John Young writes
all to often lead back into nominalistic debates, you will be able to suggest practical examples of what you mean by "dangerous", "frightful", "serious consequences", "kicking the crucial foundation out from under freedom", and the like. Sometimes these melodramatic terms obscure rather than point toward concrete situations that will convey your intentions more effectively.
If we assume that reputations are themselves some kind of credentials, rather than assuming that credentials provide information on which people infer reputations, then we will wind up proposing credentials that will work like motor car licenses -- credentials that will not by themselves achieve the desired effect, and will therefore need to be supported by coercion. The objective is to go to a system where good conduct is enforced by the non material and unquantifiable value of reputations, rather than a system where good conduct is enforced by coercion. Adopting a nominalist meaning for the word "reputation" would frustrate this objective, since nominalist "reputations" cannot enforce good conduct. I am not arguing for increased rigor in the use of the word "reputation". Indeed I am protesting and opposing inappropriate and misleading rigor. Credentials are not reputations. Any attempt to make reputations more precise, objective, and knowable, will turn them into credentials, which are incapable of achieving the desired effect. The "frightful consequence" is simply that. A world in which cyberspace business functions only by the fiat of government, which is of course not at all what Hal wishes to achieve. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com