Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber is true of logic, false of law. But even Ross does not allow specific authorization to erase inconsistencies; rather, inconsistencies erase the authorization and prove the invalidity of the derivation. The opposite of Ross's principle is true in law precisely because valid legal authorization can make rules legally valid without eliminating inconsistencies under the deontic or compliance tests. In other terms, self-amendment is paradoxical so long as we use the deontic or compliance tests of inconsistency, although the compliance test will find fewer cases of self- amendment to be self-contradictory than the deontic test. Neither the preemption nor obstruction tests are applicable to self-amendment, and specific authorization does not eliminate, but merely domesticates, inconsistencies. Note that all substantive changes of law involve inconsistencies under the deontic test. We do not normally wish to change any law except to forbid something formerly permissible or to permit something formerly impermissible, or to clarify just what is permissible and impermissible. In this sense all substantive legal change is contradictory in the manner of self-amendment, except that the rule of change that authorizes it is not always the law being changed. At first it may appear that Ross's principle would not forbid irreflexive legal change, since the new rule may well be consistent with the rule of change that created it and only inconsistent with its predecessor-rule. But Ross's logical method implies that ordinary irreflexive legal change is impermissible too. If a rule of change P authorizes a given rule of present law Q, then a valid inference must have been constructible from P (perhaps with other premises) to Q. If the set of premises was internally consistent, then we know that P and Q are consistent. If P is then to authorize ~Q, then the set of premises that assisted P in justifying Q will necessarily be inconsistent with ~Q and incapable of authorizing it in a valid inference. Granted, this objection requires the comparison of procedural rules of change, P, with substantive rules of conduct, Q, for consistency, which is difficult for any of the tests so far discussed. Is the federal AC consistent both with Prohibition and the repeal of Prohibition?[Note 27] Legally the answer must be yes, but Ross's presuppositions do not allow him that answer. The burden is on Ross and the logicians to show how the same set of (internally consistent) premises can authorize contradictory conclusions. By their logical criteria this is impossible. Any principle that would make ordinary substantive legal change impermissible is clearly, by legal criteria, a reductio ad absurdum. D. Self-amendment of a non-supreme rule of change Supreme rules of change sharpen the dilemma originally enunciated in Section 3 because, if they cannot amend themselves, then it seems that they cannot be amended at all. Alf Ross, we concluded, allows the amendment of constitutional ACs only on the ground that they are not actually supreme. The availability of six methods of constitutional amendment outside the AC allows the AC to be mutable even if it is not self-applicable and even if Ross's tacit, transcendent rule of change is denied. If we believe that one of the unofficial methods has actually amended the AC, then we must decide whether the AC was not actually supreme or whether it was co-supreme with the method that changed it. The importance of supremacy to the paradox of self-amendment is that, in a logical hierarchy of rules in which superior rules can change inferior rules, and possibly themselves, but in which inferior rules can never change superior rules, the supreme rule(s) of change must be self-applicable or immutable. We start with the principle, then, that a non-supreme rule of change will be mutable whether or not it is self-applicable. It may be changed at least by the supreme rule of change. But from here things quickly get complicated, for even if self-amendment is presumed permissible for all rules of change (even for the sake of argument or exploration), some non-supreme rules of change will be able to amend themselves and some will not. For example, the power to make statutes can also be used to amend statutes. But that power is partly constitutional and to that extent beyond the reach of statutes. Hence, the power to make statutes cannot change itself, at least not its constitutional basis and not by statute. But on the other side is the power to adjudicate, which is also a power to amend the rules of case law. The rules of stare decisis on the permissibility of overruling past decisions, and of departing from binding precedent, are themselves rules of case law, subject to amendment by adjudication and, more strongly, in accordance with the very rules being modified. It seems that the power to change statutes cannot amend all parts of itself while the power to change case law can. Non-supreme rules of change that are capable of self-amendment present, when self-applied, the same logic as supreme rules of change. Supremacy does not bar or even complicate self-amendment; it only raises the stakes. But there is another form of self-amendment that non- supreme rules of change render possible. A hierarchy of rules or powers may be irreflexive in the sense that the higher rules take priority over the lower in a strict linear manner, and the lower never, even indirectly, take priority over the higher. Or it may be reflexive in the sense that the lower rules occasionally do take priority over their superiors; or that the powers of the system authorize or at least check one another in a circle. A reflexive hierarchy is "reflexive" because, if inferior rules occasionally supersede superior rules, then mutual change, or indirect self-amendment, can occur. An example of an irreflexive hierarchy is the Army chain of command in which generals always supersede sergeants, and sergeants never supersede generals. Another example is a card game like bridge in which higher cards always take lower cards and never vice versa. The existence of trumps does not violate this condition; it only "customizes" it on the fly. The Army chain of command may become a reflexive hierarchy if a captain is physician to a general and entitled in that capacity to give orders to his patients. Our legal system may be a reflexive hierarchy in which, for example, legislation is subject to the veto power of the executive, and the executive is subject to the impeachment power of the legislature; or in which the courts can nullify legislation, and the legislature can frequently (but not always) overrule or disband courts; or in which the people authorize the executive and legislature by voting, which in turn authorize the judiciary by appointment, confirmation, and statutory control, which in turn checks executive and legislative action, subject to impeachment by the legislature which is subject to recall by the people.[Note 28] 93