Vladimir Berkov
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Posts posted by Vladimir Berkov
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We have all heard the line that "there are no atheists in foxholes." The argument goes that it is impossible for a person to maintain their rationality when pushed to the extreme; a person must believe in God if they are to endure the challenges of the battlefield. How it empowers anyone to switch focus from facing the facts of reality to believing that a transcendent being will face them for you is never really answered, yet such is the way of those who are animated by their blind beliefs.
I think you may have mischaracterized the idea. The driving idea behind turning to God in the "foxhole" is not that shifting focus away from reality to "blind beliefs" has an affect on your survival. The point, however, is that the "foxhole" situation is one where a person realizes that his rational actions and thoughts are utterly and completely irrelevant to his survival. IE, you are crouched down in a trench, with enemy shells falling all around. You can't stop the shells, you can't move, you simply have to endure the fact that your life could disappear in an instant through no action on your part. In such situations, I actually think it is at least understandable that someone would turn to God. Turning to God, in a sense, is a means of "doing something" you think might affect your survival when all the other actions you might do would not.
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It's ruled out by reality, not by assumption.
Actually, it is not ruled out by reality. Whether or not you think global warming currently is occurring there seems to be nothing in the nature of reality or physical nature of the Earth which prohibits humans causing catastrophic climate change. As such, the debate shifts to whether or not proponents of global warming have proved that it is occurring and that we are the cause, and I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that they have not.
This is different from ruling out the idea of global warming/climate change/pollution on a metaphysical level. We are essentially talking about a factual issue here, not a philosophic one.
Which is, by the way, one reason I personally am suspicious of the bias of both "sides" in the global warming debate. The environmentalists/leftists certainly have ideological reasons for a bias in saying that global warming exists and that humans are the cause. But the libertarians/objectivists/republicans also have ideological reasons for a bias in saying that global warming doesn't (or in even can never) exist and that human action is irrelevant in climate change.
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No, that such activity does not constitute a reason to bomb Germany. I take it you did not understand the point about deliberately facilitating terrorism vs. not managing to succeed at stopping terrorism. Do you have a clear idea what part of the distinction eludes you, so that I might try explaining in further detail? This is a really important concept, and since entire nations seem not to get it, I guess it must be strangely difficult to get ahold of.
I am confused on your rationale then. From what I first understood it was; "If there is a threat to the US, any military action we use in response to that threat is 'defensive' (and is I assume thus moral) regardless of the proportionality or civilian casualties."
If so, then it would be perfectly consistant and moral to nuke Berlin in my example. You seem to be implying that doing so would be bad in a practical, diplomatic sense, and I agree. There will certainly be cases where we have the moral right to retaliate yet we either do not retaliate or else retaliate with a less-destructive means for various policy considerations. This is different from saying we shouldn't nuke Berlin for a moral reason, however, or that nuking Berlin would not be "defensive" military action.
What I am trying to understand is how your moral schematic for the use of force is limited in any meaningful moral way.
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Of course, such an assumption rules out the possibility that global warming is a reality.
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I would really like to see a movie made of Harry Turtledove's "The Great War: American Front." It is so far the most interesting book I have read in many months.
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This is a brave new world that we're living in, given terrorism as the new international threat to rights. It clearly poses a real conceptual problem for looking at national defense in the way we were used to during the first two world wars. But this is not an insurmountable conceptual problem.
What I was trying to get at was not that I see terrorism as something we can't formulate some sort of defensive policy against (interestingly your framework mirrors several elements of international law) but rather that it seems wrong to characterize any action in that regard as "defensive." I think that if allowed to go back in time and freed from any proportionality requirement, almost any military action can be characterized as "defensive."
For example, you could argue that Hitler's invasion of Poland was defensive in nature by either tying the "threat" to the British and French military buildup, or to the Versailles Treaty, or to the anticipated hostility with Russia, etc. I am not talking about the moral justification of a war, remember, just how military action is characterized as either "offensive" or "defensive."
There is the possibility that Objectivism simply defines all military action taken by "free" states as defensive and all military action taken by "slave" states as offensive. But this seems problematic from both linguistic and foreign policy points of view, and I don't think it is the best resolution.
