hunterrose

On that question alone, I'd say no, as one's happiness/satisfaction with life doesn't necessarily correlate to how one was raised/nurtured. It may surprise you or not, but a lot of people with normal and proper upbringings are having these same difficulties. While an improper upbringing can lead to problems, care should be taken that it not be used as a social crutch. In your hypothetical example, you used "unable" several times. Wouldn't "unwilling" be more correct? I can understand why the hypothetical James would be unwilling, but I don't think James would be unable due simply to the way he was raised.

Be that as it may... do you think Congress would control inflation better than the Fed? I do share your feelings on forced taxation, though. Wholeheartedly agree. Harder things have been accomplished in this world (I wouldn't think it'd have to be exactly simultaneous.) What about choosing to follow the just laws and picking out the objectively unjust ones?

You're cool with me already Welcome

!!! Nothing like a big jump, eh? Best wishes P.S. Moving doesn't mean you're off the hook to write that novel

But you're ignoring the fact that lottery players who are aware of the odds are taking stock of reality. When/if they win the lottery, they are well-served, and these circumstances are a debilitating counter-argument to your argument that one ought to do that which is more likely to result in acquiring one's goal. Counter-argued. Your ought doesn't hold up to your own standards. No matter how many times you've said it, your argument still doesn't follow: one’s life is the standard of one’s values ??? one ought to take actions which are more likely to preserve one’s life. #3 doesn't follow from #1, and if there is a #2 to your argument, you've never stated it. The quote from post #537 is an unproven assertion. Your ought is still invalidated by your own standards.

Really? Prove that a billionaire can feed and shelter you better than you can?? Then perhaps you should define what you mean by "maintaining one's life" if you really want to insist this meets your standards of oughts. I don't think Rand meant that looting is guaranteed to result in a destruction. However, if she did mean such and in terms of physical destruction, it'd be erroneous, I agree. If she mean such in terms of non-physical destruction, it'd be arbitrary (not erroneous) until a way to prove one whether was non-physically destroyed was arrived at. Was that satisfactory? define "taking stock of reality" prove that self-interest is best served by taking stock of reality prove that people who win the lottery do not take stock of reality If you cannot do this, then we can agree that winning more money than Mao or the average tax collector ever had qualifies as being well-served, at least as your counter-examples describe it. If you truly believed that was relevant, you'd acknowledge that certain people profit by not following your ought of "more likely to succeed" actions. You haven't. ??? This... ...is your second paragraph, but what are you asking me to counter-example? You don't say why one ought to take actions that are more likely to preserve/enrich one's life.

Let's stipulate that. You still believe that there are some circumstances in which one is well-served by not maintaining one's own life. Thus, according to your metaethics, maintaining one's life wouldn't count as a Thou Shall. So the question remains: is there anything that qualifies (to you) as an objective ought? If there isn't, then your stance isn't just anti-Objectivist, but (far, far worse) anti-ethics in general. What's there to explain? Pick a form of destruction. It's blatantly obvious that looters don't necessarily meet physical destruction. If you can find where Rand said otherwise, everyone would admit she was wrong on that count. Personally, I don't care for the arguments that looters will necessarily meet emotional/mental/happiness destruction. I don't know why you'd possibly want to tackle such an imbroglio, but if you do, come up with a way to prove whether a person who appears happy and mentally/emotionally whole isn't actually unhappy or emotionally/mentally destroyed. I think that's a waste of time, but... whatever. Whatever form of destruction you're talking about, it doesn't matter. Rand NEVER said that you shouldn't loot because you are guaranteed to meet destruction X. If she did, then her argument against looting would rise and fall with appropriate examples. Since she didn't... what difference do your counter-examples make in terms of ethics? Surely you, the Counter-exampler, don't deny that there are some circumstances in which one's self-interest is well served by not doing the action that is likely to help one attain one's goal??? Because softwareNerd long ago mentioned that there are plenty of circumstances where people play the lottery (an action that is not likely to attain one's goals) and end up more well served than if they'd put it the same money into the S&P 500 (an action that is likely to attain one's goals). Again, the point is that you are a victim of the same argument you're using against Rand. If a couple of circumstances where people profited from not doing Rand's oughts invalidates her oughts... then a couple of circumstances where people profited from not doing Gary Brenner's oughts invalidates his oughts.

