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I don't think it's possible for unjust laws to be "valid" (as you can probably guess from my endorsement of Hobbes & Locke). Why should I care what 51% of other

by kijin 13y ago

I don't think it's possible for unjust laws to be "valid" (as you can probably guess from my endorsement of Hobbes & Locke). Why should I care what 51% of other people think, if I'm sure they're wrong? If I still choose to abide by an unjust law, that might be because I think maintaining peace is preferable to pissing off the 51%. But in that case, I'm just making a morally neutral choice of strategy. If circumstances were such that the risk of piss-off was low, my strategy might change. So in my dictionary, (1) is also a matter of strategy. As for taking reasonable steps to prevent self-deception, I still think it's a separate issue from whether an instance of disobedience is justified. There are two moral imperatives at issue: an obligation to protest an injustice and an obligation to be honest about your motivations. A person can technically fulfill one without fulfilling the other. If everyone had to have a spotless conscience in order for them to do something right, nobody would ever do anything right. I therefore don't care what Snowden's personal motivations are. It's tangential to the issue of whether his act of disobedience is justified, which I think it is, for reasons that have nothing to do with the contents of his psyche and everything to do with the (lack of) objective merits of the espionage law that requires his arrest.

foldr 13y ago
>Why should I care what 51% of other people think, if I'm sure they're wrong? Because you want them to care what you think when you're in the 51%. That's the basis of a lawful society. If everyone feels that they can do whatever they like regardless of what anyone else thinks, you just have anarchy. It seems that you decide to obey laws on a case-by-case basis on purely pragmatic grounds, but if everyone acted that way we'd in effect have no laws at all.
- kijin 13y ago
  No, I don't want anybody to give a damn about what percentage I belong to, just as I don't give a damn about what percentage they belong to. The basis of a lawful society is that the law gives people incentive to obey it, by punishing people who disobey. It makes the individually pragmatic coincide with the greater good. I never said that disobedient individuals will not be punished. I only said that they have the right to try not to be punished (as in Hobbes's example of the death penalty). But in the end, what they want might not matter because the state is vastly more powerful than any single individual. An important feature of a lawful society is that the law tends to win. But might doesn't make right. The Mafia always tends to find you in the end. What happens when everyone willingly defies the law and gains the power to evade punishment? Anarchy? No, just a momentary revolution and then back to order. For most people, extreme disorder just isn't a rational choice. Political instability causes stock prices to go down, right? Who wants that? So there will always be a (more or less) lawful society, regardless what anyone thinks about its legitimacy. Anarchy is a fictitious threat that friends of the establishment tend to wave in the air when they feel threatened, that's all.
  - foldr 13y ago
    What if someone decides that the law against murder is unjust and tries to kill you? Would you care then? I don't think it's realistic to view the law in that way. I think that it's possible to have a lawful society only if the majority of people are willing to obey the law for it's own sake the majority of the time. You'd need to have a police state to enforce the laws otherwise (or "Leviathan", as you might term it). In most countries, people could break all kinds of laws all the time and get away with it. Also, it's very unclear what it would mean to say that someone has the right to try not to be punished. How can I tell the difference between a situation where I have that right and where I don't? Since no-one could possibly stop me from merely trying, it seems vacuous to say that I have the right to do so. If you mean "has the right" in a moral sense (i.e., they would be morally justified in doing so), then I see what you mean but don't agree.
    - kijin 13y ago
      There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. ("A person who commits X, Y, or Z shall be sentenced to W.") There is, however, a moral imperative against murder ("Thou shalt not murder"), as well as a moral right for me to protect myself from harm. The validity of moral imperatives and rights does not depend on the existence of any law. I definitely care when people disobey moral imperatives or violate moral rights. As a matter of fact, the majority of people in any society obey the majority of the law the majority of the time. After all, laws are often specifically designed to coincide with what the majority thinks is right, convenient, reasonable, etc., so the majority will obey those laws for the sake of doing the right thing, doing what is convenient, doing what is reasonable, etc. But if you want people to obey the law for the sake of obeying the law, I don't see what might justify such a demand. In my opinion, criminal law is just a device to facilitate obedience to moral imperatives. (Other laws might serve other purposes, such as facilitating commerce.) It's like a proxy server that helps me talk to an authoritative data source. A lot of the time, the proxy is good enough. But if the proxy interferes with my websocket, I have every right to bypass the proxy and talk directly to the data source. Note that this doesn't mean that I'm going to ditch the proxy altogether. I'm still going to use the proxy for all of my non-websocket needs because it's faster, better documented, etc. By the way, sorry for the vagueness surrounding the phrase "has the right". I meant it in a justificatory sense. In other words, if and only if a law contradicts moral imperatives, anyone has JUSTIFICATION to break that particular law and try to evade punishment. If, on the other hand, the law coincides with moral imperatives, there can be NO justification for breaking it (not because of the law but because of moral imperatives), but a person may still be justified in trying to evade punishment depending on whether the punishment is moral. For example, if the law requires disproportionately severe punishment for a petty crime, that's immoral.

