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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Principle of Non-interference
Message-ID: <1694@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 00:13:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1694
Posted: Fri Sep 27 00:13:21 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 10:14:02 EDT
References: <1652@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1782@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 210

In article <1782@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>>>Necessary interference can only mean that interference
>>>which prevents people from harming others.

>> But but but there's no definition in there at all!  And let's take the red
>> shirt example to a more serious form of interference: should you drink in
>> front of an alchoholic?  Should you eat a slice of cake in front of someone
>> on a diet?  It's unclear to me whether or not Rich's system says yea or
>> nay.

>Do alcoholics wear signs that warn other people not to drink in front of
>them?  Let's get serious here.

I am deadly serious.  Your flip, rather callous remark about wearing signs I
find rather offensive.  From a man who is constantly stating how people are
totally controlled by their desires, I find this crack rather heartless.  Do
you really believe that it is perfectly all right to tempt a person whom you
know to be an alcoholic to drink, so that he can continue to destroy his
life, and others with it?

>How can you dare to call an act of normal human living "interfering"
>with you, be it eating, drinking, shirtwearing, dresswearing, or anything
>else you care to bring up that does not cause harm to other people.

Since we are all disputing that no harm is done, this remark is quite out of
bounds.  We dare to examine anything.  No element of human behavior should
be exempt from moral examination.  No behavior should be presupposed to be
harmless.  While we're at it, could you give a precise definition of what
constitutes harm, and what is normal behavior?

>  Perhaps (just a suggestion) you might want to define
>"harm" rather than "interference", since I think we're agreed (at least in
>part) that the difference between a "legitimate" act and an interfering one
>is that the interfering one causes harm.

I'm in doubt that it can be defined objectively, since it is bound up in the
notion of pain, and nothing is less objective than pain.  I'll have to think
about this somewhat.

>>>>>know what my best interests are?"  Just thought I'd make it clear.
>>>>>You don't.

>> Oh really.  How do you know this?

>Please, oh, please, Charles, tell me what they are so I can live my life
>the "right" way?  >:-|

I didn't claim that I did.  I merely claimed that you don't know whether or
not I do.

>> Well, in many cases this is quite obviously not true.  People typically
>> operate under some delusions about their state of well-being.  Were there
>> no such delusions, I could agree whole-heartedly with Rich's system.
>> But in  fact there are.  To take an extreme case, consider a man,
>> a farmer, who suffers a massive heart attack.  Awakening in the hospital,
>> he struggles to leave.  Can it really be argued that he is competent to
>> judge his condition? Are not the doctors justified in restraining him
>> from killing himself as he acts out the delusion that he is well?
>> Certainly, this example is extreme.  The problem I see is that there
>> is no clear-cut dividing line; situations run from this all the way
>> down to where things are better let to go wrong, to where the good or
>> badness of the situation is quite unclear.

>This may be the crux of the difference of our opinions.  Yes, there are
>certain unclear lines.  Your opinion is clearly that erring on the side of
>excess is better despite any indiscretions and ill effects this might have.

My opinion is not clear at all, since it is not well-formed.  This case is
obviously rather extreme.  In cases in the middle I would rather operate
situationally rather than blindly apply some principle.

>Obviously I would rather err on the side of liberty, as I think most thinking
>people would do rather than suffer the abuses of power we witness.  It boils
>down once again to losing sight of goals:  is the purpose of the society
>more to provide a framework for each person to live to their maximal
>capable potential and freedom, or to willy nilly restrict people in the
>interest of those extreme cases Wingate cites.

Society doesn't have a purpose.  It simply is.  And once again Rich has
erected a false dichotomy.  The question is not liberty or security; the
question is whose liberty, and how much.  The true availability of liberty
in this world is severely restricted by a number of processes, even in the
absence of overt deliberate coercion.  For starters, we live in an economic
world.  Resources to do things are relatively scarce, and possession by one
generally procludes use by another.  The second is that almost every action,
even trivial ones, has moral repercussions.  Ever action you take has some
influence, however small, over another.  Finally, human beings are quite
suceptible to delusion.  People quite often act against what even they
perceive to be their own interests.

>>>> All right.  A family lives in a house which is about to be destroyed by a
>>>> forest fire.  They do not wish to leave.  The police forcibly evict them.
>>>> In my opinion, this action is justified.

>>>If a person wishes to stay and burn, who are you to tell him not to?  Would
>>>you also forcibly prevent someone from committing suicide if you can't
>>>reason them out of it?  It's quite another thing if the person is forcing
>>>others to die with him/her.

>> Because they emotionally are not competent to decide.

