kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (07/28/86)
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Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 23:17:08 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Various
To: aweinste@DIAMOND.BBN.COM
cc: MetaPhilosophers@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU
From: Anders Weinstein <aweinste@DIAMOND.BBN.COM>
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
> One is NEVER *COMPELLED* to save someone. It is not evil to
> mind one's own business even to the detriment of others.
Not true. For example, you ARE compelled to (actively) step on the
brake at a crowded crosswalk and save the pedestrians from the
injury that would result if you (passively) maintained your
cruising speed and mowed them down.
Only because you pressed the accelerator a little earlier.
Similarly, you ARE compelled to save a drowning child if YOU put him
in the water.
What if you intended to cause evil through your passivity? This is
evil by the intent rule but not by the active/passive rule.
The active/passive rule takes priority. One is never compelled to
take action. One may be compelled to FOLLOW THROUGH an action, i.e.
step on the brakes, meet the deadline, do the work you contracted to
do, pay the money you owe for goods or services rendered, etc, but
not to INITIATE any action.
Any other set of rules rapidly runs into contradictions or trashes
individual liberty.
Also, notice that it is not necessarily evil to cause something bad.
Surely you would agree that communist propaganda has bad effects, but
it should not be illegal to distribute, right? I doubt that
pornography leads to sex crimes (unless purchasing pornography is a
sex crime!) but even if it did, reading, writing, buying, and selling
pornography is not evil and should not be illegal.
...Keith
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