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> rhetorically questioned whether illegal actions are always wrong. That's called moral relativism It could be called "moral relativism". But I do not think

by worik 4y ago

> rhetorically questioned whether illegal actions are always wrong. That's called moral relativism It could be called "moral relativism". But I do not think it really is. The moral content of my actions is entirely independent of the legality of my actions. There is correlation, a lot of bad things and few good things are illegal. But legality does not imply good and vise versa.

dcow 4y ago
I understand that. My argument is that, practically, we're talking about the past actions of a certain individual within a certain legal context on a social scale where societal justice has already been served so you necessarily have to tie the two together otherwise society falls apart. What DPR did is not allowed by the laws of the land in which he did it. Therefore it is logical to assert that his actions are unwanted in that society. It's a bad idea to do illegal things and get caught. The semantics of it doesn't change the principle.
- sneak 4y ago
  > What DPR did is not allowed by the laws of the land in which he did it. Therefore it is logical to assert that his actions are unwanted in that society. I don't think that logically follows, either.
  - dcow 4y ago
    It does because he committed a crime and is rotting in jail. That’s literally what that means. You can disagree forever about whether you specifically would accept his actions in some ideal society in your head, but that doesn't change reality. Simply, nobody is discussing the your imagination.
    - sneak 4y ago
      > It does because he committed a crime and is rotting in jail. That’s literally what that means. The fact that he is in jail, or that it is a crime, does not confirm nor disconfirm that society considers his alleged actions unwanted; as the law is not a perfect or even approximate representation of society's preferences. All it tells you is that it's illegal. It doesn't tell you whether or not society considers it unwanted. They are not congruent. There are literally thousands upon thousands of US federal felonies that society has no opinion whatsoever on. Oftentimes laws are passed with the involvement of only a handful of members of society. They are largely disconnected from the wants and views of the wider world.
kragen 4y ago
BTW that account where you and I disagreed about whether they were trolling? They got banned for trolling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049186
- worik 4y ago
  Yes. I need to redefine my definition of trolling. I am too tolerant, and could be accused of it myself if my definition so far off. A learning experience
  - kragen 4y ago
    I think they were just doing a very good job of trolling, and they caught you. I was pretty unsure at first, too, because the exaggeration of sincere (but misguided) rhetoric was pretty subtle. In this case I don't think our interlocutor is trolling; they're just throwing out words and phrases they think are applause lights without much regard to what they actually mean, with the intent of sincerely signaling their emotions—political sloganeering as a prophylactic against rational thought. It can look like trolling because, as in trolling, the person is saying things that are false and even self-contradictory, and isn't concerned about this; but the motivation is different. Unfortunately my comment upthread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32064946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32064946 seems to have gotten flagged by the sort of people who prefer political sloganeering to careful rational deconstruction of political sloganeering; perhaps if you think it's a useful contribution to the discussion you could "vouch" it?

by worik 4y ago

dcow 4y ago

I understand that. My argument is that, practically, we're talking about the past actions of a certain individual within a certain legal context on a social scale where societal justice has already been served so you necessarily have to tie the two together otherwise society falls apart. What DPR did is not allowed by the laws of the land in which he did it. Therefore it is logical to assert that his actions are unwanted in that society. It's a bad idea to do illegal things and get caught. The semantics of it doesn't change the principle.

sneak 4y ago
> What DPR did is not allowed by the laws of the land in which he did it. Therefore it is logical to assert that his actions are unwanted in that society. I don't think that logically follows, either.
- dcow 4y ago
  It does because he committed a crime and is rotting in jail. That’s literally what that means. You can disagree forever about whether you specifically would accept his actions in some ideal society in your head, but that doesn't change reality. Simply, nobody is discussing the your imagination.
  - sneak 4y ago
    > It does because he committed a crime and is rotting in jail. That’s literally what that means. The fact that he is in jail, or that it is a crime, does not confirm nor disconfirm that society considers his alleged actions unwanted; as the law is not a perfect or even approximate representation of society's preferences. All it tells you is that it's illegal. It doesn't tell you whether or not society considers it unwanted. They are not congruent. There are literally thousands upon thousands of US federal felonies that society has no opinion whatsoever on. Oftentimes laws are passed with the involvement of only a handful of members of society. They are largely disconnected from the wants and views of the wider world.

kragen 4y ago

BTW that account where you and I disagreed about whether they were trolling? They got banned for trolling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32049186

worik 4y ago
Yes. I need to redefine my definition of trolling. I am too tolerant, and could be accused of it myself if my definition so far off. A learning experience
- kragen 4y ago
  I think they were just doing a very good job of trolling, and they caught you. I was pretty unsure at first, too, because the exaggeration of sincere (but misguided) rhetoric was pretty subtle. In this case I don't think our interlocutor is trolling; they're just throwing out words and phrases they think are applause lights without much regard to what they actually mean, with the intent of sincerely signaling their emotions—political sloganeering as a prophylactic against rational thought. It can look like trolling because, as in trolling, the person is saying things that are false and even self-contradictory, and isn't concerned about this; but the motivation is different. Unfortunately my comment upthread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32064946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32064946 seems to have gotten flagged by the sort of people who prefer political sloganeering to careful rational deconstruction of political sloganeering; perhaps if you think it's a useful contribution to the discussion you could "vouch" it?