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Legal problems are obvious, so I'll focus on the ethical/moral side. I think it is wrong to equate drug trafficking, in any sense, to a moral or ethical argume

Legal problems are obvious, so I'll focus on the ethical/moral side. I think it is wrong to equate drug trafficking, in any sense, to a moral or ethical argument. Those questions do not yet have concrete, society-accepted answers, so by imposing the ethical and moral objects on drugs, we are in danger of simply following the status quo without question, I think. There are also cases where the most moral or ethical thing to do would be allow a patient to use a state-controlled/restricted drug, if it would save their lives. If we were to follow this argument to its conclusion, there may be a moral or ethical argument that it would be wrong for him to attempt to shutdown the ability of a patient to acquire life-improving drugs. tl;dr: Equating legal wrong to moral/ethical wrong is not always the right way.

forrestthewoods 12y ago
My intent was for all three to be considered separately. I didn't specify whether it was immoral/moral, ethical/unethical, or legal/illegal. However my real point is that the Silk Road creator and maintainer is responsible and accountable along all three axes. If it is moral, ethical, and legal then that's great! If it's moral, ethical, but illegal then that kinda sucks but that's the risk you take. Morals and ethics are an endless debate which is beside the point here. My opinion is that the initial comparison vs eBay is unreasonble and that the creator is responsible in all three ways.
- doctorver 12y ago
  Another analogy is renting space in your strip mall to a doctor who prescribes pain killers to their patients. The doctors behaviors may or may not be legal (depending on the specifics of how he metes out his narcotics) but the strip mall owner shouldn't be held liable just because some of his clients are possibly selling narcotics in violation of the law.
dllthomas 12y ago
While I agree that legality and morality are not equivalent (in practice or theory), strictly the parent comment didn't assert that they were. You can have moral responsibility for an act without appreciable moral weight, it just doesn't matter much that you do.

forrestthewoods 12y ago

My intent was for all three to be considered separately. I didn't specify whether it was immoral/moral, ethical/unethical, or legal/illegal. However my real point is that the Silk Road creator and maintainer is responsible and accountable along all three axes. If it is moral, ethical, and legal then that's great! If it's moral, ethical, but illegal then that kinda sucks but that's the risk you take. Morals and ethics are an endless debate which is beside the point here. My opinion is that the initial comparison vs eBay is unreasonble and that the creator is responsible in all three ways.

doctorver 12y ago
Another analogy is renting space in your strip mall to a doctor who prescribes pain killers to their patients. The doctors behaviors may or may not be legal (depending on the specifics of how he metes out his narcotics) but the strip mall owner shouldn't be held liable just because some of his clients are possibly selling narcotics in violation of the law.

dllthomas 12y ago

While I agree that legality and morality are not equivalent (in practice or theory), strictly the parent comment didn't assert that they were. You can have moral responsibility for an act without appreciable moral weight, it just doesn't matter much that you do.