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I guess she'd say it's no longer anyone's property.

It's a necessary evil in order to get to the day when there is no SS payments for young people. I'd say it's far worse to end SS tomorrow. Also, "young workers would have to be taxed more than they would receive in benefits" is already the case with young people an SS today (baby boomers haven't paid enough to pay about the same as what they'll get in benefits. 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. She supports a system where force is used to steal. She doesn't have to hold the gun to be complicit.

Yes (cops).

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. Probably? Sure, but not necessarily. You might derive selfish pleasure from dying so save someone else's life. younger workers would have to support retirees with the expectation of being able to take less out than they put in. That's true. They'd also have plenty of time to prepare for their retirement. A phaseout cannot be performed without either breaking promises or exploiting someone. Just because someone is promised something doesn't mean they should get it. And how does someone get exploited? 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.

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). No, the morality of Objectivism is self-interest. And a society which conforms to the morality of self-interest is justice. There's no hierarchy here. 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 (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. What about a bank robber?

It wouldn't be the inventor, but a cop. Also, you can just as easily say that it's a property right violation when you take my saw from me when I try to cut down a tree on your land. If a patented idea=property, it doesn't matter if someone uses force to protect it. The relevant issue is what should and should not be property. If it's his property, he can have whatever reason he wants to stop someone from using it. If it isn't, it doesn't matter what he thinks about its use. You can just as easily say "What damage does the homeless person do to the property owner by living in a forest on a large plot owned by the property owner?" In a sense, nothing, but it doesn't matter, because it's his property. This is like asking why someone should own something when someone else could use it to create more value. He doesn't--he owns the idea. This is like asking "How can the marble owner own the fruit of the sculptors labor...when the sculptor sculpted on the marble owner's marble without his permission?"

So you're saying that you're deliberately making arguments that you know make no sense out of spite? Whether you believe it or not, I've been doing my best to figure this issue out. Is this attitude of yours supposed to persuade people? Are you saying that it took the same amount of effort (I never said that)? If not, I'll point out that it took a while before someone made the point that making a baby doesn't completely consist of volitional thought. Before that, someone saying "You should have the product of volitional thought" seemed to me to imply "You should have the product of a process which includes volitional thought" more than "You should have the product of only your volitional thought." Someone could've made the necessary distinction early, but instead all I got for a couple pages was "But they have rights!"

Isn't the logical conclusion of that statement that there should be no air pollution from factories/incinerators? You mean I attempt to justify a conclusion with whatever arguments I can think of to justify it? What a statement. How does this compare to saying "Got any video game consoles?...they don't relate to your survival." And then saying "No, actually, you can't, because that would pollute the air which would harm others" So, you dispute the idea that any physical property can necessarily help you survive, and then you abandon that assertion and move on to a different argument (attacking all industrial air pollution). Isn't that an example of "saying whatever it takes to get X to come out the end"? (I'm not saying that's a bad thing, mind you).

Even if you have a bunch of "unwanted crap", you can still throw it into an incinerator and produce electricity, which might help you address an existential threat. Would you care to actually read my posts?

I mean "the argument is wrong". I've argued that property should only apply to things that necessarily relate to survival.

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

Yes, I'm saying that we need the right to property, and that anything physical can potentially help us survive, but not that we need every physical thing to survive in any context. Even if you have a bunch of "unwanted crap", you can still throw it into an incinerator and produce electricity, which might help you address an existential threat. My point is that it sounds like Peikoff is saying we need art and, therefore, it is property. But that's very different than saying we need the right to make art. Rand said we need property rights because we live by our minds to survive. So isn't the logical conclusion to make from that that we should only have property rights to things which necessarily relate to survival? And isn't Peikoff saying that applies to art because we need it to make metaphysical value judgments?

It depends on the context. Did someone kidnap you and throw you out into the middle of nowhere (and do you intend to pay the owner back?), or did you voluntarily go out and starve yourself? You're attempting to solve a problem by using force instead of actually focusing your mind on resolving the problem peacefully. It takes very little thinking to throw a punch/pull a trigger. This is only if your standard of value is your own pleasure. Unfortunately, someone else might use their own pleasure as their standard of value and steal from you if you have no means of effective retaliation. Why would you want to live in a world where people think this way? But even if we go with a standard of your own pleasure, how long do you think you can keep up stealing before you get punished?

Nobody gets "complete freedom of action" in anarchism either. Even under anarchism, it's doubtful you can go around doing whatever you want and not face consequences. You have no idea how Objectivists conceive of self-interest. You are not being self-interested if you are taking value from others by force because you are acting on the same principle as someone taking value from you by force. The only way you can truly be self-interested is by not initiating force against others. I'd also recommend you read "The Objectivist Ethics" before you continue contributing to this thread. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

