theMoMA wrote:I'm saying that the people who have knowledge of who Posner, Hart, and Dworkin are (like me, for example) aren't being rewarded by a question that says "hey, here's a really noted legal philosopher in the third word of this tossup on 'law.'"
I guarantee you that 99% of non-law-school players at EFT have no idea who either Hart or Posner are, so while they are "noted" among people who care about legal philosophy, they are certainly not noted at all among the general field at this tournament. Not to mention that you are making the mistake of assuming that just because they are legal philosophers, the answer must be "law," when in fact the answer could be any number of things.
For someone like me who has read excerpts of these guys, it really threw me off the track because I don't know their titles, but I figured a tossup on "law" would not begin this way.
Again, this makes way more sense in the context of the field of this tournament. Look, if you know enough about Hart (hehe) to be able to identify legal positivism, that's great! That actually is your knowledge earning you points, and not some nefarious attempt by me to psych you into negging. If you don't know the titles, then I guess that's too bad, but I've already explained why one cannot really do away with titles given the need for unambiguous clues. Your mistake seems to be that you are trying to second-guess my intentions in writing the question instead of buzzing in and giving the obviously right answer. Now, I know how that feels, since I often do that too, and sometimes there's justification for that. But again, given your level of experience relative to the field that was the target of this tournament, you should expect that once in a while you're going to see a clue that you know better than most other people.
So I was trying to think of what the answer was going to be ("justice," "legalism," etc). The Hart title that was given (it was either Law, Liberty, and Morality or Law, Morality, and Society) isn't a particularly well-known title of his, and so putting that clue first just seems to foster guessing.
Ok, that's just absolutely incorrect. I have no idea how you could have thought this to be the case. I'll post the text of the question below:
A work which ushered in a certain type of positivism was written by H.L.A. Hart and was titled after the “concept of” this idea. A collection of essays that advocates an empirical approach to a certain sphere of human activity is titled Overcoming this concept, and was written by Richard Posner. A book in which Hercules is imagined in the role of an arbiter was written by Ronald Dworkin about this concept's “empire.” The best known work by Hugo Grotius is titled after the application of this titular concept to war and peace and William Blackstone is best known for his commentaries on the ones of England. For ten points, identify this sphere of human activity which is often personified by a blindfolded female holding a sword and scales.
Answer: laws
Perhaps the only possible ambiguity here might be that you thought a different Hart work developed his notion of legal positivism, but even then you would be wrong since
The Concept of Law predates
Law, Liberty, and Morality. Other than that, the question completely unambiguously refers to
Concept in the first clue; given that it's Hart's most famous work, and possibly one of the most famous works of legal philosophy in the 20th century, it seems pretty odd to complain about not knowing the title while simultaneously claiming that the leadins are too easy.
Now maybe I'm just a bad player complaining about not getting a question and I should just go out and learn what Posner's noted titles are, but having read only excerpts in a primary-source book, I did not know his titles.
You're not a bad player but I don't understand the source of your confusion. I mean, as I've said before, if you know enough to know something about Hart and legal positivism, why are you even hearing the Posner clue? Incidentally, that clue is there because I figured more people would have heard of Posner and connected him to law, while the specialists would have buzzed on Hart. Obviously, knowing the exact title of Posner's book would be useful, but it seems that you have enough information to put it all together and give the correct answer. I don't know why that didn't happen, although I would guess that we all have brain farts at times, but at no point until the bad giveaway is the question misleading.
Anyway, if you want my opinion, a question like this would go something like
These were called [description of Concept of Law] in a book about the "concept" of them, and they [etc] in a book about "overcoming" them. They [etc] in a book about the "empire" of them, and three noted scholars of them are HLA Hart, Richard Posner, and Ronald Dworkin. Blackstone wrote a commentary on the ones of England, and Hugo Grotius wrote [etc]. For 10 points, name these entities [appropriate giveaway].
I think this is a bad idea. If I start talking about primary and secondary rules, people are going to go "laws = rules" and buzz. That would defeat the purpose of the question. You may not believe this, but every one of the clues I used was selected for minimal transparency to people who don't know much about law, so that you wouldn't be able to guess it just from linguistic clues. There's a reason why I write of Hercules as arbiter rather than use the word "judge" in the Dworkin clue.
My point is that anyone who knows anything about legal philosophy
Yes, all three of you on the circuit playing at different sites.
is going to be really confused when you start naming people who are really famous in that field in the third line in a question whose answer is a word form of "legal."
Why do you consistently mischaracterize the text of the question? I did not just write a tossup that began "Hart, Dworkin, and Posner are known for studying these." I wrote a pyramidal question that unambiguously pointed to "law" as the correct answer, while using clues arranged in such a way that one could not just guess the answer through synonyms. In each case, you had to know something about the work and the author to buzz on that clue. I did not backload the authors or the titles because I saw little benefit in doing so, given the intended audience and as I've said before, if a more experienced player (with some legal philosophy background too!) is buzzing on those early clues, that's fine with me. That's what should happen, and I don't see any reason to contort the text of the question just so I can put off those players from buzzing for another line.