🚀 go-pugleaf

Ken Buckland writes:

> I do not believe that "corrective actions" should ever be taken.

[I find myself overwhelmed with work at the moment and so this is
the last thing I am going to post on the matter for the time being.
If you feel like starting the discussion up a couple of months from
now...]

Since you disavow corrective actions how do you feel about licensing?
The requirement for a driver's license (based on some sort of
competency examination) is a clear example of a preventative action.
In a society based totally on the ``reactive'' enforcement of
rights, we would simply punish people WHEN they caused harm with
their vehicle, rather than attempting to provide a higher level
of safety through licensing.

> Would I be correct in guessing that you don't see much point in punishment
> because, "Once the abuse has occurred reprisals can change nothing"?

The fundamental need is to protect the rights of the innocent.  If there
is reliable evidence that punishment is the best way to achieve this,
then so be it.  In the absence of such evidence, isolating such people
from society is merely prudent.

> Maybe science is, but what about civil law?  

As I have been trying to point out, the two are necessarily intertwined.
Science establishes the causal natures of our interactions while 
law governs how we use that information.

> And so *who* is deciding when a causal relationship, tenuous or otherwise,
> is harmful?

A consensus of the members of society would seem appropriate.

> Granted, in terms of them both being people who measure observable facts.
> But the big question is, while a gunshot can readily be attributed to
> one person, how do you attribute a rising crime-rate?  And who decides
> how to attribute it?

The question of attribution to a single individual is irrelevant.  As to
the second question, this is clearly the task of science.

> [You make it sound here like I support the argument that I provided
> as an example of what *others* support - please be more careful.]

That was not my intention.  My intention was to show that you have 
erected a straw man and then set about knocking it done.

> Since you heartily decry the
> argument I provided as an example, could you sketch out an example of an
> argument that you *would* support - one where causality is not
> straight-forward.

I have already indicated that to do so would involve a non-trivial
amount of research on both our parts.  I decried your example, because
it was not, in fact, an example of the process which I have written
about, but instead a poor parody of it.  I would very much like to
be able to address a real example, but that would occupy far more time
than I have at present.

> Getting back to the old daycare example, when you force the owners of a
> company to spend money (their property) on a daycare, you have violated their
> highly important property rights in deference to some vaguely defined
> collective right (or something - hell, I don't understand it).  What rights
> are we balancing here, the right to property against the right for people
> with children to have daycare in whatever corporate location they require?

First.  There is no such thing as acollective right.  Merely the rights
of a colelction of individuals.  There is not a single right which is
being addressed.  One of the rights which is at stake, is that old
favourite of yours, personal security.  If (and I do not possess
sufficient background to know to what degree the support for this
actually exists) the presence of daycare facilities has clear effects
on the development of a community (in terms, say of property values,
crime rates, etc.) then we are balancing, among others, the
business's right to security of property against the right to personal
security of the members of the community.

> That is right.  Because it is *your property*.  The only thing that
> would be worse would be to harm you.

Right.  And the way I express this is to say that your freedom of
movement has a lesser priority than my right to security of 
property.  

> All my position rests on is that, regardless of the precision with which
> causal links are identified, the decisions of whether the links indicate harm
> or not can be questionable.

And one of the purposes of the law and the justice system is to address
these questions.  All assessments of harm are subjective.  If physical
harm is of no significance to me (perhaps I am a seasoned stoic with
a death wish), then even a gunshot would may not be harmful from
my point of view.

Now if I understand you correctly, you have been saying that the
subjective assessment of physical harm is so widely accepted in
society that it is reasonable to base our system of rights on
that premise.

All I am saying, is that in addition to this, the members of society
may arrive at a consensus that other subjective assessments of harm
are also widely enough accepted that we may premise rights upon
them.

> Well that's the way it is always going to go.

Sorry, I don't buy this.  There is a problem in government which
I have outlined.  You have adopted the cynics position and
claimed that the problem cannot be solved.  I have adopted the
position that it is worthwhile for me to make whatever efforts
I can to address the problem.

> And just who else do you think will get involved in the
> process of social tuning?

I should have imagined you could guess this yourself.  We need
trained scientists to get involved in the political process and
bring their attention to detail and logic with them.

> Isn't that really the shape of modern politics?

Only if you allow it to be.  The shape of modern politics is governed
by the spirit of cynicism.  If politics is about special interest
groups and emotional appeals, it is BECAUSE those who would address
issues more generally using the tools of reason have abandoned the
process and retreated into pitiful moans of how the system has
betrayed them.

> No, what we need is fewer "experts", more grassroots decision-making.

In the sense that we need far better means of communicating the values
of the populace to those who make policy, I agree.  However, if
government is to be put on a firm rational basis, we have to recognize
that the general populace does not possess the technical training
required to make rational decisions on many of the issues that
confront government.  Would you suggest that we hire an accountant as
a professor of physics here at UBC on the grounds that more
``grassroots'' involvement in the university is necssary. 

> So hammer out how important you think property rights truly are.  In
> fact, let's get down to brass tacks here: How important do you think
> ownership of money is?  That is what we are really talking about.

Frankly ownership of money is not as important to me as ownership
of actual property, like say my house.  Needless to say there is
a relationship between the two, but I am far more concerned about
the government expropriating the place where I live, than I am
about them taxing my income.

As an example regarding the relative priorities rights, I think
that the right to personal security is more important than the
the right to security of money.  Hence, I think it is entirely
legitimate for the government to tax me in order that policing
services can be provided, since it is the latter which ensures
that my right to security of person is protected.

 
--
Terry Coatta (coatta@cs.ubc.ca)
Dept. of Computer Science, UBC, Vancouver BC, Canada

`What I lack in intelligence, I more than compensate for with stupidity'