Paradox of the Court

The Two-Case Scenario

This discernment asserts that there are in fact two legal arguments to be resolved

i) Protagoras argues that an unwritten clause of the original contract is that the student must enter into the profession of law.

If Protagoras wins this case then Euathlus must pay. If Protagoras loses then Euathlus must pay under the original contract. However, in this event Euathlus may argue...

ii) An unwritten assumption of the contract is that cases between the two individuals are exempt from the contract. Citing logical rules preventing the application of a condition to itself.

Euathlus can only avoid payment if he wins both case i) and case ii).

Other versions of the paradox

In some versions Protagoras would demand the money if and only if Euathlus wins his first court case.^[4] Some accounts claim that Protagoras demanded his money as soon as Euathlus completed his, others say that Protagoras waited until it was obvious that Euathlus was making no effort to take on clients^[5] and still others^[6] assert that Euathlus made a genuine attempt but that no clients ever came.

Variation 2: Euathlus sues Protagoras

A different variation is Euathlus challenged the Court to rate the merits of the education he received from Protagoras, wagering that he was suing Protagoras in his very first case after graduation because he did not receive a good education and wanted a refund on his tuition. Protagoras countered that if that were true and Euathlus is that good of an attorney and ought to win anyway, then it proves Protagoras's case that he was a good teacher in the law and the student Euathlus ought to pay the tuition owed even if the Court decides to award Euathlus whatever monies he claimed against Protagoras, which Euathlus could use to repay the outstanding tuition owed. But, Protagoras clarified, it would be a "lesson learned on time", not that Euathlus is right in the crux of his own argument but that Protagoras was generous to wait on tuition owed when Euathlus used to be a student, essentially assuming a student's debt as a teacher, and was being fair upon Euathlus's first case in willingness to hear about that same debt. Protagoras does not make a "winner-take-all" argument but reminds Euathlus the value of the law. However, Euathlus's rejoinder is that it was not that Protagoras who was not a good teacher, despite Euathlus's efforts to be a good student, but that the education he received from Protagoras was flawed. Euathlus argued that he arrived at trying to be a good attorney at least for his first case by his own merits and therefore does not deserve to be in debt. On the argument that Protagoras was generous and assuming the debt initially, essentially teaching for free without pay all the while, Euathlus stated he was so disenchanted by the education he received -- or lack thereof -- he too knew that he would be in debt if learning the law was too frustrating or being a career attorney did not reap financial rewards, a matter of opportunity cost when he could have pursued some other profession, which was also a financial risk on Euathlus's part compared to other professions for a young man that paid a living wage outright. He reminded the Court that he received paltry tuition reimbursement for the amount of clerical court work or paralegal service he performed as a student, a skill he already had before being taken in by Protagoras but merely applied by Protagoras to the law for the Court's sake. At that point, the Court asked Protagoras who paid for Protagoras's livelihood all the while he was teaching Euathlus. Protagoras stated that it was obvious he and his learned peers, such as the Court, reaped financial rewards for being wise. Euathlus made the second rejoinder that it is untrue the law profession paid for itself, for they got their monies from soldiers, who brought wealth from afar to add to the coffers. And, said Euathlus, a diligent person as he might not be wise enough to be a stellar attorney but is studious and diligent enough to not be foolish about the worth of money and the merits of an education. At that point, the Court asked Euathlus whether he had ever learned about cases brought by or about foreigners and whether he believed the Court was wise in the manners and matters upon which it judged which, if what Euathlus claims is true about their own native soldiers, then the court does indeed make good money fairly and cleanly on resolving disputes. Euathlus defended himself by stating that he had heard of a few such cases when being trained in the profession as a student but that he was to maintain neutrality, hear the results as a student, and not formulate an "attorney style" until he actually graduated and have hands-on experience with cases in which he would be directly representing. And, he added, it seemed to him the Court was asking him to judge for himself whether the Court was corrupt, and he reminded the Court that he believed it was and deserves to be freed from the debt of tuition not owed to a corrupt organization.

In that variation, Protagoras then interceded and asked Euathlus what he believed to be a corrupting influence about the education he Euathlus received. Euathlus then responded that he could have held his tongue if he were not hard-pressed into preparing for his first court case against Protagoras but instead could have absconded from debt into some other profession. Protagoras asked him again whether he believed the matter of money tainted his conscience. He stated that it did not but that it tainted Protagoras's ethics. The Court then clarified whether Euathlus was stating that it is not the contract into which they entered, which is not the dispute, but whether the worth of the contract is overvalued, according to Euathlus's lawsuit against Protagoras. Protagoras interceded again to remind that Euathlus would be absconding from essentially what would be tuition remission for losing his own lawsuit and wasting his and the Court's time in pursuing his case against his old mentor, since Protagoras was doing the initial argument for Euathlus by giving him the win and recommending the Court judge in Euathlus's favor. Euathlus then argued that that was part of the corruption, that it seemed like too much jingoism that they paid each other out of cases brought by soldiers in which too many cases involved foreigners and that they had lost their own merits for supporting their own original laws. Over the years, said Euathlus, of the few cases regarding foreigners about which he had heard, those arguments both in favor and against favoring either side, made the money volatile, and he had happened to have graduated at a time when their own money appeared to have been stagflating, a debt crisis in which he knew not how he could possibly proceed in the law profession as an attorney if he did not attempt to wipe away his debt as soon as possible and not let the market dictate his worth.

What part of what corruption, asked the Court to Euathlus. Could it not be that the winds of fortune did not favor him Euathlus and that is no fault of Protagoras either, who provided stability for the student Euathlus, said the Court. After all, said the Court, the Court itself avoids such volatility and makes wise decisions despite unfortunate meager times of meager earnings, such as waiting upon Euathlus to be a practicing attorney in good stead so that Protagoras and his cohort could be repaid for their educational efforts. It seems rude, said Euathlus, that he would sue his old teacher Protagoras because he knows he is a talented person but not a skilled attorney, but that is not the case either, said Euathlus. There is a difference, said Euthalis, between a good attorney and a wise Court, for if it is true that the Court is wise then good attorneys would make good arguments. Now some attorneys made bad arguments and the Court would rule wisely nevertheless, avoiding details of cases altogether, and it is burdensome to a cohort of attorneys in which some of them ought to have left the law profession anyway. At other times good attorneys make good arguments but the Court ruled unwisely, avoiding good effort altogether. The Court had become so corrupt, said Euathlus, that there is no fresh monies to be made by that tact. Already, the amount of renumeration the Court had decided in previous cases, both foreign and domestic, most everyone is too scared to approach the Court for remediation anymore such that the law profession is simply unpopular. Whatever others' disputes have been while he Euathlus was a student, he does not know about them that much, for he was busy being diligent as a student for the Court's sake. Now that he is newly graduated, he does not know why in particular there are no steady client-customers or whether those potential clients have been arbitrating their disputes outside of the Court or even whether those parties have been successful or not by their own efforts. All he knows is that he is terribly in debt and have not been able to go to Court to win any case other than to be remanded back to Court to have a case of his own about the law profession out of his own instincts. If fewer attorneys are needed, then he Euathlus wins his case based on lack of external disputes brought to professional attorneys, of which he is not certain whether he could ever be a career attorney. So he earned good standing freely in a profession that is not as needful as Protagoras and his wizened peers had made it out to be. He reminds the Court that it is a peculiar dilemma he had pondered before bringing his case to the Court against Protagoras: the Court he does not know that well, Protagoras he does. He will put in effort at least initially, which resolves all questions about good faith in contracts between him and his mentor to even the Court's satisfaction, but he wants to leave the profession because it is not improving, he testified to the Court. If he wins, he leaves the profession without debt; if he loses, he cannot leave and would be in debt anyway. Protagoras reminds the Court that the Court would assume Euathlus's debt either way, and Protagoras himself should not have to be in debt to his own peers. The debt is assumed by Protagoras in Euathlus's name, Euathlus clarified.

Euathlus asked the Court whether it is true that Protagoras and his peers were teaching on credit loans. The Court responded that all cases are open matters for inspection but all decided cases have already been finalized. If that is true, said Protagoras, then were not the decisions on money matters projected to such an extent beyond parties' actual abilities to pay or repay each other according to the Court's supposedly inflated accounting scheme as to who owed whom and by how much. Euathlus asked Protagoras to clarify whether the value of money is directly proportional to the merit of worth and vice-versa, and Protagoras said that it ought to be. If that is true, said the Court, then Euathlus could remain an attorney and adjust the Court's opinions without violating any rulings if there are no new cases for awhile, which is the best Protagoras and his peers could hope for all along in times of dearth, that Euathlus proceed to enter the law profession. Euathlus then argued that he thought he was studying to be an attorney, not an accountant, a small amount of training of which he did receive on accounting when he was a student under Protagoras. However, he did not receive any training on deciding an amount of money, only on receipts and collection efforts across parties mediated by the Court. In his own case, said Euathlus, any amount above his means to repay is too much and is real debt. He despised the prospect of being a collection agent or a bail bondsman, said Euathlus, for it punishes the poor much more than the rich. And for parties to return to the Court to haggle down debt for consolidation was like being held to the same standards that brought them dissatisfaction upon the Court's initial rulings anyway. The Court had wasted so much time in so many cases that fewer and fewer cases ever resolved to the step in which parties could even be relieved from debt, the Court stalling with "education" to plaintiffs and claimants, defendants and prosecutors, that had not the academic calendar concluded with his graduating on time, he would still be doing menial work staring at receipts that claimed no monies were available for the adjusted amounts the Court was requesting the parties to pay one another, which included Court fees. All the while, if the Court had mad bad rulings, the Court did not deserve to collect any court fees because a bad ruling is not a qualified effort, said Euathlus.

