SkyTrooper

I am not saying "this is possibly what the agreement is" I am saying "these are possible agreements you can make." Given the nature of Man and his interaction with other men what makes it physically impossible that he can make an implied agreement? Nothing. The set of agreements I have listed in post #152 is the set that includes the likely agreements you may choose to make with a pizza delivery company. You are saying that you are entering Agreement #1, while I think its clear that you are entering into Agreement #3 if you order a Pizza in the United States. This is one of the steps in my argument, showing that if you evade the social convention that exists in the United States that you are still wrong. (Once again, refer to post #152) You are saying the nature of the agreement between the pizza owner and the driver for the delivery of your pizza is Agreement #1B.(please look at post #152 and confirm this so we both know what we are discussing) I say that no person would enter into Agreement #1B if he knew that this is the agreement. Would you sell someone a product if you knew you would not get a payment? Would a taxi cab driver drop you somewhere if he knew you did not recognize the implied agreement that his services will be paid for? You are not following the virtue of Honesty by hiring someone under this condition. I do not work at a pizza place nor in an industry where tipping is involved. Please stop addressing me like I do. I simply found the dismissal of implied agreements a dismissal of reality ("reality should be like this, contracts should be like this.. so I am going to pretend like they are like this")

I don't think that is what he was saying, but if its what you are saying than read post #152 starting from: As I argue in that post you are holding an untenable position. Either the agreement is fair and implied, or it is unfair and explicit.

Your point is in response to my question about my "three agreements" that they are "all agreements that are possible in reality. Do you disagree that these are physically possible?" I think you are saying it is not physically possible to have an implied agreement with someone. This is different from saying that it is not possible for the government to enforce it, or that you would rather not enter into an implied agreement. If you are correct about this, my entire argument (in post #152) falls apart. However, I think that it is physically possible to have an implied agreement established by custom (even if it is not desirable.) Examples that come to mind: 1) You put a stamp on a letter and place it in your mailbox. It is implied that the post office will get it somewhere in 3-5 days in exchange for the payment of the stamp. If it gets there 3 months later, or not at all, do you have a reason to be upset? Has the post office broken some sort of agreement? 2) You get in a cab and tell the driver you want to go downtown. The driver does not tell you the price until you get there. "What?!" you say, "I didn't explicitly agree to pay you for driving me somewhere." What claim does the driver have on your money? What is the basis for the contract? Most of the other examples I can think of only still exist in other countries. If there was no ethical claim on an implied agreement, how could you function in another country? In some sort of "reciprocal" culture where obligations are not stated clearly, do you have a right to take everything you want and not pay for it? Edit: added a post reference for my original argument

I insist that I read and analyzed your post to the best of my ability. If I am wrong in my last post I would appreciate if you actually point out the error in my logic rather than dismiss it offhand as "byzantine nonsense." Otherwise, I have no real reason to take your ideas seriously either.

