The debian-private mailing list leak, part 1. Volunteers have complained about Blackmail. Lynchings. Character assassination. Defamation. Cyberbullying. Volunteers who gave many years of their lives are picked out at random for cruel social experiments. The former DPL's girlfriend Molly de Blanc is given volunteers to experiment on for her crazy talks. These volunteers never consented to be used like lab rats. We don't either. debian-private can no longer be a safe space for the cabal. Let these monsters have nowhere to hide. Volunteers are not disposable. We stand with the victims.
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Re: No education (was purity)

On Tue, Dec 02, 1997 at 12:11:43AM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Ioannis Tambouras:
> > If you think that ethics is a subject that we "intuitively know", I
> > dare say you are sadly mistaken.
> 
> I think that this is a _very_ dangerous line. It is very important
> for the continued and further well-being and civilization of our
> society that  continue to make, and make more often,
> personal decisions about ethics, morality, etc.

 Dangerous, or not, is another another subject all together.

 What I said is well established (except for the intuitionists). It
 is easy to appreciate the ideas behind each of the theories, but how
 do we determine whether they are correct? That is a daunting question.
 Unfortunately people tend to accept or reject ideas based on their intuitive
 appeal: if it sounds good, they accept it; or if it rubs the wrong way,
 they discard it. This is not a satisfactory way to proceed if we want to
 discover the truth -- if there is such thing. How an idea strikes us is not
 a reliable guide, for our "intuitions" may be mistaken. The best we can do
 is present arguments in support of the different views and see if tend 
 to "sound reasoning". Except for some theories that cannot be attacked from
 within (this does not mean that they are correct), we have yet to 
 find such theories. Considering that these theories have been around
 for thousands of years, for most of them do resurface 
 under different name, it is (I think) unlikely that we will ever prove 
 anything that is of practical use. But what else can we do? 
 
 To form and resolve sound arguments requires training, Aristotle
 was saying.


   

> I've just been reading `Obedience to Authority', Milgram's book about
> the results of the `electric shock' experiments in the 60's [1].  In
> the light of that book I find this `you do not understand ethics and
> are not qualified to judge' theory very worrying.

  One of the problems encountered by those interested in moral philosophy
 (which is of immense value and delight) is that there is no general
 agreement about which theories, if any, is correct. However, this does not
 mean that philosophers disagree in everything. On some simple things they do
 agree.  Just because an issue is complicate (i.e. who should be the 
 beneficiary of a moral act) it does not mean that there are other issues
 that are simpler and have been solved (i.g.  the definition of "ethics",
 do not confuse this with "morality").

    Ethics, like others have said, is a very touchy subject and I will 
 definetly will not start discussing it on this list ( though I have given 
 three lectures to students last year and only one was insulted).
 I stand by what I said, for it this subject is not too different than 
 geography, physics, or statistics. The only difference is that there has 
 not been much progress.
 



> 
> Ian.
> 
> [1] In Milgram's psychological experiments three people took part: a
> `learner', a `teacher', and an `experimenter'.  The experiment was
> claimed to be one on the effect of punishment on human memory.  The
> `experimenter' and `learner' were really Milgram's stooges, and the
> `teacher' was the real experimental subject, recruited through adverts
> in newspapers, who was told by the `experimenter' to administer
> electric shocks to the `learner' (who was sat in a kind of electric
> chair).
> 
> In most variations on the experiment a majority of subjects continued
> (on command from the `experimenter') to `shock' the `learner' to the
> end of the scale on the `shock generator', even past the point where
> the `learner' had cried out to be released, given agonised screams,
> and stopped responding at all.
> 
> 
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-- 

Ioannis Tambouras
ioannis@flinet.com, West Palm Beach, Florida
Signed pgp-key on key server.


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