Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber either crimes or punishments; hence, repetition can neutralize. For Bentham, it depends on the circumstances; crimes and punishments are both evil and the question is whether the good produced by the punishment outweighs its evil. Some courts have held that the independent negligence of each of two defendants in one accident is the equivalent of no negligence and no liability by either. For example, if A negligently supplies B with a car lacking brakes, but B negligently fails even to apply the brakes and hits C, then neither A nor B is liable to C. Sanders Systems Birmingham v. Adams, 117 So. 72 (1928). If A negligently fails to signal for a left turn, and if B negligently fails to look but wouldn't have seen A's signal even if she did look, and hits C, then neither A nor B is liable to C. Rouleau v. Blotner, 152 A. 916 (1931). If sexual harassment of female employees is unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, then is the equal harassment of male and female employees a double violation or no violation at all? Courts have not yet faced these facts, apparently, but dicta in earlier cases suggest that it would be a double violation. The old doctrine of recrimination in divorce law, now generally abandoned, insured that doubly broken marriages in which both spouses were at fault were less likely, not more likely, to be legally dissolved than marriages in which only one spouse was at fault. A later will inconsistent with an earlier will revokes the earlier will. If A is given money in an earlier will, and is given a different amount in a later will, then does the second gift supplement or supplant the first? Is more money "inconsistent" with less money? See Gould v. Chamberlain, 68 N.E. 39 (1903). In international law the absence of any analogue of centralized police power has given rise to a "common law" of retorsion: a violation of international law may be answered by the victim state with a retaliatory act that would otherwise be unlawful. The doctrine is unclear on the question whether retorsions are lawful acts of reprisal or unlawful acts that are tolerated for prudential reasons. Can two wrongs make a right, or only satisfaction? If incompetents can only make voidable contracts, why are they considered sufficiently competent to exercise their option to void? Is the second decision competent as a matter of law? Has the law created a fictitious competency in order to avoid a self-negating method of protecting the incompetent? Federal courts have used new quotas to remedy the harms of invidious quotas, and new gerrymandering to remedy the harms of invidious gerrymandering. This may be called a legal theory of inoculation. Why is the altered repetition of the offense a remedy in these cases, when no form of battery is thought a good remedy for mugging, beating, or rape? Is affirmative action a doubling of unlawful discrimination on sex and race lines or a justifiable remedy for earlier instances of that discrimination? To conservatives, the replication is additive (two wrongs); to liberals subtractive (a right). If the point is to treat people equally, affirmative action will be additive, a new offense; if the point is to undo the effects of past discrimination, affirmative action will be subtractive, compensation. Do conservatives and liberals differ in their logic or only in their political principles? In states with anti-gambling statutes, prosecutors frequently try to apply the statutes to those pin-ball machines that reward good scores with free replays. These prosecutors evidently believe that free replays either encourage or constitute gambling. But if pin-ball is legal at all, then only the gift of replays is allegedly illegal. The prosecutors, then, believe that "more of the same" can be too much of a good thing, and rather than multiply legal acts, actual cross the line of legality. See 89 A.L.R.2d 815. Like many other "more of the same" cases, a quantitative change becomes at some point a qualitative change, just as lowering the temperature of water by degrees gives us nothing but cold water for a while, and then suddenly gives us ice. Should a free society tolerate intolerance? The First Amendment has been interpreted to require tolerance even of those who oppose its values. But many have advocated that we draw a line at opposition to that underlying value, and cease tolerating the intolerant. Do the two camps disagree on the meaning of freedom, the strategies of preserving or maximizing it, or the logic of self-application?[Note 32] Is ordinary compliance with law an offense? What if the laws are unjust? A commonly heard justification for nonviolent civil disobedience is that it is the most just response to unjust law. This position sees violent disobedience and compliance to unjust law as additive, not subtractive, in the cumulation of evil. M. Breaking vicious circles From a normative standpoint, circular causal chains may be self-bettering or self-worsening situations. The latter are usually called vicious circles (but that term applies equally to causal and logical circles). Agents within the causal vortex are usually helpless to break or reverse the circle; on the contrary, the viciousness of vicious circles lies in the fact that those caught in them have reason or cause to contribute to their perpetuation. In a wage-price spiral, the employer and employee equally seek their interests in the self-worsening trap. Courts have frequently acted as if they were uniquely situated to break such vicious circles, as agents outside the circle with strong equity powers able to act quickly and in conformity to the needs of the special situation. Residential segregation leads to school segregation and vice versa until a vicious circle spins of itself. This circle was broken in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Bd. of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971). Inadequate education for blacks leads to poor performance on job application tests, which leads to worse jobs, lower incomes and less adequate education. This circle was 141