Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber Reason first appears in possession of the throne, prescribing laws, and imposing maxims, with an absolute sway and authority. Her enemy, therefore, is oblig'd to take shelter under her protection, and by making use of rational arguments to prove the fallaciousness and imbecility of reason, produces, in a manner, a patent under her hand and seal. This patent has at first an authority, proportion'd to the present and immediate authority of reason, from which it is deriv'd. But as it is suppos'd to be contradictory to reason, it gradually diminishes the force of that governing power, and its own at the same time; till at last they both vanish away into nothing, by a regular and just diminution. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (original 1739), ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford University Press, 1888, pp. 186-87. 6. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Original 1859), Hackett Pub. Co., 1978, p. 121. 7. I owe this observation to Jaakko Hintikka, "Remarks on a Paradox," Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 44 (1958) 514-16 at p. 514. 8. See also John Hicks, "The Liar Paradox in Legal Reasoning," Cambridge Law Journal, 29 (1971) 275-91. Other scholars who argue that an AC cannot be used to limit its own power base arguments on policy grounds, not the specter of paradox. See e.g. Douglas Linder, "What in the Constitution Cannot Be Amended?" Arizona Law Review, 23 (1981) 717-33, passim and esp. at p. 733: "[A]rticle Five cannot be amended so as to create any new limitations on the amending power." Linder does not defend this proposition in its full generality, but only to the extent that "new limitations" take the form of entrenchment clauses (clauses that explicitly protect some legal rules from amendment). Linder assumes without argument (and, I will argue, wrongly) that entrenchment clauses imply self-entrenchment and that self-entrenchment clauses are immutable; from these premises he argues that entrenching the AC through self-amendment would make immutable rules that are undemocratic in a way which courts must act to prevent. See Sections 8 and 9. 9. Ross, op. cit. at pp. 7-17. 10. Ross, ibid., at p. 9. 11. H.L.A. Hart, "Self-Referring Laws," in Festskrift Tillägnad Karl Olivecrona, Stockholm: Kungl. Boktryckeriet. P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1964, pp. 307- 16, at p. 310. 12. Hart, ibid., at p. 312. 13. Ross, op. cit., at pp. 13-17. 28