Nope. There are just too many circumstances in which the looter is "well served" by not maintaining his life e.g. if someone (who is more expert at maintaining his life) maintains his life for him. Maybe you were thinking of something else? No, we haven't. Your quote was a statement comparing moral action to actions that are "not necessarily moral and not necessarily immoral." What I'm asking is: If we know a given action is more likely to help attain one's goals, how do you make the case that this given action is an ought, given that there are too many circumstances in which self-interest is well served by not doing the action that is likely to help one attain one's goal?

Then is the following a correct interpretation of your metaethics? You can't arrive at any system of Thou Shall X from the premise that one’s own life is the standard of one's values. There are just too many circumstances in which self-interest is well served by not doing X. You can't arrive at any system of Thou Shall Not Y from the premise that one’s own life is the standard of one's values. There are just too many circumstances in which self-interest is well served by doing Y. Given everything you've said, can you make the non-subjective, non-arbitrary argument that one should prohibit the performance of acts that are unlikely to help one attain one's goals? Or is Inspector right about your subjective commitments and arbitrary postulates?

I largely agree with that, but this is about behaviors, not actions or intentions. And behaviors can be destructive by nature even if outside factors can prevent them from resulting in destruction 100% of the time. Perhaps a better example of the behavior/action difference: gravity accelerates objects at the rate of 32 feet per second per second. That's the behavior. It doesn't mean that every gravity-affected object will have a net acceleration - action - of 32 feet per second per second. Gravity and non-gravity factors determine what action occurs. So you couldn't determine the acceleration of gravity by showing that gravity and only gravity is responsible for an object's net acceleration. It'd be a highly erroneous standard of proof, leading (natch) to highly erroneous conclusions. But this is exactly the type of thing you're trying to do (intentionally or not) with determining the nature of looting and firing a gun at oneself.

Waitaminute. You're providing a method of proof for something totally different. The point is that firing a gun at oneself is a destructive behavior, not that firing a gun at oneself will always result (no matter what) in one's physical destruction. What is your standard of proof for the former?

But the Imus fuss was not about initiation-of-force censoring. They didn't violate his rights or initiate any force. By the way, you might be taking Mrs. Angelou out of context. (In the clip), she didn't say or answer that the government needs to provide more censorship. Rather, she said that, as individuals, we have to censor what we say or we will "not be given a microphone." If you run off your sponsors/profits, your employers will no longer give you a microphone - therefore you need to censor yourself. If this was Angelou's message, you could hardly disagree with her point. Imus's treatment is the exact way people say animal abusers should be treated: shunning, but no violation of the abuser's rights. There then is irony in damning the assumed motives of Imus's detractors.

Minority pressure groups didn't control Imus's agenda. CBS (or is it NBC?) did. Imus's sponsors did. If Imus's bosses/sponsors had chosen to stick to their guns, Imus would not be shut down. And since no is arguing that they should have continued to support Imus... "The few" spoke their mind. The owners responded. No force, no controlling, no "postmodernist" problem with what has happened to Imus.

Why do you say that a proof requires that certain factors be isolated? Does proving that firing a gun at oneself is destructive require isolating means of protection (e.g. Superman)?

I don't understand; scuba tanks are logically a part of scuba diving. Scuba tanks aren't part of the nature of free-diving, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. You didn't directly answer my question. I assume your answer was "No." So the other question remains: you agree that some things must be isolated, so how can I show that Superman (or any particular thing for that matter) is a factor that must be isolated in determining whether firing a gun at oneself is destructive? Neither of those answers the question. Nonsense. Progress: you've agreed that some things must be isolated. Now we just need to know how to determine what needs to be isolated, or at least how you determine what needs to be isolated. Then we can (without the isolated factors) determine whether firing a gun at oneself is destructive. If it (or something else) is a destructive behavior, I can show how looting is a destructive behavior.

If Al Sharpton humorously called Ayn Rand a "paleface ho" on his radio program, would anyone here say that Sharpton was simply calling her on her behavior and lack of sunshine? Would anyone here say such a comment wasn't necessarily improper just because Al's intention wasn't malicious? Or compare insulting Rand to rap? I would find such comments about Rand distasteful and worth getting fired for. But I guess that would make me a postmodernist.

