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  1. In choosing which flavor of Ice Cream to eat, which is the moral choice - Vanilla or Strawberry? It's an invalid question; nobody could ever rationally determine either flavor to be the moral choice, in every conceivable situation, for all time and eternity (and not just because the correct answer is Chocolate). However, if I know that Chocolate is my favorite flavor then that's clearly the moral choice to make; the choice that ultimately maximizes my own enjoyment of my own life. So while nobody can ever know which flavor of Ice Cream to be the best for everybody, for all time and eternity, I know perfectly well which one is best for me. Life is full of such issues (which is part of what makes Individualism so important); the OP happens to name one of them.
    2 points
  2. I’ve enjoyed reading Ayn Rand and listening to lectures by the Ayn Rand Institute. I do disagree, however, with the Objectivist position on intellectual property, based on my reading of the book Against Intellectual Property, by Stephan Kinsella. The objection to intellectual property is as follows: Individualists are strongly in favor of property rights, but we must ask why do we want property rights? We want them because property is scarce. If someone takes your land, your car, or your phone, you lose the use of it. But if something is superabundant, we do not talk about property rights to it. For example, no one talks about property rights to atmospheric air. It’s superabundant and free. No one says “you’re breathing my air”. That fact that I’m breathing does not impinge on your breathing. Property rights are meaningless in this case. Suppose you had a bagel, and I have the ability to make a perfect copy of it simply by having knowledge of it. In doing so, I do not impinge on your use of your bagel. You can eat it, sell it, do whatever you want with it. This situation would involve no scarcity, no taking of property, similar to atmospheric air. So it is with ideas. By gaining knowledge of your idea, I’m in essence making a copy of it. You still have full use of it. Therefore, nothing has been taken in a property rights sense. Ideas are not scarce. They are infinitely copyable with no loss of use by the person they are copied from. Example: People are living in a forest. Someone comes up with the idea of building a log cabin. His neighbors observe him building it, and say “hey, that’s a great idea!” They all proceed to build one for themselves , using THEIR own land, THEIR own materials, THEIR own labor, etc. Some of them even improve on the design. The logic of intellectual property is that what the neighbors did would be wrong, because they “took his idea”. But what “property right” has been violated here? Has the originator’s physical property been taken? No. Has he lost any use of his physical property? No. Has the idea of a log cabin been removed from his mind? No. Is he still able to use that idea? Yes. Has he been coerced in any way? No. Is he not able to enjoy the fruits of his labor, ie the log cabin? No. He has FULL use of it. Indeed, the fact that some people took his idea and improved on it is to everyone’s benefit. None of the things that apply to the taking of property apply here. It might be argued that the “taking” of “his” idea about a log cabin means a loss of value to him. Perhaps he planned to start a log cabin business, which will not be able to make as much money, because others can do the same. Perhaps he simply laments a potential loss of value in his log cabin. This is not, however, a valid objection, because he has no property right to the value of his property. The value of his property is whatever potential buyers are willing to pay for it. He can no more object to the loss of value than someone who decides to sell his car, and laments the fact that another seller of the same make and model car undercuts his asking price. Tough luck. Furthermore, the concept of the idea of a log cabin being intellectual property has terrible implications. Exercising his “intellectual property right” would mean that he has coercive power over how his neighbors (indeed, even the entire world based on contemporary court cases) use THEIR property and even their minds, even though doing so involves no force against him, no prevention of the use of his property or his mind, and no fraud against him. I don’t think this can be considered a good thing at all. The sharing of knowledge is a good thing. This very forum is evidence of that.
