🚀 go-pugleaf

coatta@cs.ubc.ca (Terry Coatta) writes:
> > Most of the examples of harm you have mentioned have been far less
> > straight-forward than crime rate.  But again, how can you assign
> > responsibility for even crime rate?
> 
> If you mean assign responsiblity to a particular individual, I should
> think it obvious that this is not possible.

Then how on earth can you take any "corrective" actions?  Who are you going
to apply them to?

> However, it is quite
> possible to identify with varying degrees of certainty factors which
> affect the crime rate and in what manner.  As to my examples being
> less straightforward -- YES! Thats it! The world is a complicated
> place and a simple set of rules such as you have outlined completely
> ignores this complexity.

I don't think so.  Complexity can be handled one case at a time (one
violation of human rights at a time).  It may take more effort, but it can
be done in parallel, and the final result will be more case-specific.

> > But your comments have implicitly included the fact that the community
> > must decide when it has been harmed.
> 
> I don't believe that is the case.  Science tells us when we have been
> harmed and the nature of that harm.  Science CANNOT judge which forms
> of harm are of greatest importance.

And just how does science decide when a causal relationship has been a 
harmful one, and when it hasn't?  That decision is made by the scientists
*interpreting* the causal relationship they have identified.  Now clearly
most of us would agree with the interpretation of a scientist who says that a
gun shot produced harm, but would we all agree with the interpretations made
by social scientists?  I think not.

Let me provide an example (we are lacking in them currently).  Let us say
that a workplace exists where women are in the minority.  Let us further say
that it has been shown, through objective social science, that when women are
in the minority they are often intimidated by male aggression (and other
hypothetical studies have shown that aggressive behavior is the natural mode
for men).  Further, it has been shown that this intimidation leads to
inferior performance on the part of the women concerned.  Now in this
situation, a group of social scientists might state that objective evidence
has shown that the males have caused "harm", and they might use this "fact"
to justify taking action against the males (who have not acted maliciously at
all).  This is the type of argument that we are seeing more often these
days.  Would you agree with it?  Would you support some sort of Affirmative
Action program, based on discrimination, to correct the "harm"?

> > > I did not intentionally evade it... I merely assumed that your
> > > ``fundamental rights'' were probably more or less equivalent to
> > > those rights which I believe are required for democracy:
> > >
> > > (1) Security of person
> > > (2) Freedom of expression
> > 
> > Does security of person include their possessions?
> 
> Not directly -- Some possessions are much more directly related to
> security of person than others.  One's house is far more necessary
> to ensure security of person than are one's golf clubs.

I believe you are stating here that property rights have little or no
importance (except where property adds to personal security).  Is this
correct?

If you are forwarding the position that property rights have little or no
importance, I disagree with you entirely.  In order of importance, I would
place property rights immediately after the right not to be physically
harmed.  The right to free speech, for example, means nothing if you have no
property rights.  If your goods can be appropriated at will, what use is
being able to simply yell about it?  I think that most people, after
considering the facts of their lifestyle, would place property rights as high
on their list as I do.  People expend huge amounts of effort securing their
goods.

Further, personal goods are the product (direct and indirect) of peoples'
labour.  If they are taken away, people have effectively been enslaved.

> > So if you agree that these protective rights are required for democracy,
> > will democracy not be put in jeopardy when they are violated?  Yet that
> > is exactly what you are suggesting with your assertions of community need.
> 
> I don't believe that to be true.  A more encompassing set of rights
> does not imply the devaluation of rights concerning physical harm.
> And in fact, I have stated that those rights must have teh highest
> priority.

Then we *do* disagree on the basic rights required for democracy.  You have
reduced your set, in the above statement, to "rights concerning physical
harm".  My set of rights is far more inclusive than this.  It certainly
includes the right to freedom of movement, to property, to free speech, 
to free interaction, to free affiliation...

