Again, you are mistaking the concept of harm with the concept of accountability. Obviously you harm me when I drive a hundred miles for a hockey game and I am disallowed entry because some ass-hole is a prejudiced pig. Why would I say I was harmed if I was not?? That does not mean the ignoramis at the gate is legally accountable. It depends on the law, doesn't it?
No. During this whole conversation I have not been talking about legal accountability. I have been talking about someone having a moral obligation not a legal one (although its possible that it could be both).
If you drive 100 miles expecting to get a lot of cash from me, then I have not harmed you, even though you wasted the time and gas needed to get here. If I told you I would give you a large sum of money if you showed up and then you drove a hundred miles to get it and I did not give it to you then you could claim that you where harmed because I'm not living up to my end of the bargain. If I didn't make the promise and you drive here to get the money anyway then I didn't harm you. You harmed yourself. It could be argued that the hockey team made at least an implied promise to you. I'm quite willing to entertain that argument, but absent that promise they didn't harm you. They didn't force you to drive the hundred miles.
"Harm" does not rely on obligation. It does not rely on law. When people are harmed it is not an automatic condemnation of anyone. It is not illegal to harm someone. Try to understand that.
Again I am not talking about legal obligations.
Harm does not rely on obligations. If I hit you in the head I might harm you. However if I hit you in the head I am actively doing something to you. If I don't give you a lot of money I am not doing something to you, and I am only harming you if I am obligated to give you the money.
I am asking you if YOU are the judge of when people are harmed...or if THEY ARE?
First of all I wasn't arguing about did they suffer harm or not, I was arguing about did the bigot harm them. The distinction is subtle but not insignificant. In the example above where you drive to my house to get money from me, I didn't harm you if I didn't make any promises to give you money, you bought the harm on to yourself with your fantasy that I would give you the money. If however the Hockey team advertises and sells tickets and doesn't provide any sort of notification or announcement of any rules or limitations on those tickets, and you buy one, and then later go to the game and you are not let in because of your sexual preferences (although they usually wouldn't know that) or sex, or race, or hair color, then it could very reasonable be argued that they did not live up to their end of the bargain.
Of course your asking me to judge the case not just to say what arguments could be made. But I haven't made up my mind on that one yet.
If, before you bought, the team announced that no one with <insert Solon's hair color> hair will be allowed in to see the game then they didn't break any promise or deceive you in any way. I would not approve of them acting in this way but because they did not actually do any thing to you I would not say that they did you harm.
Tim |
