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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/29/18 in Posts

  1. Your values and my values are incommensurable, because they serve different ends. It is therefore an error to even try to determine whether you get more from an action than I do.
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  2. The benefit to others is irrelevant to the question of whether an action is egoistic. All that is required for an action to be egoistic is that the action be directed to one's own benefit. Whether another benefits or is harmed, and the degree of that benefit or harm, has no bearing on whether the action is egoistic.
    1 point
  3. Ted's sister just posted a reminiscence on OL. http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/topic/16758-ted-keer-rip/?do=findComment&comment=277620 The end is particularly memorable: " May this parting bit hopefully bring a smile...He was buried with a copy of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology minus a few pages from which the kids crafted origami boats and sent off some honorary ashes downstream where he often wandered. " This calls to mind Leonard Bernstein being buried with his score of the Mahler 5th. He performed the Adagietto at the memorial service for Bobby Kennedy in 1968, here's that recording:
    1 point
  4. I was trying to make the point that it doesn't matter whether the other party gains more or not. If you're getting the pleasure of playing chess, how is it against your interests if the other person is getting more? Now if you're saying that one should look for a way to tweak the relationship or your reaction to it, acceptable to both parties, that increases your benefit, that might be appropriate. But if you don't see any such way of tweaking, how is the relationship against your interests? If, at very little risk to yourself, you save the life of a child who is a stranger to you or a casual acquaintance, that child gains its whole life, and its parents gain greatly too. You probably don't gain that much. Does this mean you shouldn't save the child's life?
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  5. I hope you are not going to speak against sweatshops now. If I have 5 apples and you have 5 oranges, when I give up 2 apples for one of your oranges, it is because that orange is worth (more than) 2 apples to me. Some God-type being (or a Marx like being) might think "Gee, that's not fair". -it's not equal: one apple for one orange. The only thing that is equal in this scenario is in the sameness in the decision to trade. The value/benefit received and given may or may not be equal. But more importantly, the idea that the traded benefits should be equal (especially to some third party) goes against free market principles.
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  6. Above topic split into thread: "Egoism and Others" by Merlin Jetton
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  7. If you love a person, doing something that benefits that person also benefits you, and the action is moral as long as the benefits are not outweighed by some harmful side effect. This is true even if the benefit to the one you love is greater than the benefit to you. If you are running a business, it can be good business to go an extra mile to help customers. If you are trying to succeed and advance in a job, it can be good strategy to go an extra mile in doing the job. Both are true regardless of how much or how little benefit accrues directly to you from a particular instance of extra-miling.
    1 point
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