laz

Thank you for that John Allison link, Nicky. I found it to be very helpful in answering my question! By the way, I do not like emotional arguments, like calling intellectualammo a "scumbag." I find it much more useful/convincing to elaborate on why it is wrong: In objectivism, an act is wrong if it is self-destructive. Nicky mentions that being deceitful is self-destructive because "people will learn to avoid your business." Also, Nicky's link mentions that honesty is the foundation to human relationships and that it should be a person's goal to improve their personal values. Therefore, even if other people would never learn about this specific transaction, it would be immoral because "Person A" would be acting self-destructively in the long-term by tainting his/her own personality. Lying can easily become a habit, which would make it difficult to build benefitial human relationships.

I am still learning about Objectivism; I understand the gist of it, but have trouble understanding some of the edge cases. I would be interested in learning the opinions of other Objectivists on the following: If person A would like to buy something from person B and person B would be willing to accept an amount of money that is far less than the value of the item to be purchased (and person A knows this is true), is it ever immoral to "take advantage of" person B? There are several reasons person B could be willing to make the deal: 1) The need to sell quick 2) Lack of knowledge of the market value of the object to be sold 3) Mental disability I am curious if paying virtually nothing for the object (if the seller is mentally disabled) would be a violation of the trader's principle ("giving or tak[ing] the undeserved"), or if the mentally ill would be considered non-consensual due to their condition. At the same time, I understand that there is no obligation to help them by buying from them.