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Another complication regarding Islam is that a "jihad" against Islam by Western countries might have the opposite effect of reducing the influence and power of the religion.
There are many historical examples that show that where a society is under assault from outsiders with a different religion, that society will turn to its own religion even more, often turning to a more orthodox and extreme interpretation of the religion, in fact.
The solution might not be a military assault on Islam so much as an ideological one coupled with diplomacy. Of course this doesn't mean that countries like the US or Israel should let themselves be attacked, but it also means that aggressive military action itself will not eliminate the threat they face.
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Defensive actions do not have to wait for a first strike. BTW we're not talking about international law, which is really just another statement of World Community opinion. If we had a world government subject to a global constitutution and a real international police force to enforce laws, there might be some point in talking about international law, but there isn't so let's not.
I agree as to the utility of international law on the use of force, as I said when I brought it up. My point was just that if there is a meaningful defensive/offensive distinction there must be some sort of definition or policy rationale to make said distinction. You can't simply rely on putative justifications, because any nation can say it is acting defensively, but that doesn't seem to mean it necessarily is acting so.
The fundamental question that has to be answered first is whether Iran, or any other country, is a threat to the US. By threat I mean "threat of force" -- not an economic threat.This is the problem however, because there seems no clear-cut way to draw the line anywhere. For instance, both you and I reject the international law definition of "defensive" as largely restricting to responding to actual (IE enemy troops crossing the border) uses of force. But you can't say that any military response to a percieved threat is defensive either, otherwise almost all military actions will be justified as "defensive."
For instance, the US gathers intel that there are three terrorists plotting against the US in an apartment in Berlin. There clearly is a threat, although not a very large one. Is a US nuclear strike on Berlin a defensive military action?
Or in another example, it would be reasonable for the US to say (as a corollary to the Bush doctrine) that all non-democratic countries are threats to the US. Would the use of force against all non-democratic nations be defensive?
Or what about a "threat of a threat?" IE, we know there is no imminent threat, but there is a threat of a threat developing in the future.
If threats are the only standard it also seems that any military action in furtherance of US security (threat removal) is defensive regardless of who is the target or if the threat is unintentional. For example, a country which is not a threat to us and which has necessary US strategic airbases on its soil decides it no longer wants the bases there. Is US military action deposing this government and installing a pro-US one which will allow the bases a defensive action?
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The real question is, when academic philosophers usurp a word and give it a specific definition, ought we as Objectivists to accept that redefinition? I cannot see a rational basis for doing so.
But couldn't the opposite question be asked? When Objectivists take a word with an accepted definition and redefine it, ought non-Objectivists to accept that redefinition?
I am not talking about whether there is an objective need for a new word to describe a concept, but merely whether it is reasonable to accept the majority of society to accept the redefinition of a word by an small minority group.
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Nobody is proposing using nukes as an offensive weapon, only as a defensive weapon.
The problem is that it is being used tactically in an offensive, rather than defensive, manner. You can argue that in the long-term strategic view, the use is defensive, but determining defensive/offensive in that view is very difficult.
For example on that basis Germany's invasion of France and Belgium in WWI was defensive, the Spanish-American War was defensive for the US, etc.
If we are talking international law, pre-emptive attacks are almost always considered aggressive, not defensive. Personally I think this draws the line incorrectly, but the idea that the line of definition must be drawn somewhere is necessary. Otherwise ANY military action can be judged defensive based only on the purported justifications of that nation.
The confusion on this forum might arise because of the fact that a nation's derivative right of self-defense governs all military actions, but that doesn't mean all the military actions they take are "defensive" militarily. They might be offensive, IE "The best defense is a good offense."
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Tehran is the Fatherland of terrorism, 19 of the 21 highjackers were Saudia Arabians.
Um, shouldn't we also nuke Riyadh then? I mean, what's another nuke between friends?
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That WAS my example; that of true, false, and arbitrary. You cannot draw the distinctions that Peikoff draws by using the standard definitions.
