exaltron

Not so much. There are no "categorical imperatives" in Objectivism. To use your language there are only "hypothetical imperatives", ie, there is no duty to do anything there are only conditional derivations. For example, if you want to live as a man, you must recognize that your rational faculty is what keeps you alive. There is no contradiction between egoism and consistency (what you refer to as the categorical imperative). In order to be a rational egoist, you must recognize that a component of reason is consistency. To be a rational person, one cannot choose selectively when to use reason and when to abnegate it. Nor can one advocate a code of ethics prescribes the negation of his rational mind, eg, the ethics of the prudent predator. Again, as has been pointed out by other posters, you are confusing the standard of life, man qua man, with the purpose of life, enjoyment. If some students of Objectivism get this wrong, that in no way impugns Objectivism, since Rand set both correctly in their own conceptual territory. Her notion of self-interest is very clear, as I think the vast majority of posters in this thread have been. Please explain why it is in man's self-interest to (ie, why "ought" he) not always do what is in his interest? What has been established over and over is that looting is unethical because it is not in the looter's self-interest. No altruism is required, and in fact it is altruism that opens the door for the subjectivist ethics that enable looters to operate with impunity.

Yeah, good call linking back to that. I think I've now derived an ought from this experience to RTFT before I waste my time making arguments that have already been made much more thoroughly and eloquently. And Mr. Brenner continues doing the Black Knight dance hundreds of posts later. hmm. As far as I can tell, he's not even sure whether he is an ethical subjectivist or not:

I agree Mr. Black Diamond. I think the whole context of the purpose of ethics is being dropped by the pro-looters. The fact that some people can "get away with" looting, doesn't preclude it from being unethical. In fact I would challenge anyone here to give me an example of an unethical behavior that one can't conceivably get away with. The purpose of ethics is not to show us what will inevitably and universally lead to our demise or abject misery (for behaviors like this we don't need ethics; we don't say it's unethical to shoot oneself in the head if you want to live). Just as being totally ethical won't guarantee you success and happiness, neither will being unethical guarantee you failure and misery. All ethics can say is that in the general case, you are much more likely, based on the laws of reality, to lead to negative outcomes. It cannot prove in the manner of 2+2=4 that all looters will always suffer some sort of "destruction", spiritual or physical, it can only point deductively, based on the nature of man, to what the likely effects of going against that nature will be. Garry Brenner claims that Objectivism "fails to derive an ought" vis-a-vis looting. I would be curious Gary, to see what you would offer as a proper derivation of an ought would be, where no examples or evidence could be presented as exceptions (Perhaps this is redundant to the above, but I want to make it "unevadable"). As I've said before, to advocate looting as ethical is to advocate a contradiction. It is to advocate the rights of all to violate rights. If all are ethically sanctioned in being predators (ethics dealing in universals of course), than all are potential prey, including oneself. Simply hoping or "calculating" that one will never have to actually deal with what he has advocated as a universal rule is the hallmark of a pragmatist, ie, one who has completely negated the need for ethics.

Not that it matters much at this point, but I was simply pointing out that being rich is not a cause of happiness, that is all the studies show, you'll find plenty of articles referring to these studies here. You won't find any studies that compare criminals in a developed capitalist country with law-abiding citizens in an oppressive third world country. Too many variables and no control, totally unscientific. Any variation in happiness could be attributed to any number of variables, thus making the study results totally inconclusive.

Beh. Can't play it on my mac

On the money as usual, Mr. Starfish The possibility of contracts in a completely privatized laissez-faire context takes the wind out of most socialist arguments. As for what can be done with our current situation (without supporting animal rights laws), I've got one word for you: youtube. Or perhaps a local alternative would be to paste flyers with a photo of this guy all over town with the words "Animal Abuser" scrawled underneath. I guess the risk is that he comes after you (though in my experience people who beat animals are the biggest cowards). In any case between this, which I guess is a form of active "shunning" as David mentioned, and the contracts example above, I think there is a lot out there to ensure that which offends us (and rightfully so I might add) can be actioned without abusing the rule of law.

