🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <gall-0704981602460001@usrts1m9.uwinnipeg.ca>, gall@uwinnipeg.ca (Norman Gall) wrote:
>In article <6ge0e2$ldg$1@usenet53.supernews.com>, HiThere@outtatown.com
>(HiThere) wrote:

> 
>> 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.
>

Okay, and we move the debate to property rights. I agree that economic power 
is power--to do good or evil. But I see economic freedom as directly 
correlating with political freedom (one is the the right to have the tool, the 
other is the freedom to act with the tool). This is the problem between the 
stereotypical left and right. The right wing understands somewhat more about 
economic freedom--but often at the expense of political/moral freedoms; the 
left has a somewaht better handle on political/moral freedom but often at the 
expense of economic freedoms. I see it this way--the former says you can 
afford to do it, but you can't legally do it, and the latter says you are 
allowed to do it, but very possibly you can't afford it :-) 

As for honesty getting me where I want to go--money without political power is 
fruitless also. There were, for instance, any number of economically solvent 
Jews in pre-war Germany. Honesty gets me closer to where I want to go than 
externally applied subjective concepts like *fairness*.

Honesty at least lets me clearly know where I stand.

>> >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.
> 

Harm may be morally relevant but not legally relevant, and it was you who gave 
the example of one rascist store owner not being a real problem--but sure he 
is, to 100% of the people he discriminates against. So is the difference 
between a private problem and a public problem three people or...

>> > Again, these are not analogous situations. Employment is not a private
>> > contract.
> 
>> No? It should be.
>
>Why?
> 

Freedom of association and property rights for two quick benchmarks. 
Understand, I am not baiting here, but employment ceased to be private in 
Germany and the Soviet Union, too. Some improvement. Maybe public and 
private--apart from restrictions on State power is not the core issue or 
determinant (see below).

>> >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. 

Hey, maybe even deep-rooted but merely wrong-headed.

>
>> 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.
> 

 How do you guage _amount_ without quantifiers like how many people or 
affected how much? I don't think the law is up to the task except when it is 
given clear, unequivocal and objective referents, like *the _initiation_ of 
coercion* (see below).
 
>> >My argument applies here as well.
> 
>> true--but it doesn't apply any better :-)
>
>It only has to apply enough to undermine yours.... :)
> 

It might do--but I'm not yet convinced :-)

>> >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.
> 

Common ground :-)--but isn't the problem (among other things) one of 
*subjectivity* as regards majority decisions.

>> >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. 

Agreed.

> I maintain - and especially now - that there is ample evidence
>> >that employment is a public concern.
> 

I am nowhere near as sure, especially when it comes to issues like this--and, 
as it happens, labour market economics and employment issues are the largest 
part of my profession. I am an employment counsellor and strongly involved in 
the distribution of labour market information on the 'Net.

>> Is there? Again--what is the magic number when morality changes?
>
>See above.
>

yep.

>> >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.
>

*Deserved* based on what? Maybe forcing the bigot to hire the gay person 
prevented him from--for instance--hiring a physically challenged person. 
Again, understand that I see the legal issue as differing from the pure moral 
issue.

>> What about freedom of association, also?
>
>What about it? It isn't absolute and inalienable - else we couldn't put
>people in prison.
>

We put folks in prison--or _should_--only when these people have established 
their own terms..that is, the denying someone of an objective right. (lets not 
get into crimes without victims)

>> >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.
>

Not really, but I understand. All I meant was that I don't subscribe to the 
Raulsian view--I think Nozick was on the right track before he started fuzzing 
around :-)

>> I've never expected either. 
>
>your expecations (and the expectations of others as well) are irrelevant.
>Morality is dispassionate.
>

True--properly dispassionate as in _objective_, but that makes terms like 
*fairness* sorta troublesome.

>>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.
> 

Oh I don't know. Social (as opposed to or differing from State) sanction can 
be a powerful force. Exile, the old *outlaw* provisions and excommunication 
all present us with ample evidence that simple failure to support can be a 
drastic and effective deterrent. Besides, I would argue that the damage the 
bigot does to himself is greater than the damage he inflicts on others in 
terms of lost opportunity. And guaging *what _might_ have happened* is always 
a rat's nest of subjectivity and clairvoyance.

>> >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?
> 

Because the core issue is not one of privacy as defined as being between two 
people, or public as defined by being between three or more. Certain and sure 
sanctions against the initiation of force effectively limits what a person can 
_do_ to another person. My freedom not to be attacked (freedom _from_ the 
initiation of force) I claim as a right since it imposes no positive 
obligation on others. It simply means that I must be left alone unless and 
until I instigate force against another--at which time the State or protective 
agency may properly defend me, based on my right to defend myself.

And actually, the criteria of *positive obligation* is a useful one--and 
differentiated issues like employment from, say, assault. Simply *not acting* 
is sufficient on my part for you to retain your right not to be assaulted. For 
you or anyone to have a *right* to a job _imposes/requires_ a positive 
obligation on others and _is_ an initiation of force.

Rights are something different from mere legal permissions.

<cordiality snipped, but appreciated>

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

You chose a good one alright. Please do not cease. :-)

Ron