You're missed the entire point of my example. I am not saying drivers are slaves, I am showing that the fact that the owner of the business does not insulate you from the mechanism that he is using to provide you with services. Here are several possible agreements you can make when buying a pizza. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Agreement #1: Entirely Explicit with No Tip You make an explicit deal with the Pizza Company Owner that he will make you a pizza and get it delivered to your door. The owner hires an employee to deliver the pizza. The employee is paid by the owner to compensate him for his costs, and the employee delivers you the pizza. Agreement #2: Entirely Explicit with Tip Included You make an explicit deal with the Pizza Company Owner that he will make you a pizza. If you want it delivered he will send out an employee with it, and there is an stated agreement that you will pay a fee to the driver that is approximately 20% of the bill unless you are not satisfied with the service, in which case you must still pay a 10% fee. When the Owner tells you the charge of the pizza he says tells you the base price and explains the tipping requirement. The owner sends one of his employees to deliver the pizza. Agreement #3: Partially Explicit, Tip Assumed by Social Convention You make an explicit deal with the Pizza Company Owner that he will make you a pizza. If you want it delivered he will send out an employee with it, and there is an unstated (but understood) agreement that you will pay a fee "the tip" to the driver that is approximately 20% of the bill unless you are not satisfied with the service. The owner sends one of his employees to deliver the pizza. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ These are all agreements that are possible in reality. Do you disagree that these are physically possible? I agree that Agreement #3 is the worst agreement you can make. I think Agreement #2 is needlessly confusing, but still has merit since if I think the service is bad than I don't pay as much (less value, less price!). Agreement #3 sucks! What agreement are you operating under when you order a pizza in the United States for delivery? You are operating under Agreement #3. You are expected to know this because every American has ordered pizza plenty of times before and seen it done by others. No one is forcing you into this agreement. If you don't like the agreement, don't order the pizza. You live in a society where Agreement #3 dominates. You order a pizza for delivery and don't tip the driver. How can you argue that this is ethical? By saying you are operating under Agreement #1, obviously. This is where my "double whammy" comes in: __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Agreement #1A: Entirely Explicit with No Tip; Driver Told he Will Not Be Tipped You make an explicit deal with the Pizza Company Owner that he will make you a pizza and get it delivered to your door. The owner hires an employee to deliver the pizza, and the employee is told and understands that he will not be tipped. The employee is paid by the owner to compensate him for his costs (because the employee would not take the job unless he knows he will make money at it), and the employee delivers you the pizza. Agreement #1B: Entirely Explicit with No Tip; but Driver Told he Will Be Tipped You make an explicit deal with the Pizza Company Owner that he will make you a pizza and get it delivered to your door. The owner hires an employee to deliver the pizza, and is told that although his costs are high he will be making money in tips. The employee is not paid by the owner to compensate him for his costs (because he thinks he will make his money in tips), and the employee delivers you the pizza. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ The problem with most people here is that you conclude that Agreement #1B is ethical. In my plantation owner example I was pointing out that it is wrong to buy slave cotton because the Owner is using force on the slaves to make his product. Agreement #1B is unethical because the Owner is using dishonesty to convince the driver to deliver you a pizza. Summary 1) If you pretend that you are ordering under Agreement #1 and act accordingly, while in fact Agreement #3 is at play, you are violating a contract. 2) If you argue that I am wrong and you are actually acting under Agreement #1B, you have no right to enter into that contract.

Reducto ad Absurdum: You are a clothing manufacturer in 1820. You purchase your materials (cotton) from a southern plantation which employs slave labor. Is this action immoral. "No" you say "this is not immoral because my agreement is between the Owner and me, not between me and the workers. It is not my responsibility to determine if slave labor is employed by my supplier. I cannot reasonably be expected to know what system is involved to produce the product." Clearly, in this example, you are wrong. Why? Because you do not have a right to enter into a contract with an employer that is: "I will give you money for cotton. I know you will enslave individuals to produce the cotton, but I will evade or ignore that fact." This is clearly not legally binding or enforceable. I continue to disagree with you here, and it is obviously the key issue. You are aware that the driver makes his profit on tips (this would be an even clearer discussion if we were discussing waitresses). That the company will provide the pizza and you will tip the driver if the service is not bad is the implicit agreement between you and the company. If you doubt this, call up a pizza delivery company and ask "am I expected to tip the driver?" I'm willing to bet the most managers will tell you "the driver makes most of his money off of tips, so you should tip unless you are not satisfied with the service." Example of why you should not take advantage of an implicit agreement: A Marxist comes up to you and says "People must help each other. If a person helps someone now, he must return the favor later." After debating "surplus capital" or other such nonsense with you for a while, he gives you a briefcase with $1,000 in it and says "here comrade you are down on your luck and need this now." Do you take the briefcase? I would not, because I know that the man believes that I will give it back to him later, and I have not explicitly agreed to do so. Explicitly this $1,000 is a gift but implicitly it is a loan. Yes he is being irrational to enter into an implicit agreement of this kind, and it is not legally binding. No I cannot simply evade the my knowledge of his belief because it is convenient or "no one can reasonably expect me to know and I can feign ignorance of the agreement later." My Conclusion The nature of your agreement with the Pizza Company Owner is this: the customer has made an explicit deal with the pizza place to have a pizza delivered to his house, and has made an implicit deal with the pizza company that he will tip the driver. In the US, where millions of these deals go on every day under these terms, it can be assumed that the customer knows this. If the customer does not clarify the agreement explicitly by telling the company that he will not be tipping the driver (as custom dictates) he is not merely being rude, but unethical.

Just to clarify, this is our point of disagreement. I say the nature is thus: the customer has made a deal with the pizza place to have a pizza delivered to his house, and has implied that he will tip the driver (because thats what everyone else does and you haven't said otherwise.) The pizza place employs a driver to do the driving with the understanding that all his profit will be made on tips. The driver has made an irrational decision to accept such a deal, but you are violating the trader principle (and thereby ultimately causing harm to yourself) by taking advantage of the irrational system.

