Predation: Virtue Or Vice?

[Robspe]

You are working with a premise that he will actually be asked about it. What if he doesn't? Why is it not in his own self interest to kill a man, regardless of whether or not the society will judge him for it?

I think I have an answer to that.

Let's say you kill once in your whole life and it is not a justified course of action. You hide this and you do not speak of it. Such an act is not easily forgotten. Try to think of a situation when you will trying to teach your children for example, the principles of individual rights. Will you be able to tell them about it, without deep within yourself feeling like a hypocrite?

Even if you don't ever teach anyone about the principles you have violated, it is still an issue. Whatever you accomplish in your life, you will always know within yourself that the means to your getting there was killing a person. It is not through your own effort. When it was tough you decided to remove those who were making it tough, rather than compete them as an honest person would do. You will never be able to reach the kind of happiness that you could if you did not allow yourself this serious moral breach. You killed a man, and by doing so you have destroyed your own life.

And if this person was not someone in your way to such "success," then you acted to satisfy a temporary whim and that says a lot about your integrity (i.e. you have none), and it is doubtful that you will in this case ever accomplish anything.

The discussion around page 297 of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, would be relevant to this discussion. Those who advocate amoral materiality are as bad as those who say the material world doesn't exist. You have to have quite a mind/body dichotomy going to assert that you can live a moral life no matter how you live. If the central goal of your existence is only to live, you have no hope of living a productive life.

[TomL]

If men come together in a social context, it means that they interact, and for a particular purpose. The purpose for which men interact with each other is to gain values of various kinds. There is no wider abstraction pertaining to the reason for social interaction, whether it be a purchase at a store, friends discussing a beloved topic, or thieves ransacking a home, the reason for their actions is their attempt to gain some value from the other.

If it is OK for you to steal from others, then it is OK for them to steal from you. By stealing, you are saying that stealing is a valid way in which to gain value -- which is a blank check for others to perpetrate the act upon you in a social context. Any premise which is valid in one direction must necessarily be valid in the other direction, because there is nothing special about you with respect to your being a man in a social context amongst other men. You are just like them and they are just like you.

So if you want the whole world to have the right to steal everything you have, then by all means go rob a bank. If you want to give up your own rights to possessing property because you think its OK to steal, then prepare to be stolen from. Unless you can come up with a reason based in reality why you are speical, you are subject to the same rules you apply to others.

If you say "It's OK to steal from people", you have to remember that you are subsumed in the word people in that declaration.

[Proverb]

... I know that in order for a person to live they must have space to move and the freedom to eat as a result of the fact that they too, know the nature of plants, of animals, and of the methods to dipose of them. I recognize this requirement of myself and of men like me. I know the concept of property.

I know that I act in a way that uses the nature of things to the benefit of my life. I know that, if I did not live in this age, I would have to completely develop means to acquire food and shelter. I know that each man is responsible for their seeking of these comodities by the facts of their nature (even in this age). I understand the meaning of one's life to each man. I have learned what it requires to create these things. I know value.

I know the value of property and the inseperable role of the mind in creating it. It is thus that I respect my ability to offer trade of a value for a value in an effort to further my life. ... 

I am not an accomplished writer. However, I have a point that I can relate to OPM from here. Your nature (as the organic being you are) requires food and shelter. If you or anyone else did not have the means by which to attain them we all would perish. The ability to attain food requires freedom to attain it. The ability to attain shelter from the elements requires you to have the property on which to build it. (I am not purposing some kind of communist-like right to these things I am simply stating that they are necessary for life.) It is from there that you can realize that ultimately (if they value their life as much as you do) people can only benefit you in as much as you recognize the value of their mind and of their actions to them.

On what logical grounds do we add that missing corollary? How does absolutely recognizing another's sovereignty benefit me, my life or my values?

If you truly understand your nature and that of the men around you, and you understand the values which your mind is able to create, the only way you can lay claim (in a group of individuals) to the value of your mind is to differentiate it from, and recognize the value of their mind.

Edited August 10, 2005 by Proverb

[Marc K.]

*dons Moderator hat* Proverb and Mark K., knock it off.  There's no need to take umbrage at One Prime Mover or at each other. OPM is, from my experience, trying very hard to understand Objectivism, which is why I don't mind responding to questions like this even though they may seem hostile. *doffs Moderator hat*

I don't understand this at all...seriously.

It obviously was necessary to answer Proverb's rudeness in reply to something I never said.

As for One Prime Mover, from my experience (in the determinism thread), he is evasive and dishonest. So why the verbal spanking from you as moderator? I understand that your evaluation of him is less severe than mine and I have applauded you for your persistence. But it's not like my evaluation of him entirely lacks evidence to support it. This does not seem to be the domain of a moderator to me.

However, as a show of good will, and in deference to you, and to exercise my mind, I will post a reply to OPM's most recent one.

As for the ends justifying the means, I am unclear on your position. The first sentence of your paraphrase: "It's not a question of the ends justifying the means, but of determining them." seems to agree with Proverb's position that: "the only way to an end is through a means." And while they are true statements describing reality, they do nothing to contradict my statement that: "the ends are the only thing that CAN justify the means" which is a statement of Objectivist philosophy. Since rational self interest is the only thing that can justify practicing Objectivist virtues and the recognition of individual rights.

p.s. -- it's Marc, thanks.

[DavidOdden]

You're arguing by degrees when you need to be defending an absolute. Would I perform a heinous crime for a moderate sum of money? Of course not. Question: How does this weaken 'there are some crimes that are worth the potential rewards?' Answer: It doesn't.

