Saturday, July 10, 2004

An interesting philosophical and moral exercise: think about activities that are illegal and/or generally considered to be "wrong". Think about the activities from this list that you do not engage in. Now try to figure out why, exactly, you do not engage in these activities. Try to get beyond "it's wrong" or "it's illegal", try to get down to the core essential reason(s), the factors that are dealbreakers. If these factors were eliminated, you would not hesitate to engage in these activites. Is the punishment meted out by the law the real deterrent, or is it something else?

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