatise speaks of two parties ceding to an outside body the procedural power of adjudication over disputes about action; a government's court often adjudicates under compulsory jurisdiction, the defendant has ceded nothing, and that sentence cannot be carried over directly. A procedure both parties have acknowledged, a mechanism with lawful authority, and an institution with legitimate authority for the protection of basic rights are possible grounds, not an any-one-of-three that automatically confers full authority; on what grounds a government's adjudication has authority goes back to the proof-task chain. The range of adjudication is drawn by the Conflict Treatise: it does not decide which law is truer in the first person, nor whose subject status is higher. Where the government is itself a party, the fact that a third party was nominated by one side does not by itself prove that it has been captured; whether it still acts solely on that side's will, and whether it has independent procedure and applicable authority, is checked by Institution Theory Z34 against the party actually questioned (extension; own undertaking).
§11 With Mill
In three places, §§2, 4 and 6, this paper has met Mill. This section looks at the three together: one principle governing all power exercised against the will, and a division by root into three kinds, each along a chain of its own: what each settles, and what each leaves.
The common question. On what grounds power is exercised over a person against his will, and where it stops. Mill's principle governs all of society's dealings with the individual by way of compulsion and control, legal penalties included, and the moral compulsion of public opinion included as well (On Liberty, ch. 1, para. 9); this paper governs only a government's compulsion. The scopes are not the same size; the question is of one kind.
How far the agreement goes. Three places.
- A person's own good is not a sufficient reason for compelling him. Mill says so; this paper's unsafe-building case reaches the same conclusion.
- A person may be compelled to give evidence. Mill says so; this paper says so too, in the enforcement slot.
- Those who cannot yet take care of themselves need someone to do some things for them. Mill says so; this paper's substitute exercise does the same thing.
Where they part. Also three places.
First, one door or three paths. Mill sets up a "sole end." So that positive acts such as giving evidence and bearing a share of the common defense can also come through this door, he counts inaction as one way of causing evil, and says that compulsion of this kind must be much more cautious (ch. 1, para. 11). There is one door, and its width rests on how the word "harm" is read. This paper sets up no "sole end": stopping, enforcement and substitute exercise each have their own root, and each go along a chain of their own. A witness who has not crossed the line is not counted here as one who causes harm; what he bears calls for one more layer of burden to be answered.
Second, exclusion or entering the slot. Mill applies his principle only to those in the maturity of their faculties, and places children and those still needing others' care outside it (outside this doctrine, with protection spoken of separately). This paper sets no exclusion: everyone is within the line; substitute exercise enters the slot by function and by matter, has a term, is oriented toward return, and does not decide for anyone what he is to become.
Third, the ground. Mill says that he forgoes whatever his argument could gain from the idea of abstract right independent of utility, and takes utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being, as the final appeal on all ethical questions (ch. 1, para. 11). This paper's root is "A human being is an end in itself" (F4 v2, Postulate One, by way of Institution Theory Z2). The grounds differ; this paper only registers this, and does not here adjudicate which is right.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). One principle restrains a government better than three roots. The harm principle opens only one door: whatever is not for preventing harm to others is not permitted, without exception. You open a separate path for "enforcement," and taxation, requisition and compelled testimony all go along it; that amounts to widening the door; with more roots, a government can always find one. Besides, for compulsion in cases of inaction I already require much more caution.
Reply. Three points.
- The width of a door never lay in the number of doors. Through Mill's one door there already pass giving evidence, sharing in the common defense, and other joint work necessary to the interest of society; they came in by reading inaction as harm. This paper puts the same things in the open: which compulsion, on which root, answering which additional layer of burden, all written out. Mill requires that exceptions of this kind have clear and grave grounds; this paper requires five more things to be answered, and among them, how loss and remedy are booked is something that passage of Mill does not ask.
- The path of enforcement is not wide. Without retracing to a negative root it does not stand, and renaming it administration does not make it stand; toward those who have not crossed the line, five more things must be answered (§4). Of the three, the widest is the maintenance of co-constructive space. Whatever goes by this one must state which piece of co-constructive space it is and how the path retraces step by step, and if this cannot be written, it does not stand; this paper itself uses it in two places, land requisition and compensation, the one as this paper's reading, the other only stated as a candidate, and neither is complete (§§4, 5). Not complete does not mean it cannot be written, and it is not judged here to fail; but until the retracing is complete, this series also gives no warrant for the qualification of this part of compulsion; it is left as a remainder (Paper 6, §8, the first of the six slots).
