🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <spurrett.31.721248874@superbowl.und.ac.za> spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett) writes:
>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:
>
>>>        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.

I did agree that the treatment courts give to mechanical devices is different
from the treatment of people.  But still, your argument seems to amount to
the following:

	Since we think people are different from mechanical things, we
	will use the word "trial" for people and "test" for devices.

	Since we treat people differently from devices in the courts,
	using "trial" in one case, and "test" in the other, we can
	conclude that people are different from things.

This strikes me as circular reasoning.

About the best you can say about your argument is that you are using
the structure of the court system as an indirect indication of the
opinions and motivations of the politicians and lawyers who constructed
that system.  If you want to depend on opinion to "refute" determinism,
I hope you can do better than use indirect data, and I would hope you
could find more appropriate groups to poll.