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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: And there's another gay bakery case
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
intention can make the difference between manslaughter and murder. And as Orfeo points out, between self-defence and manslaughter.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Committing murder with a motivation of self-defence sounds like getting one's retaliation in first...
Does this need spelling out? The act is killing. The killing could occur in the setting of an a priori desire to kill (murder) or a response to an attacker made in self defence that results in death of the attacker (killing in self defence).
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I feel I lack the words to adequately distinguish intention (in the sense that you're quite rightly using it) and motivation (in the sense I'm using it. But I think there is a difference there.
Why do you think that? I can't imagine a sentence which can't be re-written (mutatis mutandi) with either word and not retain the same meaning.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I thought I detected earlier that people are in favour of conservative Christian bookshops being forced to order pro-gay literature but not gay pride bookshops forced to order pro-conservative Christian literature.
I think you have to clarify what is meant by "Christian bookshop" and "gay pride bookshop".
A mainstream bookshop that happens to be run by a Christian or by a gay person has no right to decline to order literature they consider "pro-gay" or "Christian" simply on the grounds that it is "pro-gay" or "Christian", respectively. On the other hand a bookshop that says "Hallelujah Holy is the Lamb Redeemed Sound Biblical Booksellers of Christ" on the tin has a right to restrict the ordering service to books that fit with their proclaimed ethos, as does a bookshop that says "Big Fat Godless Gay Rainbow Bookshop".
Of course one could imagine various scenarios for the "Gay Love for Christ and a Better World" booksellers round the corner.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Of course one could imagine various scenarios for the "Gay Love for Christ and a Better World" booksellers round the corner.
I might be tempted to pop into that one, just to check it out.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
It's right next door to the "Nuke a gay whale for Jesus" bookstore.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Of course one could imagine various scenarios for the "Gay Love for Christ and a Better World" booksellers round the corner.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I might be tempted to pop into that one, just to check it out.
And you'd expect to get served in there wouldn't you now?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Of course one could imagine various scenarios for the "Gay Love for Christ and a Better World" booksellers round the corner.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I might be tempted to pop into that one, just to check it out.
And you'd expect to get served in there wouldn't you now?
Unless I wanted to order a copy of Butt Sex: God Says No.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! See the violence inherent in the system. Our civil liberties, freedom of speech sold like a mess of pottage.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
There is no such thing as murder with a motivation of self-defence. Only killing with a motivation of self-defence.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I feel I lack the words to adequately distinguish intention (in the sense that you're quite rightly using it) and motivation (in the sense I'm using it. But I think there is a difference there.
Why do you think that? I can't imagine a sentence which can't be re-written (mutatis mutandi) with either word and not retain the same meaning.
Intention is what you're trying to do with your action or inaction, the reason for it. Motivation is the emotion or desire that makes you do it. Both can be used loosely; and some motivations can be quite specific: 'I want to do x' is hard to distinguish from an intention to do x.
But you can say 'her motivation was shame/ fear/ guilt' which you can't say about intention.
If someone's motivation for refusing a customer is racism then their intention is to have nothing to do members of that race or to make life difficult for them or to put them in their place or to signal that they don't want someone of their sort round here or so on.
Both motivation and intention can frequently be reasonably inferred by other people, or we wouldn't have words for them.
The idea that either motivation or intention is irrelevant to the morality of an action is obtuse.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
But you can say 'her motivation was shame/ fear/ guilt' which you can't say about intention.
Yes, fair point.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If someone's motivation for refusing a customer is racism then their intention is to have nothing to do members of that race or to make life difficult for them or to put them in their place or to signal that they don't want someone of their sort round here or so on.
Yes, fair again. There is a difference.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Both motivation and intention can frequently be reasonably inferred by other people, or we wouldn't have words for them.
The idea that either motivation or intention is irrelevant to the morality of an action is obtuse.
I also agree with this. And you've pointed out the difference between motivation and intention, nevertheless as the words are applied here I'm not sure there is a different argument that can be made based on either of them as applied to discrimination.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Someone can intend to comply with the law. The motivation could be that the consider that the law is a good one that should be obeyed; it could be that while they consider that the law is a bad one, they wish to avoid the penalty for disobedience; it could be something else. That's the sort of difference that arises here.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Does this need spelling out? The act is killing. The killing could occur in the setting of an a priori desire to kill (murder) or a response to an attacker made in self defence
The crime is murder - deliberate premeditated killing. The motive - whether the killing is political, religiously-motivated, personal, or for financial gain - makes no difference.