At that point Protagoras erupted in anger, citing the indecency that Euathlus was making a case of pro bono litigation against him Protagoras and his peers. A frivolous lawsuit as an academic or intramural exercise was a waste of the Court's time and Protagoras's previous earnings and efforts in at least educating Eauthlus to completion. If it is true, said the Court to Protagoras, that the erstwhile student Eauthlus is a talented person unsuited for the law profession by bringing a frivolous lawsuit, then it is true Eauthlus could become a bad attorney, in which case everyone loses and he ought not to have any more cases. Why had Protagoras graduated Eauthlus, asked the Court. Euathlus then spoke to the Court, saying that he agreed with Protagoras when he was graduated by his mentor Protagoras, because he had nothing more to gain by being a student and that he was already getting deeper and deeper into debt. Although they make different points of contention, said Euathlus, nobody in the case was being truly adversarial and he Euathlus, he said, knows that he lacks the experience across many Court cases to speculate in what manner of the law he could improve. Fewer and fewer persons trust the Court, and that is something he could strongly infer, said Euathlus, and his instincts told him that the source of diminished trust is not that Court personnel are in peril but that the Court had been jeopardizing parties in court cases such that the Court as a group jeopardize themselves by losing trust even if it is true, according to the Court, that the Court makes wise decisions. Wisdom does not empower anyone into poverty, said Protagoras. If that is true, said the Court, that it could also be true that it is not incompatible for a talented person also to be a wise attorney, such as Euathlus. But what else could explain to him Euathlus, he himself said, that he has no professional ranking to show for himself other than a large debt, for he would not want to be a professional mute as a career attorney deep in his own thoughts among an organized group of law professionals with no real cases to resolve at a Court that is only for the mute and the rich, which of course is untrue. Then the premise of his lawsuit holds and is not a paradox, and he would like to be let go from the law profession to earn professional merits elsewhere, Euathlus said. Then there is no dispute, which is true, said Protagoras, for he Euathlus could repay the tuition by seeking a different career field that pays real wages immediately. Is it too difficult for the Court to admit, said Euathlus, that it is not as needful as it had hoped but that he Euathlus is needful in the law profession to review cases already decided upon by the Court. He does not foresee himself an academic student of old cases waiting for him upon graduation, said the Court about Euathlus to Protagoras, which is true why he was graduated and did not need to be an apprentice to the Court anymore. It is true, said Protagoras, that reviewing old cases might be too "academic" for the well-educated Euathlus by now, who is more a man of ready action with a burgeoning jurisprudence than a diligent book-learner who has a limited capacity for absorbing past judgments not to his liking. Then perhaps he should review the law in its entirety and clarify an original jurisprudence if he believes his education taints his ethics, said Protagoras. But that is already entrapment into endengered servitude over the debt, said Euathlus, for the Court operates in such a manner that the glory of riches go to those directly involved in every next case, which are not approaching swiftly enough. And it would also be entrapment, said Euathlus, to invent cases without merit by preying on only the rich who can afford to pay and jeopardizing the poor who cannot pay. How much embezzlement has been going on, asked Euathlus, and what portion of that embezzlement was used to retain Protagoras as a renown educator in the law.

The Court then asked Euathlus whether he believed Protagoras had found his calling to be a teacher rather than a Court judge. Euathlus said that he agreed with the Court that Protagoras was a good teacher but the case was about the education he Euathlus had received from Protagoras, which had to be posed to the Court after all, which is the lawsuit. The point is, said Euathlus, that he Euathlus had not found his vocation in the law profession and that it has the potential to expose him to the meanest corruptions, and he did not want that to occur. For example, said Euathlus, he had queried the Court before bringing the lawsuit whether he could go elsewhere and do something else, but the Court prioritized immediate efforts in the law profession for Euathlus and forbade him to abscond. Euathlus said to the Court that he believed the Court did not understand the case without his presence at Court, and that the Court's ordering him to immediately make tuition repayments was not feasible for him Euathlus, and that suing Protagoras amounted to the same as challenging the Court's order. Euathlus said, had he Euathlus not brought suit, he would have remained idle in unemployment and would have pursued a different profession had not the Court sued him Euathlus by ordering repayment on tuition, which was not possible for him to do. If all the Court is doing is saying to him Euathlus, said Euathlus, that first they lose then they order him Euathlus to lose for them again, then on the whole as a whole they cannot possibly be as wise as Protagoras anyway, for he could make all sorts of motions to tie up the Court but the Court would not be paying him for any of those motions and filing when it essentially forbade him from suing the Court directly. And if it is true, said Euathlus, that disputants have tended to be wiser than the Court itself, then the Court only is truly barren of luck and the Court ought to "graduate" itself into a smaller cohort with a lighter docket schedule and absolve itself from the debt it imposes upon, essentially, its own members.

If the Court now rules in favor of absolving Euathlus from debt by picking clients and cases for Euathlus, then what assurances does Euathlus have that the Court's subsequent approaches to the good attorney Euathlus would not be mismatched, said Protagoras, for it could be true that he Protagoras and Euthlus were lucky in being compatible teacher and student but future cases for Euathlus might not be suitable to Euathlus's temperament, who is already disenchanted about the law as it is practiced by the Court. Those more ambitious in the law profession than he Euathlus, said the Court, the Court knows already, but he Euathlus they do not know, the Court stated. If that is the assurance, said Euathlus, then one need not question him Euathlus as to his beliefs about himself and the obvious burden imposed by the Court. And so, said the Court, the debt assumption continues to fall on the Court as an organization of the law profession, whether he Euathlus could be a good attorney on any case whatsoever whether he goes into private practice or whether cases are assigned for him.

Euathlus then reviewed all the alternatives proferred already. Protagoras was saying that the Court ought to win judgment for Protagoras based on Euthalus's own good efforts as a new attorney who did not squander his education, but the judgment has to be cleanly in favor for him Euathlus without quibbling whether he ought to stay in the law profession as the only means to repay his debt for that good education, which the Court is not reassuring Euathlus whether that is feasible, based not on Euathlus's good record as a student nor Protagoras's good standing as a teacher, said Euathlus, but the opposite, based on the uneven record of the Court itself that had posed false dilemmas from time to time. It would not be a false dilemma to him Euathlus, he said, even if the Court kicked him Euathlus and his erstwhile mentor Protagoras out of the law profession, then at least between the two of them, Euathlus and Protagoras, they do not owe the peers of the Court any debt on the tuition, it would be the same as receiving sage advice from other quarters in the absence of the Court, and that was where Protagoras was not too wrong in encouraging him Euathlus but the Court itself was discouraging. His own ethics encouraged him, said Euathlus, to at least make a good effort of bringing the lawsuit that he does not owe the Court his judgment of "Thanks but no thanks" whether or not he could decide on his own merits but he knows his own confidence in certain matters, said Euathlus. Then is it a matter of hubris that has led to some supposed corruption, asked Protagoras of the Court.

At that point Euathlus mustered that confidence and said to the Court that he had thought carefully about the lawsuit before bringing it to Court against Protagoras and did not want to be interrupted in the only case he had to-date. He Euathlus himself said, that he questioned Protagoras's ethics regarding the Court but not Protagoras's goodness qua teacher in the law. Even if Protagoras was sheltering Euathlus from some of the Court's corruptions, and if that is the best Protagoras can do, then had Protagoras himself not challenged his peers of the Court earlier to remove those corruptions rather than sheltering himself in academia. It seems ungainly, said Euathlus, that a student studying the profession who was meant to be graduated for the sole purpose of continuing professionally in the law was at the same time bound to be subjected to the Court's style and bizarre decision rules with no immediate alternative recourse but to go back to consider one's teacher, a difficult proposition by the Court to him Euathlus.

