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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3659136" data-attributes="member: 4937">There are two problems with that question.  The first is that if you ask me to make a valuation of what is right and wrong here, I'll have to explain it, and in explaining it sooner or latter we are going to tread over lines that will make people angry or uncomfortable.  As soon as I go from suggesting the alternatives to stating what I believe, someone is going to want to convert me over to thier way of thinking.The other problem is if you ask me to imagine that I'm a magistrate, even if I'm in abosolute authority, because of what I believe the system I would institute would be shaped by what I thought those people I had been given charge over would accept and understand.  I have to think about the weaknesses and the strengths of the culture in question.  For example, here in modern America, no matter what utility I would perceive in say a flogging compared to the alternatives, such a system would be foreign to people's experience and they wouldn't understand it as an act with the intention of being merciful.  (Which is ironic, because I think only a culture slightly horrified by a flogging can profit from it.)  I'd probably devise some different system I thought was good but which was more in accord with the cultural expectations of the nation - probably something like a term of prohabation and community service in some service/rehabiliation/transition program ran by the local communities.  So alot would be riding on the culture of the people I was in charge of.  It's not just a matter of me imposing what I believe.  It would be taking something from within the boundaries of what I believed constituted a good approach and then making it work for the particular culture.And really, there is a third problem.  No one has ever measured free will.  I don't know its nature nor is it to my knowledge known to science, and even if I'm asked to imagine an item that can override the violition of the being in question, I don't know what the consequences of that would be - individually or socially.  Amongst like minded people, I'm considered (indeed have been called) something of a heretic for erring in what they percieve is too much on the side of human free will in my beliefs.  But I confess to you that whether in humility or in folly, I'm not so certain of the validity of what I believe to pronounce judgement on this thing.  Since it is a thing of which I'm not certain, I'd likely count myself among those that would be afraid to use it because it is a thing which seems a man would lack the authority to tamper with in his fellow man.  Indeed, I see less evidence that man has the authority to compell someone to believe in what is right than I do that they may consider another of thier fellow men to be property.  It is I think dangerous and uncertain ground indeed, and its a path I'd advice to tread most lightly if at all.  Very likely a period of experimentation would be required to learn what the unforeseen consequences would be.I would think that - at least initially - only Helming those that volunteered in full knowledge of the consequences (something Alex didn't have) would be the safest and most ethical course.  And, I'd personally want to wait a generation or two to examine the policy before applying it on a larger scale.  But I am a cautious person, and I doubt that if the program was percieved as working that society as a whole would be so patient.Well, that supposes that we have free will to begin with.  As you might guess, I tend to concur that this robs man of one of his few inherent dignities, but I have no way of proving that I'm right.  So far as I know, neither did Jefferson.  Which is why he wrote what he wrote, I would think.</blockquote>

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