From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Date: 22 Aug 92 21:29:04 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Aug22.203007.12287@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>     THERE IS NEVER A RIGHT TO COMMIT A MORAL WRONG
>[...]
>
>Thank you for clarifying your position. I think I understand it now.
>
>First, the alleged tautology: The word "right" has several
>definitions. You have confused the one that means legally allowable
>with the one what means correct.

Of course, in the above, I mean by "right", "morally correct."

>
>Second, some counterexamples to the the assertion that it should never
>be legally allowable to commit a moral wrong: You believe, I believe,
>that voting for Bush is a moral wrong.

I think the guy's a criminal.  Whereas the act of voting, even for a
criminal, in a national election, has such little effect, mathematically
speaking, that voting for a criminal is probably not a moral wrong under
a sort of de minimis rule ("de minimis non curat lex", the law does not
concern itself with trivialities.)  This is one possible account.

An alternative account: no, there IS no right to vote for a criminal
(and indeed, Bush's Iran-Contra behavior and destruction of Iraq entails
that in a decent society he'd be brought up on charges, not running for
office.)  But tolerance and humility and respect for democracy, although
sorely tried by scum like Bush, dictate that I assent to the LEGAL
right(1) while witholding my assent for your MORAL right(2).

I prefer the second account.  Legally, you have a right to vote for Bush
which I must defend.  Morally, you have no such right.  Note that the
ability to distinguish these two flavors of right is a mark of political
adulthood whereas confusing them is the mark of the child: that
massively adult figure, Mario Cuomo, separates them in his policy
regarding reproductive choice whereas the squalling infants of
"Operation Rescue" confuse them.

 Do you also believe then that
>people should have not right to vote for Bush? Do you believe then
>that it should be illegal to vote for Bush?

In the sense that I believe that in a just society the guy'd be in jail
and thus legally disqualified from running, the answer is YES.  But as
long as the legal system has not seen fit to throw Bush into the
hoosegow, you have a legal right to vote for Bush which I will defend.
>
>I believe that it is morally wrong not to send my mother a card for
>her birthday; however, I also believe that not sending a card is my
>right and should not be illegal. (I hope this doesn't mean I'm a
>Libertarian / cryptoracists?)

In a legal sense you have a right to neglect Mom.  In a moral sense, no.

>
>I'm sure everyone can think of a million more examples where there is
>a right to commit a moral wrong.

Nope, there is no (moral) right to committ a (moral) wrong.  THere are
(legal) rights to committ (moral) wrongs and (moral) rights (even
duties, in the case of civil disobedience) to committ (legal) wrongs
(torts).  There is no (legal) right to commit (legal) wrong.  So
interestingly, you get a tautology, a statement whose truth is true by
inspection of its words, when you keep the types of "wrongs" consistent.
So your challenge is not to think of the countless ways in which the
"mixed" assertions can be violated, it is to think of ways in which
tautologies can be violated.  Lotsa luck.
>
>[From _On Liberty_, 1859. This excerpt is quoted on page 121 of
>_Freedom, Technology, and the First Amendment_ by Johnathan W. Emord.]
>
>======================== start ==================================
>[I]f any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught
>we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own
>infalliabilty ....
>
>[T]hough the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly
>does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing
>opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only
>by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth
>has any chance of being supplied ....
>
>[E]ven if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth;
>unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly
>contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the
>manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension [of] or feeling [for]
>its rational grounds.
>===========================end==========================

John Stuart Mill is wrong.  The accidental collision of random views
produces error, not truth; and this network is evidence for that, as is
the inability of the American populace to know something so basic as
who, precisely, murdered President Kennedy 30 years ago and for what
reason.  John Stuart Mill is groping at something which in his inability
to grasp dialectical logic he will not attain.

Mill works from a predialectical conception that there are two, disjoint
classes of views, one true and the other false.  The false view, in
Mill's account, gets an airing something as the condemned man gets his
last meal, or the satyr Marysas was able to play his weak pipe prior to
being flayed by Apollo.  Mill seems unaware that the true view not only
can hold some elements of falsity, but also that it can become
completely false over time.  On Mill's account, views fortunate enough
to be accounted as true are not so much challenged in these one-side
gladatorial contests as reinforced.

Consider the epistemological problems surrounding the murder of
President Kennedy.  It was clear to many thinking citizens at the time
of the murder that militaristic and right-wing elements in the United
States government benefited from the murder and may have had a hand in
it.  This view has been repeatedly aired, most recently in Oliver
Stone's film JFK.  However, these airings over a thirty-year period have
produced exactly one court case, that of New Orleans DA Garrison.  The
fact that the jury in this case refused on the evidence to convict New
Orleans businessman Clay Shaw is less significant than the fact that
there were no other cases, and what official investigation there was has
been concerned to shore up the "lone nut" theory, a theory enunciated
one day after the event by the New York Times on a paucity of evidence,
all called into question repeatedly.

The fact that Oliver Stone is able to make a film and that numerous
"conspiracy theorists" are able to publish books has NOT enhanced the
dialog on this important matter; it's instead been used to automatically
marginalize people holding viewpoints alternative to the centrist "lone
nut" theory.  Viewpoints are less a product of comparision of evidence,
in this Millsian dream world, than of life styles and social position;
marginal and marginalized people are more apt to give credence to
conspiracy theories whereas the affluent and comfortable are apt to
dismiss Oliver Stone, just as the question of whether Anita Hill was
right breaks down according to sex lines.

So Mill is wrong: heat, not light, is generated by these circuses of
ideas, in which the ideas of the wealthy and powerful meet in unequal
contest with the ideas of the poor and obscure.