On another note, I read the "art" section of OPAR. First off, Peikoff says we need art because "Art is a need of the mind...that is why...art has always existed among men." Well, we've always had a lot of things among men which are terrible. Is this evidence of the fact that we need those things, too? Furthermore, there are things we need which we've never had. Is this evidence of us not actually needing them? Rand was aware that she had to argue art was necessary for humans to live (morally) in order for it to make sense that there be copyrights, because her argument for any ideas-as-property is essentially that the value of property comes from a person's mind, not the materials, and that humans survive by the use of their mind. The art argument is that you need it in order to have "metaphysical value judgments" because "no one can hold...[the] complexity of experiences and abstractions within the focus of his awareness as a sum." and "yet a sum is precisely what a man needs." Therefore, art allows you to have this awareness, so that you can make metaphysical value judgments. This makes no sense to me. How does one figure out what to make art of? Isn't that based off of their metaphysical value judgments? But Rand is saying we need art in order to understand metaphysical value judgments. So how do we come up with it? I don't think she wrote Atlas Shrugged without knowing what she was doing and then say "Oh, I get it now." Would she have forgotten her beliefs without the book (art)? Peikoff says "an art work does not formulate the metaphysics it represents; it does not (or at least need not) articulate definitions and principles)." So what relevance is it that someone hold all the complexity of philosophy "within the focus of his awareness"? Just because Rand couldn't think of the answer to every philosophical question at once doesn't mean she didn't have an answer to every one. Why do we need the "sense perception" of art in order to be moral? Why can't we just believe the things Rand believed in (except for this)? Says Peikoff, "Without [Howard Roark and John Galt], the Objectivist theory of ethics could not be clearly grasped by a man." Having read the entire art section of OPAR, I see no plausible reason for this to be true. Didn't Rand need to grasp Objectivist ethics to write the character? Are we to believe it would be impossible for most/all people to accept Objectivist ethics without Atlas Shrugged? How is this the case? How did Rand convince herself of it before she wrote it? Did she not accept it until she saw it demonstrated in a story she was in complete control of? Peikoff says a rational man needs art in order to get the "indispensable emotional fuel" necessary to live morally because it is a "moment of love for existence." I agree that people should periodically have such moments, but there are countless other ways to have that moment. I don't see how people need art specifically in order to love existence. Also, doesn't this apply to a scientific/philosophical discovery? Rand was opposed to having those patented. I'm also amused by the example of a painting of a woman with a cold sole in her lips means the artist is mocking humanity. Maybe I'm missing the context (I haven't read the Romantic Manifesto) of Rand talking about an example of someone painting something out of the blue, but what if it's a portrait painting? Wouldn't painting something contrary to what is actually there be an example of evading reality? What if you just want to make a painting of someone with a cold sore? Perhaps you want to challenge yourself by painting something different.

If philosophy tells us that there are some ideas [concrete deliberately constructed products of the mind] worthy of being property, but not anything about which ideas should qualify and which shouldn't, then how is it wrong to argue that there should be patents, but not copyrights (or vice versa)? Also, assuming we decide copyrights are legit, why should we decide there's a copyright violation if someone makes something that is similar, but not the same (as with any patent violation)?

Do you mean every concrete deliberately constructed product of the mind? This makes me wonder (1) Are there exceptions (like a very short story, or a simple phrase, or a simple drawing) and (2) How do we determine when a copyright violation has occurred?

What I mean is why we include those things in the property category. The art argument seems to be that people need art in order to think.

Right, but produce what?

Because they're concepts instead of concretes?

Yes, Objectivism isn't just about survival, it's about living well. But this doesn't necessarily mean property should be about living well. You can argue that having kids is a natural/great part of being human as well. And then this brings up the whole question of what art is worthy of being property and what isn't, and when there's a copyright violation. I've read a lot of Rand's stuff, but not her opinions on art. I'll go ahead and read it (I've got OPAR). Right now I have no idea how art could somehow be a requisite for understanding reality/having property. This is the essential argument for copyrights, right?

Do we need art to survive? I don't see why. Are all abstractions art? Would it be impossible for people to know how to live and understand metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics without songs/books/films? You can just as easily argue people have a need to have kids, and that having kids conditions or stylizes a person’s consciousness by conveying to them a certain way of looking at existence.

That makes sense. You mean it's copyright/patent worthy? If so, that interests me, because someone else here said they shouldn't count. I said "the air" as in the "air on Earth". Otherwise, someone could suck up all the air. Yeah, but we can agree there are emergency circumstances where patents are void, right?

Well, I'm sorry this took so long, but now I'd say I support patents, but not copyrights. For patents: "People have ideas in order to do anything. Therefore, if people have property to some physical things, then they should also have property to some ideas, and vice versa. The ideas/physical things which become property are that which are consistent with human nature. Humans survive. Therefore, land, food, and water is property because it's consistent with human nature to both get/create it and have to work for it. Oxygen (in the air), however, can't be, because when humans were first around, they didn't have to get/create/work for it. Ideas which are necessary to solve existential problems (life/death) are, therefore, property. However, they can't be held in perpetuity, because then people are prevented from getting property to the values they create. Therefore, you strike a balance somewhere so people can get property in general (patents exist for 10 years, maybe). Finally, you have emergency circumstances where you ignore all this in order for anyone else to have any property. Again, you strike a balance--if there's a disease which is killing a few people, the patent-holder on a cure can keep people from using it. However, if the disease/asteroid is killing everyone, we've got to ignore the patent." Is that about right? However, for copyrights, I've still got a couple issues with it: 1. How is making songs/books/paintings a part of human nature? We need to work to survive. Therefore, things which are patentable are worthy of being property--it addresses the life/death choice. But you can't feed yourself/save humanity with a song/story. 2. If concepts shouldn't be property (like fashion styles, because it's unenforceable), then wouldn't that mean there should be no copyrights? The only way to practically enforce copyrights would be to treat them like concepts. Otherwise, someone can alter a song very slightly, and it will no longer be the same concrete original.

No, I'm just pointing out that there's a general lack of specificity here about why X qualifies but Y doesn't. However, this problem happens to apply only to copyrights and not patents.