Zero tolerance on sexual harassment, or on any other behavioral issue, is a profoundly bad idea (“What exactly is zero tolerance on sexual harassment?,’’ Opinion, Jan. 2). A wheel engineered to zero tolerance can’t spin. A machine engineered to zero tolerance won’t work – and neither will any zero tolerance system imagined by social engineers.

Prattle about zero tolerance contributes to the false expectation that society can function on autopilot without human judgment and without the timeless virtues that contribute to the quality of that judgment. In actual society, with all its variation in age, emotion, resources, education, and experience, efforts to practice zero tolerance produce gross injustice and waste. Attempts to enforce zero tolerance of any type of behavior push the role of judgment into obscure corners where bad judgement can fester unseen. Instead, we should be working explicitly and practically on the factors of individual and institutional judgment that cause problems, especially in the many hazy zones where errors are most likely to occur. The practice of precise judgement and low tolerance for variation may be worthy aspirations in certain realms of behavior, but zero tolerance is a dangerous fantasy.

Roger Wilson

Winchester