Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site alice.UUCP
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: seat belts and hidden premises
Message-ID: <4767@alice.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-Jan-86 23:38:52 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.4767
Posted: Thu Jan  2 23:38:52 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jan-86 00:50:24 EST
References: <2663@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 25

>>Now let's apply this to the seat belt argument.  People are saying:
>>
>>	Seat belts save lives,
>>		therefore
>>	people should be required to use seat belts.
>>
>>The hidden premise here is:
>>
>>	Whenever an activity saves lives,
>>	people should be required to perform it.
>
>Actually, the hidden premise is probably more like:
>
>	Whenever an activity saves many lives at trivial cost,
>	people should be required to perform it.
>
>Which has the advantage of being eminently plausible.
>
>--The untiring iconoclast,					Paul V. Torek

... and has the disadvantage of leading us down the garden path
to utter totalitarianism.  The question is: who is to decide what
costs are trivial?  The lawmakers?  They will call anything trivial
if it is in their interest to do so.  That's why we're in the mess
we're in today.