I am not talking about the distinctions, I am talking about the results. It is obvious that if you have proprietary definitions they will thus be the only such distinction drawn. My point was more that regardless of whether you apply Peikoff's definitions or the standard ones, you end up with the exact same results when analyzing any particular claims. IE, "It is possible that we live in the Matrix" or "It is possible there are gremlins on the other side of Mars."
To the extent you think that Peikoff's definitions are better, we will have to agree to disagree on this subject. I am not sure if any futher discussion of "possibility" is on-topic or productive though.
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Why? Aren't some laws unreasonable regardless of the goals underlying them?
That's why the goal is not the only factor in what makes a good law, you have policy rationales, evidentiary concerns, etc.
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That's like saying that Spain is not set up to allow for the integration of the Basques. After all, Spain speaks Spanish and not Basque. And the culture in Spain is...well, Spanish, not Basque. Yes, Israel is a Jewish culture. But that doesn't mean that the Arabs can't integrate into it, the same way immigrants have come here for decades and integrated into American culture.
Could the arabs? Yes (maybe) considering that current Israeli law allows citizenship mainly on the basis of religion/ethnicity. The question is whether it is reasonable for them to do so.
The difference between America and Israel is that America, despite what many Republicans believe, was not created with the goal of being a religious/ethnic state. In fact, the races and ethnicities which dominated at the time of the Founding Fathers are completely different than the ones you see today. The religion present at Plymouth Rock is not dominant today, etc. In short, America is a concept that survives the predominance of any one religion or ethnic group.
The same cannot be said of Israel. Israel is legally enshrined as a "Jewish" state and it is the avowed policy of its government to keep it that way. It would be as if, upon the founding of the United States, the Founding Fathers chose a giant blue cross as our national flag and proceeded to allow only protestant Christians to emigrate here. To some extent this was true, but this is because it was a flaw with the US in its early history as well as with Israel today.
What I am getting at is that it is unreasonable to expect non-jewish people to flock to israel while Israel continues to see itself as primarly a Jewish state. I am not sure if this is possible, since doing so undermines the very reason for establishing Israel in the first place. (as a Jewish-majority socialist state)
Still, efforts at removing Israel's religious bias especially in immigration, and with respect to the settlements I think will go far to show the world that Israel is more committed to being a secular plurocracy than a Jewish majority.
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Israel is a secular state. In some ways, it is more secular than the United States. Israeli Arabs enjoy the same full rights as Israeli Jews, including the right to vote and representation in the Knesset. Polls have shown that, were a Palestinian state to be created, the vast majority of Israeli Arabs would want to remain as citizens of Israel. If you're going to make accusations of apartheid, you can't really do it by pointing to the status of Israeli Arabs.
I am not saying that arab Israelis have inferior rights to Jewish Israelis. My point is that the structure of Israel is defininately biased towards Jewish, rather than non-Jewish interests. You can see this in their citizenship laws, the makeup of the population, language, culture, etc. I am not saying this is a "bad" thing per se even, just that it is obviously a good reason why we can't expect arabs to willingly become Israelis.
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Incorrect because irrelevant. Everything is bound to cause additional anti-US sentiment in the Muddle East. It is purely unreasonable to be bound by the sentiment of an uncivilized mob.
This is simply an unproven assertion on your part, and an unreasonable one to boot. There are ways countries can increase hostility towards them and there are ways they can decrease it. It is not as if muslims in the Middle-East have some sort of intuition that they will always hate the US regardless of what we do. There are things we can do which might cause the level, type, and scope of their opinion of the US to become better or worse.
Now, whether any advantages gained in defusing muslim rage against the US outweigh the benefits of a particular military strategy is entirely another issue. But to say that what we do has no impact on how we are percieved in the Middle-East seems bizarre and unsupported to say the least.
