Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

mustang19

Regulars
  • Posts

    82
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by mustang19

  1. I don't disagree with (most of) your principles, TS. It's just a matter of definitions and reasons why one holds these principles. Any person or any dictionary which holds that self interest and hedonism are synonyms is obviously not a good, Objectivist person or dictionary. That's what the thread comes down to.

    If Grandma goes off Social Security and ends up unable to find work and impoverished, but losing the guilt of supporting the welfare state is worth it for her, then that's great. But I think she will be a case where one will just have to give up attempting to convince her.

    A formal proof of Objectivist ethics with a numbered listing of axioms, intermediate steps and a QED would be nice. I don't think there is one out there.

  2. Of course it equates it with hedonism--most (or all) dictionaries define selfishness as "Benefiting oneself at the expense of others" (a parasite).

    Not sure of that; Wikipedia at least defines it as "a focus on the needs or desires of oneself" without mention of other people. But if I argue about dictionary definitions anymore I'm going to get banned.

    So what about when you do something that benefits yourself that doesn't come at the expense of others? Is that supposed to be impossible? (there's no word in the dictionary that matches that definition).

    I guess the closest term you could come to that is Pareto efficiency, where at least one person is better off and no one else worse off. Don't know if it's in most dictionaries though.

    What would YOU define "selfishness" as based off of the word "self" (with the definition everyone agrees on) and WHY would you define it as such?

    Well since you're still feeding the troll I would go with the Wikipedia definition of self interest, since, although it is from Wikipedia, I believe it is one of the more commonly understood definitions of the word and people will usually have a good idea of what I mean when I use it.

  3. The problem is you keep putting words in Ayn Rand's mouth because you haven't ready any of it.

    If so I'm just going off of the information provided in this thread. Let's break out an actual dictionary. Going off of:

    We've already given you the essential information, but you keep equating interest with pleasure.

    http://thesaurus.com/browse/self-indulgence

    Main Entry: selfishness

    Part of Speech: noun

    Definition: self-regard

    Synonyms: greed, self-centeredness, self-indulgence, self-worship, stinginess

    Main Entry: enjoyment

    Part of Speech: noun

    Definition: delight in something

    Synonyms: amusement, delectation, diversion, enjoying, entertainment, fruition, fun, gladness, gratification, gusto, happiness, hedonism, indulgence, joy, loving, luxury, pleasure, recreation, rejoicing, relaxation, relish, satisfaction, savor, self-indulgence, sensuality, thrill, triumph, zest

    Antonyms: displeasure, dissatisfaction, misery, sorrow, unhappiness, woe

    So just from a brief purview of a crappy online thesaurus it can be seen that selfishness and hedonism are closely related terms if not synonyms. Whether or not psychological egoism or any other theory dealing with self interest is "correct" is irrelevant to my point; the common definition of the word self interest as used in these theories equates self interest with pleasure to some degree or another.

    I'm getting conflicting answers to my questions in this thread, though, so I should just drop it rather than try to see which one of you is the true voice of Ayn Rand. Sorry if I sounded like a dork there, but I don't see it so much as an issue of me understanding Ayn Rand so much as people in this thread saying words making words out to mean something other than their usual definitions. Now go ahead and give my post 100 down votes like a youtube video of Justin Bieber.

  4. I'll give you a personal example. I had surgery on a joint recently. Rehab exercises and deep tissue massage often hurt like hell. Would it be better for me to avoid this (admittedly pretty bad) pain, baby the joint, and ultimately keep it from recovering as well as it might? Damn, I suddenly made my body sound like the economy just then. Funny that...

    The fact that you're a hedonist doesn't prevent you from thinking long-term either. Deciding to endure painful surgery for more use out of your joints afterwards isn't at all incompatible with hedonism, just as long as whatever use you get out of the joint is worth it. Being a hedonist in no way requires you to be a drug addict either, in fact even a hedonist would probably not want to be one.

    I really wish you guys would pick a word besides "self interest" if you're talking about something that differs from the accepted definition of the term in important ways. It gets pretty confusing when someone asks you very basic questions about your philosophy and your response is to tell them to read a 2000 page book about how you don't mean what you sound like you mean. Not ones for finding beauty in conciseness are you all? Disclaimer: The previous paragraph was a troll.

  5. Not in the long run, unless you think heroin addiction is a great way to live.

    Hm, so much for those ARI junkies then.

    http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pleasure_and_pain.html

    The pleasure-pain mechanism in the body of man—and in the bodies of all the living organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness—serves as an automatic guardian of the organism’s life.

