On the desirable degree of detail in the law

The desirable degree of detail in the law has not been previously discussed. The point of this article is to begin the discussion by raising a number of problems. The first deals with the fact that a highly detailed law cannot, of course, be remembered and, in fact, may be very hard even to discover. Second, if the law is not highly detailed, it is apt to be uncertain in marginal cases, of which there should be many. Detail can be added to the law either by judicial decision or legislation or by some kind of special body as in France. In any event, however, there will certainly be cases in which it is not clear what the law is and there will be at least some obscurities in the law. These problems are discussed and not solved in this paper. It is intended to start the discussion, not finish it.