🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov5.191446.15657@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <spurrett.23.720960465@superbowl.und.ac.za> 
spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett) writes:

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>>        For example when one  person pushes another over a cliff  we direct
>>  our criticism/ revenge/ abuse/ rehabilitation/ whatever at the person who
>>  `did' the pushing.  Some archaic legal systems had different economies of
>>  `do-ers' and, for example, tried crows for crop damage.  NO LEGAL  SYSTEM
>>  HAS EVER `TRIED' A LAW OF NATURE, OR A MECHANICAL DEVICE.
>
>This is simply not true.  Mechanical devices are sometimes subjected to
>scientific and engineering tests, and the results of these tests are
>brought to a court for decision.  The decision might, in effect, be a
>judgment of summary execution (perhaps in the form of a product recall).
>Certainly the treatment of mechanical devices is different, but this is
>because mechanical devices are presumed not to have free will, and thus
>unable to change their behavior.
 
  `Test' is not a `trail' in the legal sense concerning motivation, and 
applicability of various moral evaluations.  In court we attempt to 
establish whether a person is to be called a `Murderer' (in any of various 
degrees) or a `Man Slaugterer' or a `Culpable Homiciderer' or `Innocent' 
(which is precisely the logic of the humour when the Laura Dern character 
says to Sailor (who has just called himself a `murderer') `Don't exaggerate: 
you're just a Man-slaugterer.')  When testing, eg, the breaking properties 
of some substance we want to know simply whether or not it did, or perhaps 
would, break.  There is no question of moral evaluation/content.  There is 
certainly no question of a machine/law of nature being charged with a 
crime, which is my point.  The metaphor of `summary execution' is completely 
off the point, as your own suceeding sentence admits.  

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| David Spurrett, department of Philosophy |  `I have seen the truth, and |
| University of Natal, Durban              |   it makes no sense.'        |
| email: spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za      |              - OFFICIAL!     |
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