Ok, thats a good argument, so I'm not as certain as before. My objection is from the principle of only giving value (money) for value (pizza, delivered to my door), and always giving value for value. This is the "balance sheet" as I see it when you have a pizza delivered to you (the numbers are made up, but close). Owner's Cash Flows_____________________With Tip_________________Without Tip Cost of Goods Sold/Labor to Make the Pizza________($5)___________________($5) Customer's Bill________________________________$15___________________$15 "Per Delivery" Payment to the Driver_____________($.50)__________________($.50) Labor paid to Driver (approximate for 30 mins)____($2.50)_________________($2.50) Owner's Gain/(Loss)__________________________$7.00___________________$7.00 Customer's Cash Flows Customer's Bill_____________________________($15)___________________($15) Tip to Driver________________________________($2)____________________0 Getting Tasty Pizza Delivered to me [intangible]____X_____________________X Customer's Gain/(Loss)_______________________X-$17_________________X-$15 Driver's Cash Flows Depreciation on Car for one Delivery___________($1.10)________________($1.10) Gas for one Delivery________________________($2.00)________________($2.00) "Per Delivery" Payment to the Driver____________$0.50_________________$0.50 Labor paid to Driver (approximate for 30 mins)____$2.50_________________$2.50 Tip to Driver_________________________________$2____________________0 Driver's Gain/(Loss)__________________________$1.90________________($0.10) I made the numbers so they worked out this way to make the point better. Obviously a rational person would not take a job that he was effectively working as a slave at, and they certainly wouldn't take a job where they are paying to work there. When he was hired he must have believed that "as long as I do my job well, I will be tipped by the customers and make a profit by providing my labor." Notice that the owner makes the same amount no matter what. When you don't tip, you gain the value of satisfaction from pizza and the driver looses value. Now you can say if everyone didn't tip the system would go away, etc, etc, but that doesn't answer the question of "Given that tipping the delivery driver is customary in the US, what should I do if I want pizza?" My answer remains the same now that I can apply it to the larger principle of "it is wrong to benefit from others' irrationality," and I can give plenty of similar examples where this is wrong but I'll start with this: I just graduated high school and I would like to spend a few years self-educating myself on Chemical Engineering, so I quit my job and go on Welfare so I can live in a nice low-income apartment and study. Why not? My fellow citizens are being irrational by having this program, why shouldn't I take advantage of them?

Yikes, which one? This is a long thread.. If you just want to agree to disagree I'll be fine with that. I've throughly convinced myself that I should tip when it is generally understood that tips are expected, so I don't really have a selfish interest in continuing the discussion.

Why? You know that a waitress is getting paid less than minimum wage because it is a social convention that waitresses are paid tips, yet you evade that fact because you don't feel like tipping her. Then you come up with a ridiculous justification for this sort of behavior based on the fact that you are not legally required to tip anyone, and anything that can't be enforced by our government (which currently has a less than perfect laws, at present.. legal does not equal moral) isn't something you should worry about. "Screw them!" you say, "they were irrational in taking a job where the government couldn't enforce that I give them money!" Honestly, I would like to be convinced of your position.. it would probably save me money (although people would probably spit in my food a lot.) Edit: I just saw that from my post it might be possible to read that I advocate legal enforcement of implied agreements: I do not. My position is that it is immoral not to trade value for value (by exploiting an irrational system.)

In my example I did not mean to imply that these people would be your friends. I was attempting to explain that there is such a thing as an implied contract (especially in the third world) and that if you choose to participate in a transaction where social convention has established an implied contract, than you are still morally (although not legally) required to fulfill it. I assert (and think that I have supported) that your moral options are to remove the implicit portion of your agreement by stating explicitly when ordering that you do not participate in the common social convention of tipping pizza delivery drivers, to not order pizza for delivery at all, or finding a pizza delivery establishment where tips are not expected. I am unconvinced by your idea that because the driver has entered into an implied 4th-world-style contract with you that if he chooses to bring you food at a financial loss to himself (since his costs exceed his pay) that its completely on him. As I said before it smacks of Machiavelli, eg. "mmm this is good Pizza, thanks for delivering it you weak irrational sucker, muhahaha!"