At that point the Court wanted to clarify and asked Euathlus whether it was true that he Euathlus was told by someone in the law profession, and it can be nobody else but Protagoras or his peers the Court, that he was forbidden from suing the Court directly. Protagoras spoke for Euathlus and reminded the Court that if a student as Euathlus had known that their sentiments would deviate from the Court's style and result in decisions different from the Court's hitherto, than one as he Euathlus should be brave before the Court and make one's case arguments as strong as possible. He Euathlus might be a better court liaison or a politician than an attorney or a judge, said Protagoras. He knows his own limitations and his peers' temperaments, said Protagoras, which is why it was best that he ever became a teacher in the profession than a practitioner at Court. The Court said that it is true Protagoras knows them and Euathlus and that Euathlus is at an immediate disadvantage for being inexperienced about the Court for having merely recently graduated. Euathlus proceeded, reminding the Court that he himself had offered either tuition reimbursement from himself by working in a different profession or that the law profession forgives him the debt entirely and he could decide for himself whatso profession best suited for him anyway. The Court had yet to respond directly, said Euathlus, in discerning whether or not the Court is corrupting him, a suggestiveness he was reticent to pose directly to the Court but he himself preferred, Euathlus said, that the Court concludes swiftly in the lawsuit and announce its decision or he would do it for them the Court. It was never his intention, he said, to usurp the Court's duties but, as Protagoras said and he was recapitulating for the Court, that the Court ought to decide in his favor but not on Protagoras's terms but on the one he himself was offering to the Court as to whose argument was better and for what reason, and therefore the Court has only two choices: either he Euathlus walks away from the Court free of debt or the Court pays him Euathlus for winning the argument in order to pay Protagoras. While Protagoras brought fame and honor to the Court by making good arguments, that is all well and good everywhere in any profession, it was he Euathlus who made the arguments about how the Court had been harming him directly and indirectly, Euathlus said, and also harms upon untold parties he does not know directly. He had been languishing after graduation without a case is the Court's dilemma, not his, he said. It could be an artifact of the case, said Euathlus, that he and Protagoras are misfortunate for having two different financial plans for repaying his tuition debt, one within the profession proposed by Protagoras and one outside of the profession as an equally valid alternative. Either way, the Court erred in blocking him initially, and he wins both arguments, because the external alternative captures both differences so long as he Eauthlus is "good for the money", which he has been putting forth effort to be but is not confident that he has career prospects in the law in light of the lack of cases. Why would he go to school in the law to graduate into an intramural hobby, he asked the Court. However, he said, that hobby should not be to make new attorneys suddenly culpable as tax evaders or liable to be sent to debtors prison merely because the Court threatens first and listens later.

The Court asked him from where he Euathlus got his credibility anyway. In terms of the law profession, Euathlus said, it is already part of his ethics, which has natural limitations on patience and kindness as opposed wisdom in generosity like Protagoras. Perhaps, to state it differently, said Euathlus, the Court believes its own generosity for itself but none for others after all is said and done, so then in practical terms it does not profit any, for there are too many parties in many cases who have already fallen in arrears to each other and to the Court, based on the scant evidence from the few receipts that he had to review. The Court then asked Protagoras whether the Court ought to take cases with lowered court fees more often, that way the cases would keep their focus on the parties who brought suit against one another rather than overly involving the Court itself and the many court maneuvers it could impose. Protagoras responded that he was not an economist but that it would be best to reconsider the number of law professionals in a good ratio proportionate to those who seek arbitration via the Court which is, essentially, that the Court be prudent enough to adjust to economic realities. He Protagoras, he said, turned down many willing prospective students who lacked Euathlus's credibility, which is not Euathlus's instincts in the law, said Protagoras, but Euathlus's intuition about legal matters is suitable for formal Court.

Variation 2: Euathlus sues Protagoras

A different variation is Euathlus challenged the Court to rate the merits of the education he received from Protagoras, wagering that he was suing Protagoras in his very first case after graduation because he did not receive a good education and wanted a refund on his tuition. Protagoras countered that if that were true and Euathlus is that good of an attorney and ought to win anyway, then it proves Protagoras's case that he was a good teacher in the law and the student Euathlus ought to pay the tuition owed even if the Court decides to award Euathlus whatever monies he claimed against Protagoras, which Euathlus could use to repay the outstanding tuition owed. But, Protagoras clarified, it would be a "lesson learned on time", not that Euathlus is right in the crux of his own argument but that Protagoras was generous to wait on tuition owed when Euathlus used to be a student, essentially assuming a student's debt as a teacher, and was being fair upon Euathlus's first case in willingness to hear about that same debt. Protagoras does not make a "winner-take-all" argument but reminds Euathlus the value of the law. However, Euathlus's rejoinder is that it was not that Protagoras who was not a good teacher, despite Euathlus's efforts to be a good student, but that the education he received from Protagoras was flawed. Euathlus argued that he arrived at trying to be a good attorney at least for his first case by his own merits and therefore does not deserve to be in debt. On the argument that Protagoras was generous and assuming the debt initially, essentially teaching for free without pay all the while, Euathlus stated he was so disenchanted by the education he received -- or lack thereof -- he too knew that he would be in debt if learning the law was too frustrating or being a career attorney did not reap financial rewards, a matter of opportunity cost when he could have pursued some other profession, which was also a financial risk on Euathlus's part compared to other professions for a young man that paid a living wage outright. He reminded the Court that he received paltry tuition reimbursement for the amount of clerical court work or paralegal service he performed as a student, a skill he already had before being taken in by Protagoras but merely applied by Protagoras to the law for the Court's sake. At that point, the Court asked Protagoras who paid for Protagoras's livelihood all the while he was teaching Euathlus. Protagoras stated that it was obvious he and his learned peers, such as the Court, reaped financial rewards for being wise. Euathlus made the second rejoinder that it is untrue the law profession paid for itself, for they got their monies from soldiers, who brought wealth from afar to add to the coffers. And, said Euathlus, a diligent person as he might not be wise enough to be a stellar attorney but is studious and diligent enough to not be foolish about the worth of money and the merits of an education. At that point, the Court asked Euathlus whether he had ever learned about cases brought by or about foreigners and whether he believed the Court was wise in the manners and matters upon which it judged which, if what Euathlus claims is true about their own native soldiers, then the court does indeed make good money fairly and cleanly on resolving disputes. Euathlus defended himself by stating that he had heard of a few such cases when being trained in the profession as a student but that he was to maintain neutrality, hear the results as a student, and not formulate an "attorney style" until he actually graduated and have hands-on experience with cases in which he would be directly representing. And, he added, it seemed to him the Court was asking him to judge for himself whether the Court was corrupt, and he reminded the Court that he believed it was and deserves to be freed from the debt of tuition not owed to a corrupt organization.

In that variation, Protagoras then interceded and asked Euathlus what he believed to be a corrupting influence about the education he Euathlus received. Euathlus then responded that he could have held his tongue if he were not hard-pressed into preparing for his first court case against Protagoras but instead could have absconded from debt into some other profession. Protagoras asked him again whether he believed the matter of money tainted his conscience. He stated that it did not but that it tainted Protagoras's ethics. The Court then clarified whether Euathlus was stating that it is not the contract into which they entered, which is not the dispute, but whether the worth of the contract is overvalued, according to Euathlus's lawsuit against Protagoras. Protagoras interceded again to remind that Euathlus would be absconding from essentially what would be tuition remission for losing his own lawsuit and wasting his and the Court's time in pursuing his case against his old mentor, since Protagoras was doing the initial argument for Euathlus by giving him the win and recommending the Court judge in Euathlus's favor. Euathlus then argued that that was part of the corruption, that it seemed like too much jingoism that they paid each other out of cases brought by soldiers in which too many cases involved foreigners and that they had lost their own merits for supporting their own original laws. Over the years, said Euathlus, of the few cases regarding foreigners about which he had heard, those arguments both in favor and against favoring either side, made the money volatile, and he had happened to have graduated at a time when their own money appeared to have been stagflating, a debt crisis in which he knew not how he could possibly proceed in the law profession as an attorney if he did not attempt to wipe away his debt as soon as possible and not let the market dictate his worth.

