> It sure would be nice to have everyone proactively choose to act in a way that matches the "spirit" of the law or rules, and maybe this did used to happen in

> It sure would be nice to have everyone proactively choose to act in a way that matches the "spirit" of the law or rules, and maybe this did used to happen in more homogeneous/authoritarian societies? But without that synchronization it seems to fall to the legislative bodies to codify as much as possible of the various moral behavior which is very hard in practice and easy to exploit. I suggest you read into the history of common law as it pertains to the history of legal practice in the UK and many of its former colonies. It is still strong today in both the US and the UK, though I am not familiar with other commonwealth nations. In a common law legal system, laws are discovered through trial rather than ordained by legislation. Precedent is built through case law. This is a system that is all about the "spirit" of the law.