Would be a strange sort of law that said it was OK to murder someone for money but not for politics.
Perhaps intent is whether the killing is deliberate or accidental and motive the reason why ?
quote:
A mainstream bookshop that happens to be run by a Christian or by a gay person has no right to decline to order literature they consider "pro-gay" or "Christian" simply on the grounds that it is "pro-gay" or "Christian", respectively. On the other hand a bookshop that says "Hallelujah Holy is the Lamb Redeemed Sound Biblical Booksellers of Christ" on the tin has a right to restrict the ordering service to books that fit with their proclaimed ethos
So an establishment that trades as Ye Olde Bookshoppe can refuse to sell books that it considers would be out of place in ye olde worlde ?
And if Mr Smith runs a bookshop called Smith's then his criterion should be whether a particular title is something that a Smith would approve of ?
If I don't want to trade in pornographic novels, an I obliged to include the words "clean-living" in the trading name of my business ?
We've agreed that it's wrong to advertise a service that one is not prepared to deliver.
Your argument here attempts to extend that principle. You might just be able to make a case that a business called Books R Us is making an implicit promise "this is the place to come for all your literary needs" and is therefore in breach of that promise if they refuse to sell any book.
But most business names do not carry any implied promise of willingness to sell every book under the sun.
Any more than a shop called Brown's Bakery is promising to make for you any type of cake you might want.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Does this need spelling out? The act is killing. The killing could occur in the setting of an a priori desire to kill (murder) or a response to an attacker made in self defence
The crime is murder - deliberate premeditated killing. The motive - whether the killing is political, religiously-motivated, personal, or for financial gain - makes no difference.
In all seriousness, are you being DELIBERATELY obtuse about this?
"Murder" is not the act. Killing is. "Murder" is a particular classification of killing THAT IS BASED ON WHY YOU KILLED SOMEONE.
This is all started because I pointed out to you something that I thought was incredibly obvious, about the fact that morality is NOT determined simply by the actions you carry out, but why you are carry them out. This is why we have murder, and manslaughter, and situations where killing someone is no crime at all.
The reason I pointed it out is because you tried to reduce morality down to "an action is either moral or it isn't".
The whole criminal law is based on a crime generally requiring two elements, which in the days of bad Latin were labelled as actus reus and mens rea. A guilty act and a guilty mind. You don't have a crime unless both are present. The act of killing someone is NOT automatically a crime.
As soon as you say "deliberate premeditated killing", you've moved far beyond the territory of just talking about the act. You're now talking about the mental decision-making. The guilty mind.
If you cannot see that this completely explodes your simplistic proposition that one needs only look at an act to determine its morality, then God help me this conversation is completely useless and I quit.
[ 31. December 2016, 09:12: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But most business names do not carry any implied promise of willingness to sell every book under the sun.
Of course not. They can turn down all sorts of books for all sorts of reasons. What they can't do is turn a book down for a discriminatory reason. Surely you remember this bit of the conversation?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
"Murder" is not the act. Killing is. "Murder" is a particular classification of killing THAT IS BASED ON WHY YOU KILLED SOMEONE.
No, it's based on the fact that you intended to do it, rather than on why you intended to do it.
quote:
morality is NOT determined simply by the actions you carry out, but why you are carry them out.
That's right, in the sense that God sees your innermost thoughts and can justly judge you for those as well as what you actually do. Killing someone with hate in your heart may indeed in God's eyes be worse than killing them as the only way to achieve the outcome that you are determined to achieve.
I'm not deliberately trying to wind you up, orfeo. I'm trying to sort out the confusion between moral and legal.
quote:
The whole criminal law is based on a crime generally requiring two elements, which in the days of bad Latin were labelled as actus reus and mens rea. A guilty act and a guilty mind. You don't have a crime unless both are present.
Sounds like a good principle.
mdijon is saying that you can choose to sell any set of books you like so long as your choice isn't for a discriminatory reason.
If that is offered as an interpretation of the law as it stands without any implied approval or disapproval, I accept it as such. And reply that the law is unjust.
I dispute the idea that limiting the set of books that one is prepared to sell is a guilty act.
