upposE that you, as a reasonable man, are asked whether the following
two sets of rules mean exactly the same thing. If they do and if you
intend to communicate your message as effectively as possible, which
of the two sets would you choose to state the organizational rules of your
law school?
Set 1
A. The financial committee shall be
chosen from among the general committee.
B. No one shall be a member of both
the general and library committees
unless he is also on the financial committee.
C. No member of the library committee
shall be on the financial committee.,
Set 2
A. The financial committee shall be
chosen from among the general committee.
B. No member of the general committee
shall be on the library committee.
We suspect that most readers will have little difficulty in deciding the second
question; but even after careful reading of the two sets of rules, they will
remain a little puzzled as to whether both sets say the same thing. We further
suspect that lawyers waste a great deal of their mental energy by using inadequate
and inappropriate intellectual tools to figure out similar logical problems
in their everyday work. A symbolic logician could quickly ascertain that the
two sets of rules are equivalent and relieve his mind to focus on the more important
problem of deciding which is the more appropriate choice
