3 ms·

I find it interesting how public discussions in the U.S. often are centered around the semantics of single words instead of focusing on the larger picture, whic

I find it interesting how public discussions in the U.S. often are centered around the semantics of single words instead of focusing on the larger picture, which is often connected to morality (entitlement vs. priviledge comes to mind). The real questions are never even asked. Would a society accept that only rich people would be provided with water in the case of a water shortage? Should one of your children receive more food becuase it scores better grades at school? How important is the delivery of opinions and information compared to water and food? I am not saying that those things can be compared, but these are the things that need to be discussed in public.

revelation 12y ago
Don't worry, this is just because you are reading from rayiner. Lawyers have this tendency to fall into a rabbit hole of explaining things in some legal category, where everyone else naturally operates on morality and expects the law to reflect that. (Not a personal attack, it's just different.)
- rayiner 12y ago
  I don't see where morality comes into play when talking about weighing the interests of different for profit corporations. I realize that people here tend to sympathize with internet companies over telecommunications companies, but that's precisely why we don't just base the law on peoples' conceptions of "morality." In any case, a debate over words is rarely just a debate over words. Words delineate the scope of expectations and obligations. Which category you fit into dramatically affects what's expected of you and what you're entitled to. Imprecision as to categories on the basis of vague moral arguments makes it easy to ignore the bargain achieved within each category balancing obligations with entitlements.
  - smutticus 12y ago
    > I don't see where morality comes into play when talking about weighing the interests of different for profit corporations. I think you just summarized in one sentence why many people hate lawyers. It's not just that lawyers are dispassionate, doctors are also dispassionate, and people don't hate doctors nearly as much as lawyers. It's that you miss the forest for the trees. Categories are inherently imprecise, and focusing on them exclusively leads one to focus on delineation of experience as the ultimate arbiter. Categories cannot prefectly map reality, normal people know this, while lawyers ignore this. Those vague moral arguments are what matters to moral people, not some outdated belief that Aristotelian categorization somehow can properly capture reality. Lawyers categorize circumstance and then map the law onto those categories. When the law doesn't map well to circumstance, or when we cannot properly categorize the facts, we have questions of interpretation. "When does a change in degree become a change in kind?", or "Do we need a law of the horse?" Both questions assume categorization as the problem. But our minds don't work like that. Everything that we're learning through cognitive science tells us differently. For some takes on this that tell it better than I, here are some book links: http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-The-Flesh-George-Lakoff-ebook/dp/B001FSJAWK/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8 http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-The-Flesh-George-Lakoff-ebo... http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Forest-Law-Life-Mind/dp/0226902226/ref=la_B001HD3EAW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411324841&sr=1-2 http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Forest-Law-Life-Mind/dp/02269...
    - rayiner 12y ago
      People hate lawyers because they don't like applying the same rules to people they don't like as to people they like. That's why lawyers fixate on categories. Those abstract definitions force people to take personal prejudices and interests out of the calculation.
ende 12y ago
Morality is the domain of legislation. Litigation deals with how these things fit into real practice.

revelation 12y ago

Don't worry, this is just because you are reading from rayiner. Lawyers have this tendency to fall into a rabbit hole of explaining things in some legal category, where everyone else naturally operates on morality and expects the law to reflect that. (Not a personal attack, it's just different.)

rayiner 12y ago
I don't see where morality comes into play when talking about weighing the interests of different for profit corporations. I realize that people here tend to sympathize with internet companies over telecommunications companies, but that's precisely why we don't just base the law on peoples' conceptions of "morality." In any case, a debate over words is rarely just a debate over words. Words delineate the scope of expectations and obligations. Which category you fit into dramatically affects what's expected of you and what you're entitled to. Imprecision as to categories on the basis of vague moral arguments makes it easy to ignore the bargain achieved within each category balancing obligations with entitlements.
- smutticus 12y ago
  > I don't see where morality comes into play when talking about weighing the interests of different for profit corporations. I think you just summarized in one sentence why many people hate lawyers. It's not just that lawyers are dispassionate, doctors are also dispassionate, and people don't hate doctors nearly as much as lawyers. It's that you miss the forest for the trees. Categories are inherently imprecise, and focusing on them exclusively leads one to focus on delineation of experience as the ultimate arbiter. Categories cannot prefectly map reality, normal people know this, while lawyers ignore this. Those vague moral arguments are what matters to moral people, not some outdated belief that Aristotelian categorization somehow can properly capture reality. Lawyers categorize circumstance and then map the law onto those categories. When the law doesn't map well to circumstance, or when we cannot properly categorize the facts, we have questions of interpretation. "When does a change in degree become a change in kind?", or "Do we need a law of the horse?" Both questions assume categorization as the problem. But our minds don't work like that. Everything that we're learning through cognitive science tells us differently. For some takes on this that tell it better than I, here are some book links: http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-The-Flesh-George-Lakoff-ebook/dp/B001FSJAWK/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8 http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-The-Flesh-George-Lakoff-ebo... http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Forest-Law-Life-Mind/dp/0226902226/ref=la_B001HD3EAW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411324841&sr=1-2 http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Forest-Law-Life-Mind/dp/02269...
  - rayiner 12y ago
    People hate lawyers because they don't like applying the same rules to people they don't like as to people they like. That's why lawyers fixate on categories. Those abstract definitions force people to take personal prejudices and interests out of the calculation.

ende 12y ago

Morality is the domain of legislation. Litigation deals with how these things fit into real practice.