Fair enough. Not directly relevant to the morality issue but FWIW it occurs to me that the OP would have been in much better shape if he had written Darren privately. I was not even aware of the post until this brouhaha erupted, and then out of curiosity I went back and read it. Others are probably in the same boat.
Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Sam Siegel Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 12:56 PM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: Re: Deleting post On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 8:52 AM, Charles Mills <charl...@mcn.org> wrote: > No, John said "no action that is *a fortiori ineffectual* can be immoral." > (Emphasis added.) In other words, if the action has little or no > effect, what's the harm? Darren has not erased the post from history, > only from a single archive. > > Charles > As a general statement (which is what John seems to be making) it does not take into account magnitude and nature of action. In the specific case of Darren deleting the post the magnitude is low is and it is also of an uneventful nature. One can make the argument an fortiori ineffectual attempt to rob someone (mild example here) is still immoral even if it was ineffectual. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
