On Oct 2, 2008, at 10:28 AM, geni wrote:
2008/10/2 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
On Oct 2, 2008, at 10:17 AM, geni wrote:
2008/10/2 Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com:
Yeah, because Wikipedia works much better when it can behave more sociopathically.
-Phil
We have an article [[Tank Man]]. The Chinese government probably takes the view that it harms their countries stability.
I suspect [[Gary Glitter]] would argue that our article harms him.
Reality is a well known BLP violation.
In neither of those cases are we *doing* harm. Harm to the people has been done, certainly, but we come late to the party.
Err yes we are. You may be hurting the Chinese government right now. You may not have a problem with hurting the Chinese government but that runs into problems with the do no harm approach.
Do no harm is not a useful tool or guide because it can so trivially be shown to be flawed (mostly through cases of where any action causes some harm but also through showing than any action causes hard). Greatest good for the greatest number is slightly more robust but runs into issues with individual liberties.
I would suggest that if someone is as committed as you are suggesting to rules lawyering basic ethics, the rule isn't the root problem.
-Phil