What part of what corruption, asked the Court to Euathlus. Could it not be that the winds of fortune did not favor him Euathlus and that is no fault of Protagoras either, who provided stability for the student Euathlus, said the Court. After all, said the Court, the Court itself avoids such volatility and makes wise decisions despite unfortunate meager times of meager earnings, such as waiting upon Euathlus to be a practicing attorney in good stead so that Protagoras and his cohort could be repaid for their educational efforts. It seems rude, said Euathlus, that he would sue his old teacher Protagoras because he knows he is a talented person but not a skilled attorney, but that is not the case either, said Euathlus. There is a difference, said Euthalis, between a good attorney and a wise Court, for if it is true that the Court is wise then good attorneys would make good arguments. Now some attorneys made bad arguments and the Court would rule wisely nevertheless, avoiding details of cases altogether, and it is burdensome to a cohort of attorneys in which some of them ought to have left the law profession anyway. At other times good attorneys make good arguments but the Court ruled unwisely, avoiding good effort altogether. The Court had become so corrupt, said Euathlus, that there is no fresh monies to be made by that tact. Already, the amount of renumeration the Court had decided in previous cases, both foreign and domestic, most everyone is too scared to approach the Court for remediation anymore such that the law profession is simply unpopular. Whatever others' disputes have been while he Euathlus was a student, he does not know about them that much, for he was busy being diligent as a student for the Court's sake. Now that he is newly graduated, he does not know why in particular there are no steady client-customers or whether those potential clients have been arbitrating their disputes outside of the Court or even whether those parties have been successful or not by their own efforts. All he knows is that he is terribly in debt and have not been able to go to Court to win any case other than to be remanded back to Court to have a case of his own about the law profession out of his own instincts. If fewer attorneys are needed, then he Euathlus wins his case based on lack of external disputes brought to professional attorneys, of which he is not certain whether he could ever be a career attorney. So he earned good standing freely in a profession that is not as needful as Protagoras and his wizened peers had made it out to be. He reminds the Court that it is a peculiar dilemma he had pondered before bringing his case to the Court against Protagoras: the Court he does not know that well, Protagoras he does. He will put in effort at least initially, which resolves all questions about good faith in contracts between him and his mentor to even the Court's satisfaction, but he wants to leave the profession because it is not improving, he testified to the Court. If he wins, he leaves the profession without debt; if he loses, he cannot leave and would be in debt anyway. Protagoras reminds the Court that the Court would assume Euathlus's debt either way, and Protagoras himself should not have to be in debt to his own peers. The debt is assumed by Protagoras in Euathlus's name, Euathlus clarified.

Euathlus asked the Court whether it is true that Protagoras and his peers were teaching on credit loans. The Court responded that all cases are open matters for inspection but all decided cases have already been finalized. If that is true, said Protagoras, then were not the decisions on money matters projected to such an extent beyond parties' actual abilities to pay or repay each other according to the Court's supposedly inflated accounting scheme as to who owed whom and by how much. Euathlus asked Protagoras to clarify whether the value of money is directly proportional to the merit of worth and vice-versa, and Protagoras said that it ought to be. If that is true, said the Court, then Euathlus could remain an attorney and adjust the Court's opinions without violating any rulings if there are no new cases for awhile, which is the best Protagoras and his peers could hope for all along in times of dearth, that Euathlus proceed to enter the law profession. Euathlus then argued that he thought he was studying to be an attorney, not an accountant, a small amount of training of which he did receive on accounting when he was a student under Protagoras. However, he did not receive any training on deciding an amount of money, only on receipts and collection efforts across parties mediated by the Court. In his own case, said Euathlus, any amount above his means to repay is too much and is real debt. He despised the prospect of being a collection agent or a bail bondsman, said Euathlus, for it punishes the poor much more than the rich. And for parties to return to the Court to haggle down debt for consolidation was like being held to the same standards that brought them dissatisfaction upon the Court's initial rulings anyway. The Court had wasted so much time in so many cases that fewer and fewer cases ever resolved to the step in which parties could even be relieved from debt, the Court stalling with "education" to plaintiffs and claimants, defendants and prosecutors, that had not the academic calendar concluded with his graduating on time, he would still be doing menial work staring at receipts that claimed no monies were available for the adjusted amounts the Court was requesting the parties to pay one another, which included Court fees. All the while, if the Court had mad bad rulings, the Court did not deserve to collect any court fees because a bad ruling is not a qualified effort, said Euathlus.

At that point Protagoras erupted in anger, citing the indecency that Euathlus was making a case of pro bono litigation against him Protagoras and his peers. A frivolous lawsuit as an academic or intramural exercise was a waste of the Court's time and Protagoras's previous earnings and efforts in at least educating Eauthlus to completion. If it is true, said the Court to Protagoras, that the erstwhile student Eauthlus is a talented person unsuited for the law profession by bringing a frivolous lawsuit, then it is true Eauthlus could become a bad attorney, in which case everyone loses and he ought not to have any more cases. Why had Protagoras graduated Eauthlus, asked the Court. Euathlus then spoke to the Court, saying that he agreed with Protagoras when he was graduated by his mentor Protagoras, because he had nothing more to gain by being a student and that he was already getting deeper and deeper into debt. Although they make different points of contention, said Euathlus, nobody in the case was being truly adversarial and he Euathlus, he said, knows that he lacks the experience across many Court cases to speculate in what manner of the law he could improve. Fewer and fewer persons trust the Court, and that is something he could strongly infer, said Euathlus, and his instincts told him that the source of diminished trust is not that Court personnel are in peril but that the Court had been jeopardizing parties in court cases such that the Court as a group jeopardize themselves by losing trust even if it is true, according to the Court, that the Court makes wise decisions. Wisdom does not empower anyone into poverty, said Protagoras. If that is true, said the Court, that it could also be true that it is not incompatible for a talented person also to be a wise attorney, such as Euathlus. But what else could explain to him Euathlus, he himself said, that he has no professional ranking to show for himself other than a large debt, for he would not want to be a professional mute as a career attorney deep in his own thoughts among an organized group of law professionals with no real cases to resolve at a Court that is only for the mute and the rich, which of course is untrue. Then the premise of his lawsuit holds and is not a paradox, and he would like to be let go from the law profession to earn professional merits elsewhere, Euathlus said. Then there is no dispute, which is true, said Protagoras, for he Euathlus could repay the tuition by seeking a different career field that pays real wages immediately. Is it too difficult for the Court to admit, said Euathlus, that it is not as needful as it had hoped but that he Euathlus is needful in the law profession to review cases already decided upon by the Court. He does not foresee himself an academic student of old cases waiting for him upon graduation, said the Court about Euathlus to Protagoras, which is true why he was graduated and did not need to be an apprentice to the Court anymore. It is true, said Protagoras, that reviewing old cases might be too "academic" for the well-educated Euathlus by now, who is more a man of ready action with a burgeoning jurisprudence than a diligent book-learner who has a limited capacity for absorbing past judgments not to his liking. Then perhaps he should review the law in its entirety and clarify an original jurisprudence if he believes his education taints his ethics, said Protagoras. But that is already entrapment into endengered servitude over the debt, said Euathlus, for the Court operates in such a manner that the glory of riches go to those directly involved in every next case, which are not approaching swiftly enough. And it would also be entrapment, said Euathlus, to invent cases without merit by preying on only the rich who can afford to pay and jeopardizing the poor who cannot pay. How much embezzlement has been going on, asked Euathlus, and what portion of that embezzlement was used to retain Protagoras as a renown educator in the law.

The Court then asked Euathlus whether he believed Protagoras had found his calling to be a teacher rather than a Court judge. Euathlus said that he agreed with the Court that Protagoras was a good teacher but the case was about the education he Euathlus had received from Protagoras, which had to be posed to the Court after all, which is the lawsuit. The point is, said Euathlus, that he Euathlus had not found his vocation in the law profession and that it has the potential to expose him to the meanest corruptions, and he did not want that to occur. For example, said Euathlus, he had queried the Court before bringing the lawsuit whether he could go elsewhere and do something else, but the Court prioritized immediate efforts in the law profession for Euathlus and forbade him to abscond. Euathlus said to the Court that he believed the Court did not understand the case without his presence at Court, and that the Court's ordering him to immediately make tuition repayments was not feasible for him Euathlus, and that suing Protagoras amounted to the same as challenging the Court's order. Euathlus said, had he Euathlus not brought suit, he would have remained idle in unemployment and would have pursued a different profession had not the Court sued him Euathlus by ordering repayment on tuition, which was not possible for him to do. If all the Court is doing is saying to him Euathlus, said Euathlus, that first they lose then they order him Euathlus to lose for them again, then on the whole as a whole they cannot possibly be as wise as Protagoras anyway, for he could make all sorts of motions to tie up the Court but the Court would not be paying him for any of those motions and filing when it essentially forbade him from suing the Court directly. And if it is true, said Euathlus, that disputants have tended to be wiser than the Court itself, then the Court only is truly barren of luck and the Court ought to "graduate" itself into a smaller cohort with a lighter docket schedule and absolve itself from the debt it imposes upon, essentially, its own members.

If the Court now rules in favor of absolving Euathlus from debt by picking clients and cases for Euathlus, then what assurances does Euathlus have that the Court's subsequent approaches to the good attorney Euathlus would not be mismatched, said Protagoras, for it could be true that he Protagoras and Euthlus were lucky in being compatible teacher and student but future cases for Euathlus might not be suitable to Euathlus's temperament, who is already disenchanted about the law as it is practiced by the Court. Those more ambitious in the law profession than he Euathlus, said the Court, the Court knows already, but he Euathlus they do not know, the Court stated. If that is the assurance, said Euathlus, then one need not question him Euathlus as to his beliefs about himself and the obvious burden imposed by the Court. And so, said the Court, the debt assumption continues to fall on the Court as an organization of the law profession, whether he Euathlus could be a good attorney on any case whatsoever whether he goes into private practice or whether cases are assigned for him.