Yeah...pancakes definately pancakes...I don't see any reason to think that anybody outside Iran would actually care if we sent a mushroom-shaped message.Anyhow, what I see emerging from this discussion is this. Nations must have the approval of The World Community to exist. Without a consensus from The World Community, civilized nations must allow themselves to be attacked in any and all ways that befall us. It is important that we never unilaterally act to defend ourselves, without first securing the permission of The World Community. Now it's true that this restriction only applies to the US, because it is a terrible world power -- Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, to give a few examples, do not have to live in a civilized rights-respecting manner. The penalty for violating this law requiring World Community pre-approval is to be scorned, and lord knows, we can't stand to be scorned -- that would destroy the fabric of our society.As Moose said this is a strawman. I am personally of the opinion that the ONLY consideration for a nation's foreign policy (including military action) should be the self-interest of that nation. However, it is not always in the self-interest of a nation to cause anger and hatred among other nations nor is it always in the self-interest of a nation to use the harshest, most destructive means possible in a given situation.
I am not going to argue that the US would not be morally justified in using nukes in many situations, but whether or not it is morally justified is different from whether it is a wise policy idea. And that is essentially what military action is, a policy choice. You have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks, and in the case of an aggresive nuclear attack on Iran all I see are lots of risks and very, very few benefits. This is especially true when you consider that what benefits do accrue from a nuclear attack would accrue almost certainly from a non-nuclear attack (IE we simply assassinate the Iranian leadership.)
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The best course would be for Israel to offer the Palestinian Arabs two choices: to integrate themselves into Israeli society in a single state, or to get the hell out before the tanks roll the hell in. This should be the general policy of Western countries such as the US with respect to crazylands such as Iran (in other words, integrate themselves into Western society, on Western philosophical principles ... or get the hell out of this world).
That is, of course, the best course of action for Israel to take. But while the best course of action for the fanatical religionists preaching (and practicing) mass destruction is to stop being fanatical religionists preaching (and practicing) mass destruction ... I don't envision that ever happening.
The problem though is that Israel is not a secular western state in the way we would think of one. Israel was created for the express purpose of being a state for an ethnic/religious group. This has influenced everything from its law, to is language, to its politics, to its culture. Israel does not want a secular, cultural conglomerate in which Jews are a minority group. This is, I think the major barrier to peace. It is harder to blame arabs for not integrating themselves into Israel when Israel is structured as to make them second-class citizens.
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You still have it wrong, though. Illogical and self-contradictory claims are not a species of the arbitrary or of the possible (nor are they part of the "traditional" definition of "possible").
If I made it appear I thought that was the case I am correcting that now.
My point is that you still don't understand Peikoff's position. And yet you critique it. Ask yourself: Is that proper?I understand Peikoff's definition of "possible" and that is really all my position is on at the moment.
But that's just it. It doesn't cover the case of something where there is no evidence either way. Sure, it includes it, under the traditional definition, but what tradition term includes "that which has no evidence either way" but does not include "that which has weak evidence for and does not contradict known evidence or laws." Peikoff was making a point that the former does not belong in the same epistemological category as the latter. To do this, it is completely justified and necessary to use two separate words!I don't wish to sidetrack this thread into a discussion of the possibility argument again as I don't think it is productive.
As I said, I challenge you to provide a hypothetical where Peikoff's defintions cause the analysis to arrive at one result and the standard definitions to arrive at another. I don't think such a hypothetical exists, but I leave it to you to prove me wrong. My point in this communication thread is that Peikoff's definitions are non-essential to the philosophy and also confusing to other scolars, so if you can produce an example where they are essential that means that any confusion or communication problems they cause are irrelevant.
Can you provide the proof that the definitions are correct? That is both a question and an invitation.As I said, the definitions are what they are. I don't want to get into a long discussion of possibility again, we already had one long thread about that. If you are talking about whether the standard terms have any reference to reality, then the short answer is that they do to the same degree Peikoff's do. My point is not that Peikoff's definitions are so much "wrong" metaphysically as unnecessary and confusing practically. The worth of a definition is not only in how well it states the underlying nature of reality but in how useful it is in communicating the concept among humans. I hold that Peikoff's definitions are not useful in that regard.
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You didn't list 5 reasons, or even 1. Point 1 is not a reason because there is no relationship between nuking Tehran and the conclusion -- all actions or inactions will create more hate in the Islamic world against the US.
