Evil Rules are Non Obligatory

This has gone beyond human logic.

It's pure theory of revenge.

1cm is 10mm and is less than 1/2 inch.

A piece of timber can be 20 feet long as if the length is more than that permissible, even by 1cm, the custom will seize the whole consignment - the whole shipment.

I could never believe that this man, Datuk Abdul Rahman Hamid, the Director-general of Customs, would, in his war against one man - the close one-eye man - go to the extent to scorched the earth, to prove his point, that those who goes against him, will be punished and trampled in hell at the 18th level below.

Abdul Rahman explained that the custom enforcers are obliged to seize an entire shipment even if only one piece of planks exceed the permissible length by a cm or two.

There is no point in him explaining a commonsense concept which takes its meanings from its very varied contexts and is well understood by everyone in those contexts. If he chose to use his authority to make stipulations against the common good or against any of the basic principles of practical reasonableness, those stipulations altogether lack the authority they would otherwise have by virtue of being his. More precisely, stipulations made for partisan advantage in excess of legally defined authority which imposes inequitable burdens on their subjects, or directing the doing of things that should never be done, simply fails, of themselves, to create any moral obligation whatever. In this way, then, it will be flatly: "Lex Injusta Non Est Lex" (i.e. "an unjust law is not a law").

Certain rules cannot be law because of their moral iniquity and nothing iniquitous can anywhere have the status of law for there cannot be an unjust law unless in the exceptional case where collateral obligation to conform to some such unjust laws are necessary in order to uphold respect for the legal system as a whole.

Legal rules must be justified by practical reasonableness simpliciter, without taking any position on the question whether those principles or rules are so justified. Lex injusta non est lex implies that compliance with the law is not justified by the derivative and defeasible principle of practical reasonableness that law imposes moral obligations. In all such matters, whatever appears to the mature man of practical wisdom really is the case.

Irresistible compulsion behavior and the unwelcome results of honest human error are not wrongs by itself. Only by choosing badly can individuals go wrong morally. Moral norms are standards for choosing well. Every choice must be grounded in some intelligible good, and to the extent is rational.

The first principle of morality as enunciated by John Finnis is that, one ought to choose and otherwise will those and only those possibilities whose willing is compatible with integral human fulfillment. Integral human fulfillment does not refer to individual self-fulfillment, but to the good of all persons and communities. The intermediate principle is the Golden Rule which requires that no one should narrow one's interests and concerns by a certain set of such feelings - one's preference for oneself and those who are near and dear. Hostile feelings such as anger and hatred towards others lead intelligent and sane person to actions which are often called stupid, irrational and childish. Spiteful actions destroy, damage and block some instantiations of basic human goods. Revenge can be fair but fairness does not eliminate the unreasonableness of acting on hostile feelings in ways that intelligibly benefit no one. Doing evil to justify some other evil in order to attain some ulterior good has the appearance of rationality. However, it is based on a false assumption. The indeterminacy of this aspect of the good utterly defies measurement.

Thus, it is unreasonable to choose to destroy, damage, or impede some instance of a basic good for the sake of an ulterior end. Avoidable limitations can be voluntarily set and accepted without any such reasons for justification of unreasonableness.