I dispute the idea that discriminating against gays involves a guiltier mind than discriminating against people with bushy eyebrows.
I dispute the idea that acting on a religious belief that homosexual acts are sinful constitutes having a guilty mind.
Refusing to sell books on homosexuality because of religious conviction is thus the innocent act of an innocent mind...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I dispute the idea that discriminating against gays involves a guiltier mind than discriminating against people with bushy eyebrows.
Speaking as someone who is not gay and who does have bushy eyebrows, I thank you for your concern, and respectfully inform you that you are talking twaddle.
It is somewhat as if you were to argue that since all houses equally deserve the protection of the fire brigade it is no worse for the fire brigade to ignore a house on fire than it is for them to ignore a house that is not on fire.
I have never been discriminated against for having bushy eyebrows. If there are people with an animus against bushy eyebrows out there they have no reasonable expectation of support from the rest of the population. They have no prospect of making my life unpleasant or of showing me that I do not belong in a decent part of town. And indeed they never have.
If there were a widespread eyebrowist sentiment such that I was subject to regular discrimination then the two cases would indeed be equivalent. But they are not.
[ 31. December 2016, 17:05: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
... I'm trying to sort out the confusion between moral and legal. ...
There's no confusion - you just don't seem to want to accept that legality and anyone's particular "morality" may or may not correspond directly in our society. Adultery is immoral, but not illegal. Divorce is immoral, and not only is it not illegal, it is regulated by the state. The Inquisition was legal, so did that make burning innocent people alive moral?
eta typos
It is true that there are societies where morality alone determines legality. You know, places like Iran and Saudi Arabia. It's theocracy.
[ 31. December 2016, 18:59: Message edited by: Soror Magna ]
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Speaking as someone who is not gay and who does have bushy eyebrows, I thank you for your concern, and respectfully inform you that you are talking twaddle.[quote]
Your respect is appreciated and returned in equal measure.
[quote]If there are people with an animus against bushy eyebrows out there they have no reasonable expectation of support from the rest of the population. They have no prospect of making my life unpleasant or of showing me that I do not belong in a decent part of town. And indeed they never have.
If you happened to have bushy eyebrows, one individual with an irrational dislike of facial hair could be unpleasant to you without doing anything serious enough to warrant the attention of the local constabulary.
I think you're saying that the independent existence in your neighbourhood of 50 such individuals could be more than 50 times worse in their impact on you. That their individual acts of petty disrespect would add up to more than the sum of the parts. And I can see that it might be so.
But from their point of view, each of those 50 is doing no more than the original one was. Each commits no worse act than the original one, and has no worse an intention. Their "guilt of mind" is no greater for the existence of the other 49 of whom they are unaware, even though the impact on you may be greater.
And if we then suppose that they're not independent, that they talk to each other and are confirmed in their prejudice thereby, but commit the same acts. It seems to me that their guilt of mind is then lessened rather than increased. Instead of maintaining their prejudice in a society that tells them not to be so stupid, that facial hair is uncorrelated with anything that means anything at all, they find that other people support their notions. Beware the man whose eyebrows meet as in his heart there lies deceit...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I've already explained that discrimination law is not criminal law.
But like everyone else, I'm finding that the conversation goes nowhere.
I quit. 2017 doesn't need this shit. A better illustration of why this board is called Dead Horses, you could not find.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
I dispute the idea that discriminating against gays involves a guiltier mind than discriminating against people with bushy eyebrows. ...
"Guilty mind" doesn't only mean the perpetrator feels guilty, because, let's face it, criminals are not known for their capacity for guilt. "Guilty mind" also includes, for example the knowledge that an act is, or is likely to be, harmful, and to what degree.
Unless Mr. Shop Keeper possesses a vacant mind, Mr. Keeper will be perfectly aware that there is no widespread discrimination against the bushy-eyebrowed in his community, and that there is discrimination against non-heterosexual people.
When Mr. Keeper refuses to serve Mr. Eyebrows, he can be reasonably certain that this is a single act of refusal. When Mr. Keeper refuses to serve Mr. Gay Blade, it is done in full knowledge that this Mr. Blade likely has and will encounter other refusals. Mr. Keeper is not only choosing to refuse Mr. Blade, but he does so with a reasonable certainty that his act forms part of a series of acts inflicted on Mr. Blade, unlike his likely singular refusal of Mr. Eyebrows.