    1 point
  3. [Radical leftist position here] I applaud your efforts. I applaud your skill at concealing your capitalist exploitation. You seem to think that providing a communal factory that you -- and only you -- make money from is some justification for your possession of the means of production. If you really had the intention to establish a communal factory, you would not have demanded payment for use. Your shallow facade may trick the locals into seeing this as a win-win situation at little cost, but I see it as an imperialist effort to impose capitalist hegemony upon this village. If only Lenin realized how easy the masses could be manipulated by a capitalist! His initial revolts would have been much more productive. You have brilliantly established a factory by which we all contribute. But notice, you create a demand for product that we do not in fact need. You're making us believe we need flour, with your amusing but manipulative advertising to come on down to the factory, while you watch the money come in to you. Worse yet, you do not participate one bit, and make this factory only to pad your wallet. You have not produced anything except a false need for a false end -- production of flour. Flour! What, do you expect bakers and bread makers won't notice you were trying to extract free labor? If you want quick money, say so, don't pretend to be creating a setup the Inca would love to copy. Tell me, do you really think life is better in this village because of this factory? It has commodified the village.
    1 point
  4. Kaladin, I didn't see that you had responded until recently. Kaladin said: The comment about Dr. Peikoff's position on economics is related to the Oist conception of value, more specifically evaluation. Somewhere in the induction in Physics and Philosophy lectures Dr. Peikoff mentions Ms. Rand's view of the role of "teleological measurements" in economics. His point was that all of the sciences that pertain to the interplay between the metaphysical and the man-made (consciousness) are dealing with teleological measurements (as opposed to, say, physics). Kaladin said: The differences between the senses of objective and subjective become important here. Remember that the Oist ethics are normative and therefore involve evaluation: One "must choose" goals and values. The choice of values is conditioned on volitional, active effort. Remember Ms. Rand's comments in Atlas Shrugged: The conditional nature of reason requires one to mark clearly the metaphysically given from the man-made. If your model of economics does not counsel one to consider the legitimately subjective sense of an individuals volitional evaluation of their own value hierarchy, then how will you deal with a market that involves irrational evaluations? Ethics tells us what one ought to value but that is an "If-then" conditional. If one chooses to live then they must choose to constrain their values by recognizing metaphysically given facts, facts that are not open to evaluation and therefore not the province of teleological measurements. It is a metaphysically given fact that any given market contains volitional agents that act irrationally. The legitimately meaningful sense of subjective applies to these evaluations. It is however an objective fact that these agents preferences are subject to their own self-made evaluations. It is my own subjective (or personal if you rather) preference that I prefer blondes but it is an objective fact that I do have this preference. Any investor interested in an objective evaluation of their rational, life serving options, better recognize that IF the market they are evaluating contains volitional agents who have conditional evaluations of their own, they must THEN consider these metaphysically given facts. Be careful not to make the fallacy of the frozen abstraction regarding economic theory. A market contains man-made preferences and that is a metaphysically given fact. That a rational investor evaluates the evaluations of other market agents as irrational and unobjective does not mitigate the damage to the objective investors values that will follow from acting as though these irrational agents are not present in said market.
