From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: God and Science: The Ramblings of The Nightstalker
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 04:07:28 GMT

In article <STEVE.92Nov20164310@styx.crc.ricoh.COM> steve@crc.ricoh.COM (Stephen R. Savitzky) writes:


>"Relativism means that I have to grant them the validity of their
>moral evaluation of my actions, and they have to grant me my
>evaluation of theirs.  The strong implication is that one should not
>attempt to compel another person to behave "morally", because morality
>is relative.  One should only prevent people from behaving in a way
>which causes *injury* to other people.

	"Why?  If the reason for preventing people from causing injury
isn't moral (and you've just said that one shouldn't compel people for
moral reasons) then what is it?  Why should one prevent people from
causing injury?

	"For that matter, why shouldn't one compel people?
Again, it's not that it's morally wrong to compel people, since
another person's equally valid moral system might have compulsion as a
duty.  So why not?"

>"Of course, the definitions of 'injury' and 'other people' are
>relative as well, and one ought to define them as *narrowly* as
>possible consistent with a smoothly-functioning society.

	"Why do you want a smoothly functioning society?  Is it merely
an emotional preference?  If another person enjoyed living in a
society completely off its kilter, would said person be justified in
defining those words as broadly as possible?"

  For example,
>some people feel 'injured' when I express religious beliefs they
>disagree with, or when they suspect that I might be doing things *in
>private* that they consider evil.

>"The true meaning of 'freedom of speech' and 'freedom of religion' is
>that the U.S. Constitution specifically defines speech and religious
>practices as being non-injurious (with a few exceptions, though IMHO
>not few enough)."

	"Now we've crossed from the moral spectrum into the legal one.
I suspect there are very few people who would identify the two, and
say that whatever is legal is good and whatever is illegal is bad.
And actually, the whole point of guaranteeing freedom of speech and
religion is, IMHO, that those freedoms _are_ dangerous.  There would
be no point in guaranteeing them if they were innocuous.  Instead, we
place a very high burden on anyone who would try to restrict them
_because_ they cause harm (and that burden is not high enough in some
cases).  I can reveal information that will destroy someone's life and
get off scot-free if it's true, even if I'm betraying their trust
(assuming no contract) and telling millions of people something they
had no business knowing.  I can operate a religion that demands that
all the adherents work as permanent unpaid servants in the High Temple
as the price of paradise.  I can use those two freedoms together to
create a living hell very difficult to escape, particularly for
children, without breaking any laws whatsoever.

	"Freedom of speech and freedom of religion can and have ruined
lives, and it is precisely because the alternatives are so horrible
and the government power implied by their nonexistence so unacceptable
that each right is so damned important.  People generally don't try to
censor or persecute for fun-- the fact that censorship and persecution
are bad (often very bad) causes shouldn't blind us to the fact that at
root they're mixed in with good motives: protection of one's children
or one's community from what one considers real harm.  Conversely,
recognizing that shouldn't prevent standing firmly for those freedoms,
because of all the powers that no government can be trusted with, the
power to control citizens' speech and the power to approve or
disapprove religious beliefs have been among the most abused in
history.

	"Oh dear.  I seem to have reacted a little strongly.  But I
worry when people try to defend things like 1st Amendment freedoms by
challenging the claim that a particular form of speech or expression
or religion is injurious, because to me that misses the point.  The
reason that pornography shouldn't be censored is _not_ that it can't
cause psychological damage to children (as the censors from the right
might emphasize) or that it can't lead to violence to women (as the
censors from the left might claim) or that it can't cause moral
degradation among the men who watch it (as both wings seem to be
converging on).  Maybe it can, maybe it can't, but the debate
shouldn't even _reach_ that point.  If we're saying that freedom of
speech protects only speech that can't cause harm, that freedom of
religion only protects religions which don't annoy anyone, that
freedom of the press only protects `responsible' publications then
we're on our way to defining those terms into meaninglessness.  It's
the potentially injurious speech and religion and publication that the
amendment and the principle behind it are supposed to protect, with
only _very_ carefully considered exceptions.  (Call me a hypocrite if
you will, but I'll not object to laws against libel or against human
sacrifice.  Conversely, laws requiring paid permits for peaceful
demonstrations on public property, and laws forbidding the use of
hallucinogens in religious ceremonies go too far, IMHO.)"

Michael
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)