ithrail

for the third time, what if i am not destroying the source of my wealth? what if i don't need the victim? Psychologically, you will have a fear of reality, fear because you are so incompetent to deal with it that you have to rely on the effort of others to sustain yourself...subconsciously you will know that you are impotent to deal with reality and it is only through the productive effort of others that you can survive. Again, what if I do not need to kill in order to survive. I could and often do produce my own wealth, or I simply abstain from killing those useful to me? Why should I be afraid? I can live just fine on my own if i want to? I still don't see why no one believes that killers are sometimes never caught? doesn't anyone watch america's most wanted anymore or see the myriad of missing persons or wanted adds in public places? because the emperical evidence says that people can and do avoid detection and capture, i'm suspicious that these mindless repeatitions of "you will get caught" are toeing the line of faith, which if true would collapse the whole philosophy and make it the cult all my teachers tell me it is

What of land as it relates to water, air, or nearby land. I've always wondered about this. If you hold that you unequivocibly own land you buy or develop or whathaveyou then you should be able to do whatever you want with it. What if what you want is do dump nuclear waste or build a polluting factory or something similar? This would be indirectly attacking someone else so it would be pushed outside property rights into the ethics (or lackthereof) in initiating attacks. My question is how factories that pollute could be justified under objectivism? factories, cars, and other private property sully air and water and other land by virtue of a fuction of their natural processes. How can this be justified though? the air and water move and aren't private property specific (affected lands nearby more obviously don't belong to the pollutor). Now factories and cars are great and enhance life and all, but the people getting hurt by pollution can't be sacrificed for the greater good. how else can polluting industries or private machines (your car spilling exhaust into the air of the home which I own) be justified? are the eco nuts right and gov. should micromanage and combat every iota of pollution that strays beyond corporate or private borders?

I'll assume you're being facetious but it isn't useful. I already addressed that problem, twice in fact, in case you missed it. I wouldn't need to be strong if I didn't have to fight. I wouldn't have to fight if people didn't know I had killed. Its perfectly reasonable to suppose that I could kill in such a way that no one knew I had done it. The hundreds of thousands of unsolved crimes we hear about every day should be empirical proof enough of that. Even if there was no way in hell i could ever get away with murder (a claim which seems to have no basis in reality) why would it matter if it made me happy? The pursuit of happiness trumps the pursuit of life. See all the arguements in my last post...there must be some real counter arguement

I'm not sure if this question belongs here. it seems so close that I'm not sure if it is actually being answered and i'm just too dense to see it. In any case i'll put it in my own words and see what i get. What is the basis of the belief that reason and empericism reflect reality? Can reason be used to prove the validity of reason? Is the objectivist position that reason is self referent, it is its own standard? How is this different from faith being its own standard, the bible is based on god which is based on the bible, etc.? Do objectivists have "faith" in reason? Now, as I try to explain it to others (probably incorrectly so you should have an incentive to correct me least i lead people astray) the objectivist position is that we know reason reflects reality because it works or seems to work. Our perception of reason and empericism "working" however, relies on our senses (emperical evidence) and reason. Christianity= bible --> god--> bible; objectivism= reason + empericism --> a perception of reality based on reason and empericism --> reason and empericism. I don't see the difference??? I can see how it might be easy to refute a nihilist who rejects reason and his senses altogether (if it came down to it you could just keep slapping him until he acknowledged that this, at least, was real) but what of those who mix and match with faith and reason? are they not happy healthy and productive members of society? is not the emperical evidence of "it works" a result of their system just as it is of the objectivist? What is the basis of the claim that men must live by reason alone if they, in fact, can live just as well with a blending?