> > I worded this incorrectly.  I meant, "identify individual factors..."
> > You have certainly asserted that this can be done, and you have further
> > suggested that actions be taken accordingly.
> 
> And I know of existing research which does identify individual factors and
> postulate causal links.  Clearly, there are others (indeed, others whose
> training is quite specific to the issues we are discussing) who believe
> that individual factors can be isolated (at least to a degree that warrants
> taking those results into account).

Maybe this can be done in some cases.  But the causal links identified are
nowhere near as solid as those in demonstrated physical harm, and social
scientists often have a clear political bias that may warp their analysis
and their interpretation.  Further, the existence of a causal link does not
automatically justify action.

> > You are talking about back-tracing a causal factor, modifying that
> > factor (maybe in conjunction with others), and then expecting some planned
> > feed-forward result.  Not a chance!
> 
> You seem to be fairly presumptuous in circumscribing the limits of
> social science.  This does not strike me a rational position, but
> rather a ``religious'' one.  Since I am aquainted with a fair number
> of people who either work in the field or have undertaken to
> obtain information on particular issues, I cannot agree with your
> assessment.

If my assessment is wrong, why have so many social programs over the last
quarter century, guided by the experts you mention, been such dismal
failures?

> > Somehow the violation of individual rights is acceptable when a collective
> > entity (including communities) is involved.
> 
> I really don't know how to address your paranoia of groups of people.

I don't know either, but when you figure it out, you can pass your message
of healing on to those, all over the planet, who have suffered under
communism until recently.

> The ``community'' is nothing more than a collection of INDIVIDUALS.

I agree entirely - that is what it *should* be.

> Very frequently in a tightly coupled society such as ours, the actions
> of an individual or group of individuals will impinge on the rights
> of a large group of people.  It just doesn't make sense for such
> conflicts to be resolved on a 1-to-1 basis.  The ``community'' has
> NO SPECIAL RIGHTS.  It is simply the expression of the INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
> of those who constitute the community.

But somehow the collective rights of a group of individuals have a life of
their own.  You can argue with one person over what they deserve, but how
can you argue about what is best for a community?  A single, self-interested
individual, so we are told, can never fully grasp the needs of the
community - multi-faceted as they are.

I agree that some conflicts are best handled in a collective fashion - like
the government acting on the peoples' behalf to stop the dumping of dioxins
into Howe Sound.  However, because such collective action is so powerful, it
is extremely important that it only be leveled against those who have
clearly, and demonstratively, done harm.  Your ideas regarding taking
objective measures of subjectively felt harm, subjectively deciding that
those measures indicate that "someone has harmed you", and then making
demands accordingly are frightening - especially when backed up by
collective action.  The flaw in your thinking is that you are using
"effect" and "harm" interchangeably.

Here is your process in detail:

1. Person feels upset because there is no daycare.
2. Person gets ulcers from feeling upset - these are seen in X-rays.
3. Ulcers are attributed to lack of daycare.
4. Many people get ulcers for same reason.
5. Company is forced to build daycare.

The problem with this sequence is that, while the company not having daycare
*effects* the person, the company is not *harming* the person.  It has
neither acted maliciously, nor taken away something that the person once
had.  Thus it is not justified to take action against the company.

> > Regardless of your comments about the subtleties of causality, your
> > arguments about subjective harm and community need lead to one thing: 
> > mob rule.
> 
> Your reasoning is completely unsound.  Since I have acknowledged the
> need for certain rights having the highest possible priority, and since
> I have acknowledged the need for object analysis of issues in order
> to determine when harm has occurred, your conclusion is quite obviously
> incorrect.

The collection of rights you support is not at all clear.  In the posting
responded to here, you grant the right to freedom from physical harm, and in
another you granted the right to freedom of speech, but this is a mighty
short list (the two rights that a special interest activist requires?).
Until you flush out the list some, my assertion of mob rule stands.  Sure, it
is nice not to be harmed, and to be able to say what you want, but if you
have roving bands of people taking any of your possessions they want, that is
still mob rule.

Ken Buckland                     Freedom.
kenb@ee.ubc.ca