Euathlus then reviewed all the alternatives proferred already. Protagoras was saying that the Court ought to win judgment for Protagoras based on Euthalus's own good efforts as a new attorney who did not squander his education, but the judgment has to be cleanly in favor for him Euathlus without quibbling whether he ought to stay in the law profession as the only means to repay his debt for that good education, which the Court is not reassuring Euathlus whether that is feasible, based not on Euathlus's good record as a student nor Protagoras's good standing as a teacher, said Euathlus, but the opposite, based on the uneven record of the Court itself that had posed false dilemmas from time to time. It would not be a false dilemma to him Euathlus, he said, even if the Court kicked him Euathlus and his erstwhile mentor Protagoras out of the law profession, then at least between the two of them, Euathlus and Protagoras, they do not owe the peers of the Court any debt on the tuition, it would be the same as receiving sage advice from other quarters in the absence of the Court, and that was where Protagoras was not too wrong in encouraging him Euathlus but the Court itself was discouraging. His own ethics encouraged him, said Euathlus, to at least make a good effort of bringing the lawsuit that he does not owe the Court his judgment of "Thanks but no thanks" whether or not he could decide on his own merits but he knows his own confidence in certain matters, said Euathlus. Then is it a matter of hubris that has led to some supposed corruption, asked Protagoras of the Court.

At that point Euathlus mustered that confidence and said to the Court that he had thought carefully about the lawsuit before bringing it to Court against Protagoras and did not want to be interrupted in the only case he had to-date. He Euathlus himself said, that he questioned Protagoras's ethics regarding the Court but not Protagoras's goodness qua teacher in the law. Even if Protagoras was sheltering Euathlus from some of the Court's corruptions, and if that is the best Protagoras can do, then had Protagoras himself not challenged his peers of the Court earlier to remove those corruptions rather than sheltering himself in academia. It seems ungainly, said Euathlus, that a student studying the profession who was meant to be graduated for the sole purpose of continuing professionally in the law was at the same time bound to be subjected to the Court's style and bizarre decision rules with no immediate alternative recourse but to go back to consider one's teacher, a difficult proposition by the Court to him Euathlus.

At that point the Court wanted to clarify and asked Euathlus whether it was true that he Euathlus was told by someone in the law profession, and it can be nobody else but Protagoras or his peers the Court, that he was forbidden from suing the Court directly. Protagoras spoke for Euathlus and reminded the Court that if a student as Euathlus had known that their sentiments would deviate from the Court's style and result in decisions different from the Court's hitherto, than one as he Euathlus should be brave before the Court and make one's case arguments as strong as possible. He Euathlus might be a better court liaison or a politician than an attorney or a judge, said Protagoras. He knows his own limitations and his peers' temperaments, said Protagoras, which is why it was best that he ever became a teacher in the profession than a practitioner at Court. The Court said that it is true Protagoras knows them and Euathlus and that Euathlus is at an immediate disadvantage for being inexperienced about the Court for having merely recently graduated. Euathlus proceeded, reminding the Court that he himself had offered either tuition reimbursement from himself by working in a different profession or that the law profession forgives him the debt entirely and he could decide for himself whatso profession best suited for him anyway. The Court had yet to respond directly, said Euathlus, in discerning whether or not the Court is corrupting him, a suggestiveness he was reticent to pose directly to the Court but he himself preferred, Euathlus said, that the Court concludes swiftly in the lawsuit and announce its decision or he would do it for them the Court. It was never his intention, he said, to usurp the Court's duties but, as Protagoras said and he was recapitulating for the Court, that the Court ought to decide in his favor but not on Protagoras's terms but on the one he himself was offering to the Court as to whose argument was better and for what reason, and therefore the Court has only two choices: either he Euathlus walks away from the Court free of debt or the Court pays him Euathlus for winning the argument in order to pay Protagoras. While Protagoras brought fame and honor to the Court by making good arguments, that is all well and good everywhere in any profession, it was he Euathlus who made the arguments about how the Court had been harming him directly and indirectly, Euathlus said, and also harms upon untold parties he does not know directly. He had been languishing after graduation without a case is the Court's dilemma, not his, he said. It could be an artifact of the case, said Euathlus, that he and Protagoras are misfortunate for having two different financial plans for repaying his tuition debt, one within the profession proposed by Protagoras and one outside of the profession as an equally valid alternative. Either way, the Court erred in blocking him initially, and he wins both arguments, because the external alternative captures both differences so long as he Eauthlus is "good for the money", which he has been putting forth effort to be but is not confident that he has career prospects in the law in light of the lack of cases. Why would he go to school in the law to graduate into an intramural hobby, he asked the Court. However, he said, that hobby should not be to make new attorneys suddenly culpable as tax evaders or liable to be sent to debtors prison merely because the Court threatens first and listens later.

The Court asked him from where he Euathlus got his credibility anyway. In terms of the law profession, Euathlus said, it is already part of his ethics, which has natural limitations on patience and kindness as opposed wisdom in generosity like Protagoras. Perhaps, to state it differently, said Euathlus, the Court believes its own generosity for itself but none for others after all is said and done, so then in practical terms it does not profit any, for there are too many parties in many cases who have already fallen in arrears to each other and to the Court, based on the scant evidence from the few receipts that he had to review. The Court then asked Protagoras whether the Court ought to take cases with lowered court fees more often, that way the cases would keep their focus on the parties who brought suit against one another rather than overly involving the Court itself and the many court maneuvers it could impose. Protagoras responded that he was not an economist but that it would be best to reconsider the number of law professionals in a good ratio proportionate to those who seek arbitration via the Court which is, essentially, that the Court be prudent enough to adjust to economic realities. He Protagoras, he said, turned down many willing prospective students who lacked Euathlus's credibility, which is not Euathlus's instincts in the law, said Protagoras, but Euathlus's intuition about legal matters suitable for formal Court.

Discussion and Resolution in Variation 1 - Protagoras sues Eauthalus

That Eauthalus has not won his first case. Protagoras wins the lawsuit outright because Eauthalus was being lazy, and Protagoras proves that point handedly. For a teacher to be the attorney to bring suit against the student is quite extreme. There is no such thing as whether the weakest argument from Euathlus is that he is a lousy attorney in the proverbial sense of *if* he wins his first case, then Euathlus deserves to lose *his last and final case* for not having won any cases to-date so that he can avoid any more cases and most likely quit as a trial attorney and make himself useful in other preoccupations. Euathalus's losing streak is an embarrassment for everyone, and so it is honorable that the master shows why, not in a hypothetical sense but in practical scenarios that actually do exist beyond this Paradox.

Protagoras wins, and the Court finds judgment for Protagoras based on Protagoras's arguments, which is a win for the Court. However, it is not a loss for Euathlus. Protagoras and the Court maintains the status quo that Euathlus has yet to win his own first case, so the burden of proof is on Euathlus to be a better attorney than he had been, which is within-Court, rather than any harms infecting clients from Euathlus's being a bad attorney. Euathlus got an employment termination notice. While the Court makes less money and fronts losses for wasting time with Euathlus, it merely verifies that Protagoras was the better practitioner all along. However, at least Euathlus was employed all the while. As to whether he made court fees for the Court matter, Protagoras was rightfully angered by Euathlus's uselessness. Euathlus could honor himself and the Court by admitting he is not a good attorney, and that would relieve everybody from the debt of his abuse of his education upon Protagoras.

Euathlus's plea is NO CONTEST: a trial (or lawsuit) without error so long as he obeys the Court by removing himself from the profession or volunteers to do so, which would be the honorable thing to do. This occurred, for example, with the accounting firm for Enron: Arther Anderson relinquished their own license in the practice accounting. When the writing is on the wall and there is no money, there is not much one can counterclaim. Graciousness in loss is a solace acceptable for all parties, which is what occurred when President Richard Nixon resigned, for otherwise malfeasant entrenchment perpetuates the corruption.

Had Euathlus counterclaimed, in the above Paradox, that he ought to win in order to pay Protagoras, he has to show how the Court ought not be entrapped in his forcing a decision upon the Court and Protagoras from a valid win by his own merits, which is preferred by everyone and is the original wager that Euathlus was losing. The Paradox in reality goes awry when, for example, a student was forcing a professor to change a grade to an A, the professor refused, and the student proved the bad point by murdering the professor then committing suicide, which occurred at Virginia Tech. Murder-suicide forced by Euathlus is a no-win situation.

The Paradox's conceit is an "original position veil of ignorance" that removes the other attorney to whom Euathlus had been losing, and we are to presume the Court had been ruling fairly all the while. It does not assume an adversarial magistracy. However, even in an advocacy or arbitration system, we are told in the Paradox that Euathlus had been thoroughly unsuccessful, and the "Court's dilemma" part of the Paradox is to decide what to do when Protagoras offers the Court and Euathlus a way out of debt.