The arguement I'm hearing seems to contain an element of collectivism in it, unless I'm misinterpreting (i realize that collectivism is a naughty word here). I am an distinct entity and my vicitm is a distinct entity. I don't derive value from his existence so I lose none when he ceases to exist. Say that I do derive value from killing him, killing this guy made me happy. Now according to objectivism I'm supposed to pursue my happiness at all costs. The caveat that keeps this from being a command to free-for-all is that it truely has to be happiness that i'm pursuing. The objectivist arguements as to why i wouldn't in fact be happy killing someone, as far as I know them, are 1. self defense: you kill somone then maybe someone will kill you 2. utility: it's a waste of time having to always defend yourself (obey the rules and you'll presumably be immune) 3. greed: if i kill somone that produces values i want/need then i'm hurting my supply chain. If all of these problems are removed--and there are several scenerios I have in mind which i'll address later--would murder be moral? Now, first scenerio is that I would really really really enjoy killing someone. My understanding of Galt's claim that he'd prefer to die then see Dagny get axed is that the pursuit of life is subordinate to the pursuit of happiness. I remember somewhere else one of the Titans saying that it would be moral to die fighting, even if all the world opposed you, if you were fighting for your happiness (your sine quo non). Now, as the ARI people explained it to me (mind you i'm paraphrasing), the reason you shouldn't sit on your roof with a shotgun waiting for the IRS to come get you--cause otherwise it'd moral to die a martyr for yourself--is because you probably get more net happiness if you lived. If that weren't true, (i'm terminally i'll so i'll die anyway, i'd enjoy killing that guy enough that it'd be worth it to me, etc) then why shouldn't you risk dying at the hands of a counter attack? It would seem in fact that you'd be immoral if you didn't kill because there'd be no good reason why you shouldn't pursue this uber happiness??? Second scenerio, a more clear version of my last post---i still want to live but i can avoid being caught and i'd enjoy it. Now the second post seems like a nonsensical cop out. I'm "suspending reality" in that i'm pretending what happened didn't happen. Am I? I don't need to walk up to a guy and say "I ate the cookie" for it to have really happened. You make it sound as if I'd need to walk up to a policeman and say, "you know, i killed that homeless guy who you probably didn't even notice was missing" for me not to be suspending reality. I know it happened, i'm not telling myself it didn't happen, where's the problem? Do I need to waltz around the world shouting "reality is real" to not suspend reality? Is this not solipsism? The first post is more interesting (admittedly it's one i posted myself so i'm biased). I posted it though cause I think there's a problem with it so using it against me isn't helping me understand it any better. So I'm a human and my victim's a human. We're not the same person. I don't need him to have self esteem. Screw him. If I'm happy killing him and retribution and greed are meaningless (i won't get caught, i don't care if i get caught (see above), and he's a unproductive bum so i'm not hurting my suppliers), then why shouldn't I? The only grounds objectivism has left, unless I'm missing something, is to try to prove that I'm not really happy. Now this post, my 6, claims that I can't be happy killing a human because I'm a human and I'd essentially be indirectly killing myself. But the REALITY is that I am not killing myself. I am not "Humanity", (neither is he) and I do not derive my sense of self worth from "Humanity." The claim that murder is acting on the principle that MY life has no meaning isn't accurate then, only Suicide would meet the ME criteria (and maybe not even then). Again and again I read that It is evil and impossible to derive a source of self esteem from external sources (rearden's pulling himself up from his desk scene). A = A?? Now the way i'd try to attack that would be A =C, B=C therefore A=C but isn't this collective identity-ism? I cannot equal humanity, seperate mind, seperate stomach, etc??? If I am not "humanity" then acting as if human life has no meaning doesn't bother me, I am not "human life", I am "my life". ??? Personally I like the martyr arguement better, something about this last arguement "feels" wrong (pardon me, another dirty word) but i don't see why i should think it wrong. The martyr arguement always gets me when I have to defend objectivism, which can be a full time task for a college student studying humanities....

hypothetical: (seeking a loophole) 1. If I were to kill a man who I in no way needed and who produced or possessed no values that I wanted, an old homeless alcoholic say, I would not be damaging my resource base. Granted I would run out of bums, but what if I did it only once. 2. dondigitalia: Because this man would have no values I wanted or was feeding off of, I would not be violating my self esteem by acting as if I needed him to get values. I took no value from him and do not depend on him for values. 3. My motivation for killing him if he had no values I wanted would be the obvious question, I assume. Say I either a. enjoyed killing him and therefore was rationally pursuing my happiness or b. he smelled bad or his presence otherwise discomforted me and I wanted him gone. Similarly I’d be indirectly working towards my happiness but that piece of happiness doesn’t come from him, he is an impediment in reality similar to the rock in the way of my coal. Can I be certain that all killers are always made unhappy by killing--some of them certainly seem to enjoy it and I cannot claim to know them better then themselves... 4. If I were to do it in such a way that no one else knew about it (I wouldn’t get caught) I would not be putting myself in danger of attack by others because they wouldn’t know I had forfeited my rights. I could also go with “what if I’m strong enough to survive counterattack” but the waste of time having to always watch my back seems like a good enough reason to avoid that to me. 5. taegann: If I were to murder only once, and were to otherwise follow the principles I need to in order to survive, I wouldn’t be putting my life in danger. 6. killing him would be acting on the principle that human life has no value, which seems to strike at my self esteem. can not happiness justify murder? pursuit of my happiness at all costs is an expression of high self esteem--i am worthy. when i kill to defend myself i am similarly killing a human who gives me no value because I think that my happiness and desire to live trump whatever value would be lost when i killed him (i'm not addressing the forfeitng of rights bit in self defense becase as a killer i have none anyway).