Evangelical Capitalist

Too true. Scalia has his moments. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

You mean Descartes? My personal favorite: "Get real, man!" (See my signature.)

Two words: Grace Kelly And I also had a crush on Winnie Cooper.

I saw this in the news this morning. (My wife works for a pharma company, though not Merck, so it concerns me as well.) From what I read, Texas law places limits on punitive damages, so this will get reduced, if not overturned, on appeal. Any trial is an exercise in epistemology, the determination of what is true and what isn't. It comes as little surprise that these kinds of verdicts are rendered when the culture at large has such lousy epistemology, when rational certainty and adherence to fact are labeled "closed-minded." Trial lawyers know how to select and manipulate a jury to make their decisions on emotion rather than reason. I think that's largely what we see in these kinds of cases. The "stick it to the man" attitude is secondary to the emotionalist epistemology at work.

I mean that our experience consists of perceptual concretes, and that we form concepts, i.e. generalized principles, by integrating those perceptions. All concepts are formed from experience. Identity is not an exception to this principle. It it were, then it would constitute a form of a priori knowledge, would it not? This is precisely the point I was making. To understand identity is to realize that it is not merely some nebulous abstraction, but an attribute of everything we perceive, of everything which exists in reality. Thank you for agreeing with me. This sounds like an attempt at regurgitating things learned by rote. (Sorry, I couldn't resist throwing that back at you.) Existence and identity are implicit in any understanding of sensory perception. They are, in essence, the very first things to be grasped. Is this what you're saying? (It's hard to begin to understand what you're saying here. My apologies again.) If so, you have yet to contradict anything I've said. The fact that existence and identity are implicit in any such understanding is what makes them axiomatic. It does not alter their method of formation, i.e. they are still derived from the particulars of experience. They are not a priori. Have I denied the validity of "Existence exists," or of "A is A"? Your explanation seems to argue only that concepts are formed from the particulars of experience, which is precisely what I was saying in the first place. My apologies if I failed to make that clear, which is evidently the case. The particular point I was trying to get at, and which has evidently been misunderstood, is this: since the concept of identity is formed from the particulars of experience and applies to any of those particulars, the expression "A is A" may well be viewed as an algebra-like expression, in which the letter 'A' is a placeholder for which any particular existent may be susbtituted to produce a valid statement. In this function, it expresses the concept of identity. This is in opposition to y_feldblum's earlier argument. It is, in fact, difficult to see how "A is A" could have meaning, in relation to reality, without such treatment.

Whether or not that's the case, FDR wound up appointing something like 7 justices during his terms in office. His court-packing scheme turned out to be unnecessary.

Not to reopen this can of worms, but, well... I guess I'm reopening the can of worms... The concept of identity, as I understand it, is a generalization from experience. Everything we observe possesses the characteristic of self-sameness, or identity. The concept of identity is derived from, and subsumes, all these observations. The statement "A is A" could be reformulated as, "For any existent, A, such existent is identical with itself." Have I changed the meaning at all here? If I haven't, then it seems rather clear to me that A is a placeholder for which any existent may be substituted. To claim otherwise would imply that identity cannot be applied to individual existents, which is clearly absurd. This doesn't require intricate knowledge of set theory or algebra to understand. Identity acquires its axiomatic status from the fact that any attempt to refute it must implicitly accept it, since refutation implies truth and falsehood, proven and unproven statements, etc. which presuppose existence, identity and so forth.

That's an interesting article, and I agree with the principle that Keyes is advocating, though I disagee vehemently with his application of it. What he's talking about is called in some circles, "concurrent review." It consists of the idea that all three branches of government have the obligation to uphold the Constitution in their official actions. Some even extend this to the States, the Constitution being a compact between the States, "We the People" notwithstanding. Where Keyes goes greivously wrong in his vigor to defend Jeb Bush's actions over Terri Schiavo is in alleging that the Governor (or the President or any other executive authority) can do anything he pleases regardless of the opinions of the other branches under the justification that it's consistent with his interpretation of the Constitution. The Constitution is a limitation on government power. (Every constitution is. Government doesn't need a constitution to empower itself, it has guns with which to do that.) Under the principle of concurrent review, the government, i.e. the executive, representing the "acting" portion of the government, can take no action without the consent of the other branches. Likewise, the other branches can not force the executive to take any action which he deems unconstitutional. This does not mean that the executive cannot be legally restrained by the legislature or the judiciary, which is precisely where Keyes goes wrong. An unrestrained executive would be a dictator. We have "checks and balances," not dictatorship. Keyes argument is entirely inconsistent with that principle.