Even in contract law, it is not under dispute that they entered the contract under particular conditions and those conditions were not fulfilled, but the dispute is that they could have been fulfilled had Euathlus been a good student. Protagoras was more correct all along that Euathlus's clients would have benefited. The lack of ethical progress on Euathlus's part is resolved when the blight from a lazy or untalented attorney such as Euathlus is removed. It is not up to the Court to let Protagoras lose agency for fulfilling his part of the wager nor to cower to Euathlus in shifting Euathlus's lack of agency back to the Court.

The Court cannot magic-wand Euathlus to be the better attorney merely based on his say-so, because he lacked actual proof of the abilities to win cases. To do so would be a Pyrrhic victory for everyone. All else being equal, we cannot attribute Euathlus's sorry performance based on the type of cases he took on, unless his say-so has merits and the Court had been ignorant throughout those cases and was not persuaded by Euathlus's arguments. But in the original Paradox, we are not told that the Court has done anything wrong: it awaits cases as a matter of privilege.

Alternatively, the Court could admonish Protagoras for not divulging to Euathlus all the better strategies and tactics and stronger arguments needful to win cases cleanly for Euathlus to perform at the ideal win-win-win standard. However, it is true that "rewarding mediocrity" is a slippery slope. Then it is a matter that the education Euathlus received was inflated in value for, in practice, Euathlus did not gain any honor in a series of losses. But by law for the contract, Euathlus would still have to be pay Protagoras. The question is by what means. And if the Court agrees that Euathlus ought to win based on his own honest efforts rather than the external factors beyond his control, then the Court wins for both parties and proves more clement than the disputants.

The Paradox in Variation 1 hinges on Euathalus's response to not the original wager but Protagoras's claim to fulfill the wager. One cannot hinge on an *if* forever, for the Paradox does not dispute that Protagoras's claim is valid. The unasked question is from where the money is going to come. It is a coward's stance to be synthetically analytical in the version of this Wikipedia article before this section was added that the "resolution" is the "permanent if", which is FALSE. Those are merely the premises, the original wager. And, the analysis invoking contract law does not specify how law ought to judge the matter that was clarified in the Paradox by Protagoras's bringing suit against his former student, because the Paradox includes the counterclaim by Euathalus, which is quite brilliant. It is not possible in Variation 1 to let Euathalus win and obtain a win-win-win but only as a "gimme" first try of clemency or generosity, which is also valid. Then Euathalus is a beggar, and the Court or Protagoras are Good Samaritans if and only if they can cover the premium for the "loss leader" economically, which is to be altruistic for the sake of proving a win-win-win.

So long as Euathalus gains good credit, then he has the ability to gain good merits. However, the Paradox is a pivotal moment of when Protagoras had had enough and was impatient to recover losses and not let the tuition debt become a sunk cost. Then Euathalus wins by his first real effort, his own merits, with the brilliant response that the Court ought to let him try to honestly win. Whatever he was doing before then was abysmal in a string of losses. It is like the Prodigal Student who files Chapter 11 from overspending on tuition but not applying the lessons of the classroom to the courtroom, which can actually occur when real cases arrive and the style and maneuvers of the Court itself tarnishes some of that idealism. On the flip side, the courtroom has also disrupted the classroom many atimes. The ideals of the academic classroom is so severely mitigated that the good answer from Euathlus is a valid compromise to have an academic courtroom. But in the Paradox's version that extends to the scheme for repayment rather than merely tallying scores of wins and losses, which some say is practically the same thing, then a fair Court decides the money matter based on the win rather than based on a monetary arrangement, which is the same thing to save face. And *that* is Euathlus's winning argument, even if he loses the lawsuit to Protagoras as a matter of deferring to the validity of Protagoras's claim that implies the money issue. The best outcome in letting Euathlus win is he pays court fees, collects tuition reimbursement from the Court as judgment in his favor and pays Protagoras for Protagoras's winning the lawsuit. In Variation 1, Protagoras is better suited to the courtroom than Euathlus.

Discussion and Resolution in Variation 2 - Eauthlus sues Protagoras

Similar to the resolution in Variation 1, the student has to please two masters, one is the Court of professional peers, the other is Protagoras who is the trainer in the profession of the law. Everybody's role is set, and Eauthlus shines as the main speaker. The question of honor is on the line.

In Variation 1, each party contributes to the Resolution. In Variation 2, Eauthlus explains that he is the only one who has the resolution, which is to honor his mentors and become a peer at least that once by winning for everyone. While Variation 1 is the classical form, Variation 2 is the classical style that includes everything typical of real cases. Eauthlus shifts the lawsuit into an indictment that focuses on the harm and how to resolve the harm. His quip is sincere, and the Court teeters on whether to find fault with him, with Protagoras, or with themselves, which in the vernacular of the Court is referred to as "Contempt of Court". His claim is, "I can start making money when the Court quits corrupting, then I can repay my tuition to Protagoras to whom I owe the opportunity for work in the law profession, an opportunity not owed to the Court".

In Variation 1, Euathlus's response is like, "I can do no more." In this variation, his response is, "I can do no better." But by trying even more, he does do better at least for himself. And if it is true all the other claims are valid and the Court remains fair, then his only job is to win for himself with his personal best.

He traces the source of the money to soldiers and foreigners, which implies that, among themselves, either those foreigners never had any real need for the Greek Court or the Greek Court had been influenced by the foreign petitioners and, indirectly, by being petitioned by their own soldiers, to such an extent that they are practically beholden to external forces that they had control all the while but that the control hinges on availability of cases. As a phenomenon over many years, Euathlus laments the diminution of Greek jurisprudence peculiar to the Greeks themselves. This variation accounts for the real world in which the "rule" that a "condition ought not to be applied to the players" in game theory does not apply historically nor realistically, a difference between "condition" and identity. The similar real-world argument about corruption is that the Court was practically earning its money like gambling, in which it can only be successful whenever it is the best *and* most lucky, both conditions necessary. Euathlus argues the necessary had been degenerated, and the fallback is the efficient, which is the source of the law either way as to what would be just for him in that case about him. Because he is the petitioner who brought suit against Protagoras, he undermines the necessity argument by stating that it is less effective, less efficient, and he does not really argue against the necessity argument directly. However, his lawsuit is the argument of necessity same as it is in Variation 1. He avoids hypocrisy at all cost, which is the problem in the Paradox. Variation 2 answers a different question more succinctly as to not who wins but as to why any of them ought to win at all. Otherwise, it would truly be a moot Court.

While the law allows ways to win and has many traps to make one lose, for Euathlus the perils are so many so often but not as great, which is how he aims to win, which he does handedly but with great effort. The Paradox asks how the Court ought to proceed to the resolution based on that win. Variation 1 is an easier version of logic, and Variation 2 is an easier version of the same logic in syllogistic form, but Variation 2 is clearly much more political.

The immediate goal is to repay the tuition debt, and Euathlus offers viable resolutions: let him leave the law profession so he can do just that, which is work to repay the debt, or let him stay and acknowledge that he can win at least one case if and only if the Court admits fault somewhere, and it cannot be with him lest he runs into ruin and deeper debt. The admission of fault is actually covered in Variation 1, but the resolution judiciously is in Variation 2, which is an additional stipulation posed by him not from Protagoras but from the law. If he fails, like Cicero and Socrates, he will be killed by the law in his service to something else, perhaps to improve the law like Socrates, or perhaps to improve his people, like Cicero. To avoid the murder-suicide trap, he takes the path of humility and claims outright that he is not the best attorney possible, not even to the career level of the Court's judgeship, which was Socrates' avoidance of murder and Cicero's failure to avoid begging for Roman assassination. He casts the Court into the Greek tragic position of an avoidable plague, and his first real case as a recently graduated student is one of deterrence, which is his goal more than the question of who pays whom, for he does not want to foresee any need for reparations from faults later on.

The Court does not admit ruin, and Protagoras is faultless, which makes Eauthlus's lawsuit even more difficult for him. Everyone acknowledges their differences, and it is up to Eauthlus to put the case together and find a way out for everyone. There is more emotion in Variation 2, because there is more at stake, but there are fewer losses after all. If the Court loses, justice is ruined. If Protagoras loses, no one eats. If Eauthlus loses, no one has anything to say. They each take turns urging the best out of the other two parties, and Eauthlus is less of a rallying force in the Paradox yet shines on them as well. As is often said, desperation is the mother of necessity, but Eauthlus is more urgent than he is desperate, which avoids stumbling into faults during his speech.

Merely by speaking well and covering all the intricacies of the case he brought, he upholds the law that the Court ought to be available to remind themselves that there is a forum when alternatives to the Court has failed, which is how meaningful cases can come to Court. While each party takes turns delineating that they cannot do more than their own part, Eauthlus's first real work is to "roundhouse" and do all the parts, which is typical of comprehensive "exit examination" we see from the highest courts' opinions. He stipulates that one of the three has to go or at least step back and take a neutral position, which will be him. They move forward to each arrive at classical statis of positive neutrality by conceding a few points here and there judiciously. While this variation is not a stronger win and a swifter resolution, it is a more lasting one as a credible precedent.

