agroves

I admit my error in this regard. Apologies. I don't think you can dismiss this fact that easily. Epistemology itself demands that you understand why it is not intiating force instead of simply saying 'becasue she said so...' Either it is or it isn't an intiation of force and I'm trying to understand why it wouldn't be provided you killed Man 3. I'm not grasping why it isn't. That is a good answer to the question, but it doesn't hit more to my point, which is- if it can be rational to put your own life at risk to save other people in "emergencies" does the example qualify as an emergency? For the same reason that I assume people are innocent until proven guilty. The fact that mentioned it could be apocryphal was a confession that that could be one possible solution to the problem- that Rand hadn't really said the things she did on the radio interview and thus there could be no conflict with The Virtue of Selfishness. That is my understand as well. So in the situation with the man with the gun, you should attempt to knock the gun away or kill Man 1 if you think it is possible without willfully sacrificing your own life. That's basically what I was asking. In the scenerio you aren't killing an assailant to stay alive, you're killing an innocent person, though. I see that as a major difference. If you are killing someone who has intiated force against you, of course there is nothing wrong with that. It's a book. Your other point is well taken. I suppose what I am pointing out here is that in that ethical scenerio, suicide is not guaranteed and you should at least attempt killing the assailant, even if the probability that you yourself will die is 90%. I suppose it comes down to your own judgment about your own ability to kill or at least disarm Man 1 in the situation. But that doesn't mean that the ethical standard is in conflict, but rather that Man 2's appraisal of the situation is what is in flux. Sorry about the length. I probably shouldn't have used that word by itself an highlighted like that, but I refered to something Rand said in the radio interview: "Once the element of force is introduced, the element of morality is out. There is no question of right in such a case." Thank you, all of this was very useful. I think I have a firmer grasp on the corpus of what objectivism says about the issue.

I have been studying Objectivism for about two years now and have only run into what I see as one major problem, which relates to its ethical approach. However, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter so hopefully I can clear up where I am going wrong. And please accept my apology if this has been addressed before and I didn't find it in my search. It has to do with a somewhat unrealistic ethical example, which I weary of after reading "Ethics of Emergencies" in The Virtue of Selfishness to begin with (p. 49). However, the problem is not so abstract it warrants dismissal. It goes something along these lines, with certain variations: Man 1 points a gun at Man 2 and says that he must kill Man 3 in order to live (arguably what happened to the Nazis who were charged with executing Jews). Now it is obvious that Man 1 has intiated force against Man 2 and he expects Man 2 to intiate force against Man 3. The essay on Emergencies in the Virtue of Selfishness says that this ethical connundrum can be solved by realizing the heirarchy of value. The same essay points out that your own life is the very thing from which all other values arise (p. 53), so it should be the utmost ethical consideration. That seems to suggest that you should kill Man 3 in order to save your own life if you are Man 2. I also found this radio interview, which I assume to be real and not apocraphyl in which Ayn Rand herself answers this very question: Rand is saying that based on the heirarchy of value, Man 2 should kill Man 3 in order to preserve his own life and that as long as he was only put in that situation once and didn't voluntarily choose it, then he wouldn't be morally culpable, since "one cannot speak of rights" in such a scenerio. However, this seem inconsistent with other statements about the heirarchy of value, which can place things above your own life. For one, Rand argues in The Virtue of Selfishness, namely that if an emergencies arises (Rand cites mostly natural disasters), that man "should volunteer to help strangers" (p. 55) Those situations are: Certainly the emergency in the scenerio is unchosen, unexpected, and limited in time, but the example proves, in theory, that human life is possible if for instance Man 2 did decide to kill Man 3, at least metaphysically so. In her Playboy Interview Rand says: According to those statements, living life rationaly is placed above the heirarchy in just mere living. To me this answers the question, but not the way Rand did on the radio interview. Under my understanding, you cannot rationally intiate force against innocent Man 3, even if it is to save your own life, since doing so would be living irrationally, which would result in just "living." The following exchange is also attributed to Rand between her and N. Branden in The Passion of Ayn Rand: This passage suggests that it can never be rational to kill an innocent person. So it can never be rational to kill innocent Man 3 and you should put your life at risk to fight Man 1 since he was the first one to intiate force. Since you could never live rationally, having killed Man 3, the heirarchy of value would seem to suggest that you should strive to live rationally over striving to live, per se. However, I am still uneasy about this conclusion, especially given Rand's apparent willingness to suggest that you could kill Man 3 if it would save your own life.