Topic: Right to endanger? - page 6. (Read 6739 times)

I am suggesting that is there is a posted Speed Limit and your exceeding it, you are in fact breaking the law of that locality. 

If someone wants to kill your wife, it's imperative that you lie about her whereabouts to anyone who asks, as that lie is an act of self*-defense. Unless your wife is in a bunker and ready to shoot anyone who tries to storm it to kill her, then I'd follow her directive and not lie about where she is.

*Meaning any innocent human being, not just 'yourself'.

Because they were answering the wrong question.
http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-asking_the_right_questions.html

Per unit time, yes. But the time you spend to travel a given distance goes down. The longer you spend on a road, the higher your chances that some drunk will plow into you.

A road owner has the right to set whatever speed limit they want for their road, assuming they haven't contractually bound themselves otherwise. If the government is going to own and operate roads, then it will have to set the rules for the use of those roads. I think governments have historically done a poor job of setting sensible speed limits. I think this has made roads more dangerous, caused significant disrespect for the law, discouraged technological innovation, and wasted huge amounts of people's time.

I think most legal systems would decide that you don't have that right. I don't think any ethical principle compels one decision or the other. Certainly you have the right to endanger people to some extent -- you couldn't do anything if you couldn't endanger people at all. But legal systems have to draw the line somewhere and that certainly seems over the line to me.

Individuals defending themselves and legal systems don't have to wait for harm to be done to act. You don't have to watch your mentally unstable neighbor accumulate a massive hoard of weapons and explosives and wait until he detonates them to act against him.

But of course, faster accidents are more lethal. But the car in question was traveling at a constant speed, down consistent roadways. You claim that both actions are risking a crash. Yet one action is illegal, and the other legal.

Subjective personal preferences that people dress up as morality in order to bully and control people are not absolute.

Speed matters as well, did you think it didn't    The faster you go, the probability you will die or kill someone in a crash inches closer to 100%.

So, as was said earlier, the speed difference is the key, not the speed itself.

Yes you would be endangering people on the 50mph road.  The people traveling on the 50mph and assuming they are following the posted limit, are under the assumption that others are as well so if an accident happened with the person traveling 10mph more would statistically cause more harm than two cars traveling at 50mph.

Also if you traveled slower on the 70mph, you would endanger yourself more.

So is that a no?

No moral is absolute. But if the only problems we have in the world are gray areas like, "is it OK to lie about your wife's whereabouts if someone wants to kill her?" then we shall hardly need philosophers at all.

Can the proposed ethical rule, "No one may endanger the life of another person," be applied universally to all people without creating any logical contradictions?

The example you used was pointing a revolver at a person. That is clearly not endangering someone's life, that is threatening someone's life.

Let me ask you a question: Two identical roads. Absolutely identical; pavement conditions, curves, lane width, everything. The only difference is that one has a sign with "Speed limit: 50" on it, and the other has a sign that says "Speed limit: 70." Is a car going 60 down one road endangering people's lives more than by doing the same on the other?

Wow OK. I must have a problem with making myself clear. The question had nothing to do with anarchism or airplanes

Let me rephrase: do I have the right to endanger your life? Is it only morally wrong if you actually get hurt?

A holstered pistol, or a disarmed nuke, or a slung rifle, harms nobody. Pull the pistol, arm the nuke, or shoulder the rifle, and you're making a threat.

If you can't reason that through, there really is no hope for you.

And yet you argue vehemently that everyone should have a right to keep their own nuclear bomb, and those that do, shall not be harassed for endangering others. And here's the infamous thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/whats-so-special-about-the-nap-88184

I don't see a problem with making that literally.

There is a deterrent, however infringed into oblivion it might be: the right to self defense. All assembled guns are to be treated as always loaded, and if you point a gun at me, you have only the right to be shot, or if at point blank range (impractical to draw), be disarmed with a knife through your wrist or a broken wrist, and have your gun figuratively shoved up your attempted homicidal ass.

Specifically because it would be physically impossible for you to stop in time for some pedestrians where pedestrians are a common occurance

freeways; seeing a pedestrian is not a common occurance.

- If you own a road, you're free to set up the rules you wish for its usage. I particularly find it better to punish those that do wrong things than to punish innocents, but if you own a road and want to charge your clients for going above a certain speed limit, or even worse rules, just let them know it in advance. If your business thrive, that might mean that such speed limits aren't that bad after all.
- The state doesn't legitimately own anything. Everything it controls, ethically speaking, belongs to nobody, so the only rules that apply in these places is fundamental, objective ethics. And by these rules, you can't attack someone that hasn't attacked nor is threatening to attack anyone. So, yeah, speeding tickets distributed by a mafia are not OK (although I recognize they're far from being the worse things these mafias do).


That's a clear, direct threat. A threat is an aggression per se.

Btw, driving totally recklessly, threatening those nearby, may also be considered a threat. For instance, going through a pedestrian street over 70km/h might be enough reason to pull you over and punish you somehow, even if by luck you do not hit anyone.