Mr. Keeper wishes, of course, to live by his vacuum-informed moral code. However, society is not a vacuum. Society is filled with real people with real histories and real experiences. Mr. Keeper is responsible for the impact of his actions, and he is also responsible for reasonably foreseeing how real-life circumstances affect that impact.
If Mr. Keeper's moral sense does not take into account the possibility of different consequences to the same act in the non-vacuum of society, then I suppose he really will be nonplussed when society takes issue with the more harmful versions of his act but ignores the less harmful ones.
Let's hope that Mr. Keeper never encounters a traffic light stuck on red, because his moral sense will not allow him to run a red light even when there's no traffic and he'll be stuck there until the light gets fixed next Tuesday.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And if we then suppose that they're not independent, that they talk to each other and are confirmed in their prejudice thereby, but commit the same acts. It seems to me that their guilt of mind is then lessened rather than increased.
That is not the way moral or legal guilt works. Morally speaking, I am not allowed to go around killing people merely because other people and myself encourage each other to think I'm morally justified in doing so.
The mens rea is guilty in law if it intended or knowingly risked committing an act that is illegal. Subjective self-justifications are neither here not there.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Morally speaking, I am not allowed to go around killing people merely because other people and myself encourage each other to think I'm morally justified in doing so.
The mens rea is guilty in law if it intended or knowingly risked committing an act that is illegal. Subjective self-justifications are neither here not there.
If you know that it's wrong to kill and you go ahead and deliberately do it anyway then you have a guilty mind.
But if other people egg you on to do it then your moral responsibility for the act is slightly less than if you thought up the idea all on your own and carried it out in the full knowledge that everyone around you would be horrified at what you do.
And most courtrooms recognise this.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
That law's more than a bit hazy, both from Dafyd and Russ - at least here. And any recognition would not be in the finding of guilt but in the penalty imposed.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I think Russ that you regard racism and homophobia as an arbitrary decision, no more or less evil than an arbitrary dislike of bushy eyebrows or the customer's choice of greeting.
To think this is to fail to have any empathy with those who have suffered due to racism and homophobia. The gays and blacks have had a fair kicking through the ages and fortunately there is now a consensus in society to do something about it.
I can only conclude that you just don't have any empathy and don't care to try to get some.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I've already explained that discrimination law is not criminal law.
But like everyone else, I'm finding that the conversation goes nowhere.
I quit.
Sorry to see you go, orfeo. I was looking forward to hearing your explanation of the relationship between justice and law. Because I don't believe that you really think "the law is the law - end of story" and that there are no standards or principles by which a law should be judged as just or unjust.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But if other people egg you on to do it then your moral responsibility for the act is slightly less than if you thought up the idea all on your own and carried it out in the full knowledge that everyone around you would be horrified at what you do.
And most courtrooms recognise this.
Do most courtrooms recognise that? Do you have a source?
Would I be right in thinking you adhere to a purely retributive theory of punishment?
In any case, you previously asserted that either an act was moral and should be lawful or it wasn't, regardless of the mental state of the agent. Now you're saying that if the agent is being encouraged to do it by other people that should be reflected in the law.
Would you care to settle which you think?
[ 01. January 2017, 13:43: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Here is a helpful diagram.
Some seem to believe that if some get support, then fairness says that everyone should get it. Which ignores the biases in the system and the extent to which the support is helping.
Others look for equity, so those that have most diadcantage get most assistance. But that's a pretty blunt tool too.
Of course what we really want is the removal of systematic barriers to inclusion.
The challenge is in knowing how to do that. A bushy eyebrowed white man is likely to have inbuilt advantage compared to a black homosexual woman, and so it seems to make sense to protect the latter more than the former even if bushy eyebrow discrimination exists. But what happens if the black homosexual woman already has some sort of advantage and the white bushy eyebrowed man does not? Does the black homosexual woman deserve assistance for being part of a vulnerable class of people even though individually she is more advantaged than this other white male individual?
Most of the time it seems clear that giving help to historically abused and disadvantaged minorities that the majority does not get tends to even out inequalities, but that doesn't seem to help with the inequalities that individuals may legitimately experience despite being in the historically advantaged majority.
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arse
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Leveling the field for every individual is impossible, though. The law and reality are never so precise. They cannot be.
