Definition

• Reasonable minded people are those that use words rather than force to navigate disagreements.
• In the context of the 3L Philosophy, ‘reasonable minds’ refers to those who accept the Legal Principle and act in good faith to correctly interpret it.
• Reasonable minded people will disagree on a lot of things - a free society should expect and welcome this.
• To disagree with the Legal Principle is to conclude that it is permissible to aggress against another person instead of using conversation - by rejecting reason, they are unreasonable.
• Of course, we can expect that in a world where we can aggress against others, others will aggress against us.

Reasonable interpretation of the Legal Principle

• Determining what is reasonable vs unreasonable behaviour is key to determining if the Legal Principle has been breached, but ‘reasonableness’ is subjective. Via the means of discourse, different people will draw the line on the continuum between unreasonable and reasonable behaviour applied to different topics in different places for different reasons.
• These are unavoidable grey areas that must be decided at the local community level.

Examples

Age of Consent

• There is no objectively correct age at which a child becomes an adult capable of making informed decisions for themselves.
• We can look around the world at countries with well developed legal systems and infer that a reasonable range is 15-20 years old.
  • Most countries set the range between 16-18 years of age. The country with the highest age of consent is Bahrain, at 21 years of age, and there are some countries in Europe that set it as low as 14 with some additional restrictions.
• We can conclude that it is unreasonable to expect a 13 year old or younger to be sufficiently mature to be in a position to make informed consent to have sex, and that it is similarly unreasonable to prevent a 22 year old or older from doing so. Anyone wishing to protect a 13 year old from such harm would be justified in doing so, even if force is required against those who wish to impose themselves on the 13 year old.
• Ages 14 and 21 are right on the extreme ends of the range - very few countries deem this to be a reasonable age, but because some do, we should use persuasion, not force, to influence a more reasonable implementation of the rule.

Noise Complaint (tort thresholds)

• A classic example where reasonable people might define ‘reasonableness’ differently is a noise complaint**. S**pecifically, how loud is too loud for music at night?
  • One neighbour might think music playing at 10:30pm at a moderate volume is perfectly reasonable - after all, it’s the weekend, and they work hard all week. Another, with a sleeping baby or an early shift, might find it unreasonably disruptive.
  • Both are acting in good faith. Both appeal to “reasonableness.” But their standards differ based on context, lifestyle, and values. This is why local communities might decide to set specific quiet hours, not because the “reasonable” cutoff is obvious, but because it isn’t.