Simply because not everyone (in fact I would argue a tiny portion of the population) has the ethical understanding to recognize the cause of their own discontent. Apparently I somehow implied that looters should have an automatic knowledge of the precise philosophical issues that cause their cognitive dissonance?

That's my whole point, ethically we should seek the truth, whereas the looter's incentive is not to discover the nature of his game. That's a complete dropping of the context. We don't live in a world where we can simply choose to be rich or poor. If that were our world, we would not need ethics, everyone could just exercise their preference. The world we live in is one where we must recognize the real and spiritual causes and effects of wealth. My point was that simply being rich doesn't cause happiness, and this definitely bears out in study after study. Being rich for the sake of being rich will not lead to the kind of fulfillment that actually achieving and producing the wealth yourself would, because you wouldn't have the moral foundation to judge yourself positively based on your success. No more than having sex with a whole series of worthless women who don't admire you will provide the kind of satisfaction of one woman of integrity who does. Well, you say, the looter simply has a different moral foundation on which to judge himself. OK, fine, but in order to be rational and consistent (which happiness requires), he must judge others on that same scale. So either he surrounds himself with other looters (who are likely to loot him as well, why wouldn't they), or he surrounds himself with the morally depraved producers, who he clearly can't respect since they don't recognize his moral right to loot them, nor can he benefit from any admiration or psychological visibility they might offer as they might rat him out or reject him if he did. So maybe this guy just wants to be alone with his unearned millions. Or maybe he just sees looting as another occupation, like fishing or.. being Paris Hilton. But looting is not a preference, it is a moral choice. It is to recognize what it takes to be an independent human being and to opt out. Morality is not subjective, it is not a question of preferences. Morality, to be morality, must apply equally to all. Once you have made your moral choices, then you can exercise preferences, such as what kind of worthless airhead skank you want to be. But if you are exercising those choices with no regard to whether they are moral or not, you have no claim to any kind of morality, no scale on which to weigh your own worth or others, no basis for condemning the acts of others, nor any rational basis for your own self-esteem or pride. Refuted in the last paragraph of my response to Black Diamond.

Are IRS employees "hurt" by not having access to the dynamism of a completely laissez-faire, rights-respecting, looter-free society? You seem to indicate that they are.

I wonder about the interpretation of the word "destruction". Is your argument that a looter won't necessarily suffer complete annihilation as a result of his looting? If that's the case you'll get no argument from me; I don't think that's what she meant in the text you quoted. I would argue that she used the word figuratively in her fiction and non-fiction, as in Galt's speech where he says he grants the looter the only thing he has the right to "his own destruction". I've seen Rand-haters run the wheels off of that one line to try to argue that Rand wanted "unlimited retaliatory force", since anyone who initiates force is granted "destruction". Clearly that is no what she meant. I think it takes a full understanding of the nature of man, the benefit of living in a rights-based society, the need for self-esteem (which must have its basis in an objective scale of judgment), the importance of consistency and the significance of the spiritual value of wealth to grasp the generalization that looting is evil. Perhaps the comparison of a "plant sprouting legs" is less than apt, since it suggests the absolute impossibility of succeeding as a predator. But I think she is justified in saying as a general rule, looters (and looting systems) are much less successful and have a much smaller chance of success than producers and systems based on production, private property, etc. In terms of the spiritual aspect of wealth, I found this quote from Siddhartha in a similar discussion apropos:

Contrast this: Against this: Seems the problem with being a Devil's Advocate is the same as that of a looter, one must expend enormous effort to avoid having one's dissembling depravity exposed

