Detailed response from RMS on the draft copyright policy

[peterh]

In other words, I argued that you could not say economics is secondary to ethics, or that ethics is secondary to economics, because ethics and economics are inter-dependent. I don't think you can say I made an argument for 'the primacy of economic considerations' (or for the opposite) because I was arguing against the idea of there being an inherent ranking order in the importance of economics and ethics. In short, I don't like the idea of a general rule that says one is more important than the other, however people would be inclined to rank them in practice. Hence why I came up with examples where there was a small ethical 'price' versus a large economic 'gain', to illustrate that people do not tend to be absolutists in practice, even if they are inclined to endorse absolutist statements like 'all human life is price

In the context I was talking about the issue of copyright; you seemed to be talking about all political issues in general when you said economics comes before ethics.

Ethics is the basis for a belief, economics is (one of) the ways you realise that belief.

[epriezka]

In the context I was talking about the issue of copyright; you seemed to be talking about all political issues in general when you said economics comes before ethics.

Did I say economics comes before ethics? I said the two were related, and that greater wealth means more ethical options.

I'm not sure what difference talking about copyright makes. Copyright is a specific example but if a proposed change to copyright has an economic impact, that should be weighed into the deliberation like the economic impact should be considered in any decision where there is an economic impact.

Ethics is the basis for a belief, economics is (one of) the ways you realise that belief.

Well, I could believe that everybody should live a life of leisure, and suggest that as an ethical principle. But it wouldn't be a very interesting principle, because there would be no way to realize it. Similarly if I suggested 'everybody who had cancer should be given the very best care imaginable' or that 'everybody should be entitled to 200 days of holiday every year' or that 'every person who want to travel to outer space should have the right to do so for free in order to broaden their horizons'. Most people base their ethical decisions on what they think can practically be achieved in real life, so I'm not clear on what distinction you are trying to make here. If you are saying people make ethical decisions in abstract, then work out if they are feasible in practice, then the absurd examples I just gave should hopefully highlight that ethical decisions are not, in practice, divorced from an understanding of what is feasible.

And if you think my examples are silly, and hence can be disregarded, we do not need to rewind history that far before we get to a time where rights we currently enjoy in this nation, like water and electricity in our homes, or the freedom to talk to people on the other side of the world, or universal health care provided free at the point of delivery, would have seemed just as fanciful. In fact, plenty of people in this world still don't enjoy them, irrespective of our ethics.