I've often wondered how anyone other than the owner can decide "fair market value." In legal terms (someone may correct me if I'm mistaken) any plot of land is considered a unique entity. If one agrees to buy a particular plot, the seller cannot substitute another piece of ground. Furthermore, "fair market value" is based on a mutual agreement between a willing buyer and a willing seller. There is no "fair market value" on something that isn't for sale. What's "fair market value" on the Mona Lisa, for example?

If I were in this situation, I'd probably take the "Rearden" approach: I can't stop you from taking my property, but don't expect me to lift one finger to help you make it appear legitimate.

That's just his genes talking.

Elsewhere on this thread? Or another thread? Could you provide a link? I'd be interested in seeing your reasons for that. Since a contract is an exercise of property rights, I fail to see how a breach of contract could not be a breach of property rights. This discussion has wandered rather far afield from the original topic, no? Just an observation.

Many, but not all, civil suits are, as you say, a form of legal arbitration. Whether most are, I don't know. In such cases there are two possibilities: either both parties came to the court willingly to have their differences settled, or one party alleged some form of breach against the other. The former case, while not unheard of, I would imagine to be exceedingly rare, due to the expense involved in litigation. (This is only a reasoned guess on my part, and I'm open to being corrected if you know differently.) The latter case, in which one party brings suit against another, must necessarily allege some form of rights violation, some form of breach of contract. Breach of contract is a violation of property rights. Other civil suits, those not involving some pre-existing contract, must, as I said, prove some form of rights violation to be valid. Suits alleging property damage fall into this category. So, a social invitation is equivalent to an invitation to abuse the host's property? Is a person freed from responsibilty for their actions when they are, by invitation, on someone else's property? If what you say is true, if "they can very well deal with the consequences," why does it matter who threw up on the carpet? Without some acceptence of fault on the part of the person who soiled the carpet, the question of "owning up" is entirely moot. There's nothing, in that case, to own up to. I'm well aware of the reasons why "honesty is the best policy," so to speak. I've tried to explain them to Moose before. Apparently unsuccessfully. I never tried to argue that this wasn't a question of honesty, merely that it was also a question of rights.

Ah-ha! I think we've stumbled upon the problem! Ask yourself whether all values are material. If not, what other values are there? Ayn Rand identified three primary values, reason, purpose and self-esteem, and none of them are material. How about "my life" as my ultimate value? Is that material? Not really, it's an abstraction encompassing a wide variety of things: experiences, ideas, actions, choices. As long as you insist on counting only material values in your gain/loss considerations, you're going to run into problems. You'll also be confirming my "concrete-bound" hypothesis (see above), by the way. You've phrased the question in the form of a false dichotomy. It is not one or the other. One is a necessary corollary of the other.

I suppose it's necessary to make a distinction here: while I dislike many of the actual billboards I've seen (for most of the same reasons as Hal has described), I have no problem with the concept of billboards. That any particular billboard, or many of them, may be poorly designed or generally in poor taste is a question of the bad esthetic sense of the designer/advertiser, not the fault of the billboard itself. Referring again to the case of Dangy and Rearden, clearly they weren't referring to any particular billboard or billboards, but to what they represented, conceptually.

That carpet is someone's property, is it not? You are correct in that this does involve the principle of honesty, but that's hardly the only principle involved. The question one must ask is: Honesty about what? In this case, about the damage to the host's carpet, i.e. to his property. Just because something is a civil matter doesn't mean that no one's rights were violated. If I bring suit against someone in civil court, my task is to demonstrate that my rights have been violated. Otherwise there is no cause for the court to enforce a penalty against the other party.

That's the essence of context-dropping. Narrow your focus sufficiently and anything can be considered a gain. Moose: You've started similar topics before, asking why such-and-such isn't moral, even if you can get away with it. I'm inclined to think that this is somehow indicative of a concrete-bound or pragmatic mentality. The situation you suggest here isn't greatly different from the one in the thread I linked to; if anything, it's simply more trivial. You don't seem to grasp that rights are ultimately an essentially self-interested moral principle, because they are derived from the ethics of self-interest. I'm not sure how to help you remedy this, except to suggest that when considering a question of rights, ask yourself first how that righ tis derived from the Objectivist ethics. (Admittedly, this is something I still struggle with and must consciously remind myself of.) If you're trying to understand how a principle might apply in a particular context, there's nothing wrong with that provided the context in question is relevant to your own experience. If you're simply inventing hypotheticals in an attempt to deny the validity of the moral principles involved (and given your explicit statements in the previous thread, I can't rule this out) then I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish.