Why is it that in order to make an ethical case for not looting, Objectivists must prove that not one single person can make it work, that all of them are miserable, whereas all you seem to need to prove looting is ethically viable is the prospect of a few successful looters, who we must hypothetically imagine are happy (since we can no more prove happiness in your case than in ours)? Some people win the lottery, does that make it moral to plan your life around potentially winning? Does the looter have a better chance of being successful than the "lottery investor"? I know the risk element has been debated ad nausea, but do you really think the prudent predator's talents are better spent in the service of warring against civilization, with all the risk inherent and the massive amount of work necessary to sustain such a lifestyle, compared to the massively more "prudent" prospect of cooperating with other individuals? I honestly don't think the real life examples you provide are compelling to make a case for looting as a viable ethical principle, again, I see the chances of "making it work" purely as a looter, ie, producing nothing, as being no better than winning the lottery, that is not a smart plan for survival and flourishing. I am setting aside all the psychological arguments as I do not have the background to "prove" that a looter by definition must be miserable. All I can say is I consider it near impossible that some combination of guilt, fear, dependency issues, etc, would not sabotage the looter's happiness. Everything I know about the basis of true happiness supports this, as well as my own experience with lying, stealing, etc. And I see no evidence, other than hypotheticals to refute that reasonable assumption. Finally, you've argued that, within a system of looting, people may be happy. I've given it some thought and I agree that it is possible, provided they believe that they are being productive, which in the context of the system they are, eg, IRS administrators are producing something for the system, which they believe to be just. The problem is what they don't know can hurt them. Consider the very convincing spiritual crisis of the Will Ferrell character in Stranger than Fiction, when he realizes that his job is to destroy the dreams of people like the Maggie Gyllenhall character, whom he falls in love with. That is a perfect example of the looter being at war with virtually everything that is good in life: honesty, integrity, reason, productive achievement.. for which he trades what? A lot of empty material things that can't mean much to him, since he did not achieve them.

No one can choose "not thinking" as a way of life, he would perish quickly. They can certainly choose to abnegate some responsibility to think and act according to reason in all aspects of life. Thinking is necessarily beneficial, but only if you choose thinking as a principle, ie, you always think about what you are doing and why. When you knowingly fail to act according to reason, you can still use some thinking for damage control, basically to stem the everp-rising tide of disaster that not thinking and running out of victims will eventually bring about. But if your ultimate goal is depraved and irrational (say, the extermination of the Jewish race), all the ruthlessly efficient, organized and rational thinking you do to that end will be poisoned by the mindlessness of your underlying premise. There is thinking that brings about an ever-expanding, ever more secure level of wealth, pride and happiness, and there is thinking that barely shores up a precarious existence that is under constant threat of discovery and impending doom. They have about as much in common as Hank and Phillip Rearden.

I've never understood the Devil's Advocate stance. If you know better, why don't you argue better? WRONG. A principle that applies to only you is a contradiction. The whole point of having a the concept is to denote something that applies generally, across the board, to everyone: What would be the disastrous result of everyone becoming a swimmer? Do you mean as an occupation, ie, if everyone were a bootblack who would make the boots? The problem with this argument is that being a looter is not an occupation, it is not about trading, it is a moral choice to not produce anything, but to leech off of others against their will. Those who have chosen an occupation have done so because they have chosen to respect the rights of others, presumably because it serves their self-interest, and to find a productive effort for which they can trade to satisfy their needs. That is the principle that they are choosing, not the specific occupation they are pursuing (anymore than all looters would choose to be jewel thieves). I think those who understood the nature of what they were doing would have necessarily felt bad about it. But most did not understand that they were violating the rights of fellow human beings. The vast majority of people back then sincerely believed that the African race was subhuman because this theory was overwhelmingly supported by intellectuals (including some of the founding fathers), clergy and scientists. But I would argue that they would have struggled, even with such assumptions, to feel good about causing the suffering of others to produce wealth on their behalf. It raises the question of whether one can be "blissfully ignorant". I would argue that that kind of "bliss" is neither desirable nor sustainable. It means you must depend of going against your nature (that of rational animal) to maintain your "blissful" state. I would rather be aware of my unhappiness and have the possibility to change it, than be a smiling, drooling idiot who has no chance of real human happiness. One more thing: be careful what you imply, the slave trader comment above seems to indicate that you believe being rich is a cause of happiness. I don't think that bears out inductively or deductively and I would be happy to tell you why if need be. I shouldn't have said they "feel the pain", or at least I should have qualified this by saying I don't mean they directly "feel" the effects. But the effects are there. Just because Kim Jong Il doesn't realize that he could live a much more fulfilling life if he pursued his own independent interests, as opposed to causing the suffering and death of his people so he could throw lavish karaoke parties, doesn't mean that he isn't missing out. Will he ever feel the full weight of the suffering he has caused? No, unfortunately he never will. (to be continued.. )

