<div dir="auto"><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 12:06 PM Dave S via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px"><span style="font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;font-size:0.875rem">On Tuesday, April 9th, 2024 at 3:34 PM, Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span></div><div>
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<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>If there are cases where people will predictably violate their principles, and it is reasonably expected for people proposing principles to predict and cover these situations, the principles aren't really that solid if they don't cover these situations. </div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><div style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">People violate their own principles all the time under extreme circumstances. I think stealing is wrong, but I'd steal in a heartbeat to save myself or a loved one. I don't think the harm caused by petty theft is sufficient to justify adhering to the principle in that case.</div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Is your principle that stealing is wrong per se, or to minimize harm - with the observation that stealing usually but not always inflicts more harm than it relieves, and thus usually but not always should be avoided, with that metric identifying the rare cases where it is acceptable?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The latter would be an example of a more solid principle, as it covers exceptions likely to be encountered (by enough people to matter) in practice.</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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