Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Qupperneq 237

Promises and Games
227
when they have learnt to play chess and play it seriously. Thus we have
here an example of three kinds of rules:
(1) The rules for the power of movement of the pieces, that Black and
White always move in turn, with White having the first move, the
structure of the board, etc. are constitutive rules of the game. These
rules must furthermore include a statement of the competitive aim, what
constitutes winning, and under what conditions the game results in a
draw. Some understanding of these rules is necessary in order to play
chess at all, although some of these rules are less important than others.
Thus a man might play chess for some time without discovering what
constitutes stalemate. The rule that a draw can be called, if the same
position is repeated three times during the course of the entire game is
not known to a great number of people who play chess.
(2) One is given the maxim that, generally speaking, one is well advised
to exchange the Pawn for the strongest piece, which is the Queen. One
may call this a simple strategic rule. The accounts given of famous
openings that have been well tried can be thought of as statements of
more complicated rules of essentially the same kind.
(3) Notice that the rule that the Queen is most often the piece for which
the Pawn is exchanged is a summary rule in something like the sense
Rawls gives to that expression: it simply records that most people who
play chess follow this rule or maxim, for it is such an obvious rule to
even the least skillful of players, provided that he understands the point
of the game, i.e. that success consists in checkmating your opponent’s
King. But there are exceptions even to this obvious rule for, in certain
circumstances, promoting the Pawn to a Queen would leave your
opponent no move that does not bring his King into check, in which
case the result would be a draw. In such a case promoting the Pawn to
a Rook, Bishop or Knight may give a chance of a win and thus be
preferable.
A fourth kind of rule we are all familiar with is the one we call
regulations. Examples are rules for parking imposed by cities and uni-
versities. Max Black thinks we can speak of “the regulations for playing
chess, though admittedly “in a strained fashion”. But it would I think
he a mistake to equate constitutive rules of games with regulations, for