Incorrect. A large-scale unprovoked attack on a civilian target with nukes is BOUND to cause additional anti-US sentiments in the Middle East. Currently while there is a lot of animosity against the US among arabs, certainly not all arabs are moved to action against the US. Terrorists are a small percentage of the Middle Eastern population. The best recruiting tool terrorist groups would have is a nuke attack. I am not saying that not nuking will eliminate anti-US feelings, just that nuking Iran is virtually guaranteed to increase them.
I wouldn't be so sure. The US only has a few weak allies at the moment in the War on Terrorism. Britain is already vacilating on the issue, for instance, with her domestic population against aiding the US but the government still committed. A nuke attack on Iran would likely cost us help from nations like Britain, and we would be left with our only allies being those countries so dependant on the US that they cannot afford to lose us as an ally regardless of what we do. These countries are not exactly useful to us, however.Point 2 is factually false: it would probably only cost us a few weak allies, and only for a short period.Point 3 is flamingly false, since a more likely reaction is an increase in anti-nuclear sentiment.Yes and no. Anti-nuclear sentiment to the extent the rest of the world will hate the US for using nukes. But the opposite will be true of governments, who will see it as an example of unchecked US power and will seek ways to protect themselves. They will see that the US doesn't attack countries like North Korea, which have nukes, but will attack countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, who don't have nukes. Our enemies usually think their conventional forces are enough, we don't need to provoke a nuclear arms race among militarily weak nations hostile to the West.
No, but the institutional costs of using nukes will be reduced. If the world sees it as OK to use nukes in a non strictly self-defense situation, the result is certainly not good for the US. We don't need nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, or between North Korea and Japan.Point 4 is humorously false: are you seriously suggesting that Britain or Russia will drop the bomb on us because we flattened Tehran?Point 5 is orthographically and logically false: the word you were looking for is "sane", and that's a reason to do it, not a reason to not do it.Point 5 is something many humans would call a "joke."
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Actually, you still don't have it right. There are three categories, not two. False, arbitrary, and true. Illogical, self-contradictory claims are false, not arbitrary.
I am not talking about the truth values of statements, I am talking about how Peikoff divides traditional statements of possibility. I personally think it might be unclear where concepts such as "God" fall as "arbitrary" or "false" under the Objectivist system. Perhaps illogical statements are treated as "false" by Peikoff, it really doesn't matter as those are not treated as "possible" by the accepted definition either.
The accepted usage of "possible" covers all such claims non-exclusively. My previous post as seen above explains this. If you are arguing that previously there was no single word which described the concept that Rand/Peikoff were after and that creating a new word was impossible, that is another issue.You can? There is a term for "neither true nor false; as there is no evidence either way?"Again, this is your prejudice as someone who doesn't understand the philosophy. You are wrong in thinking that there was no reason behind defining the terms the way they did.I never said there was no reason, in fact in my previous post I hypothetically went down the path Rand/Peikoff might have in desiring new definitions. I simply think whatever reason they did have is not sufficiently useful to warrant redefinition.
Again, you mischaracterize it as "re-alignment." That statement presumes that it was ever aligned in MAP. As I have said, MAP has so badly mis-defined their terms that no proper understanding can be reached with them. What Rand and Peikoff have done is fully and clearly explain the issues in a way that nobody before them has ever (AFAIK) done. They are not re-defining these issues, but rather are, for the first time, defining them.Is that a typo?
This is completely untrue. I can provide the definitions for any of the standard accepted-usage terms I use. Whether you like the defintions conceptually is another issue. I personally think they are far more useful than Peikoff's redefinition, and in fact I challenge you to present any fact pattern or statement you think Objectivism analyzes in a certain right way, which you think the standard usage and method is unable to capture or under which leads to a different result.
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1.) It will create more hate in the Islamic world against the US.
2.) It will likely cost the US many of its current valuable allies.
3.) It will decrease the current international bias in favor of nuclear abstinance.
4.) It might provoke nuclear retaliation.
5.) It is insane?
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Vladimir, however he is in person, comes across as a perpetual gripe whose only purpose here is to snipe at Objectivism. I know the difference between a newbie "I don't understand this; can you explain?" question and a "You Objectivists are wrong!!!" question, and Vladimir's posts are definitely the latter. I will remind you that the forum rules specifically forbid that kind of tone/attitude. For too long, he has arrogantly posted in that tone here and it was about time that someone called him to task for it.