I don't need to be arguing an absolute. I just need to be arguing the truth. In fact, your initial error is rooted in an absolutist error -- that acquisition of money is the primary purpose of existence. My degrading-act example is supposed to point out to you how ridiculous that presumption is. Once you get free of the mistaken idea that accumulation of cash is all that matters, you'll be in a better position to understand the rest of the argument.

Are you saying that the value of my whole life can be weighed against any shred of voluntary immorality and always lose out? I'll die if I don't get the water, but any immoral breach to get it -- however slight -- is worse than death?

Where in the world did you get that? Maybe I know: do you understand the "lifeboat ethics" argument? Morality does not say that when emergencies arise and life qua man is not possible, that you must die. If we are adrift at sea and I have to take your water to survive, then I will. When you have no moral choice, then morality isn't going to help you to make the right choice (duh!).

An interesting possibility here may be that, due to the hierchical nature of morals and values, the slightest rejection of one value necessitates the collapse of the whole structure.

I can't imagine that: actually, I can't even imagine what that means. Unless you're saying that a person can have such an irrational value system that removing one value destroys all values. That's irrational, because there are no guarantees in life. Even if you love your wife tremendously, you know very well that it is possible that she will leave you (either walking out, or dying) -- that should not cause you to kill yourself. Perhaps you weren't aware that a man's value of values is not arbitrary: it is constructed for a purpose (life) and recognises reality (e.g. whether you are a man or a woman, have talent in music vs. business, etc).

If I were to act in my nature, the first thing I need to do is decide how to define that nature.

No, that's a fundamental mistake. Man's nature is not arbitrarily defined by whim: it is a statement about reality. It is what it is, not what you want it to be. The first thing you need to do is discover that nature. And I don't think that being Canadian means that by nature, you are an uncivilized murderous barbarian. I don't exactly know what it "means" to be Canadian as opposed to being "American" (except for the horrifying economic consequences of being Canadian). If you want to talk about your nature, to make the discussion interesting you should pick on involuntary aspects of your identity. There's no point in discussing what being an organism does for you, since that's (asymmetrically) subsumed under being a man. If you want to talk about what it means to "be Canadian", you have to explain why you chose to be Canadian. I also don't understand why you want to deny the fundamental fact of being a man, and instead want to try to reduce everything to the fact that you are an animal. I'm not sure exactly where you plan to go with this "reduction to individual" business -- perhaps that would help distinguish you from ants or zebras.

How is this a contradiction?

Your estimation of your rights isn't based on an objective fact that creates superior rights for you. What you're saying is that you've got a mental construction of "rights" which happens to yield rights for you that other men do not have. As such, this is a non-contradictory sentence, and nothing more. No fact of reality consistently leads to the conclusion that you have the right to your property and to steal that of others. Hence you can assert that claim, but it is arbitrary and I can equally say that you have no rights at all. The contradiction is with respect to reality, not the sentence.

Would it be moral for another man to kill me if he knew he could get away with it and stood to gain something worth the possibility of being wrong about avoiding capture?

How does a man know that he can get away with it? Given the non-omniscience problem, what you really have to be saying is that you don't conside your life to be important enough to act in a way that preserves your life -- life is not of great value to you. It may be of some value, but not as high a value as, I guess, the acquisition of cash. Hence, given the fundamental choice between existence and destruction as one value, and acquisition of much cash vs. acquisition of less case as the other, you're saying that existence is not as important. That baffles me. What good is cash if you don't exist? I'm serious about this existence stuff. If you try to take my property, your existence is at risk. This is really the best test of a hierarchy of values: would you give up A to keep B, or give up B to keep A?

[JMeganSnow]

As for One Prime Mover, from my experience (in the determinism thread), he is evasive and dishonest. So why the verbal spanking from you as moderator? I understand that your evaluation of him is less severe than mine and I have applauded you for your persistence. But it's not like my evaluation of him entirely lacks evidence to support it. This does not seem to be the domain of a moderator to me.

Firstly, I apologize for misspelling your name. Secondly, I don't want you getting in a fight with Proverb over OPM, and it looked as though it might be shaping up to one. It's not worth it regardless of your evaluation of OPM. If you don't like OPM, that's fine, just don't respond to his posts.

It may not be specifically in the domain of the mods to nitpick over protocol, but I like to try and maintain a civil tone in order to a.) let people know that we ARE paying attention and that these things matter and b.) give members an idea of what may be bordering on uncivil behavior without having to resort to out-and-out warnings and bans. When people are already angry it's usually too late to do anything.

Anyway, if anything in my blanket growl of disapproval didn't apply to you, ignore it, because it wasn't meant for you.

[Marc K.]

One Prime Mover:

Let me start by pointing out a few errors in logic and contradictions before I move to the heart of the matter.

What if I end up committing some glorious accident that, by some chance of fate, presents itself in a manner that I know will result in me receiving a life sentence?

How can you commit an accident or know ahead of time the results of an accident? Aren’t accidents, well, accidental? -- that is, unplanned?

“Fate” returns you to your determinist roots. None of this mythology was dispelled in the thread on determinism?

describing the potentially extreme results of a logical conclusion doesn't invalidate it.

[...]

my morality is not based on logic -- it's based on that nameless emotionalism that drives most of the world

You contradict yourself here.

As far as I see it, the nature that is most closely relevant to the choices I make -- not to mention the closest to me perceptually -- is my nature as an individual consciousness. That nature infuses everything that I am; all of my beliefs, values, thoughts and concepts come from the relationship between Existence and my Consciousness. On a perceptual (introspective) level, there is a fundamental difference between 'Me' and 'You,' so why does "my nature as a man" take precedence over "my nature as an individual" in the construction of my own moral code?

