Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!indri!xanth!ginosko!aplcen!osiris!johnj
From: johnj@osiris.UUCP (John Johnston johnj@welch.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Piracy
Keywords: morality/society
Message-ID: <2921@osiris.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 89 20:55:12 GMT
References: <bunches> <119399@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4030@cps3xx.UUCP>
Reply-To: mjr@welch.jhu.edu (Marcus J. Ranum)
Organization: Home of Purring Cats.
Lines: 36


	This is a bit of a digression....

Chuck McManis writes:
>[...] A society as a whole has
>morals, and those morals are written down in the laws they make.
>Copying software is undeniably illegal, and by definition, society
>as a whole considers it to be immoral. 

	Arguing moral philosophy is dangerous. Chuck's statements imply
that 'morality' is a consensus among the members of a society, and that
laws are the expression of that consensus and morality. Further, the
argument is made that "society as a whole considers piracy[sic] to be
immoral" - no appeals to an external platonic ideal "right" or "wrong" 
are made. 

	This is poor logic - if 'morality' is a consensus, then one
CANNOT argue in the same breath that society as a WHOLE considers 
ANYTHING. You are left with the shaky argument that society on the
AVERAGE, or in the MAJORITY considers piracy immoral, which is a long way
from saying it is WRONG in an absolute sense. (since I would argue that
absolute right and wrong are not relative, and thus have nothing to do
with whether people believe in them or not.)

	The worst flaw in Chuck's argument is, simply put: if morality
is a consensus, it would be more accurate to say that pirating software
is about 50% wrong - since AT LEAST 50% of the computer owners I know
pirate software. No :-)

	The remaining argument would be to say pirating software is wrong
in an absolute sense - EVIL, in other words. If that's what you want to
say, don't bother bringing The Law into it - don't you get it ? If people
respected The Law, would there be software pirates ?

	--mjr();
	mjr@welch.jhu.edu