I don't know about that, though I agree that there was a risk. Galt says "Do you wish to give any outsider any relief from the consequences of remaining outside?", implying that the decision to not tell Rearden is a matter of not giving an outsider relief, moreso than a safety issue. Personally, I think it's an interesting indicator of the difference between Francisco vs. Galt. Aside from the safety issues, I would have though similarly to Francisco, in wanting to save a friend from a lot of heartache. 'Course, this is the same Galt who is angling after Francisco's love, and doesn't say so for a long, long time...

Would it make a difference whether he probably had had several minutes to think about it? "Nappy-headed" doesn't really refer to people of other races. So judge angered racists, but not joking racists? Slur or not, you don't consider that racist? What if he'd said "black-skinned hos" or "wide-nosed hos" or "slave-descended hos"? At any rate, if someone wants to boycott him for his comments (I don't) I don't see anything wrong with that. His bosses would be a bit hypocritical for allowing him this type of speech for so long and then now acting shocked that he says such things. And there are certainly some folks trying to cash in. I don't think Imus "owes" any one or any race an apology. But that doesn't change an assessment of Imus and his comments.

Your example involves two separate things: a monetary benefit and a physical destruction. Is firing a gun at oneself by nature monetarily beneficial? No; the monetary benefit occurs if and only if there is a business agreement to receive pay for firing a gun at oneself. Working for pay is by nature monetarily beneficial, firing a gun at oneself is not necessarily so. If firing a gun at oneself by nature physically destructive? Superman isn't a part of the nature of firing a gun at oneself; the only way to know whether firing a gun at oneself is destructive is to take Superman out of the equation. Don't you agree? I'm sorry, I don't understand. Would you clarify?

Would that prove that the mortal continues to live as a result of firing a gun at himself? Or that he continues to live as a result of Superman stopping the mortal's destructive action? You still haven't answered the question. Forgot about looting for a half moment. You continue to say that no behavior qualifies as necessarily destructive. I must show your premise to be wrong (via a simple example like firing a gun at oneself) before I could prove that a complicated behavior (like looting) is necessarily destructive. You agree to stipulate that certain factors must be isolated in determining the nature of looting. Since I have no idea what "certain factors" you agree must be isolated, how can I show that having a million-man army protecting you is a factor that must be isolated in determining whether looting is destructive?

You tell me; how does your "ethics" determine such things? Even once one has obtained your necessities of survival, a person still has goals. Your standard to this point has been that the moral choices are the ones with the greatest liklihood of obtaining one's goal. If a man decides that watching The Simpsons is more likely to attain his goal of relaxing from a hard day's work than reading the trashy book, you hold that (here) watching the Simpsons is the moral choice. Wouldn't this man then be immoral for reading the trashy book (instead of watching The Simpsons) in this situation? If he isn't, then your standard of morality (most likely to obtain one's goal) isn't consistently applied to your ethics and your standard of immorality (commiting suicide) includes more things than you care to admit. Would you answer the question? Stop being facetious. You haven't even admitted that some things must be isolated in the first place. Tell me, why couldn't you throw feathers off of a tower to determine the acceleration of gravity?

That's still not an ethics. Ought a person choose a moral action over a "not necessarily immoral" action? If yes, then "not necessarily immoral" actions are actually immoral. If no, then your moral actions are "not necessarily moral". Either way, your "ethics" would be eviscerated. That doesn't cut it. If I fire a gun at my head, Superman could catch the bullet before it splatters me. Would that prove that I continued to live as a result of shooting a gun at myself? Of course not, it'd only prove that some things can ameliorate the results of destructive behaviors. If you wanted to determine whether shooting a gun at oneself (or looting) was a destructive behavior, you have to isolate it from "Superman" factors, just as a proper scientific experiment requires isolating immaterial overpowering factors.

What then if society similarly shuns you for the animal abuse of salting slugs in your garden, or for knocking over an anthill in order to get the choicest picnicking area?

Why not? It got Anakin! Keep your eyes open...

Okay, so immoral risks/conduct consists of risks/conduct that is less likely (than another known conduct) to obtain one's goal. Probability determines what is moral and immoral conduct (to you, anyway). ...Then why do you so self-destructively contradict yourself here? Isn't a person immoral for doing immoral conduct, taking immoral risks Probability determines moral conduct... but it doesn't determine immoral conduct If nothing is immoral, then you still don't have an ethics. He was hit by a meteor, remember? Excellent, there's hope for you yet! How do I prove there is a causal link between Marty thinking and Marty getting hit by the meteor? What would constitute proof that a given tax collector lives a safe, comfortable life as a result of her looting?