Animals also posses an individual consciousness. Man is the only animal that has a conceptual consciousness. So as David pointed out you are reducing your consciousness to that of an animal and asking why can’t I live like an animal?

Well, I suppose you could try, but to live like an animal you must drop all pretense of a conceptual consciousness. That means no beliefs and no volitionally chosen values (which of course means no moral code either); no conceptualization at all, including, no rights. So when you come sniffing around my door and attempt to steal my food or property, I will shoot you down like the dog you are.

You see, you are defining man’s nature by nonessentials. The essential characteristic that differentiates man from all other animals is his conceptual consciousness.

You want to deny the existence of a volitional, conceptual consciousness but then reap the benefits of a conceptual consciousness, like the benefits of a moral code. This is called the fallacy of the stolen concept. It, again, harkens back to your determinist roots and displays the same illogic used in the determinism thread. I must ask again: did you learn nothing from that thread?

I strongly suggest you study the fallacy of the stolen concept. Learn how to identify it and then apply it to your thinking. Understanding the hierarchical nature of concepts and learning to not violate that hierarchy will help you to avoid many logical errors.

[One Prime Mover]

Wow. Thank you all for your time in responding to this; I came here with 15 minutes to spare hoping to get a brief response in... anyways, I'm just posting to let you know I haven't given up, and will hopefully get something more substantial in this evening.

[mrocktor]

Wow. Thank you all for your time in responding to this; I came here with 15 minutes to spare hoping to get a brief response in... anyways, I'm just posting to let you know I haven't given up, and will hopefully get something more substantial in this evening.

OPM, I just found out about Ayn Rand and Objectivism myself (as in this week). I was surprised about how close Objectivism is to my own thinking, though I had never formulated my thought structure in a formal sense.

That said, I am bound to agree to your statements about morality with regards to crime (whether they are your view or only material for discussion). It is entirely possible for an individual's rational self interest to be in doing something that causes harm to another - as your examples have stated.

Trying to evade this aparent conundrum by saying what is essentially "think about the others" or "do unto others as you would have done to yourself" conflicts with the root of acting in rational self interest. Robbing someone does not mean I will be robbed, nor does it "give permission" for other people to rob from me. No one needs permission to rob from me, and it is up to me to protect myself from others.

And thus we arrive at the point I would like to make: the need for protection from individuals who would prey on others rather than be productive is universal. Even the predators must protect themselves from other predators. Thus it is in my (and everyone elses) rational self interest to create barriers to actions that would negatively affect me. The result of this shared self interest is the institution of the state, as a protector of the individual's rights to life and property.

If these rights were intrinsic to rational man, there would be no need for a state to defend them. I beleive they are not, and that "criminal" behavior must be actively fought against. To argue that rational man's ethics should prevent him from encroaching on another man's property even though there would be no adverse consequences (or citing a mystical loss of one's self worth) conflicts with the concept of self interest itself.

mrocktor

[JMeganSnow]

A rational man's ethics DOES prevent him from encroaching on others' rights: this is known as the principle of being principled. It is also the most abstract principle of ethics, and hence the most difficult to validate properly.

Don Watkins made a statement that helped it click in my mind: Telling someone that it's in their self-interest to violate others' rights when there are no negative consequences to them is like writing a book about blackjack that says "always hit on twenty when the next card is an ace."

The only way to determine what is, in fact, a value of you, i.e. a benefit to your long-term survival, short of being able to fortell the future (which no one can do), is to evaluate the possibilities in reference to rational principles. Principles will not tell you what will happen every single time you follow them. But they give you a recipe for overall long-term successful action; to maximize your gain and minimize your loss.

Without reference to the long term, without reference to principles, there is no way to tell if a specific action is REALLY in your best-interests or not. The idea "value" implies an act of evaluation. Without a means of evaluation nothing can be said to be a value or disvalue at all.

To continue the blackjack analogy: a man who avoids hitting on twenty because it is a bad move by the principles of blackjack will, in the long run, be a more successful player than the man who prays for an ace. The point of morality is to teach you how to live successfully all the time, not just once in a while.

That is the full meaning of rational self-interest. Such a thing as interest that contradicts the means of knowing what your interests are does not exist; it is a prime example of the fallacy of the stolen concept.

---------------

Self worth, aka self-esteem, is neither mystical nor trivial. In order to survive, one needs to act. In order to be motivated to act, one needs to feel that the beneficiary of one's actions (one's self) is worthy of the effort demanded in the task. A man with no self-esteem, a man who evaluates himself as unworthy to live, will find himself increasingly unable to live.

mrocktor, please read the forum rules and post an introduction if you have not already done so.

[hunterrose]

Good question, OPM. I'm not sure you've gotten an exact answer to your query While my argument isn't either canon or killer, I think you might find it interesting.

The answer IMO is that, (1) by robbing the bank, you create a degree of dependency, (2) nothing is 100%, (3) and robbing the bank isn't a necessary for your survival.

Suppose you rob the bank. In doing this, you've chosen to value robbing the bank under certain circumstances (e.g. you "need" their money, you've calculated and believe your plan to be viable.) The first problem is, how do you discard this value? Any subsequent time you "need" money, you are liable to rob a bank again.

Granted, you've qualified the example by saying this is an extreme amount of money, such that the idea is that you won't have to rob again. While I'll accept the idea that this heist could be an extreme amount of money, I don't accept that this amount could be guaranteed to set you for life. If we assume that you can pull this action off, you have to assume that someone else can con you. In other words, there's no valid (IMO) assumption that this is only necessary once.

So (and if you have any objections, let me know) any subsequent time you "need" money, you are liable to rob a bank again. While I won't attack the idea that one robbery be "foolproof," I can't accept the idea that an unspecified series of robberies could be foolproof. Supposing we say there is a one in a million chance of getting caught/failing. Here, you've taken a slight risk of loss, and you have accepted values that contextually will multiply the threat to your life/well being.

Up to this point, my case would be: once a robber, always a robber You'd always accept the viability of robbing under certain contexts, and under those contexts, you'd be taking a risk to your life. Of course, this is merely the Jean Valjean scenario: stealing is immoral, even if it greatly ensures your life.

The difference is that robbing the bank isn't necessary. If Valjean doesn't steal the bread, he'll die His alternatives are steal the bread, or choose to die. If the prime value is life, he morally has to steal the bread. On the other hand, you as the robber, your alternatives are gain a great value, or gain a lesser value (productive work.) Life or death is not an alternative of the robber's choice (at least not short term.) We can justify Valjean accepting a value that long-term risks his life, because there won't be a life in the long term otherwise. On the other hand, the robber is accepting a long-term risk (liability to rob under certain contexts) without a gaining a necessity (which is what justifies taking any risk to life.) If life is the ultimate value (?), taking such risks can only be justified by gaining a necessity.

One again, that's not approved Objective theory (though I believe it to be objective,) so it's likely to be either ignored or dismissed by some others. Nonetheless, I think, even though it's not ironclad, you'll find my argument interesting.

An interesting possibility here may be that, due to the hierchical nature of morals and values, the slightest rejection of one value necessitates the collapse of the whole structure.

I agree to a large, but not total extent.

[mrocktor]

A rational man's ethics DOES prevent him from encroaching on others' rights: this is known as the principle of being principled.  It is also the most abstract principle of ethics, and hence the most difficult to validate properly.

To define a principle in these terms is not acceptable from a rational point of view, in my opinion. I'm sure we are all (or mostly) "good people" here, so abstracting our ingrained principles to seek only those principles that can be rationally derived is difficult.

Don Watkins made a statement that helped it click in my mind:  Telling someone that it's in their self-interest to violate others' rights when there are no negative consequences to them is like writing a book about blackjack that says "always hit on twenty when the next card is an ace."

(...)

To continue the blackjack analogy: a man who avoids hitting on twenty because it is a bad move by the principles of blackjack will, in the long run, be a more successful player than the man who prays for an ace.  The point of morality is to teach you how to live successfully all the time, not just once in a while.

The analogy hardly holds, in blackjack the risk of hitting on a 20 is numerically quantifiable, and it is obvious that as a principle it would be idiotic. You are trying to extend this to a generality where the risk itself is not quantifiable, and may even be very small.

You further assume that respecting other's rights is the path to long term prosperity, or the accumulation of value. This assumption is unsupported and requires as much proof as the conclusion you built on it.

Finally, the relation of self-esteem with what I will call "being good", for the lack of a better term, is a further unsupported assumption.

To wrap it up here are the questions to be answered rationally in order to validate your conclusion:

1. Does violating other people's "rights" always lead to less overall value to the violator?

2. Does violating other people's "rights" always negatively affect the violator's self esteem?

I have yet to see a rational demonstration of (1), and have personally met people who apparently contradict (2). You can say "he isn't really happy", "he isn't really proud of himself"; you would be contradicting the evidence to support a theory.

So (and if you have any objections, let me know) any subsequent time you "need" money, you are liable to rob a bank again. While I won't attack the idea that one robbery be "foolproof," I can't accept the idea that an unspecified series of robberies could be foolproof. Supposing we say there is a one in a million chance of getting caught/failing. Here, you've taken a slight risk of loss, and you have accepted values that contextually will multiply the threat to your life/well being.

Up to this point, my case would be: once a robber, always a robber You'd always accept the viability of robbing under certain contexts, and under those contexts, you'd be taking a risk to your life. Of course, this is merely the Jean Valjean scenario: stealing is immoral, even if it greatly ensures your life.

You have built a straw man and expertly taken him down. Our subject contemplating robbery is a rational being. He will perform only a robbery where his risk/reward evaluation is favorable. Whether it is a single event or a chain is irrelevant, as he will judge each event independently. Sure he is taking a risk to his life, but then so are we every time we get in the car and go to work.

The point in question is: why is robbing a bank wrong, on rational principle?

mrocktor

[hunterrose]

Does violating other people's "rights" always lead to less overall value to the violator?

Why is robbing a bank wrong, on rational principle?

I don't think you'll be satisfied by my answer

Let's assume that this bank robbery is a "one-time" action, and at all other times only rational values will be pursued.

Rational actions have risk/reward levels too, as you mentioned. But when you decide to drive a car, you can know how the car works, what conditions increase your danger, how to repair it, etc. The brakes aren't going to choose to malfunction, principles of combustion don't warp out of boredom. Blowing a tire doesn't change the probability or conditions of blowing a tire at any other time. None of this applies to irrational acts.

But let's assume that a guard's break times, the bank president's efforts to mark bills, and choice and timing of security system upgrades are just as predictable and dependable as nature. We'll consider the case where, even in this one irrational act, depending on your ability hide your acts from volitional, unpredictable men can be calculated with scientific precision.

Why is it wrong to commit a bank robbery that has no negative consequences, on rational principle? It's not.