I looked up pragmatism in Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" and saw only a paragraph devoted to it: The cumulation of this approach [subjectivism] is pragmatism. Pragmatism holds that the concept of "reality" is invalid; that the quest for absolutes is a perversion; and that truth is not correspondence to fact, but rather "that which works." "Works" here means "satisfies for the nonce the arbitrary desires of men." (pp. 146) Obviously this explanation rests on the previous 145 pages of the book, but this clarified the issue for me. I also remember reading a lot about the results of pragmatist thought in "The Ominous Parallels" so I might flip through it again later. Now I know pragmatist epistemology would work differently (if at all), but if I was a pragmatist as defined by Dr. Peikoff above I think I could determine this principle very easily. However, as a pragmatist I don't think I would be able to properly define "friend." A pragmatist will think 1) "I have a desire (an arbitrary desire) to gain X, how do I gain X?" 2) "The people that will help me attain my goal are my 'friends' and those who will hurt me in attaining it are 'enemies'" 3) "I should help my 'friends' and hurt my 'enemies' (to obtain my goal)" 4) "I don't really know why I wanted X in the first place, and think I would rather have Y." 5) "My old friends wanted X too but are actually preventing me from obtaining Y, they are now my enemies!" etc..

Ok, so I've been thinking this over more.. Hypothetical Parallel Argument: You go to a foreign, developing country on vacation. This strange culture that you visit has social conventions that when you accept an invitation to someone's house for dinner you are expected to send a gift worth about $10 later. Since it costs about $10 to cook a meal and this culture enjoys entertaining guests the locals often invite people to dinner. You receive several invitations to dinner on your first day there. Now, would it be immoral to accept all the dinner invitations, eat the free meals, and send none of the requisite gifts? I would argue that if you are aware of the social conventions than you would violate several principles by accepting the meal invites and not sending the gifts. 1) You are being dishonest by accepting an implied contract. If you said "yes I would go to dinner, but will not give you a gift. Do you still want me to come?" than you would not be acting immorally. 2) You are not trading value for value. You are receiving the value of dinner and not returning the value of the gift which is expected (this is ignoring intangibles like pleasurable conversation). 3) You are showing a lack of confidence and pride in yourself, that you think a $10 gift would be so hard for you to work to produce. Applying this to "tipping the delivery guy" I come to this conclusion: If you order a pizza in the US for delivery you have implied, through social convention, that you will tip the driver that delivers it unless you explicitly state otherwise. The only moral action you can take here is to tell the person you order from "please tell the driver I only tip for extraordinary service." This way the driver can at least turn down the delivery and tell the manager that he would rather wash dishes or answer phones. Now if the driver accepts the delivery he is accepting that he will probably not be getting a tip unless he does something above and beyond. Your other option is to accept the social convention and only not tip if the service is bad. I like this choice because I have pride in my ability to produce, and am therefore not concerned about paying a few more dollars. If you take a third path and do not tip, without telling the driver in advance that he will not be getting a tip, you are essentially exploiting a poorly defined (implicit) contract. This is a Machiavellian mindset, sacrificing others to yourself because they are "weak" and "irrational" (for entering into an implicit contract) which is the opposite of what self-interest requires.

I don't feel inconsistent making the claim that reality is self-evident while success is not because reality, as an axiom, is self-evident. Both "happiness" and "success" are high level concepts and are therefore not self-evident. Note that this is not the same as saying that it is not possible to know that a person is successful, or deduce that a person is happy, or that because there are many different views of success that there isn't one right objective view of success.

