So if stealing were legal, it wouldn’t be objectionable? If it still would be, then I contend there is still a significant difference between stealing and filesharing.
In legal positivism, there is a sharp conceptual divide between what the law is and what the law should be. The law is simply the price society has set for certain acts (Serial killer—death penalty, jaywalking - $100, etc). Why did the law set those particular prices? One can’t figure it out by only looking at the enacted law.
I hope that law is enacted by reference to our moral beliefs. But one cannot consistently assert that law is the table of prices and that one can define our moral beliefs based on what is enacted into law.
One can avoid the whole issue by asserting that property is more than simply the legal institution. That’s called natural law.
But one cannot consistently assert that law is the table of prices and that one can define our moral beliefs based on what is enacted into law.
But that’s not what I’ve claimed. I’ve said that the current law is good evidence for what law should be, just as current medical practice is good evidence for what a doctor should do in a given case. This is nothing other than the claim that in our attempt to do something well, we should look in part to our previous attempts. I can’t understand how this would be controversial unless you were taking me to say “current law determines the optimal legal system”, but this is far, far stronger than anything I’ve said, especially under a Bayesian understanding of ‘evidence’.
One can avoid the whole issue by asserting that property is more than simply the legal institution. That’s called natural law.
One can’t, and shouldn’t, avoid the issue at all, certainly not by simply asserting anything. We should address the issue and perhaps argue that property is more than simply a legal institution. It’s a view I’m quite open to, if you wish to make the case for it.
I’ve said that the current law is good evidence for what law should be, just as current medical practice is good evidence for what a doctor should do in a given case.
It does not seem to me that the process through which laws are made in my country is an optimizing process for finding “what law should be”. It appears to me more like an optimizing process for finding “what laws would benefit politicians, their families, and their friends.” The feedback loop through which it’s supposed to be the case that politicians get benefited by passing good laws is currently not working very well, at least in part thanks to ideology and anti-epistemologies.
Copyright extension is actually a really great example of this. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that the optimal copyright term would be monotonically increasing, now to effectively two human lifetimes. This doesn’t look like the result of a “quality of law” optimization; it looks like the result of a “money extraction for my buddies” optimization.
It appears that I’m misunderstanding this comment you made. When asked what the difference was between filesharing and lending a book, you said that one was legal and one wasn’t. That’s true, but why should it be true?
If you think the law is evidence of the optimal social order, then you should be able to articulate why this is the optimal social ordering. I could try to articulate the basis using historical practice and different technological capacity. But argument screens off authority, so there’s no value to invoking law in making that explanation.
t appears that I’m misunderstanding this comment you made. When asked what the difference was between filesharing and lending a book, you said that one was legal and one wasn’t. That’s true, but why should it be true?
My claim to Anubhav has been that violating a law for one’s profit is immoral, and this is regardless of the quality of the law violated. So the question ‘why should this law be a law at all’ doesn’t directly bear on the issue. That said, I’ve also agreed that violating a law, where the law is unjust and where the violation makes the removal of the law more likely, may even be a good thing. So none of this hangs on any claim about how laws ought to be made.
If you think the law is evidence of the optimal social order, then you should be able to articulate why this is the optimal social ordering.
I take law to be straightforward evidence for the optimal social order: in any case where we are living in a society stable enough to consider the adjustment of the laws, the optimal and short-term practically achievable social order will look something very much like the current social order. I have some serious objections to the article you link to, but that seems like a digression.
So if stealing were legal, it wouldn’t be objectionable? If it still would be, then I contend there is still a significant difference between stealing and filesharing.
This is a question of whether or not property is a legal institution or something more. I’m inclined to think the former. What do you say?
In legal positivism, there is a sharp conceptual divide between what the law is and what the law should be. The law is simply the price society has set for certain acts (Serial killer—death penalty, jaywalking - $100, etc). Why did the law set those particular prices? One can’t figure it out by only looking at the enacted law.
I hope that law is enacted by reference to our moral beliefs. But one cannot consistently assert that law is the table of prices and that one can define our moral beliefs based on what is enacted into law.
One can avoid the whole issue by asserting that property is more than simply the legal institution. That’s called natural law.
But that’s not what I’ve claimed. I’ve said that the current law is good evidence for what law should be, just as current medical practice is good evidence for what a doctor should do in a given case. This is nothing other than the claim that in our attempt to do something well, we should look in part to our previous attempts. I can’t understand how this would be controversial unless you were taking me to say “current law determines the optimal legal system”, but this is far, far stronger than anything I’ve said, especially under a Bayesian understanding of ‘evidence’.
One can’t, and shouldn’t, avoid the issue at all, certainly not by simply asserting anything. We should address the issue and perhaps argue that property is more than simply a legal institution. It’s a view I’m quite open to, if you wish to make the case for it.
It does not seem to me that the process through which laws are made in my country is an optimizing process for finding “what law should be”. It appears to me more like an optimizing process for finding “what laws would benefit politicians, their families, and their friends.” The feedback loop through which it’s supposed to be the case that politicians get benefited by passing good laws is currently not working very well, at least in part thanks to ideology and anti-epistemologies.
Copyright extension is actually a really great example of this. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that the optimal copyright term would be monotonically increasing, now to effectively two human lifetimes. This doesn’t look like the result of a “quality of law” optimization; it looks like the result of a “money extraction for my buddies” optimization.
It appears that I’m misunderstanding this comment you made. When asked what the difference was between filesharing and lending a book, you said that one was legal and one wasn’t. That’s true, but why should it be true?
If you think the law is evidence of the optimal social order, then you should be able to articulate why this is the optimal social ordering. I could try to articulate the basis using historical practice and different technological capacity. But argument screens off authority, so there’s no value to invoking law in making that explanation.
(As for natural law—no thanks).
My claim to Anubhav has been that violating a law for one’s profit is immoral, and this is regardless of the quality of the law violated. So the question ‘why should this law be a law at all’ doesn’t directly bear on the issue. That said, I’ve also agreed that violating a law, where the law is unjust and where the violation makes the removal of the law more likely, may even be a good thing. So none of this hangs on any claim about how laws ought to be made.
I take law to be straightforward evidence for the optimal social order: in any case where we are living in a society stable enough to consider the adjustment of the laws, the optimal and short-term practically achievable social order will look something very much like the current social order. I have some serious objections to the article you link to, but that seems like a digression.