Take away the increased risk of depending on unpredictable men instead of predictable nature, the detrimental effect of your fellow man making proactive efforts to stop you, others finding out and reacting, the possibility of failure, the limits of any amount of wealth (what amount of money would be "enough" to an Objectivist??)..... i.e. the capacity of men to be rational and the possibility of failure? I suppose this question is just hypothetical.

mrocktor, the bank robbery would be irrational because such conditions can't exist, but if enough conditions existed, robbery would be just as rational as any virtuous act. Violating other people's doesn't always lead to less overall value for any single instance, but knowing when those "not always" are at hand would require some faculty that'd make the robber superior to us like men are superior to animals.

That's probably not satisfactory, but really, are any of these conditions even possible?

[mrocktor]

I don't think you'll be satisfied by my answer

Let's assume that this bank robbery is a "one-time" action, and at all other times only rational values will be pursued.

Starting by assuming the robbery is irrational kind of shows your bias

Rational actions have risk/reward levels too, as you mentioned. But when you decide to drive a car, you can know how the car works, what conditions increase your danger, how to repair it, etc. The brakes aren't going to choose to malfunction, principles of combustion don't warp out of boredom. Blowing a tire doesn't change the probability or conditions of blowing a tire at any other time. None of this applies to irrational acts.

I find you greatly underestimate the unpredictability of life on general terms. Every rational decision has a risk/reward component, and the risks are hardly easy to quantify.

As a clear example, no romantic involvement would ever be a rational decision in your terms. Can there be a more unpredictable factor than that? The consequences of a rejected or failed relationship are dire, obviously.

But let's assume that a guard's break times, the bank president's efforts to mark bills, and choice and timing of security system upgrades are just as predictable and dependable as nature. We'll consider the case where, even in this one irrational act, depending on your ability hide your acts from volitional, unpredictable men can be calculated with scientific precision.

Why is it wrong to commit a bank robbery that has no negative consequences, on rational principle? It's not.

In this you have basically conceded my point, unless you can show conclusively that the factors involved in every violation of another's "rights" have risks that are more unpredictable than nature itself.

mrocktor

[DPW]

In this you have basically conceded my point, unless you can show conclusively that the factors involved in every violation of another's "rights" have risks that are more unpredictable than nature itself.

Risk is inherent in life, but there is an essential difference between accepting an increased risk in order to pursue a higher value, and pursuing destruction. Moral principles don't identify risky courses of action -- they identify courses of action opposed to man's life. Can you get away with violating a principle? Sure, in the sense that immediate destruction need not follow the violation of a rational principle, but absolutely not in the sense that you will be better off than had you adhered to such principles.

Why is this? Because actually there is no such thing as "violating" a principle. To violate a principle is really to adopt a different (anti-life) principle. That leaves you with two options: either stop, make amends, and re-establish the rational principle, or continue acting on the anti-life principle. Long term, that HAS to be self-destructive. Just as it is senseless to say you gained a dollar if you had to sacrifice a thousand to get it, so it makes no sense to call anything gained through an immoral means a value -- you've sacrificed too much to get it.

Even when we accept more risk in order to pursue a greater value, we don't do so on the "I hope I can get away with it" premise. We do so on the premise that we would rather accept the possible negative consequences than settle for whatever the alternative course of action had to offer. For example, suppose I'm trying to decide whether to be a cop or a lawyer. If I choose to be a cop, it's not on the premise that I think (or hope) I can beat the odds. It's that I would rather die as a cop than live as a lawyer. This has nothing to do whatever with a man who wants to escape the consequences of the causes he enacts, which is what the mentality of a thug consists of.

By the way, I am treating these issues in depth in the first issue of my forthcoming magazine, Axiomatic, which will be available October first at:

http://www.axiomaticmagazine.com

Don Watkins

[DPW]

Without reference to the long term, without reference to principles, there is no way to tell if a specific action is REALLY in your best-interests or not.  The idea "value" implies an act of evaluation.  Without a means of evaluation nothing can be said to be a value or disvalue at all.

This is the core issue. Mrocktor and all those who make the argument he is making take it as given that a certain class of objects is valuable to man, and then ask why it matters how you gain those objects. That is not a given. It is not obvious that having a million dollars is to your interest. That must be proved. The question is, how do you prove something is to your interest? How do you prove that something is, in the full context of your entire lifespan, a benefit? The only way to do it is conceptually.

Apart from moral principles it is impossible to establish that a given object is to your interest.

Let me stress this. We need moral principles, not because we can't compute the odds of "getting caught" when violating them. We need moral principles because nothing is a value intrinsically -- it depends on the role it plays in our life. The only way to identify the role a given end will play is by means of principles.

Don Watkins

[JMeganSnow]

1. Does violating other people's "rights" always lead to less overall value to the violator?

2. Does violating other people's "rights" always negatively affect the violator's self esteem?

Does doing ANYTHING "always" lead to a specific result? If it did, there'd be no need to think, no need to evaluate, and men could function as machines with no effort whatsoever. These questions are moronic. How nice of you to set up qualifiers that NOTHING in reality can satisfy. And then you accuse hunterrose of setting up a strawman? Please.

[hunterrose]

Starting by assuming the robbery is irrational kind of shows your bias

Natch! I don't think it affects my argument, though.

I find you greatly underestimate the unpredictability of life on general terms. Every rational decision has a risk/reward component, and the risks are hardly easy to quantify.

As a clear example, no romantic involvement would ever be a rational decision in your terms. Can there be a more unpredictable factor than that? The consequences of a rejected or failed relationship are dire, obviously.