    Just going off of the sources it was suggested I look into...

    But I understand that when you say "the pleasure pain mechanism is the automatic guardian of man's life" you actually mean something else. It still makes Objectivism unnecessarily confusing though since psychological egoism is usually understood to include pleasure in the evaluation of self interest. There are probably more accurate and precise words to describe whatever Rand actually meant by "self interest".

  6. Have you been reading this thread? It'd probably help you to understand the Objectivist position if you read "The Objectivist ethics" and "Atlas Shrugged." (And considering how many posts you've made...). We've already given you the essential information, but you keep equating interest with pleasure.

    What? Isn't the pleasure-pain mechanism the guardian of one's life, dude?

  7. it has been adequately explained to you why man needs a moral system and why living as a thief off of the un-earned wealth of others is contrary to rational morality and not in your long-term best interest.

    That has been repeatedly asserted in this thread. However, no one has been able to prove what exactly is going to happen to Grandma because she supports social security. I have heard Grandma's support of the program is not in her long term best interest. But how? What about wanting to collect a $1000 OASDI check every month is going to cause her to get killed or whatever terrible thing happens to people who support social security?

  8. As far as a real world example is concerned, the looming debt crises in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the US and other countries are the direct result of grandma's system of morality. Social welfare systems like those in the US and Western Europe are fundamentally altruistic in nature. When one pressure group is able to extract wealth from another group at the point of a gun, that system can only function for so long. Eventually the producers tire of being fleeced, they shrug and the system collapses. Of course this may take years to come to a head and grandma might be able to cheat reality for a while and live off of the unearned wealth of others, but eventually that will end.

    And when it does and she has to work a few more hours a week to cover the lost income, like she would have to without the program anyway? Assuming the US does become Greece ten or twenty years down the road, she'll still have gained tens of thousands of dollars more than if she had never enrolled in the system. SS has it's own fund anyway separate from the government budget and the current shortfall in projected funding can be made up by pretty minor adjustments to benefits and revenue stream once it stops running a surplus and spends all the trust fund way off in 2040.

    Not to mention that without SS she would probably be unemployed and penniless given the current economy.

    Unfortunately, the end will probably be very bad for everyone and the damage caused by grandma and her system of morality will cause a lot of people to be hurt. I suppose that grandma might even be lucky enough to live like a parasite and die before the day of reckoning comes, but she will have left one hell of a mess for her grandson to sort out.

    Pretty likely considering she's about 70. But speculative arguments about what may be in the self interest of people other than herself are going to be evaluated against the large amount of wealth and leisure time she gains from SS in her determination of self interest, and it's not like she couldn't save and invest in her survivalist gold stash if she saw the collapse of industrial civilization due to one single government program as a realistic concern. Overall she would most likely have somewhat less money- perhaps $50k already- if it wasn't for the existence of social security.

  9. Mustang,

    The whole problem is that you believe that it would be in someone's "self-interest" to rob a bank, or cheat, or whatever provided there was a guarantee they could not get caught. Objectivism rejects this view of self-interest and as long as you hold this position, nothing we can possibly say is going to make any sense to you.

    Objectivists reject any conception of self-interest in which people's interests are naturally in conflict.

    I know that. But I want to know the arguments why.

    She supports a system where force is used to steal. She doesn't have to hold the gun to be complicit.

    Okay. Now do you believe you have addressed my question of why collecting SS hurts Grandma more than it helps her, and how so?

    I'm not, but my arguments might be more qualified than hers. Keep in mind I would never suggest that her listening to music she doesn't like would be in her self-interest.

    So are you not certain, then, whether or not the existence of a government wealth transfer program, SS, is in Grandma's self interest? Because if Grandma supports Social Security, I myself wouldn't doubt her belief that the program is in her self interest. She's the best judge of that as far as I can tell, and I haven't seen a compelling argument as to why this isn't so.

  10. Oh, I know that religious orphanages might hypothetically do a better job. But as far as I know the government doesn't really interfere with the work of a tax-free charity. I think if you cut government disability programs there are some people that are going to die that otherwise would have lived. Do you think this is so? And do the ones who died all deserve it?

    I didn't mean this thread to be for debating, though, so those are just meant as questions.

    Here's another question. Should charities be tax exempt?

    While we're at it, what types of taxes would an Objectivist state have? Any excise taxes? Are you against the personal income tax? Estate tax?

