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Re: Dijkstra's Methodology for Secure Systems Development


From: Taylan Ulrich Bayirli/Kammer
Subject: Re: Dijkstra's Methodology for Secure Systems Development
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 21:11:33 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux)

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

> And "right" and "wrong", do they have well-defined semantics?  No,
> they don't, and yet you used them freely to make your point.  How's
> that for consistency?

Since I assumed they have no well-defined meanings, I used them such
that what I mean with them would have hopefully been clear enough.
(Which was the human well-being thing.)

> Use the words I suggested, and this problem disappears, even if others
> remain.

Well, that's false.  Many people think it's amoral to be homosexual.
And many countries' laws forbid it, too.  That's why I think right/moral
and wrong/amoral are more or less synonyms, and laws are just their
concrete codification.  (And again, I was going on the assumption of an
agreement on that human-rights based morals are the "correct" morals.)

>> (Except for laws, though I'm confused on how they're relevant at
>> all.)
>
> Perhaps you don't understand why we have laws, then.

I said that because laws are just the written down form of what a group
of people think is right.  They are the end product of a discussion on
what is and isn't right; using them to decide that would be circular
logic, so they have no place in that discussion.  (Or maybe just as
reference on what people previously decided, to use some possibly
acceptable form of appeal to authority or popular opinion; but you get
what I mean.)

> Tell me: when someone shoots a burglar who broke into their house and
> threatened them with a weapon, what exactly happens to the "human
> well-being" of the burglar?

It's traded off for the well-being of the home owner, and probably for
the well-being of future possible victims.  "Ethics calculus." ;-)


Anyway, I now suspect that the discussion might go on for dozens of
mails if we don't just abruptly stop; I had previously hoped that we
would instead quickly either agree or agree to disagree on clear points.
Or maybe we can just agree to disagree on the meaning and importance of
laws?  The other points seem cleared up, I think.  I'm desperately
looking for a way to end the discussion without requiring either side to
accept giving the other the "last word," so help me a little...

Taylan



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