>My.  I didn't know we had a degree in clairvoyant abnormal sociopathic
>psychology, Charles.  How good of you to decide for them.  I've witnessed
>you living out this philosophy right here on the net.  You deliberately
>altered the Followup-to lines on your articles in various discussion-
>oriented newsgroups to cause followups to go to net.flame!  Why?
>Because you "decided" for us that that was where they belonged.  Perhaps
>we were not emotionally competent to decide this issue ourselves.
>Any article offering counteropinions to yours just HAD to be a flame,
>right?  I dredge up this example for good reason.  Because this is a
>perfect example of an implementation of the philosophy Charles espouses.
>People deciding for us what is best for us.
>Charles doesn't just think this is good in those "extreme" cases.  Clearly
>it is "acceptable" and "useful" whereever and whenever power is available to
>do so.  There is a lesson here.

Well the only lesson I find is that you are extremely paranoid.  And it's
quite relevant to demand a justification for your posting this to
net.religion, presumably because you think that we should be forced to read
it there, when religion is not even remotely involved.  Once again, having
run out of arguments, Rich resorts to personal attacks.  There's an element
of convenience in Rich's morality.  It's OK for him to preach
anti-christianity in the schools, but not OK for parents to protect their
children from it.  It's OK to do any destructive thing to yourself,
regardless of its implication for others.  This same convenience shows up it
Rich's fanatical defense of this thing he imporperly labels science;
denegration of criticism of his system on the basis of "wishful thinking"
are quite OK, but for some reason his own motivations are above
consideration.  Rich in fact shows all the signs of the "True Believer"
atheist.

>>>Also, a person speaks out against our obviously good government and
>>>society. Obviously this person is insane and should be taken away
>>>and helped for his/her own "best interests".  This I would consider
>>>justified.  :-)

>> So what?  All you've shown is that power can be abused.  So what?

>"So what?"  In the words of Richard Dawson, "Good answer!"  You yourself are
>an example of how such power is abused AS A RULE.

My power in the universe is negligible.  I am flattered that Rich vests me
with the political power of (say) J. Edgar Hoover or Josef Stalin, but I
must protest that he overestimates me.

>  For this reason, constraints
>upon such power must be thorough, if such power is really necessary at all.
>Hell, you're willing to restrict the freedom of billions of people, why not
>also restrict those who would exercise such restrictive power?  By not giving
>it to them in the first place.

You can't give it or take it away.  It exists trough the situation.

>> Rich has made quite clear that his viewpoint on the world is quite
>> different from the average.  So is mine.  I also get the strong
>> impression that he believes that most everyone (including me) is
>> massively deluded about the truth of the world.  Everyone but him.

>(This sort of abusive statement has become the status quo with Wingate of
>late.  For now, it's best to let it pass.)

How sanctimonious!  Rich, I haven't heard you ONCE agree with anyone else!
Even I, the great and powerful Mangoe, have conceded error. (Well, maybe
just once.)

>>  Well, maybe this is true.  But it seems to me that this is a bit proud.

>This coming from the man who, a few lines ago, without a hint of pride (?),
>deemed other people not "emotionally competent to make decisions".

Pride or not, some people aren't.

>> I am well aware of the fact that I quite often do not know what is best for
>> me.  In many cases in am not aware, but others are.

>Then you *would* know what is best for you, knowing that you don't know it
>for sure yourself.  What you are talking about is the very thing you dread
>when it comes to certain other discussions we've been having:  objectivity. 
>Third party disinterested analysis of the situation.  It's funny because when
>I make statements about subjective belief, you (among others) jump on me and
>claim to know the truth as it sits inside of you.

Fine.  But unlike you, O angel of non-est, I live in time.  My opinions and
knowledge change.  It is really hard for me to believe that Rich has never
ever in his life realized that he was wrong about something.

And I was wondering how long it was before Rich was going to start in on
some of the mistakes I made early on on the net.

>> Rich seems to be taking a fairly extreme position on what
>> constitutes interference.  As I see it, his principle would claim that it
>> is immoral for a university to require certain courses, for a athletic
>> coach to
>> demand cooperation of his players, and a host of other minor interferences.
>> It seems to me that, accepting Rich's principle (and I do think it is
>> valid to some extent), the whole question of what consitutes interference
>> is quite murky.  And I think the principle itself is questionable in the
>> light of some situations where the person being "interfered with" is
>> clearly not capable of deciding what his best interests are.

>The exact definition of "interference" may indeed be murky.  Perhaps we are
>making headway here in defining it.  But remember that I have always been
>speaking in terms of goals, goals we often seem to have lost sight of in
>the quagmire of making the bureaucracy (supposedly designed to reach that
>goal) a goal in and of itself.

I don't think it IS definable, except existentially.

C Wingate


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