pornagraphy VS prostitution

[Marat]

You actually said, "something should be shown to be harmless (or less harmful) for it to be acceptable," so there was some ambiguity in your statement to which I was responding. It seems that you are now making the parenthetical statement the primary one, but I don't want to be captious.

 

I think we can probably agree that the goal should be to try to develop some metric which sets a standard for the harmfulness of the effects of any exercise of freedom, and that this standard should be sufficiently neutral and objective in design so that it can resist the pull of the kind of majoritarian pressures which could utterly negate individual liberty. Society always tends to associate objective harm with anything it doesn't like (the majority of American medical students in a 1959 survey believed that masturbation was physically harmful), so the tests for the objectivity of any harmfulness which is argued to be entitled to deny anyone personal liberty should be strict.

[Edtharan]

You actually said, "something should be shown to be harmless (or less harmful) for it to be acceptable," so there was some ambiguity in your statement to which I was responding. It seems that you are now making the parenthetical statement the primary one, but I don't want to be captious.

The reason I included the parenthetical statement is in the acknowledgement that you can't show something to be certainly harmless. The primary statement is the idea, the parenthetical is the reality I acknowledge.

 

 

As you argument in the previous post seemed to not include reference to that acknowledgement I made, I had to make it clearer and thus used it as the primary statement in my response (because it was in response to your post).

 

I think we can probably agree that the goal should be to try to develop some metric which sets a standard for the harmfulness of the effects of any exercise of freedom, and that this standard should be sufficiently neutral and objective in design so that it can resist the pull of the kind of majoritarian pressures which could utterly negate individual liberty. Society always tends to associate objective harm with anything it doesn't like (the majority of American medical students in a 1959 survey believed that masturbation was physically harmful), so the tests for the objectivity of any harmfulness which is argued to be entitled to deny anyone personal liberty should be strict.

I think you answered it in your post: "believed that". In other words, they didn't have any evidecne one way or the other, but that they assumed without proof that is was.

 

Many of your examples that you have used as evidecne against my position have had that as a common component. That people "believed" something. Well my position is that you should not assume without proof, or at least as strong evidence as you can get, and also have that evidence subject to question by others.

 

It is this assumption without proof, that has lead to the illegalisation of prostitution. People assumed because of their beliefs, that prostitution was bad. But because p[laces have not assumed that, we have legalised prostitution and in those places this has lead to an increase in the welfare of sex workers in direct opposition to these beliefs.

 

many of the opinions in modern society and politics centre around this "I believe" mantra. And the more strongly someone believe it, the more people assume it must be true.

 

I have found that the more someone uses "I Believe" to convince people of something, the less likely it is to be true. This is because if they actually had proof that it was true, then they wouldn't have to keep saying "I believe", but instead would be able to present the evidence of it.

[Marat]

Of course the basic problem with making social policy is that it is democratic, not scientific, so the general assumptions and beliefs of people or their masters determine policy, rather than rational investigation. A good example is the mass hysteria over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction being able to be delivered to a target in the West 'within 45 minutes.' This was taken so seriously that it was considered impossible to wait just a few more days before the more careful, empirical study of the reality of the threat by Hans Blix and his UN inspectors was completed before rushing into action.

 

Although in countries with constitutionally entrenched human rights enforced by independent courts there can be some review of government action for its rationality, since any policy that limits rights must prove its warrant to do so by arguing before a court that it had good rational grounds for those limits, in fact those courts tend to be under the sway of the same hysteria that grips the policy-makers, so no truly rational review takes place.

[Edtharan]

Of course the basic problem with making social policy is that it is democratic, not scientific, so the general assumptions and beliefs of people or their masters determine policy, rather than rational investigation.

Hence why prostitution is illegal in many places...