Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

What I'm after is that much of the ethics by which our legal system operates, e.g. a BAC limit for legal driving, is divorced from moral questions such as: "Is drinking beer a sinful act?"


I think you’re gravely misguided. BAC has nothing to do with sin, it’s connected to the morality and ethics of putting your fellow citizens at risk of your impaired driving.


Indeed, this is the point I'm after. Glad we could get there.


My repeated point has been that morality != religious sin, rather the latter is a subset. I don’t necessarily agree with laws/taxes in this regard, but it’s important to understand where they come from.


OK, I disagree with the "subset" point, though I yield to your majority opinion on the matter.

My argument is that we can declutter discussion by treating all "moral compass" arguments as orthogonal to an "ethical plane".

If our subjective judgements are treated as internal (booze==sin), and de-conflicted from the external, legal arguments, we'd be in better shape.

But too many are invested in the status quo to tidy up the model like that.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: