Yes? The law is not some absolute arbiter of morality and it does change across time and jurisdictions. It's really only an expression of consequences that may be enforced by a body of power.
In many situations an individual does not feel represented by a certain law and it's equally ok for them to choose to follow their own moral compass as it is for the people who put that law in place to attempt to enforce their ways.
Actually most people agree that legality and morality are overlapping but separate categories. There are legal and immoral things as well as illegal but moral ones. I have no problem with someone breaking a law I see as immoral if the act itself is morally positive or neutral. It is a matter of benefit versus odds of being caught.
For example, do you think it is immoral for marijuana people to consume their drug of choice? It remains federally illegal.
taking into account all the impacts on society, uber is a substantial improvement on what came before. sometimes laws are bad and it is good when you break them
There's a difference in terms of their motives and methods and the surrounding context, but, ultimately it's just actions and consequences and a messy collective decision-making process. The collective ruling body has thus far decided that Uber be allowed to continue and the conversations and laws continue to evolve around these things. Nobody is calling Travis a hero but we've [collectively] agreed that there was some value to some of those decisions.
Let's look at that gulf. One's a poor black woman in the 1960's and the other's a rich white guy in the 2010's. It's easy to see which one we've been programmed to be supportive of. But picking someone based on the color of their skin and not the content of their character isn't what we're going for. So we have to be explicit in saying that the documented actions by this particular rich white guy are what people find offensive about him, rather than simply that he is one.
In terms of societal change though, they both had a bad law in front of them, they both broke it. In Rosa Parks' case, the law got changed. In Travis Kalanick's case, new laws got passed specifically regulating his company. But the thing is, the taxi medallion laws haven't actually gone away. This results in Uber having to do things in weird ways to satisfy the letter of the law in order to comply with the various laws that exist in each jurisdiction.
Travis Kalanick got rich off the backs of an army of drivers and a swath of passengers. Rosa Parks did not.
He did some pretty shitty stuff along the way, sure.
One thing about Rosa Parks is that she wasn't the first. It was because she was the woman who wasn't going to fall to ad hominem attacks. We can name the logical fallacy, but unfortunately it works in the unregulated court of public opinion.
Neither was Travis, but they were both the ones that succeeded. She succeeded in changing minds and laws, and he succeeded in making a pile of money.
So there's absolutely a gulf between the two, and that gulf is that the laws about sitting in the back of the bus got struck down. The taxi laws did not. One happens to be a rich white guy and the other happens to be a not-exactly-well-off black woman, and the black woman actually managed to get the laws changed.
Yes? The law is not some absolute arbiter of morality and it does change across time and jurisdictions. It's really only an expression of consequences that may be enforced by a body of power.
In many situations an individual does not feel represented by a certain law and it's equally ok for them to choose to follow their own moral compass as it is for the people who put that law in place to attempt to enforce their ways.
Actually most people agree that legality and morality are overlapping but separate categories. There are legal and immoral things as well as illegal but moral ones. I have no problem with someone breaking a law I see as immoral if the act itself is morally positive or neutral. It is a matter of benefit versus odds of being caught.
For example, do you think it is immoral for marijuana people to consume their drug of choice? It remains federally illegal.
taking into account all the impacts on society, uber is a substantial improvement on what came before. sometimes laws are bad and it is good when you break them
That is how change is made. See also: Civil Rights Act, circa 1964
Whether or not taxi medallions are a good thing I hope we can agree that there's a gulf between Rosa Parks and Travis Kalanick?
There's a difference in terms of their motives and methods and the surrounding context, but, ultimately it's just actions and consequences and a messy collective decision-making process. The collective ruling body has thus far decided that Uber be allowed to continue and the conversations and laws continue to evolve around these things. Nobody is calling Travis a hero but we've [collectively] agreed that there was some value to some of those decisions.
Let's look at that gulf. One's a poor black woman in the 1960's and the other's a rich white guy in the 2010's. It's easy to see which one we've been programmed to be supportive of. But picking someone based on the color of their skin and not the content of their character isn't what we're going for. So we have to be explicit in saying that the documented actions by this particular rich white guy are what people find offensive about him, rather than simply that he is one.
In terms of societal change though, they both had a bad law in front of them, they both broke it. In Rosa Parks' case, the law got changed. In Travis Kalanick's case, new laws got passed specifically regulating his company. But the thing is, the taxi medallion laws haven't actually gone away. This results in Uber having to do things in weird ways to satisfy the letter of the law in order to comply with the various laws that exist in each jurisdiction.
Travis Kalanick got rich off the backs of an army of drivers and a swath of passengers. Rosa Parks did not.
He did some pretty shitty stuff along the way, sure.
One thing about Rosa Parks is that she wasn't the first. It was because she was the woman who wasn't going to fall to ad hominem attacks. We can name the logical fallacy, but unfortunately it works in the unregulated court of public opinion.
Neither was Travis, but they were both the ones that succeeded. She succeeded in changing minds and laws, and he succeeded in making a pile of money.
So there's absolutely a gulf between the two, and that gulf is that the laws about sitting in the back of the bus got struck down. The taxi laws did not. One happens to be a rich white guy and the other happens to be a not-exactly-well-off black woman, and the black woman actually managed to get the laws changed.