- This paper does not claim on this basis to have refuted the harm principle. What is gained here is a division of scope and of classification; deleting his exception would not refute him either.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has set up a working framework: every class of compulsion goes along one chain, normative ground, matter and authority, necessary and limited means, carrying out and being questioned; of the two necessary conditions in the normative ground, one is carried over from Institution Theory Z9 and the Prequel, §5, and the other is a normative undertaking of this series, proved in Paper 3 (G17, G19); both are necessary, neither is sufficient; by root, compulsion divides into stopping, enforcement and substitute exercise, after-the-fact disposition being one setting of stopping, and this division is this series' own. Within this framework, it has proved only these things: the starting material is re-established, and its "only" is not taken over; stopping blocks a line-crossing under way, and the one compelled need not first be one who crosses the line, but which grounded risk is to be prevented, and against whom the act is directed, must be stated; enforcement must retrace to a negative root, with one more layer to answer toward those who have not crossed the line; the three things of after-the-fact disposition are kept apart, compensation is grounded separately, and public prosecution does not form a "we" on everyone's behalf; substitute exercise enters the slot by function, has its root in standing, is oriented toward return, is not drawn once and for all by a fixed binary threshold, and does not decide for anyone what he is to become; compulsion itself must be a limit; compulsion does not maintain a direction; protection may come first, and who protects goes back to authority; adjudication cannot carry over ceding directly, and where the government is itself a party, the relation of appointment must be checked.
What it has not proved: how procedures are to be designed belongs to specific theories of institutions and to jurisprudence; a particular list of the authorities to compel this paper does not draw up; war goes to the Theory of the State; the root of administration and the root of taxation are written in Paper 3 (G20, G20a); the supply face of care is written in Paper 3 (G21). In the two places of land requisition and compensation, the retracing reads only as far as "the maintenance of co-constructive space," and is not complete; until the retracing is complete, this series gives no warrant for the qualification of this part of compulsion; it is left as a remainder (Paper 6, §8, the first of the six slots). A state in which it cannot be judged whether recovery is possible this paper does not judge. How a guardian personally treats others this series does not take on; the slot it takes on reaches only the subject-to-be branch. Whether the enforcement of a residential complex's covenant requires a separation of powers is written in Paper 4 (G26). On what grounds compulsion stands in an emergency still goes by this paper's chain; Paper 5 issues no separate license.
The pinning down outside the bar, the land requisition for the flood levee, and Orchard Court will be used again in the papers that follow.
The Nine Propositions of This Paper
G9 The starting material for a government's compulsion is F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government), not current upstream in F6; this series re-establishes it and aligns five points: the root hangs on F4 v2, Postulate One, by way of Institution Theory Z2; "colonization" is taken in the narrow sense, and "compelled obedience" is read first by line-crossing; "core inviolable zones" is mapped onto the line of Rights Theory P5 F21; the argument on the legitimacy of force in the previous paper, of which the first version speaks, has not been found and bears no weight; the "only" of the first boundary is not taken over, being incompatible with enforcement, and is kept only within the one kind, stopping; "compelled obedience" is taken in the narrow sense, meaning taking obedience itself as the end, or requiring the other party to take the government's ends as his own law, and a grounded demand for a particular action is not thereby barred from being enforced. The second and third boundaries are taken over as they stand for stopping and extended to everyone compelled (extension; own undertaking): excessive compulsion is itself an infringement upon the subjecthood of the one compelled; compulsion without due process is unilateral violence. Stopping, enforcement, after-the-fact disposition and substitute exercise each have their root established anew. The "matter and authority" link of the proof-task chain (normative ground, matter and authority, necessary and limited means, carrying out and being questioned; §1) is not given by the upstream and is undertaken by this series.
G10 Compulsion may block a line-crossing under way; this proposition governs only this class and is not a definition of all compulsion. Stopping is proportional and goes through due process. The one compelled need not first be one who crosses the line: the line is decided by structure, not by motive, and crossing the line does not require that anyone intend it (extension; own undertaking). This removes only the necessary condition "no crossing without intent," and does not on its own judge that a given risk is already a violation; stopping grounded in risk must state which grounded risk is to be prevented and against whom the act is directed. Stopping whose act falls on one who has not crossed the line must also pass the burden of proof of G11.
G11 Where a rule not made to block line-crossing is enforced (taxation, registration, regulation, requisition, compelled testimony), the compulsion must be retraceable to a negative root: the prevention of suppression, the safeguarding of channels for questioning, or the maintenance of co-constructive space (extension; own undertaking). Compulsion that cannot be retraced does not come to stand by being renamed administration; that an administrative aim has grounds does not on its own give the means of compulsion grounds. Where the act falls on one who has not crossed the line, there is an additional layer of the burden of proof (own undertaking): who bears it, and who is protected; what the ground is; how necessity and proportionality are judged; whether there is an alternative means, and where the time limit lies; how loss and remedy are booked. The particular compulsion must still pass along the proof-task chain.