I am a rational human being who knows what it takes to create wealth. Wealth has value in societies where individuals recognize this cause and effect relationship. Happiness is an emotional state that stems from the consistent and independent achievement of values, from exalting in one's own effectiveness. While we don't have an objective criteria for measuring happiness, we can deductively bring to bear the general causes of happiness to make the case that ignoring those causes completely is likely to lead to misery. Perhaps the standard of happiness vs. life vs. life qua man is confusing. I find this quote from an Amazon review helpful in sorting all this out: The question that needs to be addressed is this: is there an objective basis for happiness, or is it a completely causeless, subjective emotional state? Is the "prudent predator" happy or unhappy for some reason? I think ultimately if you're asking whether Objectivism can prove that there are no consistently "happy looters" out there, it can't, no more than it can prove that there are no flying pigs. It's just that all evidence would lead one to believe that in the general case being a fraudulent parasite does not lead to self-esteem or happiness. In short, a looter pits himself against reality and the truth. He makes his goal not the pursuit of real values and success, but the subversion of these. His success depends on not being found out, on the reality of his situation not being brought to light. While the producer is in harmony with reality and the nature of human life (ie, he must use his rational mind to produce his own values), the looter is in constant rebellion against them. The producer is surrounded by the constant benefits and proof of his efficaciousness and worthiness of life, hence his self-esteem. The looter cannot enjoy any meaningful level of self-esteem without constantly deluding himself as to his worthiness of life.

I know this has been said in myriad different ways in this thread, but you need to ask yourself, what is the point of extending your life if your life if that life is completely without principle? The point of life is not to have a heartbeat, this is the whole point of saying life qua man, not qua animal, qua parasite, or qua zombie. If you don't agree that man is by nature an independent being that must use his mind, we can argue that, but your (and other dissenters') argument seems to be saying that you are using to mind to negate my right to use my mind. So are you advocating hypocrisy? Whatever it is, it cannot be called a principled philosophy. If everyone went out and did what you seem to have no ethical problem with, the results would be disastrous. (Galt speech) The point of life is happiness, and happiness requires a consistent pursuit of values and achievement of goals. The "value" that a looter seizes by force is in fact a floating abstraction, it is a value completely divorced from cause and effect, and thus rendered meaningless. I'm confident that everyone here can point to hundreds of acquaintances and thousands of contemporary historical figures who have achieved their own goals independently (without resorting to parasitism) and demonstrated the lasting happiness that has resulted from this type of fulfillment. The US is a perfect example of this principle writ large. Soviet Russia and Communist Cuba are perfect examples of the application of the principle of looting as a practical approach to furthering life. Tell me you don't think the citizens of these countries, and even the vast majority of their rulers do not feel the pain of their immorality.

I think this is the crucial argument here. There is no "getting away with" destroying value. It matters not whether you think you are living the best life you could have (and I honestly have a hard time believing that the vast majority of looters sense this). When you destroy values by violating the rights of of other individuals, you are destroying something that could have led to your continued existence qua man and happiness in a way that looting could never provide. You are basically eating the goose that lays the golden eggs. Morality is based on an objective criteria. The idea that something could be "moral for me as an individual" but not for others is a bald contradiction. If something is moral, it is something that everyone could or should do, with no negative consequences. Looting clearly does not pass the test, even setting aside the issues of self-esteem and happiness, which I think can be easily deduced if not quantified for a looter vs a trader.

