Template:M intro design thin rules

In her illuminating book Rules: A Short History of What We Live By Lorraine Daston distinguishes between “thick rules” and “thin rules” as means of understanding the regularities of daily life.

Thick rules are principles; heuristics; general statements that require interpretation and construal: judgment in light of prevailing circumstances. “Only cross a road when it is safe to do so, and would not unnecessarily impede traffic”. Rules of this kind depend on the intelligence, experience and trustworthiness of those applying them: users must have their own model of when, and what counts as “safe”.

Commerce is, in its raw state, a system of thick rules dependent on trust and good faith. “Credit” means, literally, “she believes”. Thick rules of this kind assign end-users with responsibility to determine how they act, and executive authority to act. They are correspondingly open to abuse by the unscrupulous: they imply a degree of interpersonal vulnerability. Trustworthiness — good eggness — is an critical value in thick-ruled communities: without it, the thick rules will deteriorate. There is no mandated conduct in a given circumstance: the user retains discretion in how to act subject to evaluative boundaries which are somewhat open to conjecture: some how soft edged, with leaky boundaries. Thick rules are more flexible, tend to work better in uncertain circumstances

create not just arbitrary obligations, loosely targeted at a principle, but arbitrary rights which people seek to enforce. The arbitrary boundaries become a value, irrespective of the substance of the circumstances.

A thick rule is “only cross the road if it will not impede traffic and would be be safe to do so”. The thin rule would be, “do not cross unless there is a green man”.