🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6ge0e2$ldg$1@usenet53.supernews.com>, HiThere@outtatown.com
(HiThere) wrote:

> In article <gall-0704981351160001@usrts1m7.uwinnipeg.ca>,
gall@uwinnipeg.ca (Norman Gall) wrote:

> >Well, hold on.  I still think you are confusing a number of things. The
> >latter is not purely personal *in certain contexts* (and still independent
> >of how the people feel) - those contexts being political.  The right to be
> >treated fairly is clearly independent of how persons feel - that is why we
> >have a court system.
 
> Fair and honestly are two different things. An attribute like *fairness* begs 
> about a million purely subjective questions.

Sure. But honesty doesn't get you all the way to where you want to go. 
The guy with all the money and all the power to use it can use economic
force to crush people. That he says he is going to do it before hand
doesn't generate a free society.

> >When we have
> >large segments of the population doing it, we have a public problem.
 
> I'm interested in the magic number when morality changes :-)

I don't think there is one and my argument doesn't depend on one - what it
does depend upon is the mount of harm done in society.  Surely you'd agree
that harm is morally relevant.
 
> > Again, these are not analogous situations. Employment is not a private
> > contract.
 
> No? It should be.

Why?
 
> >No, the issue is whether there will be a further relationship. Insofar as
> >you are human beings and citizens of the same country you have certain
> >responsibilities and rights. We are not amoral data points before we enter
> >into contracts. I'd argue that such creature would be unable to enter
> >contracts.
 
> Amoral, no. Holding differing morality, yes. 

Sure, but only superficially.

> Specifically, not every _should_  needs a law attached to it.

True. I'd say that one important criterion for deciding which ones do is
the amount of harm that would be cuased by doing the otherwise proscribed
act.
 
> >My argument applies here as well.
 
> true--but it doesn't apply any better :-)

It only has to apply enough to undermine yours.... :)
 
> >But you can be wrong in your selection of criteria.  This is the
> >distinction between taste and logical relevance.  It is logically relevant
> >to any argument about rights that we talk about moral agents. If you feel
> >that you can enter into a contract with an infant, you are simply wrong
> >(and not just from a legal standpoint).
 
> No kidding--but we are talking about adults here.

Right. And the conceptual framework of these legal and moral concepts are
not a matter of taste. As you say, the majority view has nothing to do
with right and wrong.
 
> >well, it depends on where and if that bigotry manifests itself in decsions
> >which are public concerns.  There is (what I consider) an unassailable
> >argument that sexual relations between consenting adults is a private
> >concern.  I maintain - and especially now - that there is ample evidence
> >that employment is a public concern.
 
> Is there? Again--what is the magic number when morality changes?

See above.

> >Once again, I disagree that not hiring someone on the irrelevant ground
> >that they are not heterosexual *is not* economic coercion. 
> 
> How can simply not giving someone something they didn't have in the first 
> place be coercion? 

When they deserved to have it in the first place.  We all deserve by
reason of our humanity a fair shake.  There are clearly time when we
don't, but the default position is that we are all treated without
prejudice. These are the dictates of reason.

> What about freedom of association, also?

What about it? It isn't absolute and inalienable - else we couldn't put
people in prison.

> >As well, it is not in keeping with the idea of a free society that persons
> >need to hide or suffer their irrelevant situations just on the grounds
> >that someone doesn't like them. Physicans cannot turn patients away *just*
> >because they dislike them.  The responsibility they have is public.
> >Similarly for employers.
> >
> 
> Well, no-one said life would be easy--or that all people will be fair. 

Sounds like an is/ought fallacy in the works.

> I've never expected either. 

your expecations (and the expectations of others as well) are irrelevant.
Morality is dispassionate.

>I actually think physicians _should_ be able to turn 
> patients away--_if_ they have not taken the Hippocratic oath, but the oath 
> should be voluntary. I think, for instance, that a Doctor [sic] (or other 
> individuals) should be able to say to a bigot *there is a price for your 
> attitude--and it is this: I won't help you.*

Some price.  The cost should be far more dear for what the bigot does is
deny someone's humanity.
 
> >But on a related topic, why should I not be allowed to apply force to
> >someone just on the grounds that I dislike them? Isn't this a private
> >matter as well?

> No--again I refer to the principle against the *initiation of force*.

Again, why?
 
> Thank you.

My pleasure.
 
> >>  Also, please excuse my tone in  earlier posts--you clearly did not
deserve 
> >> it.

> >Don't worry about it. We all get a little cranky and if people think
> >professional thinkers in the Academy don't use ad hominems right to their
> >interlocutors faces from time to time, they've got an overly romantic
> >view.
 
> Agreed, accepted. I'm enjoying this.

Ah, the joy of intellectual exploration. ;)

> >For what its worth, I think you;'ve got the only position mention on this
> >topic with any plausibility, consistency, or worth.  These other view are
> >non-starters.
 
> Thank you, Sir. In my own regard, I actually agree wth you. Understand there 
> is also a reason that I am generally confining my debate here to the points 
> _you_ raise.

Yahoo!  That's what all of this is about. It almost makes me cease
regretting my choice of vocation.

Cheers,
Norm Gall

-- 
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." 
 - Voltaire