He argues that he does not need to be self-aware about conforming to any Court style but that he probably already has one that needs not be articulated and it does not matter to him whether it already conforms or it is idiosyncratic. He knows only one thing and takes the Greek position that he is Greek. In Variation 1, each party takes turns "looking at the whole" to arrive at a judicious resolution, and the genericized "court" is that upper see-all point of view of justice's presence in the law. Protagoras has more presence of the law. In Variation 2, evidence outside of the courtroom is brought to the Court from each party's point of view and they share that view together as they discuss the case. The case does not fall apart so long as they maintain decorum of truthfulness, which they show in practice and do not alter, which is correct representation of justice by the law. Euathlus has more representation of justice and admits many points of ignorance and inexperience that while justice is universal, laws are for the living to resolve real conflicts or disputes.

However, the flaw in the laws that Euathlus is arguing is that they are merely Greek justice. His position is, So be it. From there, he eliminates that which imperils Greek justice: bogus lawsuits and bad cases that do not clarify the law nor give satisfaction to parties, strategic stalling, poor public counsel or prosecutorial malice, the court's inability to ascertain peculiarities or even generic issues about certain cases, and so on. He eliminates the punitive punishment that stems from the Court's initial threat to find him "in contempt" of them. They recapitulate rather than recoil, stating a matter of honor as to credibility rather than capability. They could punish him, but in a way he was saying that already by bringing the lawsuit to the Court that it was he who feels every moment of the dual punishment: no good cases means no good money. He was grateful that he was spared the torment of bad cases while he was a student. He argues that it is the fault of the Court that there really is no bad cases, only bad handling of legitimate cases. Variation 2 makes the high claim by all three parties that no one is less wrong than the other, but at least one is more right than the other such that everyone can know the difference between wrong and right, which is their initial position: they all know the difference between wrong and right. Variation 1 asks us to listen as the Court would need to. Variation 2 asks us to speak and not to speak and take our turns listening.

The big difference between Variation 1 and Variation 2 is not really who sues whom but who gives focus to the same case. Even though it is the same money, same education, same parties, same Court, one could believe the ritual outcome would be the same either way. However, the logic of Variation 2 says that is not true on the whole as a whole, because the whole premise of Variation 1 is in-court by only one of them, which is the charge of hypocrisy: anyone of the law would be tainted and culpable in corruption of the law. Variation 2 poses the larger question of whether the law contributes to the justice of a society, which Eauthlus made response that yes it does but not always by the Court nor one as he. If he loses, he "wins" a stalemate amongst them, and it is merely toil under hardship that they are not paid to merely serve one another but serve others not of the profession. If he wins, he "loses" the stalemate and defers to his betters who would know how best to serve others by that learning in the profession rather than the profession directly.

In other words, he argues that they ought not to be paid to lose, for their reputations demand otherwise. He eliminates the idea of a Pyrrhic victory and begs the answer of what would be worthwhile to do that is more than merely symbolic. No renown means no cases. Poor renown means ineffectiveness. Lack of necessity or lack of reputation altogether is a permanent recess of the court as if it were already abolished. The hard work for Eauthlus was how to recover from a bad or iffy reputation, from notoriety or oversaturation. In that, he has the only advantage, because he is truly innocent. But rather than arguing that he could be corrupt, he argues that he is confident enough he knows he does not want to be corrupt.

Rarely has a court ever demanded for itself somewhere that it admits not that it merely "erred" but that it is hypocritical and guilty of all the faults it had laid upon others; that is, it has to argue itself out of the false dilemmas it had been positing. "Indiscriminate" or "uneven application of the law" is not a good enough excuse for Eauthlus and does not meet his ethical standards, not unlike gambling that offers little assurances. Systemic and systematic wrongdoing by the Court is the pretentious and impoverished appearance of more regular, consistent application of the law, not unlike abuse of the idea of "rule of law". Rarely has an in-debt court ever persuaded those not in debt at its own court that the same court can overcome the accusation of being NOT INNOCENT.

One generalized resolution is that each party pays the other at a time needed for a loan rather than all at once, which would be moot if the latter case. Then they would be ad hoc interdependent rather than persistently co-dependent, which is Eauthlus's argument. He who has the greater resources ought not to make it so difficult for the other to obtain to the opportunity to make good use of those resources. The conceit in Variation 2 is that the Court is cast as villains rather than the all-around Ignorant One: a proto try of the impending lawsuit, which could have been avoided, is blocked by the Court to push the issue of the Court's urgency upon Protagoras and Euathlus.

It is the same as a private loan made for public record is all, which is the economist's resolution at the governmental level. The practical, listless new attorney's resolution is a sabbatical from the profession to pay back the tuition loan based on familiarly of other professions. The Court's generalized resolution is to recategorize the loan as a gift and resolve the matter altruistically. The frugal student-teacher specific resolution is not to waste time honoring back and forth with empty fanfare but to treat money realistically even in the absence of the Court's presence about the law.

If Protagoras is right, then Eauthlus automatically wins, based on Protagoras's good record. If Protagoras is not too right, then the burden shifts to the status quo Court or also the newly "minted" attorney Eauthlus. One has no record (Eauthlus), the other has a shoddy or suspect or sufficiently irregular, mixed record (the Court). But in order to establish a good record from the start, Eathlus argues at the level of moral philosophy as to what is best, while the Court argues what can be done, and Protagoras argues what is good. They all win because they are not incompatible positions and are mutually supportive in the way the three positions are positively "deliberated" or doled out even though they happen to be mutually exclusive positions. A catastrophic failure on Eauthlus's part, and he loses everything, even his ability to find any other work. Instead, fortunately for them, they were able to pay down on the interest on the loan and made headways on the outstanding principle, which lifts the emergency from Eauthlus. Because they take their profession seriously, it is no trivial matter than a "rotten apple" truly is a blight they cannot forebear, but they can prepare the right approaches to deal with the consequences, to meet the demands of the day.

Eauthlus addresses the problem of improperly charging interest on loans that puts one into greater debt even if small renumerations are consistently paid on the loan, "interest" both culturally linguistic as to which is foreign (increased difficulty from less familiarity) and which domestic (increased ease from more familiarity), and interests as to the content of the case or lawsuit whether the case is suitable for the Court anyway, and interest as to whether Eauthlus finds any of those matters attractive to his inclinations. He says that he does not find them attractive to his personal interests ("temperament") but that he has sufficient prowess to make the case worth the Court's time ("interesting"), since it was the Court that pressed the issue on behalf of Protagoras, and he knew that all the while his obligation to the law ("economic interest") rather than to either the Court or to Protagoras himself. Eauthlus learns that differences across the judgeship dilute or fragment the prowess of the Court's abilities and wisdoms. Had he been much less fortunate and experienced that same phenomenon about the law itself from Protagoras, then he would reach a proto position of attempting to put the law together himself when there is not enough from it from case law. Many have tried in small parts, only the few are quite comprehensive -- or quite desperate. Many have expertise in different areas of the law, but few prefer a purist rendition of jurisprudence. Rather than being either angry like Protagoras, or disappointed like the Court, he too presses the issue back to those peers in the profession and mentors in the education.

The interesting part about Variation 2 is not a merger of the classroom and the courtroom but the best of jurisprudence from each party. It also opens them to the possibility of recessing as needed so that they can attend to other matters. Acquittability and inapplicability are valid resolutions ("default judgment"), because in reality in real cases it occurs quite often in both civics and in criminal situations that, actually, failure upon the quotidian or the mundane ("profane" case law) are not valid reasons to bring a case to Court that would exacerbate innocuous circumstances into harmful situations. The balance of resources is what puts the benefactors of the Court into debt over petty cases, for the sheer amount of resources to convene the Court is not always economical -- neither necessary nor sufficient.

In Variation 2, the shameful situation is Eauthlus is on retainer but is practically unemployed. He refuses to be disabling about that and would rather be useful doing something else. He shows initiative, and that matters. He actually does not take an interdisciplinary approach but returns the question of the Court's persistence back to a matter of law as to whether anyone is serving justice. The resolution of reduced court fees, because it is practically intramural among them, is an incremental approach to resolving the overvaluation problem of arrogance running into hubris or what economists call "irrational exuberance" or, in financial accounting, "accruals mispricing". At least it buys them time for selecting better cases or swiftly arbitrating near the courtroom by less expensive means within the orbit of the Court itself.

Eauthlus's long-term strategy is to make each argument worthwhile for strategic absolute advantage rather than tactical relative advantage by Protagoras in Variation 1; it is the same as his short-term urgent strategy. In Variation 1, Protagoras convinces why it needs to be done that way as a very strong tried-and-true technique. In Variation 2, Eauthlus *persuades* how and why it can be done many ways according to the same principles. The field is not logic, which does not demonstrate well moral philosophy, the field is moral philosophy which demonstrates easily many "logical" (ethical) positions. Part of arriving at suitable resolutions is to scope which the better field. A major problem in moral philosophy is synthetic logic can gamble away principles to show nothing but process, and content becomes meaningless. Likewise, strong processes can be stuffed with trivial content. Likewise, weak processes can subvert strong content.

