KevinD

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Forget why you haven't married them — pull them off of her before the poor woman is crushed to death!

True — but you have to wonder: to whom is a statement such as "do not try to survive by killing other people" directed? Who is so confused about this issue that such advice could have any personal meaning or impact? If a person is truly confused, it's going to take much more than a three-sentence, deductive argument to get them to see the light.

I love it when people say things like this. It's like they're offering advice! Ukelelemasta, one thing you will notice in these types of forums, is a tremendous amount of rationalism — especially on topics of this kind. (Rationalism is a kind of thinking error: it's the attempt to address complex ideas by means of quick, deductive arguments.) I strongly recommend that you purchase, read and study Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff, and spend as much time as you can thinking about these issues on your own. Once you have a basic grasp of the ideas, you can come to a forum such as this and ask questions — but without a clear understanding of the basics, and most importantly of the mental methodology required to arrive at philosophic truths, you're setting yourself up for confusion.

Man, talk about showing your colors: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/p...f-1225811179614

Be careful what you look for — you just might find it. Or, not.

It's a true statement, but not a "winnable" topic for a debate. If David's opponent claims that the belief in God is rationally justifiable — that such a belief can be proven by means of science and logic — then he needs to debate other religionists, not an Objectivist.

You will lose this debate the instant you step on stage, David. You say that you intend to "offer an argument against [God's] existence." I'm dying to know how you will pull that off. In all my years of philosophic thinking, I have never encountered such a thing. The statements you've provided contain many interesting and thought-provoking ideas. But in no way do they prove (or disprove) anything related to the existence of a supernatural deity. Debating religion can be tempting, but it's always a mistake. It's a mistake because the question of God versus no-God simply does not arise in the minds of rational men. When you agree to participate in this sort of debate, you grant religion the greatest victory imaginable: you concede intellectual respectability to the epistemological menace of faith.

This talk (and its subsequently published essay version) contains one of my all-time favorite quotations from AR: "Apart from its many other evils, conventional morality is not concerned with the formation of a child's character. It does not teach or show him what kind of man he ought to be and why; it is concerned only with imposing a set of rules upon him — concrete, arbitrary, contradictory and, more often than not, incomprehensible rules, which are mainly prohibitions and duties. A child whose only notion of morality (i.e., of values) consists of such matters as: 'Wash your ears!' — 'Don't be rude to Aunt Rosalie!' — 'Do your homework!' — 'Help papa to mow the lawn (or mama to wash the dishes)!' — faces the alternative of: either a passively amoral resignation, leading to a future of hopeless cynicism, or a blind rebellion. Observe that the more intelligent and independent a child, the more unruly he is in regard to such commandments. But, in either case, the child grows up with nothing but resentment and fear or contempt for the concept of morality which, to him, is only 'a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain . . . a scarecrow standing in a barren field, waving a stick to chase away [his] pleasures.' (Atlas Shrugged)" — AR, Art and Moral Treason, Romantic Manifesto p. 145

To top it all off, the poor woman didn't even receive her eternal reward in Heaven: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/mothe...sent_to_hell_in

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You're assuming that he thought once.

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First, learn to capitalize "I." All the answers you need will then become obvious.

Cliveandrews: Utterly ignore those who are telling you to have "fun" making up stories to tell in your addiction treatment sessions. You are ensnared in an extremely serious situation, and it is imperative that you do not say, write, or make posterboards about anything that could later be used against you. In his book Rational Recovery, Jack Trimpey makes some excellent practical suggestions for those sentenced to court-mandated addiction programs. (Mind you, these points are directed at those who really do have drinking or drug problems.) Here is an edited version of a list Trimpey provides on pages 46-51 of his book: Trimpey also suggests that you discuss your situation with an attorney, and that you seriously consider going to jail if convicted of drunk driving. "Your treatment can follow you for many years," Trimpey writes. "By identifying yourself as an 'alcoholic,' you will be subject to the endless moral and legal authority of the institutional 12-step recovery movement. . . . n today's computerized world, it's easy to get into a government database — and practically impossible to get out." Trimpey's book is a fascinating and refreshing look at the subject of addiction. I highly recommend it, if for no reason other than his eye-opening exposé of the cult of 12-step addiction treatment. Please note: This post is not legal advice.

So long as he is only spreading ideas, you may not lay a finger on him. You can and should and must, however, oppose him by every intellectual means possible.

In his podcast of 2/9/09, Leonard Peikoff commented on a virtually identical question to the one which began this thread. You can hear this podcast at Dr. Peikoff's website.

If this hypothetical character has "chosen life" as you say, why does he want to kill someone merely because he dislikes him — then throw his own life away by committing suicide?

The paragraphs Grames has quoted come from Miss Rand's essay "Textbook of Americanism," in which she discusses the basic political principles necessary to establish and maintain a free society. They appear under the section titled: "Does The Motive Change The Nature Of A Dictatorship?" Clearly, Miss Rand is writing about governments and their policies, not the choices individual men might face in times of extreme crisis. (At the risk of sounding presumptuous, even my strongest critics would probably not accuse me of being a collectivist.) One idea, though, is essential to the discussion at hand: Man always retains his fundamental right to life. This means the right to defend, protect, and work to sustain one's own existence: Man can never be required to regard himself (or turn himself into) an object of sacrifice — no matter how dire the straits, no matter what other values might be involved — "not ever, not at any time, not for any purpose whatsoever." Once again, morality and its principles are a matter of context.