Individual inequities will never be completely addressed, but this should not be an impediment to attempts to create equity.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
... giving help to historically abused and disadvantaged minorities that the majority does not get tends ...
Minorities don't want "help". They don't want something the majority doesn't get. The want the same thing that the majority (and people with bushy eyebrows) already gets all the time: never having to worry about whether they can get through the door to order a cake or a book.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I've already explained that discrimination law is not criminal law.
But like everyone else, I'm finding that the conversation goes nowhere.
I quit.
Sorry to see you go, orfeo. I was looking forward to hearing your explanation of the relationship between justice and law. Because I don't believe that you really think "the law is the law - end of story" and that there are no standards or principles by which a law should be judged as just or unjust.
You're kidding yourself if you think I was ever going to give you any kind of support for suggesting that a law that requires you to put your prejudices aside and treat all customers equally was unjust.
Because it isn't.
Neither is a law requiring you to do something you don't want to do unjust simply because of that.
Neither is a law putting someone else's feelings above yours unjust simply because of that.
Neither is a law that conflicts with your personal interpretation of the Bible unjust simply because of that.
Your entire notion of justice is wrapped up in getting your preferred outcome. That's not justice. That's selfishness. That's a notion of fairness that says that a law is only a good law if it doesn't inconvenience you.
I can't think of any notion of justice that says you get to treat people less well just because you dislike something about them. In fact, justice says the exact opposite. Justice says that unpopular people have a right to their day in court, to a fair trial, to proper representation, and to be treated on exactly the same basis as popular people.
Justice says that evidence matters. Like all the mounting evidence that there is nothing abnormal about homosexuality, that homosexuals are not somehow heterosexuals who took a moral wrong turn. The very essence of "prejudice" is making judgement beforehand that can't be influenced by the evidence.
Justice says that there is a fundamental difference between choosing which inanimate objects to stock and choosing which human customers to serve, two things that you keep trying to equate.
Justice says that blind allegiance to a formalistic description of equality is no equality at all.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Mr. Keeper is responsible for the impact of his actions, and he is also responsible for reasonably foreseeing how real-life circumstances affect that impact.
That sounds remarkably like a coherent moral philosophy.
If I understand aright, you deny that either customer has a right to be served, or that Mr Keeper has a right to choose whom he will serve in his shop. Instead Mr Keeper has a moral duty to act so as to minimize suffering, taking into account all the consequences that he can reasonably foresee.
Although you express greater certainty than is warranted, you fully expect that if Mr Keeper is conscientious in fulfilling this moral duty, he will conclude that:
- the pain of rejection that Mr Eyebrows would feel is less than the pain that Mr Keeper would feel in having to serve someone whose excessive facial hair is so distasteful to him, so that refusal of service is morally justified in your utilitarian calculus.
- but conversely, Mr Blade feels so downtrodden that no amount of distaste that Mr Keeper might feel could outweigh the pain that one more rejection would cause him.
Is that the sort of philosophy you have in mind ?
And if so, are you willing to apply it equally to Mr Blade's choices ? If enough people feel strongly enough about it, does he have a moral duty to get back in the closet ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Would I be right in thinking you adhere to a purely retributive theory of punishment?
Sorry Dafyd, I don't think I can give you a satisfactory answer to that.
Seems to me that most people have a sense of justice, of right and wrong, a moral intuition. And that intuition is fallible and too easily swayed by self-interest and sympathy - we find it hard to weigh matters impartially when we identify with or sympathize with one side.
So the process of moral reasoning is one of formulating rules that seem to capture those intuitions and testing them out, seeing if we're satisfied with the answer whichever way round the question is asked, whether the side our passions are cheering for wins or loses thereby.
And the difficulty of that process, and why people of good will disagree with each other in good faith is what I see as the challenge.
It's a bottom-up process whereby principles emerge from testing out one's sense of justice on examples, rather than starting with a theory.
How we deal with the people who do not have a good will and do not act morally, who have a guilty mind, is a question beyond, to which I don't recall having given a great deal of thought.
Although I always recall a saying of IngoB - "justice is proportionality" - and would expect that to form a significant part of any discussion on punishment.
quote:
Now you're saying that if the agent is being encouraged to do it by other people that should be reflected in the law.