I was using this quote: As the basis for my comment. I don't actually watch Lost as I sensed early on that there was no real vision there, or at least the vision seemed to be saying "life is just one continuous disaster- even if you survive a plane crash and manage to eke out your existence with a bunch of outlandishly hot people on a deserted island, you won't be safe because weird monsters and quasi-ghosts will come after you". Pah-leeze. Well, maybe the hot people on the island are the last known rational thinkers.. and the monsters represent the looters and parasites that are constantly preying on them.. mmmm, OK, maybe not. I do think there is an appreciable difference between arrogance/narcissism and confidence/selfishness. In the former, a healthy, rational sense of self is overblown to what I would call a neurotic proportion and in fact tends to betray an actual lack of self-esteem. I think there's a very good reason why such characters are always associated with Rand and it's that the writers whose scripts reference Rand don't make that distinction, they believe that selfishness, confidence, arrogance, narcissism, greed, etc. are all inseparable when it comes to personality defects.

This is funny, I posted a snarky reply to this yesterday (Nobody puts Sawyer in the corner), not even realizing how apt the reference was. It seems to be the same kind of smear used in Dirty Dancing and I'm sure in other places (I heard AS figured similarly into A Scanner Darkly) to sully Rand's fiction by associating it with the arrogant and narcissistic (in stark contrast to Rand's confident and selfish characters).

Most retarded adults have the same basic status as children, ie, they aren't fully rational (I should have said that in my original post, but I was concerned with rebutting the poster's assertion that all humans should have the same rights). Incidentally, the point I was trying to make would have been better illustrated by pointing to the mentally ill. That is a case where granting them the same rights as healthy adults would be disastrous, both to the mentally ill, and people they might come into contact with. As far as retarded adults, they should have the same rights as children, the right to be left alone, unless they are a danger to themselves. Giving them the same rights as adults would mean they could not be taken of, no guardian could be legally appointed to them (of course, they could appoint a guardian voluntarily, but what would their sign-off really mean if they don't understand the nature of the agreement). Giving retarded adults the same rights as normal adults would not magically make them able to take care of themselves, or free them of the need to be treated like a child. As to whether they have the "right to be cared for" by their parents, as I believe children do: I don't really see how suddenly when a retarded child turns 18, there is any moral difference between casting him out into the world then or when he is 12. Cognitively there is not likely to be a difference. I think this is a potential obligation that parents should know they are taking on when they decide to have a child, just as they must know that they have the obligation to feed, cloth and shelter a healthy child until that child is self-sufficient.

Hmm, because I suggested they shouldn't be afforded the same rights as normal adults, that means they should be granted no rights at all? I guess I must be retarded if I'm not able to see how that conclusion follows.

I had a long debate with this guy on the MySpace Ayn Rand group. As long as he was pretending to be honest and rational I kept pushing him toward essentials, until he finally came out and said that he believed that "the community" could have rights and values completely separate from individuals. Once he got that point and started saying things like "Objectivism is a violent, psychopathic, fascist philosophy", I figured that pretty much speaks for itself, there is no point in trying to refute something that ridiculous on a board where most people have already read Rand and can easily deduce where this guy is coming from. While I consider it immoral to remain silent when someone is spewing evil, I consider even more immoral to waste precious time and energy trying to shovel their piles of BS. As a pastime, it almost always puts me in a bad mood and makes me feel like I'm giving their evil a legitimacy it doesn't deserve. Much better to spend one's time living the values of objectivism and ignoring the Ellsworth Tooheys of the world: Oops, didn't catch that reference before I added my FH quote. Call me a second hander :|