  11. But its ok for her to hire or black mail a bank robber into getting money for her? Or vote him into office?

    Yeah, in this case. It's not like there are libertarian vigilantes going around arresting people for collecting SS. And like I said as far as I know she's not wetting her pants or having panic attacks each time she takes the SS check out of the mailbox. I don't have any particular evidence showing that she even feels guilty for collecting SS. Rather as far as I know she feels entitled to it despite not working a real job for a day in her life beforehand.

    I realize you can say collecting SS turns Grandma into a nervous wreck somehow. But how do you prove this claim about what someone other than yourself is thinking or experiencing?

  12. Just because someone is promised something doesn't mean they should get it. And how does someone get exploited?

    Taxes. With an SS phaseout young workers would have to be taxed more than they would receive in benefits.

    Bank robbers may or may not benefit from stealing. However I don't see Grandma getting arrested or attacked for collecting SS. What other problems might arise for her?

    I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

    Basically my original question: How are you more qualified than Grandma to know what is in her self interest? If she says that she prefers to collect SS, and is not at all interested in voting against SS, how can you jump into her head and know her "real" reasons for doing this?

    Bank robbers aren't really a useful comparison when you can at least sometimes tell that they're messed up people if they pull guns on bank tellers, while my grandma isn't directly trying to kill or threaten anyone by writing to OASDI and getting a check in the mail.

  13. No, it's not the disease that's a choice. It's how you prepare for the possibility of disease that's a choice. Every rational person knows that disease is possible for them, right?

    Okay, that works better. Always have enough cash on hand to pay for a nursing home, otherwise you get Alzheimer's and you're fucked.

  14. Because there is no rational reason why you shouldn't. In order to do so, you'd have to say why one person's life is more important than another's (in terms of rights).

    I can't "say why" one person's life is more important than another's. But if you are behaving in your self interest your own life is probably going to be more important to you than anyone else's life is.

    So what? I should also point out that (1) people who start getting social security have probably paid way more into the system than they've gotten out and

    Social security (formally, the OASDI program) is not just for workers. It's also for survivors and the disabled. My grandma has virtually never paid into social security. Before her husband died and she began collecting SS, she had been a housewife all her life. So in her case she's paid in nothing but taking out a lot.

    (2) social security should be phased out gradually because of how many people are dependent on it and how many people have paid a great deal into the system and haven't seen anything come out of it for them.

    Why should my grandma support gradual phaseout? I guess it would make no difference to her if present benefits remained unchanged. However, a phaseout would create other problems- because SS is not a funded system but a pay-as-you-go system, younger workers would have to support retirees with the expectation of being able to take less out than they put in. A phaseout cannot be performed without either breaking promises or exploiting someone.

    What about a bank robber?

    Bank robbers may or may not benefit from stealing. However I don't see Grandma getting arrested or attacked for collecting SS. What other problems might arise for her?

    She blindly puts herself at the mercy of an impersonal system that is failing.

    Enrolling in SS costs her nothing. It costs her nothing system fails but for the period in which it works she gets free money.

    My question was, how does Grandma's individual action of enrolling in OASDI (Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance) and taking their check out of her mailbox every month harm her. If Social Security is going to cause the world to end, Grandma leaving OASDI is not going to save the world.

    Sure, you could say that Social Security is going to collapse before Grandma collects her allotted benefits or OASDI going to lead to the total collapse of industrial civilization. But unless you prove that it would remain an unsupported assertion. There's that word again!

    Her vote isn't going to guarantee anything if there is no money to vote toward herself.

    Maybe, but why should she oppose SS?

  15. But no one is "leaving anyone to die," any more than you are "letting someone risk their life" by driving a car or crossing the street. If death comes, it would be a natural consequence of the choices made by that person.

    So you believe that Alzheimers, dementia, heritable illnesses, and cancer are always natural consequences of the choices made by a person who gets them? What choices do people make that cause them to get a heritable illness?

    Yeah, uh, no. Go back, read it again, and try to read every word this time.

    Should the government do anything to help the person? I didn't think that was the meaning of his post.

  16. The definitions are not arbitrary, there are reasons for the differentiation. Ayn Rand redefined many terms to include the essential concept "Rational".

    Altruism defines any act of self interest as an attack on the collective, "Rational" Self Interest is designed to establish the value of self defense against Altruism. Ayn Rand puts altruists and thieves in the same category of aggressors, and gives only 'Rational' man the right to self defense. Ayn Rand defined man as a "Rational Animal". If man behaves like an animal by initiating an attack, he ceases to be a man, and becomes sub-human. The thieves/attackers are the reason Altruism has been so attractive through history, it was designed as control through guilt. Altruism and thieves/attackers are two sides of the same coin, continually attempting to justify themselves by trying to provide 'protection' against their opposite.