So this entire thread is ridiculous, but I have to chime in because one of my first jobs in High School was at a pizza hut. I started out answering phones, but when I covered for the Shift Manager at the dispatch station one time (the computer with the map by it that you use to decide which drivers get which pizzas) I got unofficially moved to that job. I was promoted to management before I was even technically old enough to do it, since your supposed to be 18. So the first thing I need to get out is that there is probably no reason for a rational person to be a pizza delivery man right now, for the following reasons: 1) Your car will get beat to hell (most restaurants require you to have your own car) 2) If you get in an accident, you are not covered if you were delivering pizza 3) You will have to buy the gas for your car 4) Your wage and delivery payments ($0.50 a delivery at Pizza Hut) will likely not cover the cost of your driving There used to be tips that might allow working as a driver to be profitable but delivery charges cut down on tips and therefore mean that you will be essentially making minimum wage or less. Also remember that when drivers are at the store waiting for orders to be given to them they are generally given side jobs like prepping food or washing dishes. Now, on to the subject of tipping. Obviously a driver has no right to steal money which he feels he has implicitly earned. It is the customer's decision whether to tip or not, however it is in your rational self-interest to do so because you will get worse service in the future if all the drivers at a store know that you don't tip. Honestly I'm a little disgusted by the stereotypes held by some people in this discussion about drivers, since most of the drivers I knew were very hard working. Equating a productive employee that has delivered you food to a bum asking for money is ridiculous. Not only would I be uncomfortable with the idea of someone loosing money by providing me with a service, but it would show little confidence in my own ability to think that I couldn't easily produce $2 in value. A few suggestions for drivers on how to get more tips 1) Call ahead and verify the address, and let your customer know you are on the way. 2) Dress professionally and be polite 3) Check the pizzas before you leave to make sure they are up to standard 4) Bring packets of Parmesan Cheese and Crushed Red Pepper, along with napkins A laptop with a mapping program (I seem to remember microsoft having one) in your car will also help solve those problems with unposted addresses. Some people will never tip, but like I said its not a very good business to be in right now.

The purpose of the ethical branch of philosophy is to answer the question "how should I live my life." Unfortunately ethics cannot be well understood without first understanding the antecedent branches. Nothing is more convincing to a rational person than the truth. However, the purpose of philosophy is not (primarily) to convince others of anything. Choosing your philosophy based on 'what will best convince others that I'm right?' is essentially living your life for others, and your best choice would probably be Sophism/Machiavelli to accomplish that (who happen to be philosophical train wrecks). The problem is that a Pragmatist would judge "success" as a Pragmatist, because your concept of "success" is based on your philosophy. Try an experiment: ask a priest who he thinks is successful, then ask a socialist, then ask a neo-con. I guarantee you that you won't get the same answer. You could try asking a Pragmatist if he's happy, but he would only answer truthfully if it was "pragmatic" to do so. This is because if you have a proper morality, than the moral is the practical. The purpose of morality is to achieve happiness (true happiness, not Hedonist whim-worshiping happiness). The moral vs. practical dichotomy came about when thinkers denied either reality(Kant et. al) or denied the mind (Heraclitus et al).

My concern about a pullout from Iraq is that it will be perceived as an American loss. My dad once told me (in reference to Vietnam) that "it's a horrible thing for you're country to loose a War." I fear that a loss in Iraq may mean the end of Americans' confidence against the pacifists, and therefore America's willingness to defend itself. I've heard some Objectivists suggest pulling out will allow the Army to regroup and recover while Arabs will then attack each other. I'm not convinced, as of yet. The situation is bad, but not yet hopeless. Gen. Patraeus could easily get the situation under control, even at this point, by 1) Dictating a constitution to the Iraqis that protects individual rights and separates church and state 2) Interdicting supplies coming in from Iran and Syria 3) Killing Quds Force in Iraq 4) Bombing Iranian weapons factories (New Iranian AK47s with 2006 production stamps have been found in the hands of Iraqi Militias) 5) Arresting Mullahs that incite violence against "the Infidel" (basically all of them) 6) Allowing US Troops to raid Mosques, especially when chasing people that shoot at them 7) Stop playing nice, and crushing the Insurgency totally 8) Removing over-resrictive Rules of Engagement regarding when a Soldier/Marine can fire his weapon 9) Engaging in a massive pro-American values Propaganda Campaign ("proselytizing" that our culture is better is against General Order 1A) The reason these things aren't done is because of an outdated and flawed counterinsurgency theory called "Hearts and Minds", which hopefully some day I will have time to write a response to.

There are plenty of other logical errors that will lead you to bad philosophies besides "nihilism." Plato wasn't a nihilist, but because he made bad metaphysical and epistemological conclusions (the Forms and 'Rationalism', respectively) he developed his ideal government as a totalitarian dictatorship. Osama bin Laden isn't a nihilist, but because of the metaphysical and epistemological conclusions (mystical future paradise and truth implanted in one's head by God, repectively) he decided to send planes into buildings and murder thousands. I can go on. What do you propose the purpose of philosophical argument should be, other than to answer questions like "should I steal from my friends or not?" (ethics) and "how can I learn how to cure cancer?" (epistemology)

