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mrocktor

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Posts posted by mrocktor

  1. I don't think you'll be satisfied by my answer B)

    Let's assume that this bank robbery is a "one-time" action, and at all other times only rational values will be pursued.

    Starting by assuming the robbery is irrational kind of shows your bias :worry:

    Rational actions have risk/reward levels too, as you mentioned. But when you decide to drive a car, you can know how the car works, what conditions increase your danger, how to repair it, etc. The brakes aren't going to choose to malfunction, principles of combustion don't warp out of boredom. Blowing a tire doesn't change the probability or conditions of blowing a tire at any other time. None of this applies to irrational acts.

    I find you greatly underestimate the unpredictability of life on general terms. Every rational decision has a risk/reward component, and the risks are hardly easy to quantify.

    As a clear example, no romantic involvement would ever be a rational decision in your terms. Can there be a more unpredictable factor than that? The consequences of a rejected or failed relationship are dire, obviously.

    But let's assume that a guard's break times, the bank president's efforts to mark bills, and choice and timing of security system upgrades are just as predictable and dependable as nature. We'll consider the case where, even in this one irrational act, depending on your ability hide your acts from volitional, unpredictable men can be calculated with scientific precision.

    Why is it wrong to commit a bank robbery that has no negative consequences, on rational principle? It's not.

    In this you have basically conceded my point, unless you can show conclusively that the factors involved in every violation of another's "rights" have risks that are more unpredictable than nature itself.

    mrocktor

  2. A rational man's ethics DOES prevent him from encroaching on others' rights: this is known as the principle of being principled.  It is also the most abstract principle of ethics, and hence the most difficult to validate properly.

    To define a principle in these terms is not acceptable from a rational point of view, in my opinion. I'm sure we are all (or mostly) "good people" here, so abstracting our ingrained principles to seek only those principles that can be rationally derived is difficult.

    Don Watkins made a statement that helped it click in my mind:  Telling someone that it's in their self-interest to violate others' rights when there are no negative consequences to them is like writing a book about blackjack that says "always hit on twenty when the next card is an ace."

    (...)

    To continue the blackjack analogy: a man who avoids hitting on twenty because it is a bad move by the principles of blackjack will, in the long run, be a more successful player than the man who prays for an ace.  The point of morality is to teach you how to live successfully all the time, not just once in a while.

    The analogy hardly holds, in blackjack the risk of hitting on a 20 is numerically quantifiable, and it is obvious that as a principle it would be idiotic. You are trying to extend this to a generality where the risk itself is not quantifiable, and may even be very small.

    You further assume that respecting other's rights is the path to long term prosperity, or the accumulation of value. This assumption is unsupported and requires as much proof as the conclusion you built on it.

    Finally, the relation of self-esteem with what I will call "being good", for the lack of a better term, is a further unsupported assumption.

    To wrap it up here are the questions to be answered rationally in order to validate your conclusion:

    1. Does violating other people's "rights" always lead to less overall value to the violator?

    2. Does violating other people's "rights" always negatively affect the violator's self esteem?

    I have yet to see a rational demonstration of (1), and have personally met people who apparently contradict (2). You can say "he isn't really happy", "he isn't really proud of himself"; you would be contradicting the evidence to support a theory.

    So (and if you have any objections, let me know) any subsequent time you "need" money, you are liable to rob a bank again. While I won't attack the idea that one robbery be "foolproof," I can't accept the idea that an unspecified series of robberies could be foolproof. Supposing we say there is a one in a million chance of getting caught/failing. Here, you've taken a slight risk of loss, and you have accepted values that contextually will multiply the threat to your life/well being.

    Up to this point, my case would be: once a robber, always a robber :) You'd always accept the viability of robbing under certain contexts, and under those contexts, you'd be taking a risk to your life. Of course, this is merely the Jean Valjean scenario: stealing is immoral, even if it greatly ensures your life.

    You have built a straw man and expertly taken him down. Our subject contemplating robbery is a rational being. He will perform only a robbery where his risk/reward evaluation is favorable. Whether it is a single event or a chain is irrelevant, as he will judge each event independently. Sure he is taking a risk to his life, but then so are we every time we get in the car and go to work.

    The point in question is: why is robbing a bank wrong, on rational principle?

    mrocktor

  3. Hi,

    My name is Peter and I am an engineer, living in Brazil. My (late) discovery of Objectivism was due to the songwriting of Neil Peart. I had seen Ayn Rand cited as an influence to his work but never bothered to look her up... I have now corrected this oversight.

    I hope to have constructive and interesting discussions with you folks!

    mrocktor

  4. Wow. Thank you all for your time in responding to this; I came here with 15 minutes to spare hoping to get a brief response in... anyways, I'm just posting to let you know I haven't given up, and will hopefully get something more substantial in this evening.

    OPM, I just found out about Ayn Rand and Objectivism myself (as in this week). I was surprised about how close Objectivism is to my own thinking, though I had never formulated my thought structure in a formal sense.

    That said, I am bound to agree to your statements about morality with regards to crime (whether they are your view or only material for discussion). It is entirely possible for an individual's rational self interest to be in doing something that causes harm to another - as your examples have stated.

    Trying to evade this aparent conundrum by saying what is essentially "think about the others" or "do unto others as you would have done to yourself" conflicts with the root of acting in rational self interest. Robbing someone does not mean I will be robbed, nor does it "give permission" for other people to rob from me. No one needs permission to rob from me, and it is up to me to protect myself from others.

    And thus we arrive at the point I would like to make: the need for protection from individuals who would prey on others rather than be productive is universal. Even the predators must protect themselves from other predators. Thus it is in my (and everyone elses) rational self interest to create barriers to actions that would negatively affect me. The result of this shared self interest is the institution of the state, as a protector of the individual's rights to life and property.

    If these rights were intrinsic to rational man, there would be no need for a state to defend them. I beleive they are not, and that "criminal" behavior must be actively fought against. To argue that rational man's ethics should prevent him from encroaching on another man's property even though there would be no adverse consequences (or citing a mystical loss of one's self worth) conflicts with the concept of self interest itself.

    mrocktor

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