Not in the law, but in the degree of guilt and hence in the punishment for breaking the law.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I can only conclude that you just don't have any empathy and don't care to try to get some.
The sort of empathy that is limited to a protected characteristics list isn't worth the name. It's an assertion that what's important is something other than common humanity.
Empathy means treating individual people as fellow human beings rather than as representations of one side or the other in some political argument.
If we all had enough empathy we wouldn't be having this particular discussion.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Justice says that there is a fundamental difference between choosing which inanimate objects to stock and choosing which human customers to serve, two things that you keep trying to equate.
I agree that there's a difference (although whether two things are the same or different seems like philosophy rather than justice).
Choosing the limits of the service that you offer (to whichever human customers come along) is the service provider's equivalent of the vendor's choosing which goods to stock.
A seller of printed slogans has two distinct choices to make - what slogans am I prepared to sell, and do I place any limits on the human customers to whom I am prepared to sell them ?
I'm not trying to equate them. The bakery judgment is. Which is why it's wrong.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply re justice. What I was asking you about was what you think a just law is (if you think that phrase meaningful at all). Because you seem to me to have rejected both the idea that laws are above justice and the idea that there is some external standard of justice to which laws should conform.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'm not trying to equate them.
You have. By even introducing talk of selling books, you have.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
If you are prepared to write "Happy Anniversary John and Judy" on a cake, and not to write "Happy Anniversary John and Richard" on a cake, there are only three possible explanations, and two of them are implausible:
1. You don't know how to write one of the letters in "Richard".
2. You don't have enough icing for 3 extra letters.
3. You've chosen to express disapproval of same sex relationships.
Any analogy with choosing what things TO STOCK is an analogy with the first two options - you can't get the book, or you don't have the book.
But if you won't write two male names on a cake, you are telling those customers that you won't offer them THE EXACT SAME SERVICE OF WRITING NAMES ON CAKES that you offer to another customer.
Trying to argue that different names make it a different service is just complete fucking nonsense. You show me a bakery, anywhere, that lists writing different names as if they were different services.
Okay? ANY analogy that relies on choices about WHAT TO STOCK is complete rubbish, because we're not talking about requiring bakeries to stock things that they don't already stock. We're talking about requiring bakeries to serve customers with THE EXACT SAME THINGS THEY ALREADY HAVE IN STOCK.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
And any analogy that relies on previously printed material is equally stupid. No bakery makes a cake with "Happy Birthday John" on it in the hope that someone will walk into the store looking for a cake with the name John on it.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
... So the process of moral reasoning is one of formulating rules ...
At what point do values enter into this moral reasoning?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
That sounds remarkably like a coherent moral philosophy.
If I understand aright, you deny that either customer has a right to be served, or that Mr Keeper has a right to choose whom he will serve in his shop. Instead Mr Keeper has a moral duty to act so as to minimize suffering, taking into account all the consequences that he can reasonably foresee.
I didn't see Soror Magna say anything at all about rights. The rights of Mr Keeper and his many and varied potential customers are a question of law, not of morals.
Rights are largely what we need because lots of us have insufficient morals. If everyone treated other people decently, there wouldn't be any racism or other kinds of bigotry, but they don't, and there is. Plus, of course, we can't even agree on what 'moral and decent' means: some of us would like it to mean that when a gay man comes in to your bakery for a cake to celebrate his wedding anniversary, you smile, offer congratulations, and get out your piping bag. Others posting here want to claim that the moral and decent thing for a baker to do in this context is to complain about what he imagine the customer does with his penis.
And because positive laws along the lines of "you have to act in a nice, moral, decent fashion" are problematic to construct and enforce, we tend to enact negative laws that say "you must not infringe this right".
quote:
And if so, are you willing to apply it equally to Mr Blade's choices ? If enough people feel strongly enough about it, does he have a moral duty to get back in the closet ?
You know that most people are going to instinctively respond "no" to that, but you'd like them to come up with some set of coherent axioms from which to derive a moral law that requires Mr. Keeper to serve Mr. Blade in his shop, does not require Mr. Blade and his husband to pretend to be straight when walking past the Bigot family and their 35 easily-offended children, and yet allows us to object when Johnny Drunk-Hooligan returns home after celebrating an away win at the pub spewing offensive language in all directions? That seems to be what you have in mind.