The inverse resolution from maximum altruism assumes all three parties have money to spare, and the winner of the "gentleman's wager" pays alms to the poor, which is true in pro bono legal works. But the same ethical standards apply, and they cannot game each other into deceitful traps, more a matter of sportsmanship about wit than dastardliness about contrivance. Part of the "gentlemanliness" is they do not allow each other to become poor. Who wins does not matter so long as they have good case coverage and arrive at a realistic resolution for the sake of clients. Neutrality of genuine difference is allowed so long as at least one party has a genuine win, which is the real difference, such as in a result of win-change-stay, however it is also the weakest win of superficial symbolic solvency, because the poor remain poor and their persistent challenges -- not because of the Court itself -- is a problem for the Courts to ponder longer term and more consistently resolve. A showy display of riches as a final divestiture signals that the Court can no longer operate from benefactors.

Variation 2 highlights that straightforward arbitration is sometimes better than either one-sided efficacy (advocacy) or adversarial contestation. Euathlus states the straightforward woeful status quo, and they have no choice but to concede, and it is the peers of the Court who come to the consensus rather than the plea of NO RULES. The consensus is they who made the law are beholden to, are morally obligated to abide by the law, lest they become hypocritical. The resolution of service-in-kind hinges on the availability of fungibility to substitute for endengered servitude or outright slavery. The peers of the Court can allow a merit of redeemable credits from service-for-kind to reduce their common debt, which is a valid intramural resolution and how hobbyists sustain themselves in a rewarding activity.

Euathlus admonishes the Court that the volatility of their increasingly intramural activities is shameful to the aims of justice, where the reward of honor and glory goes only to them but the honor of the deeds themselves are not harnessed from making good on cases that come before the Court. He is guessing or inferring that has been what is going on, that the Court overall has been failing their clients much more than he himself would tolerate. The Court does not divulge its record, which can be researched later, but which poses the same challenge that that too requires resources such as money (generically, riches and treasures) on the peers' part, which is doled out as privileged access to one as Euathlus. They spend money, but they no longer make any money. It is a "hardship tour of duty" for everyone to earn money as they go. Euathlus sets a good example of personal restraint and acknowledgment of natural limitations.

Variation 1 gives resolutions within contract law, which is not original to the Court but comes from society out of "original efficacy". Variation 2 gives resolutions within the law itself based on principles of contracting for the law, which is a choice by society out of "original clarity". Both are foundations of many laws across disparate cultures and various societies.

Review of Unfavorable Results

The naive position in the Paradox, and there are many, is a certain outcome ought to be because, simply, "he deserves it". It is not a terrible position, actually, and has educational value. Even within context of real cases, those who are both at least somewhat wise and practical can catch their own mistakes more often than not.

If Protagoras deserves repayment for service rendered, because no one disputes that service was rendered to Euathlus, it begs the question of what good is service such as teaching if the outcome is a student who never really succeeds in learning anything within the field, and that would show either early during the mentorship arrangement or later in the courtroom setting. Variation 1 asks some nongermane questions that naive probers might consider: should anyone be paid, or was Protagoras merely teaching because he wanted to and repayment is a matter of honor, and nonrepayment is considered a gift, which is a case of altruism. The details of the Paradox has the answer: he was teaching upon the stipulation that he would be repaid somehow, therein pertains some of the answers. The Paradox stipulates to those who study it that "one good teacher is as good as another good teacher". And if that is true, than a good teacher CAN ensure success.

To simplify the Paradox, the separated questions of payment versus winning the lawsuit (the Court finding favor for whichever side) is combined and one implies the other. Then the truly naive question of the law is whether anyone deserves to be taught, for it does have perils where one can lose great sums of monies or accumulate a terrible record of losing many cases. In other words, it is simply not an honorable profession, then, and one could gain honor or good merits in doing something else rather than, as they say, "being brainwashed" into a lost cause or swindled into a fly-by-night scam. One must recognize the unfavorable condition (status quo) of an activity that does not "live up" to its promises (ideals or goals) by avoiding being so defeatist.

But, one can also recognize the nonuniqueness of the law profession that it is not for everyone. Though losing interest in the activity is a setback, it should not be too much of a disappointment, and no one should have any big regrets. Many laws, for example, demand some sort of "statement of remorse" from "criminal defendants found guilty" of something heinous, but the demand can become empty and degrades into a law that whines and panders for every particularity to be fulfilled and loses focus of its principles. After all, personal dignity and personal self-esteem is not as misguided as certain laws contort for the laws' being so abstruse or too demanding or such. A great danger of law is that it rather imposes something to regret and personalizes and over-objectifies the many and the long-term and even the sporadic upon, typically, individuals who are already well-ordered in the absence of knowing particular details of codified laws (genericized statements).

An ideal lowest acceptable conclusion of realistic law is "no harm, no foul", which avoids regret. If it be possible, and it almost always is, to harness comity to arrive at a state in which a party catches their own mistakes, then "punishment" is avoided altogether and meaningful resolutions can occur. Lacking arriving at that statis of minimal acceptability is certainly unfavorable, and that will also show. For example, Protagoras wins in Variation 1, but the Court punishes him for wasting his time on a recalcitrant like the winless Euathlus, which wrongly supposes that it is Protagoras who is also recalcitrant the second time who brought the lawsuit. In other words, the Court goes against the win and made a bad call, was itself dishonorable. It is unacceptable to punish the one who was fair and delivered good service initially. In that event, the Court reverses what is good and divests into proving the pointlessness of regret, which Protagoras did not really have any. He cannot resolve everything as a teacher, but he sure can press the urgency of the meaning of the law at Court upon Euathlus.

If the Court not be familiar enough to take a "free ride" on Protagoras's ingenious resolution to the debt problem, then even in practice at moot court no one really benefits. Moot court ought to see students successful at moot court so that mentors can be reassured the next cohort of Court peers are not so lousy, which means paying tuition from loans that have to be repaid later on is not frivolous, and there is steady build-up to the ability to repay later on. Those same mentors will threaten students that they will be paralegals and working "in the trenches" of paperwork and shall have no influence on the law if they are merely "passable" but not exceptionally good. The worst that could occur is a status quo that is absolutely right, which can be boring when it is not that creatively wrong either. Then passable students can forgo the limelight and make a decent living on many ordinary ado needful for the smooth functioning of the Court. They can look forward to the tedium of backroom clerking, but at least a modest steady salary would not be worthless.

What both variations of the Paradox highlights as resolution is somebody of the three parties has to be stable, reliable and complete the Paradox to one of the resolutions. As a problem in logic with a realistic context, letting the "permanent if" on the side of the debt never be resolved at least once is a defeatist's conceit that admits it has no answer. That constant nag explodes the Paradox into all the usual harms a typical court is already aware, such as somebody's inability to avoid bogus charges, assuming debt unnecessarily, double-accounting that is fraudulent, and so on. If the "if" is not resolved, then all is at ruins in complicity: one is never repaid and is cheated, one is recalcitrant and is wrongful, one is complacent and does not muster justice. Those are the unacceptable perils or moral hazards, respectively: diseconomics, immorality, and injustice.

If the perils of the court ruling were compressed back into a classical "two-horned dilemma", arriving at the resolutions are typical of general techniques for resolving dilemmas and paradoxes. For example, one horn of the dilemma can be grabbed at one time while the other horn's harm does not increase. It is actually acceptable to go into endengered servitude or semi-slavery with repayment-in-kind, which is a custom in many cultures that the Court merely formalizes, a resolution given in Variation 2. That status for the loser is a compromise but should not be dishonorable, for it aims to minimally restore justice by law. Restoration of justice by rearrangement to ease the stress of the debt does not include condemning nor ostracizing the loser but quite the opposite. Clearly, in Variation 1, Euathlus initially did not pay, and in Variation 2, he had not the means to pay. Abuses is the crux of the problem, such as abuse of privilege in Variation 1, and abuse of justice in Variation 2, and banishing the ability to pay, which is the problem posed by the Paradox, is unacceptable arbitrariness of win-lose-draw. For example, if Protagoras and Euathlus so begrudge one another into an agonal position, then the Court can ease the tension by offering one of them to voluntarily remove oneself from the conflict, such as to not increase any interest on the loan: Euathlus can take a second job and at least be successful at something. Or they hire him for a modest wage such as for a clerkship that he may be remediated. While it might take longer to repay the tuition, his absconding before Protagoras or also the Court are satisfied would be an injustice on his part. Debt forgiveness is a valid resolution when they can cover the loss, otherwise the benefit goes to the educational effect of altruism but not to its practicality, and recalcitrance is the result from too many unearned freebies.