From what I understand, a person need not agree 100% with Objectivism in order to post here. If a discussion about Objectivism and its applications is a purpose of the forum, then I fail to see how my substantive posts are off-topic. As someone who is an Ayn Rand fan and who is in agreement with most of the substantive applications of the Objectivist philosophy I believe it is my right to voice my opinion where I see 1.) a substantive philosophy-related problem in the post of another member whether or not their views correspond to Objectivist dogma, or 2.) Where I wish to voice my personal opinion on Objectivism's best application to some issue.
If you think I am some sort of troll who comes here merely to stir up trouble in my hatred of Objectivism, that is your prerogative. I personally find it rather depressing that my attempts to (as I see it) improve the procedural and structural elements of the philosophy have met with so much hostility. In many cases I simply think that either the standard Objectivist literature or other forum members have not critically examined some key issue and should do so. Othertimes I think there may be a flaw or weak spot in Objectivist's arguments which needs to be fixed or at least recognized in order to better support the philosophy.
I think Ayn Rand's ideas are simply too important to be accepted on a dogmatic basis and for all further discussion, critique or improvement to be banned. Such intellectual firewalls are what characterize intellectually bankrupt dogmas like Christianity, Marxism the like. It shouldn't characterize one of the few philosophies that values individual thought and reason.
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...and as all of us told you in the "possibility" thread, you are wrong about Peikoff's definitions not being necessary.
I can easily summarize Peikoff's views on possibility using standard terminology. In fact, I was struggling for a long time in that thread trying to figure out where everybody was coming from entirely because the use of terminology was different. If Objectivists in that thread had explained Peikoff's position using standard terms, the misunderstanding would never have happened. The "possibility" problem is symptomatic of the redefinition problem.
IE, Peikoff (or Rand) saw that the standard definitions of "possible" were broad and allowed statements they thought were irrelevant. Rather than accepting the standard usage with the caveat that such statements are irrelevant, they created a new term ("arbitrary") which is actually less precise than the standard terms, to capture them. This thus required them to redefine "possible" to include positive evidence (aka "probability" concerns).
In the end, the result is fairly coherent. Some claims are "arbitrary" (illogical, self-contradictory, or no evidence, etc.) and some are "possible" (where they are in conformity with reality and there is some positive evidence of their truth) At some point the evidence becomes such that they are "probable."
You can reach the same conclusion using standard terminology. For what Peikoff calls "arbitrary" standard usage would include both the impossible as well as the possible without evidence of truth. For what Peikoff calls "possible" everyone else would simply call "more likely than not" or perhaps "possible but not probable" and both sides seem to agree about the definition of "probable."
This is, of course, assuming that Peikoff's realignment of the whole issue is necessary for Objectivism. (it is not) But even assuming it is, by explaining it in standard terms you easily can get people to understand where the differences are between Objectivism and other philosophies. For example, I didn't realize for the longest time that for Objectivists a statement can't be "possible" unless there is positive evidence. This is directly counter to accepted common usage AND philosophical usage. I was arguing with people I thought simply didn't understand what "possible" meant!
Eventually I figured it out and was able to get to the merits of the issue, but it took a LOT of time and a lot of cross-referencing to OPAR to figure it out. A philosophy should not demand of its potential students that they learn propriatary lingo unless absolutely necessary. In a way Objectivism is a philosophy too reform-minded for its own good. Rather than simply redefining the substantive debate and issues, it attempts to redefine the language of philosophy. And I believe that this is a mistake because it only tends to insulate the philosophy from the other 99% of philosophy students in the world who only understand the accepted meanings. These people will likely see Objectivist redefinition not as a welcome reform to the language of philosophy but as some sort of "trick" Objectivists use to gloss over substantive problems or weak arguments within the philosophy.
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1. One party rule
2. Censorship
3. Suspension of the writ of habeas corpus
That sounds like an exact description of the United States during the Civil War!
Foxhole theist syndrome
in The Objectivism Meta-Blog Discussion
Posted
As I said though, we are talking about situations in which rationality is largely irrelevant to survival.