I don't know that I have a completely coherent set of axioms that a computer could derive my moral code from, but I think I'd have to start by pointing out that being gay is part of who Mr. Blade is, rather than being an unpleasant word he has chosen to print on his t-shirt. There is a difference between a man with Tourettes walking down the street saying "Fuck" and a man with a skinful doing the same thing.
You are free to prefer that Mr. Blade wasn't gay. I'd be more comfortable if Mr. Tourettes didn't walk around saying "Fuck". But neither of us is entitled, either legally or morally, to disfavour Mr. Blade or Mr. Tourettes because of it.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I can only conclude that you just don't have any empathy and don't care to try to get some.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
The sort of empathy that is limited to a protected characteristics list isn't worth the name. It's an assertion that what's important is something other than common humanity.
That's a pretty twisted response. Who wanted to limit empathy to a protected characteristics list? Your response reminds me of the idea that when told about the suffering of black people, or gay people, the response is that all have suffered. Nothing special here. Black lives don't matter, all lives matter.
It's a response that protects the majority from having to do anything different that might protect the minority.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
Well yes mdijon - and by definition demonstrating a lack of empathy as a complete lack of understanding for the experience of others has been so ably demonstrated.
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Posts: 2405 | From: Aotearoa/New Zealand | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Empathy means treating individual people as fellow human beings rather than as representations of one side or the other in some political argument.
Who has been treating people as representations of one side or the other in some political argument in this discussion?
You have been. You keep talking about political conviction and restricting empathy to only one side and so on.
But you have not ever pointed to any actual indications that anybody else is doing so.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Mr. Keeper is responsible for the impact of his actions, and he is also responsible for reasonably foreseeing how real-life circumstances affect that impact.
That sounds remarkably like a coherent moral philosophy. ...
Wow, gee, thanks. I'll treasure that. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:
... If I understand aright, you deny that either customer has a right to be served, or that Mr Keeper has a right to choose whom he will serve in his shop. ...
Well, it's possible you didn't understand ...
Mr. Keeper has the right to ask Mr. Drunken Hooligan to leave the shop. Mr. Keeper can choose what products and services he will offer. We've been over this a number of times as well. Did you forget? Or are you yet again conflating services and people in order to obfuscate your real argument?
quote:
... the pain that Mr Keeper would feel in having to serve someone whose excessive facial hair is so distasteful to him ...
That's really your entire argument, isn't it? Protecting the hypothetical Mr. Keeper from the hypothetical pain of his hypothetical eyebrow phobia is more important than protecting real people from the real pain caused by real discrimination. "It's empathy, Jim, but not as we know it."
Mr. Keeper should really to go Home Depot, buy a 10' ladder, and get over himself.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And any analogy that relies on previously printed material is equally stupid. No bakery makes a cake with "Happy Birthday John" on it in the hope that someone will walk into the store looking for a cake with the name John on it.
And Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in birthday celebrations so maybe they're exempt.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I agree that there's a difference (although whether two things are the same or different seems like philosophy rather than justice).
This is a category error. Philosophy is a process; justice is an outcome.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
No bakery makes a cake with "Happy Birthday John" on it in the hope that someone will walk into the store looking for a cake with the name John on it.
True.
The argument goes something like
a) ordering a slogan (whether to be iced on a cake, printed on a t-shirt, or something else) is analogous to ordering a book from a bookshop. It's not the medium, it's the message.
b) nobody seriously objects to a bookseller choosing on principle not to stock certain books. It's like a customary right. Mein Kampf comes to mind as an example of a book that a bookseller might conceivably have a principled objection to selling.
c) there is no moral difference between refusing on principle to stock Main Kampf and refusing on the same principle to order it for a customer.
Therefore there can be no coherent moral objection (to bakers and printers choosing the slogans they sell) that is consistent with existing customary rights.
You may disagree with any part of that. But it's a serious argument.
If you're talking about icing someone's name (perhaps onto a cake that already says "Happy Birthday") then there's a much finer line between rejecting the customer (not-OK) and refusing (regardless of who's asking) an order for text that one disapproves of (OK).
Can a Jewish baker refuse "Happy Birthday Adolf" ? For someone who produces ID to show their name is Adolf ?
Fortunately the case in question is more clear-cut than that example.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
b) nobody seriously objects to a bookseller choosing on principle not to stock certain books. It's like a customary right. ...
