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Most laws in the past were couched in the language of morality, or even better, divine commandment.

But just because people think all law is about morality doesn't make it so. It's the job of a philosopher to question people's assumptions and identify errors in them. This looks like a classic case of hasty generalization. Some laws are about morality. Other laws might not be.

I think copyright belongs in the non-moral category. You have not offered any reason to disagree with my statement other than a vague "But people in the 18th century believed otherwise!" Well, I'm not disputing your historical facts. The fact is that people in the 18th century believed a lot of things. Some were true, some were not.



My point is not that the law is moral. It's that, as you've just stated, it was coached in the language of morality.

Again, this is at odds with your initial statement. And again, for some quite large and significant aspects of copyright.


You're right, many laws were (and still are) couched in the language of morality. I'm not disputing the historical facts! But why should I care how they are couched? People can couch anything in any damn language they want, and the couchings are often misleading.




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