Subject:
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Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 18 Oct 1999 12:17:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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1273 times
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Simon Robinson wrote:
> I'm not so sure of that. Once you've got the sets that you're
> (hypothetically) planning on holding for a year, there's nothing anyone
> who wants to buy the sets earlier than that can do. This redistribution may
> have been instigated by a private individual rather than the Government
> but that doesn't seem to have made it voluntary, as far as
> people who may want the set in 1 months time are concerned. :)
OK, it's as voluntary as anything ever is. I don't feel responsible to
make things better than they can be.
> > > Whether you're benefitting people I guess depends on
> > > factors like whether people who had the sets now would have
> > > got bored with them after a year and sold them anyway. You'd
> > > certainly be denying people the chance to play with the sets now.
>
> > I guess what you're talking about is whether there is a net benefit.
> > Clearly I'd be benifitting some people - the ones who buy them from me.
>
> Yeah there'd be certain people who would benefit in your example.
> But is that outweighed by other people having been harmed?
Well, I don't think anyone is harmed - unless I spend so much that I
can't buy groceries. So the net benefit of the transactions is equal to
whatever benefit there is.
> And if
> so then is a transaction still morally justified if the overall effect of it
> (taking the effect on _everyone_ into account) is negative, although the
> particular people directly involved with the transaction benefit?
Well, I suppose not. If a transaction of any kind will do more harm
than good, it is not morally justified. But I suppose you'd have to
measure the harm and good pretty carefully and we could never get three
people to agree on how.
> Ha ha - I thought I'd get challenged on that one. I think when assessing
> the morality of an action, it's crucially important in principle to take
> motives into account.
>
> For example:
> Fred is driving back from work. It's been a hard day, which is why he's
> tired. He makes the mistake of driving a bit faster than he ought to, given
> his weariness, which is why he runs over Sam (who was just crossing the
> road) and kills her.
>
> Dave is driving back from work. He spots Paul up ahead, crossing the road,
> and thinks 'that's the git who used to pull faces at me in school'.
> So instead of slowing
> down to let Paul cross, he deliberately accelerates,
> and runs Paul over and kills him.
>
> Both actions have exactly the same consequences. In both cases the driver
> was in the wrong - but is anyone seriously going to argue that Fred's
> 'wrongness' is as bad as Dave's?
YES. I would. I am more offended by criminal negligence than by
criminal purpose. I would work to punish them equally. And even then,
I would have more respect for Dave. Now, you made it sound like Dave's
reasoning was trivial (he was only slightly slighted), but what if Paul
had been the leader of a group kids who had cornered Dave in the shower
and anally raped him? Then, Fred would really have pissed me off, and I
would think that Dave maybe needs to see a councilor to work out some
issues, but otherwise Paul is exactly where he needs to be.
So, I guess that I agree that motive matters at least in some cases, but
I disagree with you on how. Diametrically.
> > Unless you mean they're addicting their customers by force. Then I'd
> > advocate extreme prejudice.
>
> Err - what does 'extreme prejudice' mean here?
Uh, sorry, I mean they should be put down. (But not by the state since
there shouldn't be a death penalty.)
> > Right you are. In both cases, I feel that the activities are OK. And
> > how can you KNOW what some 'criminal' is going to do with any given tool
> > that you might sell him?
>
> Because he's told you what he wants the weapon for? (I'm sure that must
> happen in criminal circles)
Probably in low-class criminal circles, probably not in higher ones.
Professionals know about discretion. Well, I'm one of those Yank
gun-nuts so I'm going to answer opposite of how you would.
I still think supplying them a gun is fine. Here. Here, everyone has
the right to guns. Period. (We have all kinds of restrictions in place
that are illegally enforced by law enforcement agencies of all kinds.)
That person is given the responsibility to decide what to do with it.
If I personally felt sleazy giving a gun to someone because I knew (s)he
was going to behave inappropriately, I would have the right not to - and
would certainly do so. On the other hand, just because said buyer was
going to commit crimes doesn't mean that I would feel that way. Killing
the murderer of his daughter would be OK. Robbing federal property
would be OK. Dusting a cop who's got a grudge against him and is
abusing his power would be OK. There are lots of examples.
> > I don't want to tell Europeans how to operate their lives, so I'm not
> > sure how to approach this.
>
> I don't have a problem with that. I'm not going to be offended if you
> express an opinion about how things work in Europe - just as
Well, I'm not worried about offending you :-) but I really feel like
it's not my business to correct your governance unless you get really
out of hand. Really. It's your lives and your money. You may be as
socialist or whatever as you like. I wish there were a broader range of
governance philosophies so that we could better pick and choose where to
go live. If El Salvador blossoms into Libertopia, I will go there once
I trust its stability.
> I often express opinions related to the USA in this debate.
Somehow that seems different. I guess that has two parts. I'm more
concerned about discussing the US, and so I'm willing to talk about it
with foreigners. And I just don't know as much about foreign nations as
I do about my own, so it would be silly for me to pontificate about
their wrongs.
I do think that Europe has mostly had a different set of problems than
the US. We are much newer, we have a more
socially/ethnically/culturally diverse population, and we were founded
on specific principles that might make things harder sometimes. Also,
for what it's worth, I have a friend who's spent a year each in
Australia and Finland as an exchange student and he suggested
particularly about Finland that you can really see a difference in what
the public social funds are spent on - better roads, cleaner cities, the
(rare) poor being educated, etc. Maybe I would feel differently if that
were the case here.
> All the countries
> in the world do have some degree of interdependence, so we all
> have some interest in things that go on in other countries. Besides,
Right, and I'm not against sending the marines in to put a stop to
atrocities when it's needed, but weak economic sanctions for poor human
rights seems dubious.
> learning from how other countries do things can be a good way of
> seeing how to improve our own laws etc.
Sure.
Chris
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| Christopher Weeks wrote in message <380B0F8D.112B4FA6@e...se.net>... (...) may (...) it (...) given (...) road, (...) I gotta agree - if somebody dies because of a person's actions, whether intended or not, they are still dead. Instead of locking (...) (25 years ago, 26-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) Taking this remark out of the post.. So what you're saying is, someone, not the state, should have the right to decide that a) someone is guilty b) that the crime deserves death c) that he has the right to do this. So essentially, a random (...) (25 years ago, 11-Nov-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) As I understand what Larry has been saying, and from my own thinking, I do not believe that the position held by Christopher is a Libertarian position (but I may be wrong). (25 years ago, 11-Nov-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| Sorry, I've been gone for a week. I had to go back and read what I was talking about to address this. (...) It's much easier for you to do what you want with it that way, right? (...) Well, first, it was kind of a flippant remark, and second, no. I (...) (25 years ago, 17-Nov-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) I'm not so sure of that. Once you've got the sets that you're (hypothetically) planning on holding for a year, there's nothing anyone who wants to buy the sets earlier than that can do. This redistribution may have been instigated by a private (...) (25 years ago, 18-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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