From: acbonin@unix.amherst.edu (Adam Bonin)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 13:45:55 GMT

Hank Nussbacher (HANK@BARILVM.BITNET) wrote:
: I have batched 3 separate answers together...
: 
I'll just handle mine, thank you...

: -------------------------------------------------------------------
: >From: acbonin@unix.amherst.edu (Adam Bonin)
: >There are certain things, however, which are not "definitions of how the world
: >should work" but natural rights which people have, simply by being persons,
: >regardless of the culture in which they live.  Would you deny, for example
: >the necessary truth of either of the following statements to hold across all
: >cultures:
: >1. Persons should not be held blameworthy or responsible for acts they were
: >powerless to affect.
: >2. It is wrong to lay blame and punishment before making a reasoned
: >determination between those persons innocent and those guilty.
: 
: Right.  But is a person innocent until proven guilty or guilty until
: proven innocent?  Careful.  The answer will vary depending on which
: country you are in.

Is the positive law in each country different?  Sure. But you have admitted
the basic point of that argument, that there are universal principles which
are true across cultures.  The fact that some countries apply them in positive
laws in different ways, and some not at all, does not diminish their truth.
 
: 
: >Even were it not codified into the U.S. Bill of Rights and the U.N. Declaration
: >of Human Rights, I would still hold that the right to free expression is a
: >similar natural right of man, that we have the right to our own opinions
: >by being rational beings capable of reason.
: 
: What about a person's right to privacy?  Wouldn't you consider this
: a natural right of all people throughout the world?  As the above
: example shows, many sites on the Internet have trampled on that
: right yet no one is making lists of them.

Ok, fine, what about it?  If the right to privacy is indeed a natural right,
than nothing, nothing can be done to pierce that inviolable sphere.  If
a father abuses his children, can he claim that his home is a private sphere
and that the law does not apply there?  How about drug use?  If that is a
private matter, than do you hold that government can do nothing to stop its
spread?  If you answer 'yes' to either question, then privacy is not a 
fundamental, unalienable right.

: 
: >Furthermore, the presence of disagreement in other cultures towards these
: >truths certainly does not prove that there is no truth, no right and wrong
: >in this case.  The rightness and wrongness of certain principles are not
: >dependent on the will of the majority, but instead rest in the nature of man.
: 
: Wrong.  It rests with the majority of each country.  If Ireland wishes
: to ban abortion because the majority of the people living there wish it
: to be so, even though the majority of the people in the world are in
: favor of abortion, that is their *right*.  There is no such thing as
: a universal truth.  The nature of man varies from place to place from
: continent to continent.  In one culture one is sad when a loved one
: dies while in another they are happy (because the person is now
: going to heaven).  The Maoris of New Zealand stick their tongues
: out to greet one another - an act any place else in the world that
: is not a sign of greeting.
: 
: Just to throw some more examples out, elemetary school starts in
: September, right?  Pretty basic.  In Japan it starts in April,
: in Brazil in either February or March, in Thailand in May.

First of all, let's throw out the Maori and school examples off the bat.  We're
dealing here with moral questions, not questions of ritual or practice.  But
it does look like you're conceding another right there, that we all have the
right to education.  There is no difference in the "nature of man", but there
are cultural diffences of no _moral_ significance.

But let's hit the key part there, and I'd like to use the issue of slavery as
an analogy.  I think we can agree that slavery is wrong, that no man has the
right to treat another as property.  If it is wrong, then, as Lincoln said,
"there is no right to do a wrong".  That's why the pre-Civil War compromises
involving "popular sovereignty" were fundamentally wrong, because they put up
to a majority a moral question for which there is only one correct answer. If
slavery is wrong, it is as wrong in New York, Kansas and Nebraska as it is in
the Soviet Union or China.  If abortion were truly wrong, and I don't believe
that it is, than it would be as wrong in Dublin as it would be in Philadelphia.
If you do not concede this point, then you have no right to make any judgments
about the conduct of other nations based on "your" principles, not being able
to lay praise or condemn based on their practices.

One other thing: "There is no such thing as a unversal truth"?  Two responses:
1. Is _that_ a universal truth? 2. You've already conceded two of them, and 
almost created a third on your own.

: 
: I see that the people who use networks are mainly from "Western"
: cultures assuming that everyone in the world follows rules of
: free speech, fair play, etc.  I also notice that the level of
: awareness among this same group, of other cultures is fairly low.
: [Who expects someone in the sciences to major in sociology or
: anthropology or political science?]
: 
: The ideas of free speech and rights to privacy are foreign to certain
: cultures and we must respect that, just as we are not expected to
: believe that committing suicide with a bomb strapped to your chest is
: the best way to get into heaven.  They have their culture and we have
: our culture.  Neither is right or wrong.  Each is right in its own
: country or segment of population.
: 

Sure--some countries don't _practice_ all these rights.  But if the rights
don't exist, quit sending your checks to Amnesty International, quit sending
letters to South Africa protesting their treatment of Blacks, and don't worry
about Jews in the Soviet Union during the 1970's and 1980's--after all,
freedoms of religion and travel are just Western concepts, I guess.

A final question: Is the notion that discrimination on the basis of race is 
wrong a true, binding principle, or is it just a Western concept that other
countries should feel free to violate without our condemning it?

-adam

----
Adam Bonin '94
Amherst College
acbonin@amherst.edu

"He who accepts evil without fighting against
 it is really cooperating with it."
                   -Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.





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