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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Principle of Non-interference
Message-ID: <607@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 17:20:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.607
Posted: Mon Aug 19 17:20:41 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 04:47:09 EDT
References: <588@mmintl.UUCP> <549@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 23
Summary: Minimizing interference is not well defined


[Me] 
>> There is a problem with the principle of non-interference as a basis
>> for morality: it is insufficient.  There are a great many cases where
>> there is an interaction between two or more people, where it is not
>> clear whether interference has taken place, or who has interfered with
>> whom.

[Padraig Houlahan]
>As I understand it, "interference" in recent discussions means curtailing
>another's freedoms. Since no man is an island, the principle of 
>non-interference is presented as one of minimizing the curtailment of
>another's freedoms.

This really doesn't help.  Which curtailings of freedoms are "less" than
which other curtailments?  Only within a moral system can this be answered.
(For an individual, one can ask his or her preference.  This doesn't work
when more than one person is involved.)  Thus the principle of non-
interference cannot be the *basis* for a moral system.

Inside a moral system, the principle is equivalent to a certain kind of
consistency: it states that if person A has a right to perform action X,
then person B has no right to prevent it (in the sense of directly
interfering with the action).