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Let me ask a possibly unpopular question because the answer is not immediately obvious to me: Good enough reason. Here's an explanation I've heard: Yes,

Let me ask a possibly unpopular question because the answer is not immediately obvious to me: Good enough reason. Here's an explanation I've heard: Yes, it's your business, your property, and in most things you're free to do as you like with it. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can have a business and a good life because you live in a particular society, so you have some obligations back to that society. That can take the form of, well, taxes (for example), but also as special protections for select groups of people.

kiba 16y ago
I don't think an "obligation" or obeying the law is necessary a good qualifier. Let look at this way. Each law we made will have potential side-effects, which is most likely to be negative. Thus, the law of unintended consequence. For example, a business deciding who to hire might decide on only the merit/performances of employees. However, this end up with lot of white people, because white people are disproportional represented in the tech industry. Any minority in the tech industry have to swim against lot of talented white people. So what we end up with is a firm with mostly white people. However, discrimination against race is prohibited in our law and it looks like the firm is engaged in favoring white people over other type of colors. So people either sue the firm for racial discrimination, or the firm decided a quota of people from each race to hire. Thus, we end up with the strange situation of a color-blind company being sued for discrimination that it never engaged in, or forced to take a racist route to avoid lawsuits. So we better be careful of how we make our laws. A law with good intentions and made with great moral conviction may end up doing the opposite. "It is a saying among Divines, that Hell is full of good Intentions, and Meanings." -- 1654 R. Whitlock Observations on Manners of English 203
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  "So we better be careful of how we make our laws. A law with good intentions and made with great moral conviction may end up doing the opposite." I absolutely agree, and offered the explanation as one I've often heard, but it isn't one I can get my heart into. But even if it's true in general principal, the idea of trying to do good by roundabout methods is indeed tricky, and if you cannot accurately measure the results you're doing witchcraft not statecraft.

kiba 16y ago

I don't think an "obligation" or obeying the law is necessary a good qualifier. Let look at this way. Each law we made will have potential side-effects, which is most likely to be negative. Thus, the law of unintended consequence. For example, a business deciding who to hire might decide on only the merit/performances of employees. However, this end up with lot of white people, because white people are disproportional represented in the tech industry. Any minority in the tech industry have to swim against lot of talented white people. So what we end up with is a firm with mostly white people. However, discrimination against race is prohibited in our law and it looks like the firm is engaged in favoring white people over other type of colors. So people either sue the firm for racial discrimination, or the firm decided a quota of people from each race to hire. Thus, we end up with the strange situation of a color-blind company being sued for discrimination that it never engaged in, or forced to take a racist route to avoid lawsuits. So we better be careful of how we make our laws. A law with good intentions and made with great moral conviction may end up doing the opposite. "It is a saying among Divines, that Hell is full of good Intentions, and Meanings." -- 1654 R. Whitlock Observations on Manners of English 203

jamesbritt 16y ago
"So we better be careful of how we make our laws. A law with good intentions and made with great moral conviction may end up doing the opposite." I absolutely agree, and offered the explanation as one I've often heard, but it isn't one I can get my heart into. But even if it's true in general principal, the idea of trying to do good by roundabout methods is indeed tricky, and if you cannot accurately measure the results you're doing witchcraft not statecraft.