CDR: Re: Re: Shunning, lesbians and liberty

[Riad S. Wahby]

Sampo A Syreeni <ssyreeni at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> I.e. you both evaluate actions as such, I tend to evaluate them based on
> their consequences.

I think this is the fundamental difference.  The only argument I can
put forth is that legislating based on outcomes is nearly impossible.
How am I to know that X will happen?  If it does, and I am being held
accountable, can I say that I didn't know it was going to happen?  If
so, then how do you enforce the law?  If not, what protection do I
have from a government that seeks to persecute me?

> I do not see the essential difference. I see that as an axiom which need not
> hold. OTOH, no point in debating axioms...

The essential difference is that restricting positive liberties tends
to have the effect of restricting a narrow range of actions (you
cannot murder someone), whereas restricting negative liberties cuts a
wide swath (you cannot shun your neighbor, or, equivalently, you must
associate with your neighbor).

> Actually I subscribe to neither view. I see rights as something that do not
> naturally exist, but are purely a societal product, subject to change
> through redefinition. Whether this happens because the government effects it
> or if the people start to view something as an inherent right is, to me, 
> immaterial. I also have trouble with argumentation which starts from a clean
> slate, since such a thing does not exist in reality.

True, but it is at least useful.  Starting from, for example, Nozick's
"state of nature" can be helpful as, at the very least, a thought
experiment.

> If everybody around you decides your shop is now a shared resource, it will
> be, by your definition. Since I view rights as highly relative, you cannot
> even call this thievery.

Perhaps I was not as clear as I should have been.  The word
intractible may have been a better one to use.  It is tractible to
keep theives from getting into my store in all but the most extreme
circumstances.  It is wholly intractible to make it impossible for a
given person to see the light from a lighthouse.

I can see that we have basically two differences in opinion from which
all of this stems.  First, you are willing to evaluate based on
outcomes, whereas I say it is impossible to do so.  Second, you are
willing to impose restrictions on negative liberty, and I am not.

--
Riad Wahby
rsw at mit.edu
MIT VI-2/A 2002

5105
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