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Old 08-24-2010, 05:37 PM   #13
Ben Thornton
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There was some interesting research on morality which suggested that across cultures there were two broad types of view. One, that we might call "conservatives" emphasised the need to follow social rules in defining what was good/bad. The other, which one might call "liberal" (less common and more recent historically) emphasised whether individuals suffered in defining what was good/bad. An example they gave was gay marriage where the conservative view is bad (breaks the social rules), while the liberal view is good (avoids them suffering). It seemed an interesting analysis to me, and a way of trying to understand what might be going on with the opposing point of view in a moral argument.

In this context, it seems to me that we might have a similar split, with one group advocating following the rules, while another looks at (their view of) who suffers in determining whether something is OK or not. So, the conservative view is copying=bad in this case because it breaks a rule, while the liberal view is copying=ok because there is no alternative offered so nobody suffers (a loss of sale for example).
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