[ox-en] Re: [Upd-discuss] Re: [Upd-board] "Development", "freedom", and UPD's objectives
- From: Adam Moran <adam diamat.org.uk>
- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:47:37 +0100
Mon, 01 Aug 2005 04:14:41 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] Peter Eckersley wrote:
I also believe that if a utilitarian oracle was given the narrow choice
between the present system and no copyright/patent/EULA restrictions on
software at all, it would favour the latter.
<quote>
The Hope of Friendship
----------------------
When each of two persons,
instead of being a nothing,
is a something;
when they are attached to one another,
and are not too much unlike to begin with;
the constant partaking of the same things,
assisted by their sympathy,
draws out the latent capacities of each
for being interested in the things ...
by a real enriching of the two natures,
each acquiring the tastes
and capacities of the other
in addition to [their] own.
-- John Stuart Mill
Mill's praise of marital friendship [is] almost lyrical,
and struck resonances with Aristotle's and Cicero's,
and Montaigne's similar exaltations of the pleasures
as well as the moral enrichment of this form of human intimacy.
This expansion of human capacities did not,
however,
exhaust the benefits of friendship.
Most importantly,
friendship developed
what Montaigne praised
as the abolition of selfishness
the capacity to regard another human being
as fully as worthy as oneself.
Therefore friendship of the highest order
could only exist between those of equal in excellence.
And for precisely this reason,
philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel
had consistently argued that women
could not be men's friends,
for women lacked the moral capacity
for the highest form of friendship.
Indeed,
it was common to distinguish the marital bond from friendship
not solely on the basis of sexual and procreative activity,
but also because women could not be
part of the school of moral virtue
which was found in friendship at its best.
Mill therefore made a most significant break with the past
in adopting the language of friendship
in his discussion on marriage.
For Mill,
no less than for any of his predecessors,
"the true virtue of human beings
is the fitness to live together as equals."
Such equality required that individuals
"[claim] nothing for themselves
but what they as freely concede to everyone else,"
that they regard command of any kind as
"an exceptional necessity,"
and
that they prefer whenever possible
"the society of those with whom leading and following
can be alternate and reciprocal."
This picture of reciprocity,
of the shifting of leadership according to need,
was a remarkable characterisation of family life.
Virtually all of Mill's liberal contemporaries accepted the notion
of [the inevitable complimentary natures]
of male and female personalities.
Mill,
however,
as early as 1833 had expressed is belief that
"the highest masculine and highest feminine" characteristics
were without any real distinction.
That view of the androgynous personality lent support
to Mill's brief for equality in the family.
-- Mary Lyndon Shanley
</quote>
Sat, 30 Jul 2005 11:18:19 -0400 (EDT) Richard M. Stallman wrote:
A crucial characteristic of real freedoms is that it makes sense to
give the same freedom to everyone. However, only a system of extreme
communism would give everyone the same wealth. Thus, these "positive
freedoms" don't correspond at all to our ideas of human rights. They
have nothing to do with freedom. Let's call a spade a spade, and call
this "wealth".
<quote>
Minerals
--------
We are rightly concerned that much of the world's population today
subsists on a diet of less than 1500 calories per day.
Yet the difference between this figure and the 2500 to 3000 calories
considered adequate for most adults is not so appalling as is the
fact that there is a difference of twenty to fifty times in man's
mineral diet between the 'developed' and the 'less developed'
countries of the world.
For example, the average yearly per-capita
consumption of copper in Europe and North America in 1969 was
slightly over 14 pounds; in the 'less developed' countries, it was
just over 1/4 pound. In the case of iron, the consumption was 838
pounds per-capita in the 'developed' countries and only 24 in the
'less developed'.
And for such an important fertilizer component as
is provided by potash minerals, the figures were 36 pounds versus
1/2 pound.
Can *one world* long exist with such disparity ? And
where will supplies be found to meet man's insatiable demands upon
the mineral kingdom ?"
-- Arthur Court / Ian Campbell
</quote>
--
Mon, 01 Aug 2005 04:14:41 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] Peter Eckersley wrote:
Replying to this part of the email is definitely getting caught in
open-ended philosophical discussion, but I can't help myself :)
On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 11:34:08PM -0400, Richard M. Stallman wrote:
In any case, a utilitarian analysis of
copyright and patent law would give users far more rights than they
presently enjoy, but tends not to raise in-principle objections to
surrendering some rights if users (for example) end up with a
net-benefit in the amount and quality[*] of software they use or books
they read.
This "utilitarian analysis" assumes that what matters is the "amount
and quality" of software: that freedom itself counts for nothing. So
you would take away my freedom and hand me a large amount of
high-quality proprietary software, covered by licenses I would refuse
to sign, so I wouldn't use them at all.
In which case, the utilitarian analysis was too naive. A wise
utilitarian would consider that many people have in-principle objections
to restrictive licenses, as well as the many other factors that have
contributed to the successes of free software. And if some of those
people get angry about restrictions, that must be counted too (it would
have to include all the code you didn't write because you were working
on policy, for example :). Personally, I believe that if a thorough
utilitarian analysis was conducted, it would recommend some
kind of public funding system, like the ones that we've dicussed on
other occasions.
I also believe that if a utilitarian oracle was given the narrow choice
between the present system and no copyright/patent/EULA restrictions on
software at all, it would favour the latter.
But a utilitarian might conceivably favour some very narrow restrictions
on freedom (such as allowing a 3-5 year exclusive right over binaries,
provided that source code was deposited in a public repository) over no
restrictions at all. Such a system could even be good for
free-software-only users, because of the extra free software that would
appear a few years after it was released in a proprietarian fashion.
But all of this is a nice illustration of why utilitarianism is more
sensible in theory than in practice. It's very hard to know how to apply
it correctly. It's hard to figure out what to put into the analysis, and
very hard to calculate the tradeoffs.
A crucial characteristic of real freedoms is that it makes sense to
give the same freedom to everyone. However, only a system of extreme
communism would give everyone the same wealth. Thus, these "positive
freedoms" don't correspond at all to our ideas of human rights. They
have nothing to do with freedom. Let's call a spade a spade, and call
this "wealth".
I think there are some important differences.
The degree of a positive freedom is not only determined by wealth but
also by fair distribution of that wealth, by "negative" freedom from
restrictions, and by the presence of knowledge and ability.
As for human rights, some of them appear to correspond closely
to negative freedoms (such freedom of political thought and organisation)
while others are exclusively positive (the right to education).
I agree that the words "positive" and "negative" are confusing in this
context but I didn't invent that jargon. Perhaps if better words were
used, these concepts would be more widely recognised outside of a few
academic disciplines.
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