That was my first reaction too. It is immoral if you're getting drunk to the point that you throw up. Drinking to that extent is indicative of a desire to escape from or evade reality. (I'm not a teetotaler myself, but I rarely, if ever, have more than one or two drinks.) The puking may have been "accidental," but it was a direct result of the drinking. At least that's the implication of your question. It's hard to imagine how you could expect a moral answer to a question which starts from immoral premises. The purpose of morality, in Objectivist terms, is to benefit one's own life. Your question begins with actions that are an objective detriment to the person's life. What values are they pursuing? None that I can identify. No rational values, anyway. Your question, "Is it wrong?" means what? Will it help or hinder their values? What values? Let's assume for the moment that this activity is somehow in this person's rational self-interest. (I can't begin to imagine how this would be so, but I'll entertain the idea for the sake of answering your question.) Would they value the person hosting the party? Would they like more such parties to be held in the future by this person and others? What impact will the occurrence of random, unidentified puking have on the likelihood of such parties being hosted? Would any rational person risk being burdened with unremunerated damage to their property, in addition to the effort required to host the party? (That such parties are held demonstrates their irrationality.) If the person values these events, is it not in his self-interest to encourage more of them to be held?

I'm largely indifferent to billboards. To me, their value is informational. If I'm taking a road-trip and am beginning to feel a mite peckish, I like to know what options I have for remedying the situation, or how far I'll need to go to find such options. If I’m not looking for something in particular, I don’t really notice the billboards. Regarding the original poster’s question about Dagny and Hank, I think billboards, in that case, would have been a sign of productive activity, of someone with a product to sell, which was otherwise absent. Their attitude toward "unruined countyside" was that toward the lack of any productive activity. That was what they wanted to see: a billboard would have been merely the least sign of it. The people that hate billboards, as such, are those that hate the productive activity of which they are a byproduct.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Actually, had he not turned to the dark side, she wouldn't have died. His premonition was self-fulfilling: it was his turn to the dark side, in a misguided attempt to save her life, that caused her to lose the will to live. Yes. Exactly. He acts without knowing the meaning of his dreams, on the blind feelings they generate. He acts in a way which might be regarded conventionally as selfish, and yet in doing so, he completely disregards that which he started out to save: his life with Padme, which will be made impossible by his actions. He was, therefore, objectively selfless, sacrificing his greatest value. So you're complaining that a character portrayed, by that point, as unmitigatedly evil becomes a mindless, unthinking drone? I'm not sure why that should be apalling. If he was good, if the audience was supposed to sympathize with his motivation, then it would be apalling. You do realize that they're the same character, right? While the explicit philosphy stated in the movie is indeed apalling (vis Obi-Wan's unfortunate "absolutes" remark, which is itself an absolute, of course), the events themselves have little or no such problems. They demonstrate very starkly the consequences of acting on blind whim and all sorts of other bad premises, as you've already pointed out. It was Palpatine who urged Anakin to learn both sides of the force, making the distinction between light and dark non-absolute. The Jedi may have been dogmatic, but they didn't hesitate to distinguish between good and bad. For Obi-Wan to say, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," was not only wrong, of course, but inconsistent with the Jedi's behavior. That it conflicts so starkly with the actual events of the story indicates the lack of thought given to that point on Lucas's part. It is, in fact, the Sith who deal in blurring absolutes like light and dark, as Palpatine's recruitment of Anakin demonsrates.

As might be gleaned from my signature, I happen to like "Get real, Man," as an Objectivist catch phrase. (I have bumper stickers.) What better, more succinct, statement can you have for a philosophy that emphasizes reality and man's life in it? It's only drawback might be that it's a little too commonplace a saying, with little or no meaning to most people. (Which could also mean that it's an empty vessel, waiting to be filled.)

Successful compared to what? There are some people who say that the US military could be far more efficient than it already is, in terms of both cost and lives lost in the course of carrying out its mission. (Yaron Brook, executive director of ARI, for one.) Also, look at the enemies they fight: if anything they're even more "statist" than our military. Not that Eric's explanation has nothing to do with it either. The US military gets a lot of money. That counts for quite a bit.

Pizza, fetch my slippers! Pizza, take out the garbage! Pizza, make a flanking manuever on that pitcher of beer!

1) Pizza 2) Beatles 3) Chevy 4) Cat 5) Day person

Being "at war with reality" is certainly going to be a problem for anyone who finds themselves in it. Those problems are mulitplied when you add that they are attempting to keep others in their own particular distorted version of it.