by kijin 13y ago

foldr 13y ago

>Why should I care what 51% of other people think, if I'm sure they're wrong? Because you want them to care what you think when you're in the 51%. That's the basis of a lawful society. If everyone feels that they can do whatever they like regardless of what anyone else thinks, you just have anarchy. It seems that you decide to obey laws on a case-by-case basis on purely pragmatic grounds, but if everyone acted that way we'd in effect have no laws at all.

kijin 13y ago
No, I don't want anybody to give a damn about what percentage I belong to, just as I don't give a damn about what percentage they belong to. The basis of a lawful society is that the law gives people incentive to obey it, by punishing people who disobey. It makes the individually pragmatic coincide with the greater good. I never said that disobedient individuals will not be punished. I only said that they have the right to try not to be punished (as in Hobbes's example of the death penalty). But in the end, what they want might not matter because the state is vastly more powerful than any single individual. An important feature of a lawful society is that the law tends to win. But might doesn't make right. The Mafia always tends to find you in the end. What happens when everyone willingly defies the law and gains the power to evade punishment? Anarchy? No, just a momentary revolution and then back to order. For most people, extreme disorder just isn't a rational choice. Political instability causes stock prices to go down, right? Who wants that? So there will always be a (more or less) lawful society, regardless what anyone thinks about its legitimacy. Anarchy is a fictitious threat that friends of the establishment tend to wave in the air when they feel threatened, that's all.
- foldr 13y ago
  What if someone decides that the law against murder is unjust and tries to kill you? Would you care then? I don't think it's realistic to view the law in that way. I think that it's possible to have a lawful society only if the majority of people are willing to obey the law for it's own sake the majority of the time. You'd need to have a police state to enforce the laws otherwise (or "Leviathan", as you might term it). In most countries, people could break all kinds of laws all the time and get away with it. Also, it's very unclear what it would mean to say that someone has the right to try not to be punished. How can I tell the difference between a situation where I have that right and where I don't? Since no-one could possibly stop me from merely trying, it seems vacuous to say that I have the right to do so. If you mean "has the right" in a moral sense (i.e., they would be morally justified in doing so), then I see what you mean but don't agree.
  - kijin 13y ago
    There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. ("A person who commits X, Y, or Z shall be sentenced to W.") There is, however, a moral imperative against murder ("Thou shalt not murder"), as well as a moral right for me to protect myself from harm. The validity of moral imperatives and rights does not depend on the existence of any law. I definitely care when people disobey moral imperatives or violate moral rights. As a matter of fact, the majority of people in any society obey the majority of the law the majority of the time. After all, laws are often specifically designed to coincide with what the majority thinks is right, convenient, reasonable, etc., so the majority will obey those laws for the sake of doing the right thing, doing what is convenient, doing what is reasonable, etc. But if you want people to obey the law for the sake of obeying the law, I don't see what might justify such a demand. In my opinion, criminal law is just a device to facilitate obedience to moral imperatives. (Other laws might serve other purposes, such as facilitating commerce.) It's like a proxy server that helps me talk to an authoritative data source. A lot of the time, the proxy is good enough. But if the proxy interferes with my websocket, I have every right to bypass the proxy and talk directly to the data source. Note that this doesn't mean that I'm going to ditch the proxy altogether. I'm still going to use the proxy for all of my non-websocket needs because it's faster, better documented, etc. By the way, sorry for the vagueness surrounding the phrase "has the right". I meant it in a justificatory sense. In other words, if and only if a law contradicts moral imperatives, anyone has JUSTIFICATION to break that particular law and try to evade punishment. If, on the other hand, the law coincides with moral imperatives, there can be NO justification for breaking it (not because of the law but because of moral imperatives), but a person may still be justified in trying to evade punishment depending on whether the punishment is moral. For example, if the law requires disproportionately severe punishment for a petty crime, that's immoral.