From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jul 17 2002 - 15:55:43 MDT
On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 04:03:10PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
> ### Sorry if the objections I have to your position might sound a bit like
> an ad hominem but I don't know how to express it differently: Your defense
> of the mega corporations involved in controlling IP seems to the expression
> of a Kohlberg stage five reasoning. Anders and Lee are using arguments more
> typical of stage six. I will be difficult to reconcile your positions
> because of the different bases for inference, especially since the
> transitions between Kohlberg stages rarely if ever are the result of single
> threads of logical reasoning - instead they seem to occur by the
> accumulation of small, subconscious changes in attitude. Maybe with time
> this will happen with one of the sides involved here (I am strongly siding
> with Anders and Lee).
I think we are going very meta here, but it is an interesting
observation. For some examples of Kohlberg dilemmas, see
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/kohlberg.dilemmas.html The
basic idea Kohlberg had was that there are stages of moral reasoning in
children and adults, ranging from simple "don't steal, or you will be
punished" to abstract like "stealing is wrong, because if everyone did
it society wouldn't work". See
http://www.xenodochy.org/ex/lists/moraldev.html for a list and some
comments. I think Kohlberg is slipping a bit out of fashion these days,
but the basic observation that people use fundamentally different levels
of abstraction when thinking about morals and other things is useful.
I think Rafal is right in that it is hard to discuss properly when two
persons are at different levels, but it can be done with some effort.
Also, more abstract reasoning is not always correct. One of my favorite
examples is the observation that Kant's categorical imperative makes it
immoral to switch channel when there is advertising, since if everybody
did that all advertising-funded TV we want to see would vanish :-)
As I see it in this current thread, it is more productive if we look at
what can be changed and the consequences of these changes rather than
the system today.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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