> Not important when discussing ethical implication of not paying taxes in the context of HN.
Legal definitions are not important for discussing ethical implications?
This is a wildly unsubstantiated claim that you’re positing without any compelling argument behind it. What you’re saying is implicitly tantamount to saying a discussion of legislation is irrelevant in a discussion of ethics. Doing that literally dismisses entire schools of ethical philosophy.
You don’t have to agree with legal definitions a priori, just like you don’t need to agree with particular ethical arguments. But you absolutely need to consider them for a well reasoned discussion about ethics. The legal definitions are there precisely because of past ethical discussions - legislative arguments are, categorically, ethical arguments. In fact, you could define legislation as the implementation of an ethical specification.
Have to disagree. Laws may have something like an ethical base, but only as a nod to practicality - people have to believe in them. They are pragmatic to the core. Sure, there are ethical schools of pragmatism, and we surely include them in our ethical discussions (trolley car problems etc) but how the law lands on the trolley car is NOT any sort of arbiter of ethics?
> Sure, there are ethical schools of pragmatism, and we surely include them in our ethical discussions (trolley car problems etc) but how the law lands on the trolley car is NOT any sort of arbiter of ethics?
So you’re not disagreeing then. We’re saying the same thing: legal definitions are relevant and should be included in discussion, but they do not have to be agreed with because are not intrinsically correct.
I didn’t ask the parent comment for agreement with legislation, I asked for acknowledgement in an ethical discussion because it’s relevant.
Legal definitions are not important for discussing ethical implications?
This is a wildly unsubstantiated claim that you’re positing without any compelling argument behind it. What you’re saying is implicitly tantamount to saying a discussion of legislation is irrelevant in a discussion of ethics. Doing that literally dismisses entire schools of ethical philosophy.
You don’t have to agree with legal definitions a priori, just like you don’t need to agree with particular ethical arguments. But you absolutely need to consider them for a well reasoned discussion about ethics. The legal definitions are there precisely because of past ethical discussions - legislative arguments are, categorically, ethical arguments. In fact, you could define legislation as the implementation of an ethical specification.