    1 point
  5. Be very careful analyzing this statement. Rand says, and she is always careful with her use of words in a way which conveys her exact meaning, that in an emergency "situation", "no one" could "prescribe" what action is appropriate. She is not saying that the person in the context cannot or should not act nor that no standard applies. She could have stated that in such emergency situations: 1. "No one can determine what action is appropriate." She DID NOT. 2. "It would be impossible for the person in the situation to determine what action is appropriate." She DID NOT. 3. "the standard of morality no longer serves as any guide for what action is appropriate." She DID NOT Her answer to all lifeboat "questions" ... [[note these are more often than not contextually incomplete, treating the particular person as though he/she were an "any man", as if there were ONE right answer to such a question]]... is that "Moral rules cannot be prescribed for these situations, because only -life- is the basis on which to establish a moral code..." Rand here is speaking in the context of moral principles, like any principle, e.g. scientific etc. is meant to have general application to a large number of contexts. This is why such any particular principle exists. Such achieves, under normal circumstances, a degree of mental economy. A principle as part of a code (a limited number of prescribed - i.e. determined and set down "previously" - rules/principles) enables an actor to assess a common situation as falling within the prevue of the principle so as to apply it without over complicating the decision. Principles are absolute contextually. Principles are useful, in fact indispensable because not every scientific or moral context should be approached de novo, not every problem is a dilemma and need to be strenuously though through from scratch. A man would be brought to his mental knees if he had to proceed without principle and rethink everything in every context all the time... this is why codes and principles are rational and useful. Having principles for general application to common contexts does not however obviate the necessity of rationality and contextual judgment in contexts where the principle is no longer applicable. There still scientific and moral dilemmas, not unanswerable questions but ones for which the answer requires more than simply referring to wrote principle. Note, Rand here does NOT say that it is impossible for a person in the situation to ACT in accordance with rational application of the standard of morality, only that the context does not admit of PRESCRIBED moral principles or codes... whose establishment as mental shorthand is only useful for common general application in common general contexts and in any case would be cripplingly numerous if one were to attempt to write a rule for every situation. This crucial difference between a principle or rule and the contextual application of morality is illustrated well by the discussion in OPAR surrounding the principle or virtue of honesty. It is part of the moral code, i.e. "don't lie" it is a moral rule or principle generally applicable because it supports self-interest in the commonest and most general context of -life-. WE KNOW that one however is not selfishly morally obligated to tell an intruder where the location of one's child is, and in fact we KNOW it is selfishly MORAL to LIE to the intruder to selfishly save a precious value. [[please excuse the redundancy - to be moral is to be selfish]] But "Why?" asks the rationalist is it moral to LIE? If lying "is wrong", continues the rationalist, it is always wrong.. isn't it?... or does this simply mean morality itself does not apply when the man lies? NO it does not. It means the context for application of the general principle of morality simply is not present... principles are absolute but only in context... this is an exceptional context which requires a man to act in ways in accordance with that exceptional context. Morality is NOT an intrinsic duty, it is NOT following rules for the sake of following rules. Morality is contextual and the principles are not to be multiplied ad infinitum to take into account every exceptional context. One cannot literally write out every possible course of action in response to every possible context, determine what serves self-interest and call that a code of morality. It would be a concrete bound crippling mess. The standard of morality does not disappear, and rationality can be used to determine (as best one can in the situation) the moral course of action... this IS a moral dilemma not because there is no answer, but because it is not one which is easily arrived at by simple reference to prescribed rules. The general moral principle of honestly, in the form of "do not lie" does not disappear, it is not applicable in the context. Morality does not disappear either, not for a man who as chosen life and must choose and act in order to live as best he can. Here what is moral is "to lie to the intruder to save the your own and or your children's lives" This is my response to DA and is not to be construed as anything else. I still intend to respond to Louie.
    1 point
  6. From the above it seems the context of "emergency" excuses a man from moral judgment because he cannot be rational. What about a "better" man, for which the context becomes, [and this is by reason of the "better" man's rationality, emotional control, heightened crow epistemology, optimal virtues, and ability to rationally play out more scenarios of causation as well as introspection and projection of himself, his values, and reality into the future ...etc] a non-emergency, merely an exceptional situation, but one which the man can nonetheless choose to act in accordance with principle, rationality, i.e. morally? Is there any point analyzing a scenario which most men would find an emergency, from the view of one of the "better men" who would not? We all encounter varyingly different stressful situations, ones which vary in danger and the need of rapid decision etc. Where do we draw the lines and IF it is contextual (which I think it is) can we hypothesize in the context of the better man? I am here thinking of a level-headed war hardened Marine who is a rational egoist with a healthy amount of self-esteem and is exceptionally virtuous in Rand's sense... can we look at him with a shifted line of "emergency"?
    1 point
  7. Air isn't valuable because it's superabundant. Using it doesn't deprive anyone else of its use. If you can't be deprived of the use of something simply because others use it, then you can't be deprived of ownership of it. The situation on Mars would be different, because air would be scarce, not superabundant.
    1 point
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