G12 Punishment premised on "the violator is below subject status" is not accepted (F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government)). After-the-fact disposition is not a third root but one setting of stopping in time, and divides into three things: stopping effects of the crossing that are still continuing; preventing recurrence; responding to harm already done, such as by restitution or compensation. The first two are stopping; the third is grounded separately, the candidate being the retracing of G11 (the maintenance of co-constructive space), and its ground is not covertly swapped for preventing recurrence. Toward the violating party, it judges the operation, not the person, and no permanent identity is assigned to him. Public prosecution is read as initiating proceedings, by a valid public position, for those under protection (extension; own undertaking); it does not form a "we" on everyone's behalf, does not avow anyone's inner law, and does not acquire arbitrary authority from "on behalf of all subjects"; the range of authorization and of adjudication is explained by the proof-task chain.
G12a Substitute exercise enters the slot by function, not by the name of the setting: where a function that properly belongs to the self-exercise of the person in whose stead it is exercised cannot yet, or for a time cannot, be exercised by him in the present matter, a public position exercises this function for the time being, without acquiring its first-person ownership. Neither the name of the setting nor the person's disagreement establishes that substitute exercise is needed; where one and the same disposition also has a side of stopping or of enforcement, each side passes its own check. The three items to be proved stay within the proof-task chain: which function; why substitute exercise is needed at this moment; who exercises it for the time being, and under what authority; the part the person can exercise himself, independent checking, and the paths of re-examination and return are checked along the chain as well. The root is the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised: it gives the answer to whom substitute exercise must serve and what it may not cancel, and does not on its own answer why this function must at this moment be exercised in his place by this public position; that is what the three items to be proved must answer. The root has two branches: the subject-to-be; those whose gate already self-exercises but who for a time cannot exercise it themselves (extension; own undertaking). "For a time" is a factual antecedent to be checked separately case by case, not derived from Meaning Theory Y28; a state in which it cannot be judged whether recovery is possible enters neither branch, and this series does not judge it. The supply face of care and the converging face of substitute exercise are kept apart, the supply face belonging to Paper 3, G21; caregiver, guardian network and review node are kept apart. There are three limits. The first is orientation toward return (extension; own undertaking): "the occupation of another's office of constitution" and "local restrictions that have lost their grounds" are carried over directly, "dominating dependence" is checked separately by the antecedent in Institution Theory Z26, and not all continuing substitute exercise is judged incomplete, nor is it required to go on without limit; once extended, orientation toward return is a limit on compulsion, belongs through G13 to the first ought, and lies on the side of "holding to"; it is not discounted for lack of resources, and it is not a condition on the third ought's side that can be prioritized. The second: for the subject-to-be branch, which functions are exercised in the person's stead and which by himself is not drawn once and for all by a binary threshold externally fixed, non-rebuttable, and used uniformly across situations (extension; own undertaking); for the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises, the limit is that re-delegation of a function is no regression of qualification. The third: it does not decide for him what he is to become (extension; own undertaking). The moment of removal is stopping; holding guardianship afterward is substitute exercise; substitute exercise is likewise subject to the limits of G13. This proposition takes on part of the "guardian network" slot, the part that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch; it does not take on the guardian's personal ought, nor does it settle the item on the Critiques' behalf.
G13 Compulsion itself must be a limit. Toward the party compelled: compulsion likewise does not cross the line of Rights Theory P5 F21, and does not seal off his channels of exit, refusal and revocation; excessive compulsion is itself an infringement upon the subjecthood of the one compelled (extension; own undertaking; see G9). Toward the protected party: it does not draw his lines for him, and once the violation is blocked it does not decide for him what he is to become. The channels of F21 are not an individual's immediate veto over every order: terms, procedures, conditions and costs of exit do not amount to sealing off. An act of compulsion is checked segment by segment: the segment that acts on actions that may be restricted and the segment that touches a subject position or line that cannot be overwritten are judged separately; the latter is not carried through because the former has grounds.
G14 Compulsion may protect channels; it may not maintain a direction. Once a condition or a penalty carries the demand "accept this direction," taking not identifying or not signing as the ground for a penalty, it is ghostwriting by an outsider and crosses the line (extension; own undertaking); a government has compulsion in its hands, and for it this point matters most. A rule that requires only external action does not enter this proposition and goes back to G11 to be checked separately.
G15 When asymmetric operations begin substantially to compress one party's interrupting, exiting, speaking or basic conditions, protection may come before any reciprocal handling: protect first, then hand over to a procedure with the corresponding authority. This is where a government's stopping is called in (extension; own undertaking). "Protect first" says when, not who: not every compression automatically authorizes any government to intervene; who protects goes back to the link of matter and authority.
