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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5420143" data-attributes="member: 18280">(1)  What have I declared unethical?(2)  What activities harm no one?  AFAICT, ethics is involved with determining the scope of potential harm to oneself and others, as well as the scope of possible benefit, and attempting to balance the two.Why would this be so?  Ethics is anything but stagnant!Behaviour considered normal for centuries is often no longer considered normal centuries later.  What is considered harmful or of benefit may well vary by culture....One can think of many historical practices that were once considered ethical that are no longer considered to be so.  Some are even now considered to be abhorent.Our understanding of ethics changes, and most often changes in response to the widespread acceptence of new forms of communication.  The printing press, mass literacy, radio, television, and film sparked (and some may continue to spark) ethical debate.  One should hardly expect the Internet to be different.  Among other obvious factors, the Internet gives us a better ability to track the harm we do!It is encumbent upon each of us, in our time, to ponder how we should be living, and what is an acceptable balance between harm to others/benefit to ourselves.  That is, I would say, our primary ethical duty as human beings.I am proposing nothing of the sort.  I am proposing that questions as to the ethics of any decision/action are always open to debate.I will always oppose a statement that X is firmly ethical, or firmly not, or that we cannot or should not engage in discussions about ethics.  (And I mean this in terms of a society; I certainly agree with EN World's right to limit discussions of ethics to factors that the moderators determine are relevant to the site as a whole, as well as to moderate how those discussions may take place.)This again conflates an argument about legality, and/or government duties, with an argument about ethics.If the State has no justification in forcing someone to supply a non-essential to those who lack it, then the State has no justification in forcing someone to comply with, say, copyright, if the individual(s) holding the copyright cannot themselves enforce it.Copyright is, after all, non-essential.But most of us agree that the State does indeed have a justification in supplying copyright enforcement to those who lack said enforcement....even if we also agree it is a non-essential.And I very much doubt that you consider this "facism, the nanny state, communism, etc."You are a lawyer, right?Please explain "Fair Use" to me.  If I cannot prohibit Fair Use (which is the use of property), then I don't own it?Please explain "Right of Way" to me.  If I cannot prohibit the right to travel unhindered across a throughway (which is the use of property), then I don't own the land?There are more examples in law, if you actually require them.  One ought to be sufficient to demonstrate that you are wrong here.  I can both own property and not have the right to prohibit all use of it.And you cannot think of one that justifies an idea becoming public domain perforce of it being shared?What position do you believe I am supporting?So, let me repeat my stance: There is a legitimate debate as to the ethical quality of WotC's behaviour in this case. Indeed, there is never a case where examining/debating the ethics of any behaviour by anyone is illegitimate. The primary legal duty of a corporation is to make the most money possible for its shareholders. This is not, and should never be considered, the primary ethical responsibility of anyone or anything.How does that require slavery?And, even if I were to take the stance that profitting by putting forth your idea should cause that idea to then, after a period, enter the public domain.....How does that require slavery?Or does thinking the current period to long change it into slavery?For that matter, if I discover a cure for cancer, and I believe it is unethical of me to not share that cure....how does that belief that my actions would be unethical force me to follow some other course?  Surely, I decide whether or not to do what I believe is ethical.And, should I publicly do something that you believe is unethical, why should the State (or anyone else) protect me from your publicly calling my ethics into question?RC</blockquote>

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