Interesting point about romancing. It certainly wasn't classed with the "rational" actions, as I used them previously in # 23. Apparently I was being imprecise, but romancing would still be a "rational" action, because consensual acts don't have this unpredictable threat that robbing a bank would.

Robbing a bank is unpredictable and unreliable not just because you can't be assured you'll get away. It's an unreliable means to support life particularly because of what they'll do after they find out.

If I get rejected by a girl, it's not likely she's going to hold it against me (unless she's Kathy Bates ), and even far less that she's going to think of me as dangerous to her life and thus a threat to her. Obviously, nature isn't going to react vindictively toward you.

But robbing the bank? That'd leave some long-term consequences, unlike romancing and science. Robbing a bank is immoral, primarily (IMO) because when you commit such acts, the interaction between you and the victim isn't over. This is why initiation of force against other men is the primary vice it's the most dangerous thing you can do to your own life

Now, if we ignore the possibilities of this retribution, then I'd stick with the prior point about applying your mind toward nature (and consensual acts!) is more reliable than the chance to successfully rob the bank. And if you ignore the risks of getting caught in the act or failing, then I go back to once you establish robbing banks in particular reward/risk scenario as a value, what would possibly dissuade you from doing it again when that same reward/risk scenario reappears? Those are all secondary, but valid in and of themselves IMO, arguments to the long-term consequences/retribution/reaction argument. And if you still want to exclude something, well, you can eventually exclude enough stuff to make robbery "rational."

In this you have basically conceded my point, unless you can show conclusively that the factors involved in every violation of another's "rights" have risks that are more unpredictable than nature itself.

Every violation of another's rights (why the quotes?) has risks that are more unpredictable than nature itself. With nature, the worst you can do is fail. You might get hurt as part of that failing, but once the action is over, nature isn't going to hold a grudge against you. The worst unpredictability of robbing a bank is the threat to you even if you do get away with the money. The victim begins searching, organizes with others, etc. Have you ever seen Ransom, with Mel Gibson? Or read The Count of Monte Cristo? The Punisher? Batman? And I won't even get into d'Anconia....

Even if you ignore such "extreme" people, the fact that people organize government and police in the first place is an indication of that unpredictability and it's threat against every use of immoral force. The defensive action of rational beings can't safely be predicted as to how they'll react, how long they'll pursue you, or what kind of changes your robbery and their apparent need to better protect themselves will have.

[DPW]

For the record, let me state my emphatic disagreement with hunterrose, not simply in specifics, but with his fundamental approach. In his approach, moral principles are essentially rules of thumb. "This is unpredictable, so don't do it." That has nothing to do with the Objectivist approach.

On the Objectivist approach, moral principles (like all principles) identify a causal relationship, in this case, a causal relationship between a given action and man's life.

Consider just one principle: honesty. Does Ayn Rand argue that lying would be great if you could get away with it, but since you never know when you can get away with it, you shouldn't do it? Does she merely observe a lot of concrete cases of dishonesty, noting that in most cases, the dishonesty led to negative consequences, so therefore one should never be dishonest? Absolutely not. What Rand did was identify the essential nature of dishonesty and recognize that such a policy is inherently opposed to man's life. Quoting Galt's speech: "Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if gained by fraud" (FNI 129).

Hunterrose's approach is mired in empricism. Just like scientific empiricism, which says that to make a valid induction we would have to observe all the relevant phenomena, hunterrose's moral empricism says that to conclude that violating moral principles is always contrary to one's interest, we would have to be able to observe all such instances and all their consequences. The only reason to act on principle, according to hunterrose, is because we can't know when we would be "get away with" and thereby benefit from an immoral act, and since we generally don't benefit from such acts, not acting immorally is a good policy.

Mrocktor shares this empricist approach but is more consistent. He observes that life is full of risks, and that driving a car or getting surgery or getting married are no less risky (in a certain sense) than robbing the occassional bank. If all those things lead to values so long as you don't fall victim to risk, then Mrocktor is right -- there is no egoistic reason to be principled.

But empiricism is wrong. What man needs is a conceptual methodology...an objective methodology. Such a methodology, as Rand showed us, enables us to identify the essential nature of an action, and thereby determine its relationship to human life. We can thereafter know with full confidence and certainty that there is nothing to be gained by deviating from life-based moral principles. Those things one "gains" by violating moral principles are not in fact values, anymore than Galt's motor was a value in the hands of the looters.

Don Watkins

[hunterrose]

For the record, let me state my emphatic disagreement with hunterrose, not simply in specifics, but with his fundamental approach.  In his approach, moral principles are essentially rules of thumb.  "This is unpredictable, so don't do it."  That has nothing to do with the Objectivist approach. 

I'm going to have to give a full reply tomorrow, but I'll say that you I believe you've misinterpreted me, DPW

You also haven't said why robbing a bank would be wrong... especially without referring to disliked empirical examples.

[DPW]

I'm going to have to give a full reply tomorrow, but I'll say that you I believe you've misinterpreted me, DPW

I hope so, although I studied your posts rather carefully, so I have to admit I'm doubtful.

You also haven't said why robbing a bank would be wrong... especially without referring to disliked empirical examples.

On the contrary -- empirical examples are quite fine. Examples are the raw data from which we form a principle, and they are the means of concretizing our principles (i.e., ensuring they are tied to reality). But examples aren't arguments. The argument is the principle.

Now, as to why robbing a bank is wrong, you will forgive me for not making this point explicit in this thread, as I have done so in several others, as well as on my blog...

Robbing a bank is wrong because it violates life-based moral principles. That's what it means to say something is wrong.

Don Watkins

Edited September 6, 2005 by DPW

[hunterrose]

I hope so, although I studied your posts rather carefully, so I have to admit I'm doubtful.

