From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 23:06:41 MDT
Eliezer had written
> ...bearing in mind that, on this mailing list as opposed to
> less rational forums, it is perfectly possible to concede
> that something is morally abhorrent and yet carry the point
> that laws against it would do more harm than good.
I do indeed appreciate the fact that this is such a rational forum!
That's something we need to celebrate occasionally.
> I am asking you now whether you consider "child abuse" to be...
> the morally abhorrent violation of rights of a fellow citizen.
I have repeatedly said that I find talk of "rights" in the
abstract hard to follow, if not completely muddled. But
thanks for giving me the opportunity to say that I find any
abuse of sentient creatures abhorrent, and almost as bad as
failing to rescue intelligent beings from non-existence
in the first place. (But, to me, this has nothing to do
with making laws, which are backed up by the use of force.)
In other words, I would highly approve of people having the
maximum number of offspring that they could endure. Cloning
would make that easier, and I'd gladly foster a huge number
of clones of myself and other loved ones, if the price was
reasonable.
(Moreover, a number of people, such as the late Julian Simon,
are persuaded that the standard of living actually rises the
more people there are.)
Lee
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
> Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 5:27 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: Reproductive Cloning
>
>
> Lee Corbin wrote:
> >
> > But questions concerning children or animals are tougher yet:
> > just what do reasonable people actually do when seeing some
> > parent beating a child in public? You definitely have to "be
> > there" before you even have the first clue. For societies to
> > attempt to write laws about that, it's true, does keep a lot
> > of dangerous bureaucrats sidelined who would otherwise do far
> > greater damage when directing their omnivorous gaze at economic
> > issues, say, but cannot otherwise said to be accomplishing any
> > good.
>
> You're ducking the question again. If bureaucrats screwed up the job of
> legislating against spousal abuse, then we would have to seek other
> solutions to spousal abuse. Reducing spousal abuse would still be a morally
> appropriate goal; we would simply have to concede that legislation is not an
> effective means to this goal. Despite common usage, the purpose of law is
> more than creating the illusion of accomplishment while actually making
> things worse for the supposed beneficiaries. But spousal abuse would still
> be immoral and would be moral to outlaw spousal abuse if we expected
> legislation to be an effective means of reducing the total violation of
> rights. (Of course, in a correctly structured legal system, spousal abuse
> is not specially outlawed but is a general case of nonconsensual violence.)
>
> By contrast, if someone is having sex with his pet goat, it is wrong for me
> to intervene *even if* this is an effective way of reducing the total amount
> of bestiality going on. Bestiality is not a morally appropriate subject of
> legislation, regardless of whether legislation would be effective.
>
> I am asking you now whether you consider "child abuse" to be the morally
> protected exercise of rights over private property or the morally abhorrent
> violation of rights of a fellow citizen - bearing in mind that, on this
> mailing list as opposed to less rational forums, it is perfectly possible to
> concede that something is morally abhorrent and yet carry the point that
> laws against it would do more harm than good. In the past, you've made it
> clear that, if you are a computer simulation, you would consider yourself to
> be the private property of the simulator. Do you consider children to be
> the private property of their parents?
>
> -- -- -- -- --
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
> Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
>
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