I agree with the other posters, the only thing I would add is perhaps one of the controversial "secular muslim" women (why is it that the female muslims are the only ones with the balls to stand up to Islamofascism?) would make a good speaker and draw a large crowd. The first is Wafa Sultana. If you haven't seen the video that brought her into the public spotlight, it's pretty amazing. The other one is a Dutch emigre from Somalia who is now in the US named Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her friend and film collaborator Theo Van Gogh was shot by an Islamic thug in Amsterdam in broad daylight; a note stabbed to his chest calling Ali his next victim. Here is one of my favorite quotes from her (sounds like it could almost be inspired by an objectivist): From Speigel magazine: 'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam'. SPIEGEL: But Muslims, like any religious community, should also be able to protect themselves against slander and insult. HIRSI ALI: That's exactly the reflex I was just talking about: offering the other cheek. Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren't preaching hatred in their mosques. They call Jews and Christians inferior, and we say they're just exercising their freedom of speech. When will the Europeans realize that the Islamists don't allow their critics the same right? After the West prostrates itself, they'll be more than happy to say that Allah has made the infidels spineless.

That really is breathtaking arrogance on their part. I would have considered taking that to the local press. It reminds me of the city councilman (I believe) who was embroiled in controversy a few years back for using the word "niggardly". Local groups and the media of course got all up in arms about this. When informed that the word bears no common meaning with the more offensive word for which they mistook it, rather than do the honorable thing and just utter a Rosanne Rosannadanna-esque "Nevermind!", many local activists actually asserted that the councilman should have refrained from using a perfectly innocent word in deference to their ignorance. He should hold their stupidity and paranoia above his own knowledge of the English language and his right to express himself. Anyone can crack open a dictionary and look up either word. Looking up "man" not only reveals that it is in fact synonomous with "humankind", but that it also can be used in place of "person" or "individual". The phrase "she's your man" is actually perfectly coherent and correct. It is amazing how many intellectuals engage in willful ignorance, especially of facts that can be checked out in less than 30 seconds.

I recommend Rob Faigin's Natural Hormonal Enhancement for several reasons: First, if you are trying to eat healthy, you are going to be lost with the common wisdom in terms of fats, carbohydrates, sugars, etc. The whole "fat makes you fat" paradigm is thoroughly and expertly gutted in his book. It is supplanted with a much more integrated understanding of how different foods effect your hormones, which effect your energy levels and how you store foods (ie, fat burner vs. sugar burner). Unfortunately, I think the fact that processed foods, starches, etc. are cheap and abundant goes a long way towards explaining why obesity is such an issue in the US and other industrialized nations. It is much harder to make a profit selling perishable foods like fresh vegetables, fresh meats, seafood, etc., but if you understand the benefits of the fiber, proteins, omega-3s, etc. that only such foods can provide, along with the understanding of how protein and fat (yes fat) are much better sources of energy than carbs and sugar (though this book recommends a periodic carb load to replenish glycogen stores), you can see that it's a no-brainer. I think you'll spend a tad more on food than, say, your average Ramen Noodle warrior would if you focus on fresh, unprocessed foods, but you'll have way more energy and be much healthier than someone whose insulin levels are constantly skyrocketing and crashing because his body can't use the nutrients efficiently. I second what Sophia mentioned about cooking at home. I live in NYC and save easily hundreds of dollars a month, not to mention eating much healthier, by cooking at home. When I do go out to eat nowadays, it is truly a treat and I don't have to worry about whether I can afford a glass of wine, nor do I worry about all the bad stuff restaurants put in their food to make it taste good, since what really matters is what you eat day-to-day. The suggestion of making large quantities and freezing for later is also a good one. I have a simple shredded chicken and black bean chili that I make about six quarts of at a time, which can easily be stretched to twelve meals. The only issue is remembering to take it out of the freezer to let it thaw. If you need some recipes, let me know, I have lots of easy and healthy ones that I've adapted from my years as a grunt in restaurant kitchens.