Reply #91: there is a host of ways of dealing with all sorts of problems

[iverglas]

"Ours" has developed in a particular direction as a result of all sorts of influences -- the origin of the concept of property itself and all of the economic structures built on that concept, the kinds of human relationships that developed in the kinds of societies we built, infusions of particular theological/ethical concepts, the success or failure of particular political ideologies (like liberalism), colonial exploration and development, and on and on.

It is highly unlikely that any one legal system contains the best of everything, since none of our present-day societies is the best of all possible worlds.

The fact that an approach to solving any particular problem is different doesn't make it necessarily worse -- but it doesn't make it necessarily as good -- but all of that is a matter of opinion anyhow. The standard against which any legal system has to be judged at present is no more absolute than it ever was; the ten commandments were just somebody's notions writ down, as is our constitution, although it is far more sophisticated and, importantly, far more coherent, as are our prevailing moral/ethical standards (e.g. an individual is not a non-person simply because of sex or colour, which makes no damned sense).

And the goodness or badness of any rule will to at least some extent depend on the circumstances in which it is applied. Some things that we find rather distasteful about other people's rules might actually be essential to the survival of another people, just as some things they find distasteful about ours might be essential to our own vision of how life should be lived.

The only thing that can be done is to establish agreement on the fundamentals, and recognize that that agreement is a process and not a product. That, after all, is why *our* constitution *is* a living tree. ;)