Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber such a logic looks like, see L. Thorne McCarty, "Permissions and Obligations: An Informal Introduction," forthcoming, North-Holland. For reasons that will appear, even if temporally indexed deontic logic dissolves the paradox, it cannot do so for the inference model. 3. Hicks, J.C., "The Liar Paradox in Legal Reasoning," Cambridge Law Journal, 29 (1971) 275-91. 4. Hart, H.L.A., "Self-Referring Laws," in Festskrift Tillägnad Karl Olivecrona, Stockholm: Kunglia Boktryckeriet, P.A. Norstedt and Söner, 1964, pp. 307-16; reprinted in his Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, Oxford University Press, pp. 170-78. 5. Raz, Joseph, "Professor Ross and Some Legal Puzzles," Mind, 81 (1972) 415-21. 6. Finnis, John M., "Revolutions and Continuity of Law," in A.W.B. Simpson (ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Second Series, Oxford University Press, 1973. 7. If a temporally indexed deontic logic that statically described the dynamic change of norms could dissolve the paradox, it would be by rigorously enforcing the requirement of temporal separation. It might succeed at this, but would for that reason violate transtemporal validation. Hence it would not satisfy the inference model. Also note that the objection based on transtemporal validation applies on both horns of the dilemma, whether we accept or reject the distinction between legal and logical contradiction. 8. Mackie, J.L., "Evil and Omnipotence," Mind, 64 (1955) 200-12; H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Oxford University Press, 1961, at 146. 9. For opposing views on the question whether the House of Lords can be abolished, see Peter Mirfield, "Can the House of Lords Lawfully Be Abolished?" Law Quarterly Review, 95 (1979) 36-58, and George Winterton, "Is the House of Lords Immortal?" Law Quarterly Review, 95 (1979) 386-92. Also see Winterton's "The British Grundnorm: Parliamentary Supremacy Reexamined," Law Quarterly Review, 92 (1976) 591-617; O. Hood Phillips, "Self-Limitation by the United Kingdom Parliament," Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 2 (1975) 443-78; and Ilmar Tammelo, "The Antinomy of Parliamentary Sovereignty", Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 44 (1958) 495-513. Geoffrey Marshall argues that the English Parliament formerly had continuing omnipotence but has edged toward self-embracing omnipotence; see his "Parliamentary Sovereignty: A Recent Development," McGill Law Journal, 12 (1966-67) 523-27. 10. Even if an AC has contingent omnipotence, it may not be supreme or "sovereign". It may share supremacy with unofficial methods of amendment, or actually be inferior to one such as judicial review. Although the paradox of self-amendment does not exist in a strong form for such ACs, reflexivity issues still abound. The federal government of the United States is a reflexive hierarchy in which some inferior rules occasionally supersede their superiors, creating circles in which mutual change and indirect self-amendment can occur. Non-supreme rules of change encounter the same logic in self-amendment as the supreme rule, but at lowered stakes. They will be mutable even without self-amendment (namely, at least by the supreme rule of change), and they will frequently be able to take advantage of wrinkles in the reflexive hierarchy to acquire a limited power over the powers that can change them, if not positively negate the checks and balances of its power by unilateral action. In Section 21.C I will explore the sense in which direct acceptance gives "lower" rules of change co-supremacy with "higher", giving each equally contingent omnipotence and giving the hierarchy complete reflexivity. 11. See e.g. Thomas Reed Powell, "Changing Constitutional Phases," Boston University Law Review, 19 (1939) 509-32. Powell believes that the illegality of the present constitution of the United States was cured by several historical accidents; see Appendix 1.D. If the current constitution had been ratified only in the terms it lays down for its own validity, however, Powell would find it an illegal constitution. 12. This type of self-amendment has actually occurred, most recently in Pennsylvania in 1967, Minnesota in 1974, Hawaii in 1978, and North Dakota in 1979. 13. Neither acceptance nor direct acceptance is equivalent to consent in the classical, Lockean sense. But acceptance is a significant variant of consent, and grounds a similar theory of legitimacy. Unjust laws may be valid by conformity to a rule of recognition and by acceptance, but they might be invalidated by the failure of acceptance even if they conform (otherwise) to a rule of recognition. Moreover, the difficulty of the amending process is a matter of degree that is inversely proportional, but only roughly, to the legitimacy of the system (see Section 2). Many factors complicate the inverse relation of amendatory difficulty and legitimacy, particularly the existence and use of unofficial methods of amendment, ignorance and indifference in the population, and the self-imposed character of some hurdles to amendment. 14. This is essentially the position that Hart takes in the essay cited in note 4 above. 15. Terminologically, a rule of law that is contingently unamended forever, but continually subject to amendment, should not be called "immutable", at least not without serious qualification. By calling it "contingently immutable" I intend to capture this qualification. It turns out that contingent immutability is equivalent to contingent mutability. 16. This is not to say that victims of oppressive laws are to blame for their condition. Any acceptance theory of legal authority and change, when fully worked out, must have a place for (1) ideological acceptance, which lacks the cognitive element of free consent, and (2) involuntary acceptance, which lacks the volitional element. The former is unfeigned, perhaps wholehearted and enthusiastic, but ignorant or delusional, and 167