/lit/ - Literature

>>5194081
Doesn't an individual's sense of right and wrong subsume all action?

I mean, we have different punishments for different crimes of differing severity... for example, the misdemeanor/felony distinction.

But what an individual does all comes down to what they think is the "right" thing to do. For example, somebody underage might think that the right thing for them to do would be to have a glass of wine. They know full well that the law thinks it's not "right", but they still derive their own sense of "rightness".

Do some individuals believe that a certain type of action is only "wrong" once they get caught? You brought up the example of adultery. People cheat all the damn time. I have friends who cheat on their wives and husbands.

First, my friends have justified that it is an OK thing to do, that it is the "right" thing for them to do, in a sense. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. That's why Socrates famously claimed "that nobody willingly does wrong." Somebody does something because they believe it to be the right thing for them to do... otherwise, they wouldn't do it.

Next, my friends have a guilty conscience. They know that there is a gap between this personal sense of "right" and what is "right" beyond their own dictates. How? This is where social contracts come in. Two lovers in a relationship usually make a bond (however implicit) that they will not have sex with anybody but each other. Hence, objectivity, or, more trendily, "intersubjectivity". Two individuals have their own opinions, but their opinions are in accordance with one another, hence contract.

I hope that you will pick up one of these points and respond to it. I digress.

This is all to say that I am skeptical of the proposition that any law could deter wrongdoing. In most basic situations, civilized people know that a certain type of action is unlawful. But people still do unlawful actions. Why? Again, it's not that when they're about to do it, you could come up and say, "you know, that's illegal", and then they go, "oh, OK, thanks, I was about to do it, but now I'm not going to."

Nobody willingly does wrong according to their own sense of right and wrong, but some willingly do wrong according to the law's sense of right and wrong.

>>4942441

>this entire thread

The murricunts are waking up. Nothing like shitposting over a cup of joe, eh?

>author's title is large and stylised
>actual title is in small print

>The Three Musketeers
>not three
>no muskets

I make no moral claims about my piracy of anything: books, vidya, music or otherwise. I pirate because it is convenient, and I believe my chances of being caught are much lower than the cost of the things I download. I try not to think about the moral implications.

It is my understanding that copyright law was formulated to protect authors in an age when presses were becoming sufficiently common that just about anyone could print and sell their book once they'd seen it. It seems to me that anyone with the internet has a press of a sort, so the real issue comes down to how you feel about two simple questions:
1) Do you believe that the formulation of copyright law in the first place was moral?
and
2)Do you believe it was formulated to make sure authors could make money, or to prevent others from making a living on things that they had no right to claim as their own?