G16 The limits of external adjudication. The Conflict Treatise speaks of two parties ceding to an outside body the procedural power of adjudication over disputes about action; a government's court often adjudicates under compulsory jurisdiction, the defendant has ceded nothing, and that sentence cannot be carried over directly. A procedure both parties have acknowledged, a mechanism with lawful authority, and an institution with legitimate authority for the protection of basic rights are possible grounds, not an any-one-of-three that automatically confers full authority; on what grounds a government's adjudication has authority goes back to the proof-task chain. The range of adjudication is drawn by the Conflict Treatise: it does not decide which law is truer in the first person, nor whose subject status is higher. Where the government is itself a party, the fact that a third party was nominated by one side does not by itself prove that it has been captured; whether it still acts solely on that side's will, and whether it has independent procedure and applicable authority, is checked by Institution Theory Z34 against the party actually questioned (extension; own undertaking).
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Subjecthood Possible: Symmetry, Negativity, and Subjecthood (SAE Foundational Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18777363
Qin, H. (2026). How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible: The Subjective Conditions and Emergent Structure of Freedom (SAE Foundational Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19297847
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662 (first version, §2.4 since withdrawn; per the version record https://zenodo.org/records/19328663)
Qin, H. (2026). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270384
Qin, H. (2026). Guarding the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270766
Qin, H. (2026). Conditions (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270922
Qin, H. (2026). Between One Another (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271072
Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324
Qin, H. (2026). The Place of Judgment (SAE Action Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22974154
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
Qin, H. (2026). The Constitution and Withdrawal of Recognition-Based Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20993658
Qin, H. (2026). On the Limitation and Violation of Basic Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21212595
Qin, H. (2026). On the Cultivation and Diachronic Unfolding of Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21252863
Qin, H. (2026). On Rights and Entitlements (SAE Rights Theory, Specialist Paper) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21314907
Qin, H. (2026). On the Occurrence and Recognition of Value (SAE Value Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21437038
Qin, H. (2026). On the Colonization of Value (SAE Value Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21611154
Qin, H. (2026). The Carrier's Boundary (SAE Meaning Theory, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22738709
Qin, H. (2026). On the Severing of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20647463
Qin, H. (2026). Collective 15DD and the Four-Stage Evolution of Community Form (SAE Moral Law, Paper 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20218248
Qin, H. (2026). One's Law Meets One's Law: The Structural Origin of Law from 14DD Showdown (SAE Law Series, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548237
Qin, H. (2026). A Posterior Dialogue with Western Jurisprudence (SAE Law Series, Supplement) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19551526
Mill, J. S. On Liberty. With an Introduction by W. L. Courtney. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co. Project Gutenberg, eBook #34901. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34901
Kant, I. (1793). Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis. In W. Weischedel (ed.), Werke in zwölf Bänden, vol. XI, pp. 143–165. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977. E-text: zeno.org. Academy edition: AA VIII.
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Institution Theory (Paper 2, Z9 and Z10; Paper 3, Z15, Z17, Z19, Z22 and "Where This Paper Stops"; Paper 4, Z26 and Z27; Paper 5, Z31; Paper 6, Z34, Z37 and Z39; Paper 1, Z2); F6 v1 §2.4 (withdrawn; the author has ruled that its place is the Theory of Government); Law Series P1 BL3, §5.1; On Rights and Entitlements F33, F34, F34a, F35; Conflict Treatise §§5, 27; F5 v2 §5.4.
- Also used: Rights Theory P3 F10, P5 F19, F20 (with the §II elaboration), F21 (with the §III elaboration), P6 F26; Meaning Theory P4 Y28; Value Theory P2, the V20 section, and P3, the V38 section and §VIII; The Second Critique, Ch. 5 §3, Ch. 6 §§4 and 7, Appendix II; Power Theory P6 §I, §III; Moral Law P8 §3.4.2; Action Theory Paper 0, §3.2; F4, Postulate One (by way of Z2).
- Interfacing: Mill, On Liberty, ch. 1 (§§2, 4, 6; and the closing section); Kant, On the Common Saying, Part II (§6). Pointing back: Hobbes, Hart, Fuller, Raz (Law Series Supplement §§2–5).
- This series: takes on part of the "guardian network" slot, the part that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch; registered in the Prequel, §9, and answered in this paper's G12a. The third layer of Paper 1, G6: its side of compulsion is in this paper. The supply face, the root of administration, and taxation are handed to Paper 3 (G20, G20a, G21; how the compulsion of taxation retraces, Paper 3, §7); the enforcement of a residential complex's covenant and the separation of powers, and the requirement of consent to sell a home, are handed to Paper 4 (G26, G28); compulsion in an emergency still goes by this paper's chain, and Paper 5 issues no separate license.
- Handed to Paper 3: besides compulsion, what a government does most: guaranteeing, administration and distribution.