LIke, no, it isn't:
quote:
... We recognize court judgments; otherwise, we oppose the detention, seizure, destruction, or banning of books and periodicals – indeed, any effort to deny, repress, or sanitize. ...
Freedom to Read
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Russ--
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I can only conclude that you just don't have any empathy and don't care to try to get some.
The sort of empathy that is limited to a protected characteristics list isn't worth the name. It's an assertion that what's important is something other than common humanity.
Empathy means treating individual people as fellow human beings rather than as representations of one side or the other in some political argument.
If we all had enough empathy we wouldn't be having this particular discussion.
Respectfully, Russ, you've got this backwards. Protecting certain groups is necessary because they've been treated as less than other human beings. It's not to treat them with some super-special kind of empathy--it's to treat them with the regular garden-variety empathy that they've been denied. Not special rights--just rights.
If non-Irish folks habitually treat the Irish as lower than dirt, do the Irish need some special kind of rights? Or do they need the regular rights they've been denied?
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
How we deal with the people who do not have a good will and do not act morally, who have a guilty mind, is a question beyond, to which I don't recall having given a great deal of thought.
That is really not what 'guilty mind' means in this context.
quote:
quote:
Now you're saying that if the agent is being encouraged to do it by other people that should be reflected in the law.
Not in the law, but in the degree of guilt and hence in the punishment for breaking the law.
Well, shall we try to sum up where the discussion has taken us?
We are agreed that in proscribing an action the law need not take subjective guilt into account in whether or not to rule that the law has been broken. It may or may not take that into account in sentencing. With regards to whether an act should be illegal it may look at the actual harm done.
We have established that it may look at the intention of the agent in establishing whether or not a crime has been committed.
We have established that there are good reasons for the law to bar discrimination on the grounds of sexuality which do not apply to eyebrows or drunken behaviour.
We have established that everyone is agreed that if the law bars discrimation against gay people it should also bar discrimation against bisexual people and straight people.
Or do you disagree?
As regards empathy, if someone sees one person kicking another person on the ground and they intervene to stop it, that's not because they only empathise with the person on the ground. If someone takes sides in a situation that doesn't automatically mean they failed to empathise with one side; it might be because after empathising with both sides they decide one side is morally in the right.
[ 03. January 2017, 11:09: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
you'd like them to come up with some set of coherent axioms from which to derive a moral law that requires Mr. Keeper to serve Mr. Blade in his shop, does not require Mr. Blade and his husband to pretend to be straight when walking past the Bigot family and their 35 easily-offended children...
...neither of us is entitled, either legally or morally, to disfavour Mr. Blade or Mr. Tourettes because of it.
Some set of coherent moral principles, yes. Because that's how you tell who's special pleading and who's worth listening to.
I'm suggesting that we humans face a strong temptation to judge corruptly - to skew our moral judgments to favour those we sympathize with. And having transparent principles - that you apply to "our side" and the other side alike - is the only safeguard.
Legal entitlements will vary from place to place, and could change at the stroke of orfeo's pen. Moral rights, timeless and universal, are something we can meaningfully argue about.
I don't see either a moral right to disfavour others nor a moral right to escape the disfavour of others. I see situations (such as a teacher marking exam papers) where there is a moral duty to impartiality. And freedoms (e.g. of speech and association) which can morally be exercised regardless of who is disfavoured or disadvantaged thereby.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'm suggesting that we humans face a strong temptation to judge corruptly - to skew our moral judgments to favour those we sympathize with. And having transparent principles - that you apply to "our side" and the other side alike - is the only safeguard.
I'm not sure that I'd agree with the strength of this statement, but I'd certainly agree that transparent principles are a good thing, and a defence against favouring in-groups.
I also think that this is largely what has happened in terms of civil rights: people have taken rights that were written down imagining middle-aged white men who owned property, and asked how to apply their principles to a wider set of people.
quote:
And freedoms (e.g. of speech and association) which can morally be exercised regardless of who is disfavoured or disadvantaged thereby.
Ah - there's an interesting nugget buried in there. You are asserting the primacy of freedoms of speech and association, implying that it is not just legal but moral for you to say whatever you fancy at any time. I don't think that can possibly be true. There are any number of vile and hurtful things that you are legally entitled to say. That doesn't mean that you saying them is moral behaviour.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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