tim@unc.UUCP (08/07/83)
This is a carryover from a discussion on net.flame. I hope that
the reaction here will be more reasonable.
The discussion concerned anti-public-smoking laws and whether or
not they should be instituted. My position is that they should only
be enacted if it is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that ambient
cigarette smoke is hazardous to normal, healthy people. Many people
feel that this is not neccessary, that the fact of the obnoxiousness
of smoke to many people is sufficient basis for enacting laws against
emitting it in public. To put it another way, I feel that the mere
fact that there is a societal consensus that a thing is unpleasant
should not be considered sufficient basis for enforcing a law against
that thing, and the others disagreed.
I would like to keep public smoking entirely out of this
discussion. The true issues here are independent of this particular
case. Should societal consensus be considered a fit basis for
legislation? When I say "a basis for legislation", I mean a reason
for enacting laws.
Some of the articles on the other group, and some of my personal
mail, expressed the sentiment that there was no other basis possible.
In a sense, this is correct. If a law goes against societal
consensus, it will not be enforceable. However, this does not imply
anything beyond this: No law should be made which goes against
societal consensus. It does NOT mean this: Any law which reflects
societal consensus is fitting.
Societal consensus is a "basis" only in that it must be present.
The same goes for the use of force. All laws rest on their ability to
be enforced by the use of force. This does not mean that a law is
fitting just because it is enforceable; you can surely think of any
number of examples of this for yourself. Neither is a law neccessarily
fitting just because societal consensus favors it.
In addition, societal consensus is notoriously unfair. If you
feel that societal consensus is a fit basis for legislation, then you
must support the pro-slavery laws of the southern states of the United
States in previous centuries. There is no question that societal
consensus there was in favor of these laws. In addition, you would
have to consider the legal persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to be
fitting, since German societal consensus favored it. It is clear that
there must be some deeper considerations behind any law, since
societal consensus has historically been responsible for many things
which we consider wrong.
There are a number of possible alternative bases for legislation.
I feel that the only fit one is liberty. When I say "liberty", I mean
the ability to do things, nothing more, nothing less. I am not using
the concept of "rights" here at all. All fitting laws can be derived
from the simple concept of liberty. Murder is a restriction of
another's liberty in that a murder victim cannot do anything.
Pollution is a restriction of another's liberty since a sick or dead
person has many more obstacles to his or her liberty. And so on.
This extremely simple concept is sufficient to derive all laws which I
would consider just. (The only modification needed is that all
persons must be considered to be justified in restricting themselves
as much as they desire. The reason this is needed is that any act of
yours is inherently a restriction of your own liberty to do anything
else.) In practice, this means that it may be neccessary to
deliberately restrict an individual's liberty if it is probable that
this person will restrict the liberties of others.
I see no reason for anything more than this when deciding on a
basis for legislation. The principle of liberty is sufficient to
derive all fair laws. This excludes "victimless crimes", which is
something of a contradiction in terms anyway. A short digression on
these is warranted here. Suppose that it is neccessary to the
continuation of civilization to have these laws against "victimless
crimes". (This is not how I feel, of course.) This means that
humanity is so corrupt that people must be protected from themselves.
If this is the case, then people are hardly up to the task of doing
the protecting.
Perhaps there are two classes of people, those who require
protection against themselves, and those who do not and are therefore
fit to protect the rest. How is this distinction to be made in
practice? There is no way. You cannot be sure that the distinction
is not made by the unfit, and therefore you cannot be sure that the
protectors are fit, and therefore you are back to exactly where we
started from, with the basic unfitness of a corrupt race to do this
sort of protection. My conclusion is that even if laws against
"victimless crimes" are neccessary, there is no way that they can be
enacted or enforced properly, and therefore we must avoid them to
ensure that no undue restriction of liberty occurs.
I have strayed somewhat, but my point remains clear. Societal
consensus is no fit basis for legislation, due to its history of
atrocities. Liberty is a fit basis for legislation, because it
excludes the atrocities which otherwise occur.
___________
Tim Maroney
duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hilllarry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/08/83)
From Tim Maroney:
There are a number of possible alternative bases for legislation.
I feel that the only fit one is liberty.
When you say basis for legislation, I presume you mean a set of
criteria for any given person to support the enaction of legislation.
Two people could use the same basis, and arrive at different stands,
because they are different people.
I think the only appropriate meta-rule in this case is the modified
Golden Rule, vis:
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you if you were in
their situation.
Since if I were a smoker, I would make it my business not to
smoke in the presence of non-smokers, and thusly I would support
anti-public smoking laws. If I were an inconsiderate person, I would
not.
Presumably, the purpose of talking about bases for legislation is to
convince people to use a valid basis as a starting point. Since Tim's
basis relies on the subjective idea of Liberty, he is not going to get
many people to agree with his interpretation of it.
