Quote Originally Posted by juicykeyboard View Post
I had to do some law subjects when I was at uni and I was shocked that tons of common law relies on what we called "reasonable person test".

After learning about it I understand why they use these tests but still, it's kind of like an abstract idea, the "reasonable person". In life we probably meet less reasonable people than we can count on our fingers lol.
I've never studied law or even any related subject. But I have had more than a few interactions with our legal system. And it is obvious that there is no such notion as right or wrong. There are poles staked in the ground - mostly based on Judeo/Christian/Islamic ideas; such as thou shall not kill, steal or covet thy neighbour's wife. But even these are open to interpretation according to circumstance. If we were to literally accept the 10 commandments, for example, there would be no armies killing and no governments stealing (those 150 big companies that didn't pay tax last year are stealing from the Australian community).

So everything comes down to an opinion. And this is where this notion of reasonableness, or commonsense, comes in. It is so bloody arbitrary. Everyone has differing notions of reasonableness according to their own individual background and education. An obvious example are our current and immediate post Prime Ministers. Both Sydney boys, GPS educated, lawyers, privileged, Rhodes scolars, members of the Liberal party. But then their sense of reasonableness could not be further apart. I know which one I would want to appeal to if they were my judge. Really, the law is an ass.