You never know; you might learn something

On the contrary -- empirical examples are quite fine.  Examples are the raw data from which we form a principle, and they are the means of concretizing our principles (i.e., ensuring they are tied to reality).  But examples aren't arguments.  The argument is the principle.

Here's a part of my position. The reason examples aren't "arguments" is that they don't apply across the whole system. I.e. "You might get caught" isn't an argument, because sometime people don't get caught, and thus the example doesn't apply in those cases. If the example did apply across the whole, then you would be able to derive an ironclad principle from this ironclad example, right? Likewise, if some of the examples derived from a principle aren't ironclad examples, then the principle can't be ironclad either, can it? We could pick straws at whether stating ironclad examples is acceptable, or whether such examples have to be distilled into the principles inherent to the examples before justifying the immorality of robbing, but it's not that crucial IMO. I could just as easily say "don't rob the bank because A is A and existence exists." The examples can be derived from that principle, but still, such a statement couldn't be expected to sway anyone...

Now, as to why robbing a bank is wrong, you will forgive me for not making this point explicit in this thread, as I have done so in several others, as well as on my blog...

Thanks for the blog! I've never been interested in reading daily routine or political party zealotry blogs, but I do like the idea of Objectivism blogs. Can you believe this is my first time looking at a blog? Anyway, I found some relevant points in the Sept 4, 1, and Aug 30 posts. I didn't have time to check the pertinent links under Best of Anger Management, but I will when I get back home.

Robbing a bank is wrong because it violates life-based moral principles.  That's what it means to say something is wrong.

Of course, that begs the question... what are these objective life-based moral principles, and how does illicitly receiving, say, a million dollars in an undetectable way, violate these principles?

[mrocktor]

Risk is inherent in life, but there is an essential difference between accepting an increased risk in order to pursue a higher value, and pursuing destruction.  Moral principles don't identify risky courses of action -- they identify courses of action opposed to man's life.  Can you get away with violating a principle?  Sure, in the sense that immediate destruction need not follow the violation of a rational principle, but absolutely not in the sense that you will be better off than had you adhered to such principles. 

Don, you are assuming the principle is valid, that violating others "rights" is in fact opposed to the violator's life, we are trying to validate the principle in the first place.

This is the core issue.  Mrocktor and all those who make the argument he is making take it as given that a certain class of objects is valuable to man, and then ask why it matters how you gain those objects.  That is not a given.  It is not obvious that having a million dollars is to your interest.  That must be proved.  The question is, how do you prove something is to your interest?  How do you prove that something is, in the full context of your entire lifespan, a benefit?  The only way to do it is conceptually. 

Here again you are trying to "define" the principle into validity. The principle defines value, therefore breaking the principle cannot add value. This approach is highly questionable, because it only applies to those people who adhere to your set of principles, which are not logically derived from reality but simply "defined".

Does doing ANYTHING "always" lead to a specific result?  If it did, there'd be no need to think, no need to evaluate, and men could function as machines with no effort whatsoever.  These questions are moronic.  How nice of you to set up qualifiers that NOTHING in reality can satisfy.  And then you accuse hunterrose of setting up a strawman?  Please.

On the contrary, you are proposing that violating other peoples "rights" is always a negative value to the violator, thus you must rationally demonstrate that this is true every time.

If you cannot prove that point, then there is no moral principle rationally derived, because it may be in the individual's rational self interest to violate other's rights.

I'm not being confrontational, just not accepting anything but a rational derivation of the ethic principle.

Consider just one principle: honesty.  Does Ayn Rand argue that lying would be great if you could get away with it, but since you never know when you can get away with it, you shouldn't do it?  Does she merely observe a lot of concrete cases of dishonesty, noting that in most cases, the dishonesty led to negative consequences, so therefore one should never be dishonest?  Absolutely not.  What Rand did was identify the essential nature of dishonesty and recognize that such a policy is inherently opposed to man's life.  Quoting Galt's speech: "Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if gained by fraud" (FNI 129). 

Don, this is the crux of the matter, from your Galt quote: "neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if gained by fraud".

How does this derive, logically, from reality?

Robbing a bank is wrong because it violates life-based moral principles.  That's what it means to say something is wrong.

It's wrong because... it's wrong? That is not an acceptable argument.

I've been working with the following reasoning:

1- The violation of another's rights presumes the existance of another rational being (to be violated), thus we may assume that a society (at least two individuals) exists.

2- Let us define the "total value of the society" as the sum of each individual's value (If this concept is not new, I lay no claim to ownership. As I've said before, I'm new to all this).

*Important point* There is no society value per se, as there is no way to judge value except on the individual level, the total value is an abstraction.

3- Violating an individual's "right" to life or property *at best* transfers value from one individual to another. The total value of the society, therefore, must stay the same or be reduced by each violation.

4- The violation takes effort by the violator, and by the violated (defence), thus effort that could be productive to the society is instead diverted to reducing the total value of the society.

5- Living in a high value society is beneficial to the individual in the long term

These concepts permit us to state that violating another's rights is not in one's rational self interest in the long term. Points 3 and 5 could use stronger support. Also, this does not provide an ironclad demonstration that one should never violate anothers rights, as the ocasional violation by one individual could bring him gain while not damaging society enough to affect him.

