【金句】Friedrich Hayek - It is because the lawgiver does not know the particular cases to which his...

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It is because the lawgiver does not know the particular cases to which his rules will apply that it can be said that laws and not men rule.

由於制定法律的人不了解他的規則將適用的具體案例，因此可以說「法律，而非人，在統治」。

額外內容

完整段落

The conception of freedom under the law that is the chief concern of this book rests on the contention that when we obey laws, in the sense of general abstract rules laid down irrespective of their application to us, we are not subject to another man’s will and are therefore free. It is because the lawgiver does not know the particular cases to which his rules will apply, and it is because the judge who applies them has no choice in drawing the conclusions that follow from the existing body of rules and the particular facts of the case, that it can be said that laws and not men rule. Because the rule is laid down in ignorance of the particular case and no man’s will decides the coercion used to enforce it, the law is not arbitrary. This, however, is true only if by “law” we mean the general rules that apply equally to everybody. This generality is probably the most important aspect of that attribute of law which we have called its “abstractness.” As a true law should not name any particulars, so it should especially not single out any specific persons or group of persons.

本書主要探討的法律下的自由概念建立在以下觀點之上：當我們遵守法律，即不論其對我們的適用性而制定的一般抽象規則時，我們就不受他人意志的控制，因此是自由的。這是因為制定法律的人不知道他的規則將適用的具體案例，而且應用這些規則的法官在從現有規則和案件特定事實中推導出來的結論時沒有選擇權，因此可以說「法律，而非人，在統治」。因為規則是在對特定案例一無所知的情況下制定的，而且沒有一個人的意志決定強制執行這些規則的方式，因此法律並不隨意變動。然而，這只有在我們用「法律」指的是一般適用於每個人的一般規則時才為真。這種普遍性可能是法律所具有的「抽象性」最重要的特點。正如真正的法律不應提及任何特定細節，它尤其也不應特別標出任何特定的個人或某一群體的人。