Turmadrog, Renegade Balseraph of Technology <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 09 Jan 1999, Samael tempted me with this question:
> >The majority of extropians on this list are in favour of perfect human
> >inviolability (ie people never have the right to affect another person
> >without their permission - except in self defence).
>
> Yes, I'd agree with that.
As would I, of course -- but the Devil is in the details. That is, as
David Friedman points out, the tricky part is defining what counts
as "to affect another person." Friedman takes (what I believe is)
an intuitionistic approach, and suggests that the threshold falls
somewhere between shining a flashlight at them and shining a
laser beam, but that's an awful lot of room. I'm not an intutionist,
although (per Bruce Ackerman's comments in _Social Justice in
the Liberal State_) I have a lot of sympathy with *libertarian*
intuitionism; my suggestion is to use the Principle of Reciprocity.
>
> >I'd be interested to hear peoples opinions on the rights of animals. Do you
> >believe that animals have no rights and can be ignored, that animals have a
> >sliding scale of rights based upon their intelligence, or some other system?
>
> I would say that entities are either persons or property, and that
> the difference is that persons choose to be responsible. I don't
> have any problem with a sliding scale, but it should be an
> individual decision, not imposed from outside. That is, if the
> parent or owner is willing to agree to the demand, a child or
> pet should be able to insist that he, she, or it is *not* eating
> that stuff, but continue to be irresponsible (i.e. not a person,
> legally) in other ways.
-- John Fast jfast@fastindustries.com or caliban@gate.net ENTJ/1 (or 6) Finger me for Magic and Geek Codes "Raise consciousness, not taxes."