Interested in hearing your opinions,

mrocktor

[DPW]

Here's a part of my position. The reason examples aren't "arguments" is that they don't apply across the whole system. I.e. "You might get caught" isn't an argument, because sometime people don't get caught, and thus the example doesn't apply in those cases. If the example did apply across the whole, then you would be able to derive an ironclad principle from this ironclad example, right? Likewise, if some of the examples derived from a principle aren't ironclad examples, then the principle can't be ironclad either, can it? We could pick straws at whether stating ironclad examples is acceptable, or whether such examples have to be distilled into the principles inherent to the examples before justifying the immorality of robbing, but it's not that crucial IMO. I could just as easily say "don't rob the bank because A is A and existence exists." The examples can be derived from that principle, but still, such a statement couldn't be expected to sway anyone...

The problem is that while we can specify some of the (possible) effects of a given action on man's life, we can not specify them all, since every action has effects - direct and indirect - that redound across man's life. Even if we could, we would be so overwhelmed that we would have no means of evaluating all those effects. So the question becomes, how can we determine what effects an action will have on a man's life if we have to take into account such an enormous context? My point, the Objectivist point, is that the only way it's possible is with moral principles.

Let me be clear on this: once you validate a moral principle, you can thereafter say that any act that violates that principle is contrary to your interest because it violates the principle. You don't have to specify the particular harms that will result.

The question is: how do we validate moral principles? I indicated that in my post. We do it inductively, by observing instances and identifying the principle that explains those instances. Dishonesty, for example, we can see is the attempt to gain a value by faking reality. But faking reality doesn't change the facts, and since no course of action opposed to reality can help you live in reality, you can't gain values through dishonesty.

I was right when I said you were falling into empricism. To you, that's not a solid proof. That's not because it isn't, it's because you haven't grasped what proof of a moral principle consists of.

[DPW]

Don, you are assuming the principle is valid, that violating others "rights" is in fact opposed to the violator's life, we are trying to validate the principle in the first place.

But you were going about it in precisely the wrong way, which told me that you needed to first grasp what a principle is. In the paragraph of mine you quoted, that's what I was explaining. Only after you grasp that a principle is an inductive truth, a causal identification, can you grasp what proof of a principle consists of.

On the contrary, you are proposing that violating other peoples "rights" is always a negative value to the violator, thus you must rationally demonstrate that this is true every time.

Precisely, which is the purpose of principles. Once you validate a principle, that proves that a violation of the principle is destructive every time. What's giving you trouble is that you think we validate a principle by looking at "every time" and determining (somehow) the effects of the action of man's life in each of those instances. That's exactly what we can't do, and it has nothing whatever to do with Objectivism (as I've said, it represents the empiricist approach). We have to conceptualize the requirements of human survival, and to do that, we have to think in principles.

So let me ask you this question: The Objectivist defense of honesty is that faking reality doesn't change the facts, and any attempt to live in reality by means of unreality must, therefore, ultimately fail. Now I want you to tell me -- are you prepared to defend the claim that life can be achieved by means of unreality?

The problem is that you keep thinking, "Can't someone violate a principle and get away with it? And if he gains a value, thereby, isn't he better off?" The answer is an emphatic "No!"

One does not "violate" a principle. One adopts a different principle. A criminal, for example, adopts his anti-life principle because he thinks he can "get away with it." This is what I call the anti-causal mentality. It is the mentality of a man who doesn't enact the causes necessary to achieve the effects he desires, but who spends his life evading the consequences of the causes he enacts. Notice that in defending adherence to proper moral principles, I'm not arguing, "You can get away with being honest." When you adhere to reality, there is nothing to be gotten away from: your interests are served by experiencing the full consequences of the causes you enact.

This is the point I want to stress. Morality really boils down to a basic choice: adhere to reality or fight against it. (All moral principles are are identifications of what it means to adhere to reality. This is why Rand described moral principles as your "recognition of the fact that...") What do you think? Do you think your self-interest can be achieved by fighting against reality on principle? Don't fool yourself. There is no middle-ground. To adhere to reality is to adhere to reality on principle. There is no "sometimes."

Now let's concretize this with an example. Suppose Erik stays late at work and is the last one to leave the office. As he is leaving he passes Tyler's desk. Sticking out of the edge of his desk drawer, Erik sees a crisp fifty-dollar bill. Erik knows for a fact there are no cameras in the office. Should he grab the fifty?

Some people would make the mistake of thinking of all the ways Erik can get caught. But let's ask a more basic question: is having fifty dollars in Erik's interest? The answer isn't self-evident. As with any concrete value, whether or not the fifty dollars is to his interest depends on the role it plays in his life, and that requires that we consider how he spends it...and how he acquires it.

Well, how is he to acquire it? By stealing. In order for Erik to prove that stealing the fifty dollars is to his interest, Erik must first prove that stealing -- as a principle -- is to his interest. The point is that we cannot prove that any particular action is to one's interests except by reference to a broader principle. We cannot put on blinders and judge the morality of stealing based on the "merits" of any particular case. I don't me we shouldn't...I mean we absolutely CAN'T. It's not possible. We cannot determine that it is in Erik's interest to steal in this particular case except by proving that it is in Erik's interest to steal, to steal on principle.

But of course it isn't. It can't be. Stealing involves acting in contradiction to a fact: it means acting as if that fifty dollars belongs to you when it really belongs to someone else. Your welfare, in such a case, depends solely on your ability to evade and avoid the consequences of your action. But life isn't achieved by avoiding consequences, it's achieved by enacting beneficial consequences through rational action.

That's why we can say with full confidence and certainty that having the fifty dollars is not to Erik's interest. It's not to his interest because stealing isn't to his interest, and stealing isn't to his interest because man's basic interest is: adhere to reality in order to live in reality.

That is the Objectivist position.

Don Watkins