What is needed is an objective basis, which is free of ideological
tint. The Golden Rule provides one.--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ailaura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/09/83)
Larry Kolodney writes:
When you say basis for legislation, I presume you mean a set of
I think the only appropriate meta-rule in this case is the modified
Golden Rule, vis:
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you if you were in
their situation.
Since Tim's
basis relies on the subjective idea of Liberty, he is not going to get
many people to agree with his interpretation of it.
What is needed is an objective basis, which is free of ideological
tint. The Golden Rule provides one.--
Come again? How is your subjective interpretation of "what you would have
others do unto you if you were in their situation" an "objective basis, which
is free of ideological tint [taint?]"? I have a much easier time with Tim's
concept of Liberty than your concept of the Golden Rule.
Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!lauralarry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/10/83)
I don't think I made myself too clear on my "objective basis for
legislation" flame.
Maybe this will clarify it:
I think you missed my point. Let's suppose my friend comes up to me
and asks me, "How should I decide how to treat other people." As his
friend, I want to give him advice which is best for him. If I were to
say, do that which promotes freedom, that really wouldn't help him very
much, since his idea of freedom and mine may differ and he really won't
be getting any useful information from me. If I say instead, do what
promotes your idea of freedom, (assuming my friend enjoys freedom, this
is functionally equivalent to the Golden Rule), he knows exactly what
to do.
I think the confusion is due to semantics. When we answer the question
of how people should act toward others, there is a question as to whether we
mean "how would I like other people to act toward others" or "If I were
you, how would I act."
-larry
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ailaura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/11/83)
I do not think that the "Golden Rule" is workable. It depends on everyone having the same mind-set. Paul Torek and Tim Craver in net.philosophy are demonstrating that this is not the case in a relatively small area such as the United States. Tim Craver is proposing selfishness as a basis for actions. Paul Torek is proposing Utilitarianism, but is mostly arguing altruism. They are being relatively civilised about this though Tim Craver has contended that there is no middle ground between them. Why is it working? Because they are both respecting each other's freedom. I am now going to invent 2 people. TC is a grossly-exagerated Tim Craver. PT is a grossly exagerated Paul Torek. Neither PT nor TC exist, and neither PT nor TC have any respect for each other's freedom. They are both fanatically convinced that they are correct. Now you meet TC. He evaluates your miserable Golden Rule philosophy and thinks it stinks. He decides that you are not worth keeping around for the laughs, and his sincere opinion is that you should kill yourself to save him the trouble. Does your opinion of what to do to either a) yourself or b) him change because of his opinion of you? Now PT enters the scene. He decides that there is some hope for you, but that for the good of mankind, TC should be killed. He asks you to help him. Now what do you do? What if you are in a society which is full of TCs or PTs?? Any philosophy which is dependant upon the opinions of other people has this problem. Your modified Golden Rule shares this. If you only say that it boils down to "Do whatever you think is right to other people" then you have just given TC and PT the freedom to kill each other, and maybe you. You have also ducked the real question, "How do you formulate a morality system?" I think that you have to do what is right because it is right. I have yet to see anything more right than Freedom. (If you know something that is, let me know, please.) You still have not said anything about why Tim Maroney's definition of freedom is any more subjective than your concept of "as you would have others do unto you if you were in their position". I would have an easier time with whatever list of rights Tim Maroney might produce as a formal definition of "Essential Rights" (supposing that he did this) than I could with the prospect of understanding you and every other human being on this planet in the hopes of understanding how I could predict what I would like had I been in your (or anyone else's) position. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/11/83)
Once more I will try to clear up the confusion about my 'modified
golden rule' basis for legislation.
It is my belief that much if not most of what we believe, either
politically or morally, has been come about through rational resoning
or any systematic process whatsoever. Rather it is due to the sum of
our life experiences as they interact with certain instinctive needs.
Thus, while you may possibly change the mind of a given person on a
specific moral or political issue, I doubt very much that you can
change this person's mind on something as fundamental as freedom,
property rights, sexual morality, etc. As a result, if we are going to
be reasonable, we should not try to tell people that 'FREEDOM' should
be the basis for morality, because if they aren't already convinced,
they never will be.
The way I come about with the modified Golden Rule principle is as
follows. I beleive that for large enough populations, (i.e. not just
masochists), the there will be a pretty low standard deviation in the
responses of people to the question "How would you want to be treated
in that situation." That is, I have beleive that human beings are
basicly reasonable, but that when put under certain stresses, they
become unreasonable. I'm basicly just saying, "be reasonable"
-larry
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ailarry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/11/83)
Sorry for the massive typo in my previous message, it should have said
in the first line of the second paragraph:
It is my belief that much, if not most, of what we believe, either
politically or morally, has NOT come about through rational reasoning
or any systematic process whatsoever.
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ai