Doug Morris

Those who actively violate rights forfeit their own to at least some extent. Those who disagree with the concept of rights still have rights, even if they don't believe it. Those who don't understand the concept of rights still have rights, even if they don't understand this. What about children who haven't reached that level of development yet? **************** Does this mean that socialists have no rights, or at least no property rights? Does it mean that people who want abortion to be illegal have no rights? How do we keep this from degenerating into "Anyone who disagrees with me has no rights"?

How do you know they didn't recognize the concept? Does this mean that people who don't understand rights very well have no rights? That sounds to me like a very dangerous view to take.

We need to be cautious about classifying people as "savages".

Bringing this thread back up to the top since it may be relevant to a current discussion.

People should not be subject to restrictions on their rights unless they actually commit or attempt a violation of rights. Simply advocating wrong ideas should not be punishable. As Rand said, the way to fight bad ideas is not with suppression but with better ideas.

Yes. Since voting affects what sort of government we have, we need to be careful about who we allow to vote.

It is reasonable to have a loyalty oath as a requirement for citizenship/voting, but not as a requirement for entering or remaining in the country.

An article in today's email edition of the New York Times discusses how Republican politicians are turning away from the free market. It mentions four U.S. senators in particular. It indicates that this is because the Republican constituency is shifting to the working class because of social issues. The article accepts the idea that problems with the present workings of the system are problems with the free market.

I just watched a video stating that some beneficial insects have gone extinct and others have declining populations. This can be very dangerous because insects perform many important functions, such as pollination, helping to control harmful organisms, serving as food for other animals, conditioning soil, and removing waste material. At least he wasn't advocating statist remedies. He advocated informing yourself about what to expect and raising some of your own food on whatever scale you can achieve. But this is the sort of thing the statists would jump on. Does anyone have any sources of info on how bad this is?

If it all checks out perfectly, it would follow that parents have a right to kill their children. And if it is similarly proven that heterosexual relations are immoral, we would have to accept that too. And if it is similarly proven that everyone should experiment with meth by their 20th birthday, we would have to accept that too. In each case, it would be appropriate to check very carefully for errors. If we find we have to draw a conclusion that we find very hard to swallow, it would be a good idea to examine why we find it so distasteful. If this does not lead us to find an error after all, it means our distaste is misguided, and it would be a good idea to examine what this implies about what is going on with us psychologically.

The tougher I find the conclusion to be to swallow, the more carefully I would look to see where, exactly, the error lies. If the error turns out to be in Objectivism, I would have to abandon Objectivism. (Not necessarily all of its conclusions, but the system.) In this case, I would expect the error to be in the metaethics or in some narrower ethical topic, not in the axioms.

It's all part of reality.

If anyone can prove conclusively that the world is flat, I will have to accept it and adjust my thinking accordingly. But I will be very surprised, and the adjustment in my thinking may have to be extensive.

Yes. But I would also say that parents who choose to have children without intending to care for them are acting irresponsibly.

How are you using the word "axioms"? What do you consider to be an "axiom"? Why does Martha hold that parents are obligated to care for their children?

Why does she regard that as not true? Either she made a mistake in her reasoning from Objectivism (along with the observed specific facts about children and parents), or she got the facts wrong, or her conclusion (arrived at how?) that parents are obligated to care for their children is wrong, or Objectivism is wrong (which would be very surprising).

In that case, at least one of those two people must have made an error in reasoning, and they need to identify and correct the error(s).

In some of your posts, you seemed to be talking about situations in which we find ourselves with a contradiction in our conclusions. The statement "parents are not obligated to care for their children and parents are obligated to care for their children" is a contradiction. The postulates of a mathematical system are sometimes called "axioms", but are not axioms in the Objectivist sense. If we try to develop a system of postulates for the arithmetic of ordinary numbers, but we find that our postulates necessarily imply that 2 = 3, we have failed in our attempt and must come up with different postulates.

The Objectivist axioms are the axiomatic concepts of Existence, Consciousness, and Identity, as explained in the section on axiomatic concepts in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. We don't conclude specific things from the axioms; we conclude things by using our faculty of reason to identify and integrate the material provided by our senses. The axioms serve to clarify and reaffirm that this process is basically valid. Thus your question does not really make sense. Conclusions one way or the other about whether parents are obligated to care for their children are definitely not implicit in cognition.

Let's remember that the axioms are implicit in any cognition, so any attempt to deny them or to call them into question is self-contradictory. As far as contradictions go, Objectivism makes clear that contradictions can't exist in reality, and that if we conclude a contradiction, we must check our premises.

If one finds certain axioms attractive, but they necessarily imply that the Sun does not rise in the east or that human beings do not exist, there must be something wrong with those axioms. To what extent do we deduce things from the axioms, and to what extent do they simply clarify and reinforce the validity of our reasonings from more specific starting points?

What is abduction?

Let us define an "almost equal tuple of numbers" to be a tuple of numbers each of which is within 10% of the average of all the numbers. Then an almost equilateral triangle is a triangle whose side lengths form an almost equal 3-tuple. The average is undefined for the empty tuple. Any 1-tuple whose element is a number is almost equal. A 2-tuple of numbers is an almost equal tuple if and only if the ratio of the two numbers is in the range 9/11 to 11/9. When the tuple contains more than two numbers, then as you say any such characterization of whether it is almost equal gets complicated. The measurements being omitted in my definition here are how many numbers are in the tuple and which numbers are they. My comments above about measurement omission still apply.

Please explain why it isn't true.

Morally, the only right answer is separation of state and education. Constitutionally, the courts have to work it out.