What is my "Forget" statement? A lifeboat scenario, as SkyTrooper has indicated, is a life-or-death crisis in which the survival of one person comes only at the price of violating the rights of another. "You and another man are in a lifeboat which can hold only one person. One of you must go overboard; will it be him, or you?" Put all of the actors in the child-sickness scenario into a rubber raft and float them on the high seas — then maybe you'll get the idea.

I don't make too many important distinctions between the value I place on my own life, and the lives of those who are irreplaceably precious to me. Do you? (Forget pets; animals have to be regarded as expendable in any crisis involving people.) If a man risks his life — or gives it up — to rescue the woman he loves, is that altruism? Is such a man "allowing the existence of others to dictate his actions" — or is he is driven by an intense love for values? You have no right to command anyone to permit himself to die, even when to do so would mean sparing the lives of 5,000 innocent children. Altruism is the creed of self-sacrifice: the view that a man may not exist for his own sake; that he has no moral right to take the actions necessary to further his own life. Under normal circumstances, the interests of rational men do not clash: the attainment of one person's life does not entail the violation of the rights of another — but this can change drastically when somebody's life becomes threatened. Just as you may not prescribe that a man must sacrifice himself in a crisis, so I (or anyone) may likewise not order him to sacrifice others to himself in order to remain alive. My formal position, to state it one final time: "Lifeboat" scenarios, such as those under discussion in this thread, are outside of the province of morality. Whatever a man chooses to do in such a situation is, in effect, moral.

Reality doesn't talk to people: it doesn't order anyone to bear misery and defeat merely because he happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Existence exists: at times a person might find himself in situations where there are literally no options — the boulder is rolling toward him, for example, and he just can't leap out of the way in time — but these are not moral issues. Morality is only relevant where man faces alternatives: Should I choose X, or should I choose Y? If "X" stands for continued existence, and "Y" means lights out for you, an egoistic ethical system can never require man to choose the latter. My morality most definitely is a tool to make my life better; it is the means by which I am able to enjoy myself and live. What fundamental principle is your morality based on?

Don't confuse selfishness with parasitism. The kind of person you describe is totally immoral — not because of his choice to steal, but in the way he conducts his life. If someone wants to claim that principles are irrelevant, that he can get along in life somehow without them, the rest of us should take him at his word and leave him to perish accordingly. If he initiates force against another person, he cannot claim justification for his actions. What — he miraculously transformed into a thinking egoist ten minutes before death by starvation? Ten seconds after his belly is fed, you can be sure he'll be back to his non-thinking, non-productive, looting and mooching ways. All of the examples discussed so far in this thread involve innocent victims of circumstance; people caught in severe emergency situations through no fault of their own. The person in your example is not innocent, nor is he technically experiencing an emergency: His whole life is a crisis, owing entirely to his evasions. I wouldn't advocate it, because no one can prescribe specifically what a person should do in such a dreadful situation. Assuming there was no other available option (you must either hit the pedestrians, or risk being killed yourself), one couldn't judge the actions of someone unfortunate enough to find himself in that position.

This is context-dropping. There is no commandment which says: "Thou shalt act morally." Morality arises in the context of a human being with options struggling to achieve life. This necessarily includes biological life — if I'm dead, no values, no choices, nothing is possible to me. A morality of life will never say to you: "In order to remain moral, die — and/or permit your innocent loved ones to be killed." Egoist ethics always provides you with the option of choosing life — your own life, or the lives of those you care about. That's what I'm trying to do with my questions. As I mentioned earlier, deciding whether to kill somebody to save another's life is not too likely a scenario; having to use/and or dispose of property which is not yours in an emergency is something which any of us might well encounter. When I was a teenager, I took a driver's ed class which was truly excellent. At one point, the instructor described some hypothetical traffic crises; one was having the brakes go out in one's car while traveling downhill at a fair rate of speed. He asked the class to name ideas as to what one might do in such a situation. After a few tepid responses, the instructor suggested sideswiping parked cars as a means of bringing one's own car to a stop. This agitated several members of the group: That's destruction of property! But you'd pay for the damage, the instructor countered. It didn't matter. He raised the stakes: "You're facing imminent death if you don't do it." They wouldn't budge. To these young people, respecting property rights was an out-of-context absolute — a moral commandment to be followed regardless of circumstance. I'll never forget the part-mystified, part-amused look on our instructor's face as he listened to these teenagers' reproaches. He never did succeed in convincing them that banging up a few strangers' cars is a tiny price to pay for continued existence. I feel a sad kind of kinship with him now.

It certainly entails that! Are you seriously suggesting that sometimes, in order to live the life proper to a human being, one must biologically be dead? This discussion has become too bizarre for words.