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From: hoffman.es@XEROX.COM
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: proprosed privacy amendment
Message-ID: <12228453156.51.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5-Aug-86 16:19:25 EDT
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Posted: Tue Aug  5 16:19:25 1986
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        From: Hank.Walker

        What are "others?"  Is a person a human being, 
        a mammal, an animal, a vertebrate, plant, or what?
        Can you screw your dog under this amendment?  How
        about torture your cat?... What about whipping
        your kids ....?

I said originally that our thoughts about [terms like "person"] are
evolving and improving over time.  Here's a quote I like (it's been
lightly edited):

  From Richard Rorty's book, "Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature":

  Personhood is a matter of decision rather than knowledge, an 
  acceptance of another being into fellowship rather than a 
  recognition of a common essence.

  Knowledge of what pain is like or what red is like is attributed 
  to beings on the basis of their potential membership in the
  community.  Thus babies and the more attractive sorts of animal are
  credited with "having feelings" rather than (like machines or
  spiders) "merely responding to stimuli."  To say that babies know
  what heat is like, but not what the motion of molecules is like is
  just to say that we can fairly readily imagine them opening their
  mouths and remarking on the former, but not the latter.  To say that
  a gadget that says "red" appropriately *doesn't* know what red is
  like is to say that we cannot readily imagine continuing a
  conversation with the gadget.

  Attribution of pre-linguistic awareness is merely a courtesy
  extended to potential or imagined fellow-speakers of our language.
  Moral prohibitions against hurting babies and the better looking
  sorts of animals are not based on their possessions of feeling.  It
  is, if anything, the other way around.  Rationality about denying
  civil rights to morons or fetuses or robots or aliens or blacks or
  gays or trees is a myth.  The emotions we have toward borderline
  cases depend on the liveliness of our imagination, and conversely.

Now torture is a clear and present danger to the "other".
Non-consensual violence, including sexual violence, is also.  Are
animals "others"?  I'd say so personally, but I'm content to let
"society" struggle with the evolving definition of that term.

        From: Hank.Walker

        This proposed amendment seems so vague that it could
        be stretched to conflict with many existing widely-
        accepted laws, such as cruelty to animals or child abuse.

Huh?  How does it conflict?  If anything, it strengthens such laws.

        From: Hank.Walker

        I think to be useful, the privacy must fit in with the
        rest of the bill of rights and the existing set of
        widely-accepted laws.

Of course.  I proposed it as an AMENDMENT, not as an entire complete
constitution.

  -- Rodney Hoffman
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