On Wed, Aug 14, 2002, Moshe Zadka wrote about "Re: Essay about Free Software - in Hebrew": >... > I disagree. The law is a (twisted) mirror of morality (or should be). The > law is (bad) means to an end -- getting people to act morally. >... > I fully understand why free software is necessary. But no, I see no moral > problem with breaking the law *per se*. It's illegal to murder, and I have > a moral objection to murder -- however, it is not a cause-and-effect relation. >...
I view the law as an approximation of Kant's Categorical Imperative - which means roughly (for people who are not familiar with Kant's theory) that if you want certain ethical rules to apply toward you (e.g., I should not be killed!) you must make them a rule to be applied by everyone toward everyone. The law *can* be twisted and immoral - it's easy to find examples of this in this country and even easier in totalitarian countries. But in a democratic (more or less) country, such laws can be changed. Simply ignoring them and pretending they don't exist is counterproductive and even dangerous (because you'll never know when the authorities will decide to come after you). I wrote about this in my previous essay (http://nadav.harel.org.il/essays/lfe.html): "... [illegally copying commercial software] has a serious side-effect which people rarely consider: A child growing up using pirated software on one hand, and hearing (e.g., in BSA ads) that it is illegal on the other hand, will learn that sometimes it is OK to break the law. Is this really what we want to teach our children? In totalitarian countries even normative people find themselves breaking the law every day, for everything from following their religious beliefs, trying to learn what goes on in the rest of the world, or even in obtaining food. This should not happen in a free country. " -- Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, Aug 14 2002, 6 Elul 5762 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |The trouble with being punctual is that http://nadav.harel.org.il |nobody is there to appreciate it. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
