Dr. Vulis

hallam at ai.mit.edu hallam at ai.mit.edu
Tue Nov 5 12:43:14 PST 1996



>> Both sentences say the same thing. Society enacts laws which
>> provide protections to the individual. As a result of these
>> protections the individual has rights.

>Unfortunately, both sentences, as originally written, DO NOT
>say the same thing.  They are recursive in the extreme.  

They are mutually recursive but the types of the relations are 
different.

Laws create rights	- argument in "is"
=> Should create good laws to protect valid rights.
			- argument in "ought"

Of course the two sentences don't say exactly the same thing, 
otherwise I would have written one.

If law did not have the potential to create rights there  would
not be the same duty of care for law creators.

>Maybe Phill should just say he misspoke himself rather then go
>through his elaborate back-and-fill charade.

I'll tell you what, ill admit that my original statement was
not of the clarity that I would ideally wish to achieve. But
I don't think that we need apply the criteria of a journal article
here. :-)

I don't think we have a problem with the statements conflicting,
there is an interaction. What a Hegelian would call dilectic. 
I prefer to use a different term for much the same reasons as
Sorros, the misuse of the term has created garbage that one
does not want to associate with (eg Historical materialism). 


		Phill








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