    Objectivism wasn't really written for parasites. It was written for those whom they are feeding off of, to let a producer know he has a right to defend himself. If the producers of the world refused to be fed upon, and were effective in defending themselves, the parasites would have to resort to their own rationality or devour each other. By rejecting Altruism an Objectivist asserts his right to his own property.

    Okay, okay. I already admitted I was talking about a misunderstood definition there.

    Is there nothing for an individual to gain from positive relationships?

    Yes. There are things. And there are things to be gained from parasitism too. The balance one way or the other may vary with the situation.

    A Rational Man doesn't see respecting another man's property as an act of altruism. He sees it as a nearly mathematical justice. Objectivists often refer to A = A. Property = Property. Respect = Respect. Rational = Rational. Theft is not equal, one individual believes it is a gain and another individual looses more than property. He looses the life he spent earning his property, he looses his benevolence, he looses his generosity, he treats the next stranger suspiciously. Earning your own living is good for one individual, and good in a universal, non-sacrificial way. A Rational Man sees respecting property as an act of his own self esteem. He thinks and plans long range. A sacrifice is trading something of value for something of lesser value. To a Rational Man stealing is of lesser value than his self respect, but dying is usually of lesser value than stealing. So, in a rare situation where he steals to survive, he will pay the cabin owner back in order to regain his self respect. This is the stable kind of world he selfishly wants to live in, these are the kind of men he selfishly wants to deal with. Had a previous man stolen food from the cabin, how would it be in the owners self interest to keep the place accessible or stocked?

    It may not have been, although whether or not someone stole food from the cabin doesn't really affect the chance of the food getting stolen again unless it's the same person. However past events weren't something I asked about, only present choices for the hungry person.

    Doesn't the Grandmother have anyone in her life who sees her as a value worth preserving? Isn't there anyone in her life who would want to pay her back for the investment she made in him? Not as an impersonal act of charity or obligation, but a personal rationally selfish act of admiration and gratitude? Did she invest in the intelligence of the individuals who were close to her, did she inspire them to be successful in their own lives?

    Yes, she did. They visit and maybe send her money or do yard work from time to time. How should other people's opinion of her influence her decision to collect social security however?

    A rational man does not engage in sacrifice, he trades value for value.

    I don't really see that following from your previous statement. I still don't get what Grandma looses from collecting SS.

  17. It's been said before but you really, REALLY need to read Rand before you come in here and ask stuff like this. You would have a lot better sense of the philosophy. You are far too focused on what Objectivism is against and not at all focused enough on what it is FOR. Objectivism is pro-values. Other people are frequently values.

    Okay. Well I really don't like reading through Atlas Shrugged but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that Objectivism is for a lot of things.

    Thank you for your response, though. It cleared things up for me a bit.

  18. In such cases, the person is still a Human Being - they are essentially "broken" in some sense, but they still have the same basic rights any other human being possesses.

    A child is entitled to care, feeding and protection from their parents because the parents engaged in an action which resulted in the creation of a child and chose to bring that child into the world. At some point, that child would normally grow into an adult, at which time parental obligation ends, but there is never any guarantee that a child will be born healthy or with the potential to achieve independence. Nevertheless, they continue to be human beings, and continue to have a human beings rights.

    So if a child is born with a life long disability, the parents are responsible for the long term welfare of that child INCLUDING beyond their death (and there are plenty of mechanisms to support that need such as life insurance and trust funds).

    That responsibility, however, STOPS with the parents. If the parents are unwilling to provide, the rights of the child should be protected - enter Government. But Justice cannot be carried out by committing an injustice against others, so if parents cannot provide for the child, Government *can* help but morally they can only do so with funds collected voluntarily by a society that rationally believes Government is necessary for the protection of individual rights.

    So I understand what you said thusly: It is morally okay to help a child who is disabled for the rest of their life. However, if there isn't enough voluntary donations to support the person they should be left to die.

    What if it's an adult that becomes disabled later in life? Is it morally okay to help someone who develops Alzheimers at age 50? How far does this adult/child distinction go?

  19. We've already answered this. "Self interest" means people being interested in their own welfare, and in order for people to do that, they have to treat others the way they want to be treated.

    Okay, please explain why this is so. Why does one have to treat others the way they want to be treated in order to be interested in their own welfare? How can you tell that this is true for people other than yourself?

