From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 19:06:06 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> It's very similar with today's fascination with "child abuse".
> You probably couldn't list very many societies and eras on the
> right hand side of the sheet. For one thing, stealing (and
> robbery) are conceptually quite clear. But people will debate
> endlessly over what is and is not child abuse. Just today some
> vegetarians had their daughter taken away from them by the
> Authorities in New Jersey because she was underweight. Soon,
> they may pass a law there saying that every parent must ensure
> that his or her son or daughter be either breast-fed or formula
> fed. (Though they really don't need such laws any more: they
> can simply accuse one of child abuse, and that's that.) How
> soon will it be before Concerned Citizens (i.e. the Authorities)
> are able to make unannounced visits to check up on children?
> A whole new bureaucracy is in the wings!
Arguing that laws against child abuse Don't Work is a perfectly good
argument; it is an example of an ancient and honorable libertarian method.
It isn't enough for something to be actionable; the action also has to
accomplish net good, or you shouldn't bother. If laws against pickpocketing
ever became unenforceable and began doing more harm than good, we'd have to
drop that law too - not because pickpocketing became okay, but because the
law would have stopped working.
However, you appear to be arguing, not only that laws against child abuse
Don't Work, but also that they are wrong a priori. This is the point on
which the rest of us are choking. You seem to think that a third party is
morally licensed to interfere if party A attempts to murder neighbor B. Why
does this change when party A attempts to murder child C?
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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