Where did the law come from?

The beauty of the law.

The law is beautiful. I never really thought about it before, but after reading it, it really is something. Because it is both logical and measured, and deals with what seems to be subjective parts of reality. Let me explain.

Law started as community norms expressed in ordinary speech—“don’t steal,” “don’t kill,” “return what you borrow.” These were broad, context-dependent rules that everyone understood. As societies grew, disputes became more complex, and power structures demanded consistency. Oral norms evolved into written codes (Hammurabi, Roman law, medieval charters), which required precise wording so rules could apply uniformly and avoid arbitrary judgment.

Over time, courts, legislatures, and scholars layered precedent, statutes, and commentary. Each new case or law refined definitions, carved exceptions, and reconciled conflicts. Language became highly technical because vague rules produced loopholes, unfairness, or endless disputes. For example, “property” had to be broken into land, goods, leases, easements; “intent” into negligence, recklessness, malice. Each refinement reduced ambiguity but increased complexity.

Why is it like that? Why did we separate property, and separate intent, for example?

Property: at first it meant “things you own.” But land behaves differently than cattle, which behaves differently than money or intellectual creations. Each creates different disputes (boundaries vs trespass vs theft vs royalties), so the law carved property into narrower buckets with rules for each.

Intent: originally just “did you mean it.” But a thief and a reckless driver cause harm differently. To punish fairly, law had to separate negligence (carelessness), recklessness (disregard of risk), intent (purpose), and strict liability (no intent required). Without these distinctions, punishments would be either too harsh or too soft.

One great example of this in property I learnt last night is profit-à-prendre:

a nonpossessory interest in land similar to the better-known easement, which gives the holder the right to take natural resources such as petroleum, minerals, timber, and wild game from the land of another. Indeed, because of the necessity of allowing access to the land so that resources may be gathered, every profit contains an implied easement for the owner of the profit to enter the other party’s land for the purpose of collecting the resources permitted by the profit

Explained simply - someone sells you the right to collect resources on a piece of land. By design, you cannot collect the resources without accessing the land. As such, there is an implied easement.

Imagine the law without this precise and measured distinction. People would say “well I sold you this right to mine here but you don’t own the land so I can shoot you for illegal trespassing” or something similarly illogical. This is the beauty of the law.

I have been fascinated for a few years about reading legal cases and rulings and understanding the rationale behind them. The law was never pitched to me in this way, but after beginning to dive deeper I’ve begun to understand it is actually quite legible, especially to an engineer such as myself. There is a hierarchy of logic and doctrine which anyone can begin to understand. These legal primitives are invented and used in many specialised subdomains.

Logical argument: modus ponens/tollens, analogy, distinguishing, policy-based reasoning, precedent-based reasoning.

Standards of proof: criminal—beyond reasonable doubt; civil—balance of probabilities (with Briginshaw-style caution for serious allegations).

Sources & precedent: constitutions, statutes, regulations, common law; hierarchy of norms; stare decisis; ratio vs obiter.

Procedure & justiciability: subject-matter/personal jurisdiction; standing; ripeness/mootness; pleadings; burdens of production/persuasion.

Interpretation: text, purpose, context; mischief rule; principle of legality; canons (ejusdem generis, expressio unius).

Evidence: relevance vs unfair prejudice; hearsay and exceptions; privilege; best-evidence rule; exclusionary rules; presumptions (rebuttable/irrebuttable).

Liability models: intent/knowledge/recklessness/negligence; strict liability; vicarious liability; joint/several liability; contribution and apportionment.

Causation: factual (“but-for”, substantial factor); legal (proximate/remoteness, foreseeability, novus actus).

Contract: offer, acceptance, consideration (or reliance), intention to create legal relations, capacity, illegality; conditions vs warranties; frustration/impracticability; parol-evidence control.

Torts: duty, breach, causation, damage; standards of care; negligence per se; res ipsa loquitur; economic torts; defamation; privacy.

Crime: actus reus/omission, mens rea, concurrence; inchoate offences and complicity; defences (self-defence, necessity, duress, insanity); double jeopardy; presumption of innocence.

One of the things I find most beautiful about this is that the law can measure and consider the world in such a way to come up with consistent answers, despite the world’s inherent uncertainty, ambiguity, multiple perspectives, and unreliable observers.

As much as this seems weird to say, what if all of your experience could be interpreted through such a calm, measured, uncertainty-bearing framework? Such that you had a perfectly crisp answer to any anxiety or situation.

Maybe this is the load-bearing framework that religion used to offer us. For me, I find it quite an interesting prospect.

Aside from basic norms such as fairness, there is a greater ability to “let go” or “forgive and forget” which is quite important to adopt as part of maturing emotionally. Even being said, it is hard. And there is a greater question which asks, well, we don’t just “forgive and forget” criminals, do we?

What is it about private life and relationships that makes them so different? After all, if the law is developed from community norms, these apply in both public and private contexts.

In a certain sense, the law regulates social interaction to support social cohesion, and this can be applied at the societal level, at the family level, and at the relationship level. LindyMan talks about this as “the relationship domain”.

There are attributes to the relationship domain that only people inside can see. For example, there is an invisible scoreboard always on. This is why relationship problems look so bizarre to people from the outside. They don’t see the all the previous agreements or issues. Each partner trying to modify behavior or “get back” at the other one for past slights. To keep everything even. The relationship domain has its own logic.

Paradoxically, there is more freedom inside a relationship than outside of one. Your only job is to ensure the happiness of another single person. As long as they do not leave you can dress up like anything you want, you can have crazy opinions and you can act with extreme independence. The only limitation is not sleeping with other people.

The single domain is different. While you are free to date other people, you also can’t deviate too much from the norms of wider society. You are less free because you have to be engage in a marketplace. You’re part of society and your local environment. you haven’t built another world with your partner. You exist in whatever world is out there. Whatever culture you were born in.

I find these questions very relevant in my own life, wondering about different situations and trying to resolve them. In the coming weeks I will go on a 10 day Vipassana retreat which I’m told is a deeply clarifying experience. I should be reflecting and writing a post afterwards to compare my thinking then vs. my thinking now. Until then.