> When you offer a service to the general public, you are in a sense attempting to provide a "plug-in" service to society as a whole, and so the terms of that service should be negotiated with society as a whole, including such things as civil rights.
Does this apply to all businesses that offer services? Keep in mind here that the first amendment, in addition to protecting our right to speech, protects our right to association. That is, our right to associate with the people, and only the people, we want to is a civil right that our constitution protects just as much as speech.
If I open a store and let people purchase things, I'm offering a service to the general public. But I'm certainly not "part of the state". One of the primary concerns about the state is that it (usually) has a monopoly on the things that it does, so that if it provides a service, it's the only provider of that service.
But "speech" isn't a service that one can monopolize. Preventing speech can be done via force, but "facilitating speech" isn't monopolizable. If someone won't let you do it, you can do it yourself or find it somewhere else.
> Yes. Nobody can be compelled to offer a service.
But you are compelling me to offer a service! I want to offer the service to paint anything except X. And you say no no! You are additionally compelled to offer the service to paint X. This by the way, gets far more complicated if, for example, my service is...baking cakes. If I offer a universal cake baking service, when can I refuse to bake a cake? Can I refuse all wedding cakes? Can I refuse all cakes above a certain size? Can I refuse all cakes in red? Can I only bake chocolate cakes? Can I refuse to bake cakes for people who have previously given me bad reviews?
> No it does not; it merely prevents them from getting married in the way that they like, which is a different way than the societal norm.
So let's make this concrete. Let's say I ban painting my name. I don't want people to paint it in my house. People can paint anything else, but not my name.
With the marriage example, we generally assume that people are attracted to a particular gender, and aren't really able to change that. Are you suggesting that, similarly, there are people who cannot find happiness without painting my name on my wall?
I mean if that's the case, why is it moral for me to ban them as long as I ban everyone else too? These particular people can't be happy either way.
With marriage, the issue is that you're essentially preventing some group from being able to openly mutually associate in the way that they want to. We can quibble on exactly how much of a freedom to associate or a human right that is, but it sure sounds like a lot more of one than your ability to write my name on my wall.
There's another argument by the way, which is that marriage is a service provided to two individuals, and that providing only heterosexual marriages discriminates based on attributes of those individuals, in exactly the same way as only marrying white people would be discriminatory. This same argument doesn't work for the example of banning speech.
Yes, I don't believe in an unrestricted right of business association.
(Neither does the US, when it comes to discrimination on protected categories.)
> If I open a store and let people purchase things, I'm offering a service to the general public. But I'm certainly not "part of the state". One of the primary concerns about the state is that it (usually) has a monopoly on the things that it does, so that if it provides a service, it's the only provider of that service.
> But "speech" isn't a service that one can monopolize. Preventing speech can be done via force, but "facilitating speech" isn't monopolizable.
Sure it is, by controlling the platform. In any case, I have a much more expansive view of monopoly as a spectrum. Network effects, for instance, can also contribute to a monopolizing service. In any case, I believe the primary reason why monopoly is a moral risk is because a monopoly prevents you from switching providers to escape a restrictive corporate environment. My approach is instead to outlaw restrictive corporate environments.
> > Yes. Nobody can be compelled to offer a service.
> But you are compelling me to offer a service!
No, you always have the choice to not offer the service at all. I am not compelling you to offer any specific service, I am preventing you from offering a service with certain restrictive parameters.
> And you say no no! You are additionally compelled to offer the service to paint X.
No, you are compelled to offer the service to paint X, contingent on your decision to offer the service at all. You always have the option to cease offering the service entirely. And you could, I guess, close your company whenever someone requests a service you don't like. However considering fees, that may be impractical.
> I mean if that's the case, why is it moral for me to ban them as long as I ban everyone else too? These particular people can't be happy either way.
I don't have an opinion on the morality of the matter. Or rather, I don't think my morality should affect the decision. That's why I have focused this conversation specifically on the mechanism by which the morality is arbitrated, which should be the same mechanism by which state decisions are arbitrated, ie. civil rights, representative democracy etc, inasmuch as the service is of the class of "service offering to the general public" shared with some state services.
The idea that companies shouldn't be given the right to business association because their civil rights are less important that the civil rights of others is a moral one.
Civil rights are always in conflict, and which ones you prioritize and how is a moral decision. You can't abdicate that responsibility.
Put another way, why does it violate civil rights to offer a service conditionally, but not to refuse to offer the service at all?
Or in the reverse, why is the government able to regulate my offering of a service conditionally, even though you seem to believe that them compelling me to offer the service in general is a violation of my rights?
Or yet another way: why do you believe that the right of association is less important than the right of speech?
Those are all ultimately moral or ethical questions.
Yes, sorry, I agree. These are all moral questions. My position can be generally summed up as "the less individual an organization is, the less weight its rights have." This is because I consider the individual as the ultimate purpose of society.
That is, the more individuals your organization serves, the more it becomes a "thing whose arbitration between individuals is of societal import". I believe that issues of societal import should be decided by democratic means, whereas issues of individual import are decided by personal choice. Between the two is a sliding scale.
Does this apply to all businesses that offer services? Keep in mind here that the first amendment, in addition to protecting our right to speech, protects our right to association. That is, our right to associate with the people, and only the people, we want to is a civil right that our constitution protects just as much as speech.
If I open a store and let people purchase things, I'm offering a service to the general public. But I'm certainly not "part of the state". One of the primary concerns about the state is that it (usually) has a monopoly on the things that it does, so that if it provides a service, it's the only provider of that service.
But "speech" isn't a service that one can monopolize. Preventing speech can be done via force, but "facilitating speech" isn't monopolizable. If someone won't let you do it, you can do it yourself or find it somewhere else.
> Yes. Nobody can be compelled to offer a service.
But you are compelling me to offer a service! I want to offer the service to paint anything except X. And you say no no! You are additionally compelled to offer the service to paint X. This by the way, gets far more complicated if, for example, my service is...baking cakes. If I offer a universal cake baking service, when can I refuse to bake a cake? Can I refuse all wedding cakes? Can I refuse all cakes above a certain size? Can I refuse all cakes in red? Can I only bake chocolate cakes? Can I refuse to bake cakes for people who have previously given me bad reviews?
> No it does not; it merely prevents them from getting married in the way that they like, which is a different way than the societal norm.
So let's make this concrete. Let's say I ban painting my name. I don't want people to paint it in my house. People can paint anything else, but not my name.
With the marriage example, we generally assume that people are attracted to a particular gender, and aren't really able to change that. Are you suggesting that, similarly, there are people who cannot find happiness without painting my name on my wall?
I mean if that's the case, why is it moral for me to ban them as long as I ban everyone else too? These particular people can't be happy either way.
With marriage, the issue is that you're essentially preventing some group from being able to openly mutually associate in the way that they want to. We can quibble on exactly how much of a freedom to associate or a human right that is, but it sure sounds like a lot more of one than your ability to write my name on my wall.
There's another argument by the way, which is that marriage is a service provided to two individuals, and that providing only heterosexual marriages discriminates based on attributes of those individuals, in exactly the same way as only marrying white people would be discriminatory. This same argument doesn't work for the example of banning speech.