From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Apr 02 2003 - 14:24:31 MST
I'd like to return to this thread after some time thinking about the
issues raised.
On Thu, 2003-03-27 at 08:37, Greg Jordan wrote:
>
> On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> > context. Do you maintain that billboards on private
> > property that happen to be within sight of highways
> > (just as distant mountains are within sight), should
> > be restricted in what appears on them?
> >
> > (I'm *not* yet taking a stance here. I just want you
> > to clarify your position by considering a *perhaps*
> > parallel question.)
> >
> > Why is one forced to look at people one considers ugly
> > and is not forced (I guess!?) to look at unappealing
> > billboards?
>
> My point so far is merely to point out that an economic activity such as
> putting up a billboard is an act of force - it forces me (and others) to
> see it. Like I said, whether a particular exercise of force is good or bad
> is an aesthetic judgment. It may depend upon the characteristics of the
> billboard. Here in Florida billboards are almost everywhere - huge and
> loud. I personally don't usually like them, and enough people who think
> similarly have exerted THEIR force to pass laws against them, thus
> forcing advertisers to seek some new medium. If the advertisers had
> put up enough well-designed billboards *supporting* billboards, maybe they
> could have forced enough people to agree to prevent the law from being
> passed. :)
>
### In a previous post I pointed out that some elements of your position
seem to be associated with moral relativism. Please do not take it as
saying that *you* are a moral relativist, especially since this
description has acquired some features of a term of abuse. Still,
extending the line of reasoning you started in this thread might lead in
that direction, and this is why I want to oppose it.
To summarize my impressions about your views, you were saying that
"force" or "violence" are strictly aesthetic concepts, have no important
relationship to the concept of reciprocity, that there is no substantial
ethical difference between violence as I defined it (e.g. rape and
murder), and "economic force", including the subjective harm of seeing a
billboard. You are blurring any ethical distinctions between voluntary
and involuntary acts, denying the existence of voluntary interactions.
Furthermore, you postulated the need to use complex rules to replace
legal principles derived through hundreds of years of legal practice
from the simple distinctions I described, although you did not provide
a means of assessing the validity of such complex rules. Also, you deny
the validity of personal responsibility, instead describing individual
behaviors as results of "forces" depriving an individual of choices.
Finally, you define ethics aesthetics in a manner at odds with commonly
accepted usage.
Correct me if I misunderstood you.
Now, I could argue against the views summarized above, but the whole
assemblage is sufficiently different from the totality of my views as to
make a succinct response impossible. Too little of the conceptual and
moral apparatus seems to be shared for a coherent discussion, unless we
planned on spending many days and weeks explicating our assumptions.
Let me just say that my views are an almost exact opposite of the
summary, and leave it at that.
Rafal
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