Doug Morris
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Posts posted by Doug Morris
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11 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:
So even though they mixed their labour with the land, they still had no right to it because they did not recognise the concept.
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.
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We need to be cautious about classifying people as "savages".
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Bringing this thread back up to the top since it may be relevant to a current discussion.
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5 hours ago, TruthSeeker946 said:
Why do people who do not recognise individual rights have the right to enter the country?
Someone who does not recognise individual rights is clearly a threat to those that do, and the purpose of government is to protect the rights of those that do.
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.
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20 hours ago, DavidOdden said:
Perhaps you mean that only citizens can vote
Yes.
Since voting affects what sort of government we have, we need to be careful about who we allow to vote.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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37 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:
So what to think if someone gave us an iron-clad derivation - from the axioms, with perfect Objectivist reasoning, and clearly true facts, and including a refutation of the potentiality argument - that children do not have the right not to be killed by their parents?
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.
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5 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:
In other matters, is there any conclusion about morality that you would reject? Suppose you find some other "tough to swallow" conclusion about morality that is derived by Objectivism with clear facts. Are there limits before you'd say that you can't accept that conclusion?
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.
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1 minute ago, InfraBeat said:
But we're talking about conclusions about morality, not propositions such as in earth science.
It's all part of reality.
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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.
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2 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:
So, what would you do if someone showed your correct reasoning from Objectivist axioms, and facts you recognized, that parents are not obligated to care for their children? You'd agree that parents are not obligated to care for their children?
Yes.
But I would also say that parents who choose to have children without intending to care for them are acting irresponsibly.
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4 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:
If Martha agrees with agrees with Bob's facts and methods of reasoning, but she holds that parents are obligated to care for their children, then she has to reject the axioms.
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?
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1 minute ago, InfraBeat said:
So my question is what would Martha do if she found that Objectivism (along with the observed specific facts about children and parents) arrives at the conclusion that parents are not obligated to care for their children when she regards that as not true?
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).
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3 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:
So, back to my example: Suppose Martha and Bob agree on all the observed facts, especially as to the degrees of rationality and self-preserving abilities of children. But they each claim that the Objectivist axioms along with those facts derive each their conclusion about whether parents are obligated to care for their children.
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).
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22 hours ago, InfraBeat said:
A contradiction is a statement and its denial. The statement "Parents are not obligated to care for their children" is not a contradiction.
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.
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22 hours ago, InfraBeat said:
You can't have both, or you haven't addressed the question. What do we say if Bob convinces us that the Objectivist axioms derive that parents are not obligated to care for their children? If we say that that must be wrong, because we are already certain that parents are obligated to care for their children, then where did that certainty derive from? Or would you claim that holding that parents are obligated to care for their children is implicit in cognition?
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.
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1 hour ago, InfraBeat said:
That suggests a third option: (3) Adopt axioms we regard as irrefutable, then see what they derive, and if we reject what they derive, then adopt different or modified axioms, then see what they derive, repeating as needed.
Suppose Martha is clear that the Objectivist axioms entail that parents are obligated to care for their children. But Bob is clear that the Objectivist axioms entail that parents are not obligated to care for their children. But Bob convinces Martha. She has two choices: (a) Give up her position that parents are obligated to care for their children, or (b) Give up or modify for herself the axioms.
What, if anything, does the Objectivist literature say about that? Not about this particular example, but about the general question.
What, if anything, does the Objectivist literature say about that?
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.
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11 hours ago, InfraBeat said:
But I also should have said that it's not clear to me that heuristically Objectivism doesn't partake somewhat of approach (1). Before Rand devised the Objectivist axioms, she already firmly held to the ideals of individualism, egoism, liberty, and capitalism. So fat chance that she would have for a moment countenanced axioms that she thought would not derive those principles.
Similarly, I regard killing of children as wrong, prior to any philosophy or axioms I might have. There's no way I would adopt axioms that derive that it is permissible to kill children. That might not be viable philosophically, but, as I am not a philosopher, I don't require of myself that every one of my personal principles is justified rigorously by philosophical methods.
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?
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7 hours ago, Boydstun said:
David Tyson sensibly takes inference to include these varieties: deduction, induction, and abduction.
What is abduction?
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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.
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On 5/24/2023 at 11:32 AM, necrovore said:
They represent ERIC to the states as non-partisan, but that isn't true.
Please explain why it isn't true.
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Morally, the only right answer is separation of state and education.
Constitutionally, the courts have to work it out.
Natural rights, borders and deportations
in Political Philosophy
Posted
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?
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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"?