    If you take money using force (i.e. social security, and force is getting used even if you aren't the one holding the gun), then you're acting on the same principle as someone else taking your money by using force. I'm sure you'd agree there is no way someone taking money from you can be in your self interest.

    Grandma's primary concern is her self interest. Justice, morality and so on are secondary concerns. They matter, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't stay up at night pondering the gross immorality of her taking a social security check out of the mailbox each month.

    So the question boils down to: can you think in terms of principles? Or look at it this way: how can you say you are better off if you steal? You may have some tangible thing you didn't before, but you've lost your integrity. How can you value yourself if you don't value your integrity? You're saying, in effect, "Look how much I hate myself: I'm stealing."

    I don't think Grandma feels that way collecting social security. At least any guilt she feels about collecting SS is more than made up for by the comfort of having food on her plate and a roof over her head thanks to an SS check she gets. She could work more perhaps- she already makes a little bit of money working part time- but she much prefers to just collect survivor's insurance and live comfortably.

    How are you more qualified than Grandma to know what is in her self interest? If she says that she prefers to collect SS, and is not at all interested in voting against SS, how can you jump into her head and know her "real" reasons for doing this?

    Go read "The Objectivist Ethics." It would take you far less time than it's taken you to write posts on this thread.

    I could do that, but I'm more interested in seeing how an actual Objectivist defends their position. What if I wanted to mount a defense of Objectivism myself some day?

    Nate, thank you:

    I’ll give you the best answer I got on my thread. Consider what you are doing when you use force against someone. You’re making them do something that they otherwise would not have done, or making them not do something that they otherwise would have done. If they did what you wanted them to, no force would be necessary would it?

    Men decide what they will and will not do based on their rational judgment. In this way, force is the attack of another man's rational judgment: the negation of the mind.

    I'm not clear on what you mean by "negation of the mind". In philosophical logic, negation, or logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values. Is the mind a proposition, truth value or semantic value? How so?

  20. Her definition was very simple: concern with one's own interests. That is the dictionary definition. What she took issue with was the idea that our interests often involved clashes with those around us, that there are widespread conflicts of interests among men, that an individual pursuing his or her own self interest is a danger, rather than a boon, to those around. She sought to change the connotations of the word, not strictly the definition, and she sought with her philosophy to establish principles which fleshed out in more detail exactly what types of activities are in every man's self-interest.

    ...You do realize that her whole argument centers around the idea that these things do not need to be put above one's self-interest. They constitute part of the interest of every human being.

    Well the dictionary definition isn't precise so if you think Rand uses this definition of "self esteem" then that might work. In that case we're back to the question of whether the life choices she advocates will always advance everyone's self interest. Why exactly should Grandma protest Social Security? TS hasn't gotten back to me yet on that.

    How can you possibly tell? You have already admitted that you haven't even read Rand so you have no idea whether she is logical or consistent or principled or has redefined terms. You are coming from a position of total ignorance, that I KNOW is illogical, and trying to argue from a position of ignorance is also illogical, unprincipled and inconsistent.

    Okay, I honestly think you're right here. I was going off an understanding of Objectivism based on a few forum posts here, not Rand's work. Now how is Social Security against Grandma's self interest?

  21. A) It's not arbitrary.

    It is arbitrary in the sense that anyone could do what Rand did- reframe "self interest" to become something other than its dictionary definition- and change words to mean anything they like.

    B.) It is entirely true that the ethical philosophy of Objectivism is based on self-interest. There are no altruistic aspects, only principles which clarify what exactly is in a person's long-term interest and why.

    If those principles were logically consistent I would have no problem. As far as I can tell, Rand (I don't know if she shares the views of every Objectivist) achieve this consistency only by redefining terms.

    C) As I said before, Ayn Rand spent a great deal of time explaining how her conception of self-interest differs with the mainstream conception. She devoted the entire introduction to "The Virtue of Selfishness" to the question of (I quote verbatim) "Why do you use the word 'selfishness' to denote virtuous qualities of character, when that word antagonizes so many people to whom it does not mean the things you mean?" It's the very first issue she addresses in the collection of her essays that center on ethics. It's not her fault or ours that the occasional person wanders into the conversation expecting to be able to know exactly what she means without actually reading a word she wrote.

    It does make it difficult for other people to understand you, though, when your definition of self interest differs from the commonly used dictionary definition of the term. A more accurate and clear way of referring to the value that you call "self interest" would be something like "respect for private property and productiveness". Putting collective values such as respect for law and productiveness above one's self interest would generally be considered altruism by the dictionary definition.

×
×
  • Create New...