This is an old philosophy question on "Right Opinion" and honestly you have my deepest sympathy that you keep wanting to talk about things that to you "matter" and all the annoying Objectivists you are talking to try to convince you about antecedent (earlier) knowledge that seems "trivial." Take the "Road to Lassira" example given by Plato: Socrates asks Meno if it is possible to have wisdom without possessing knowledge. He gives the example of a man taking the road to Lassira (a greek city). A man might give accurate directions to Larissa if he had traveled to Larissa before and had learned the path, or had seen a map showing the correct route. However, a man would also give correct directions if he merely had the right opinion, without any basis for possessing this opinion. Socrates points out the difficulty with an unfounded opinion is that there is no reason for one to preserve, or indeed to acquire it in the first place. Plato would say the man who had taken the path or had seen a map would have "knowledge" while the man who knew the correct route, possibly by guessing it or by finding it easiest to believe that it was the best route, would have "true opinion." By this definition, until you understand the basic axioms and Rand's solution to essences you have "true opinion" that reality exists, but not "knowledge." I know that existence exists, while you believe that existence exists. Its kind of a waste of time to convince someone of a ethical conclusion, like that looting is actually harmful to the looter (which rests on epistemological and metaphysical conclusions), if someone else can come along and take the foundation out from under it (say, by convincing you that reality is unknowable).

Honestly your ethical conclusions should be the same if you accept Objectivist conclusions in Metaphysics and Epistemology as your starting point. Objectivism begins at the beginning, with the only things that do not need proof: self-evident basic axioms. Take for example the American founding fathers who took that ethics should be based on "Life, Liberty, (Property), and the Pursuit of Happiness." They got these ideas from the thinkers in the Enlightenment, who did not "prove" them. These are Objectivist conclusions in the field of ethics which are based on a massive amount of thought to arrive at starting only with "There is something that I am aware of" ('There is'=existence, 'something'=identity, 'that I am aware of'=reality), but the founding fathers took Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" as "self-evident." Treating these ethical conclusions as "axioms" they managed to develop a complex and extremely effective political theory based on the idea of rights. Although the result is the same, this leads to inconsistencies and self-doubt in your philosophical system and opens your Political conclusions to easy attack when your unprovable self-evidences fall under attack. For this specific example, this attack came when Kant undermined the thought of Locke by attacking Reason and, ultimately, a concept of man that holds his life as important, and Reason as necessary for his life. So to sum up: Yes you can accept that reality is real (and you should!) using your "pragmatic" approach that if you don't believe in reality you might as well just kill yourself and not bother with the whole thing, or you can learn how to refute everyone who has "proofs" as to why reality isn't real. I'll try a graphical example to try to show why your conclusions in metaphysics matters: Metaphysics(What is the nature of reality?)+Epistemology(How do I gain knowledge?)=>Ethics(How should I live?)=>Politics(How should society be organized?) Also, as a note:there is no "debate" amongst objectivists of the reality of reality, you will not find a single objectivist that says "reality is real because it is useful to believe it"... any objectivist will say "I am 100% certain that existence exists. This is because to try to refute reality I would have to use concepts gained from reality." The only reason we discuss it so much with others is because there are so many intellectuals (like yourself) that are not 100% certain.

I think we've all basically agreed that the movie is awesome. If Strangelove wants to quickly cover the parallel topic of if the actual Leonidas had the right do deny the actual Ephialtes the privilege of joining his Army as a combatant, I think we can cover it fairly quickly. I take the position that Leonidas was in a position of trust over his troops, and that to have mercy on Ephialtes and allow him to join a Phalanx as a combat troop (even though he was completely unqualified to do so) would have violated the social contract with his men that he act in their best interest. I will, however, not attempt to support any of the other actions of Spartans (including infanticide, conscription, etc.)

I was in favor of an Iran invasion for a long time, but considering the current condition of our foreign policy and Just War theory, I've become more uncertain. Granted it would probably cut down on the insurgency in Iraq (much of it is caused by Iran) and would remove the beacon of hope for the entire Global Islamic Revolution crowd (aka. "The Terrorists"). The main issue I would see is that because of our current Just War theory, which says "don't kill civilians, invade only for altruistic purposes", it would be very costly to the American people in both lives and money. Our leaders would have to say "yea Iran attacks America all the time, but the REAL reason we are going in is to bring the Iranians democracy" and would result in a "democracy" that votes in rather similar leaders: a "Islamic Republic of Iran (light)" if you will. I think an obvious action we should take (regardless of whether we decide on full scale invasion later or not) would be surgical strikes on Tehran in an attempt to kill the Mullahs and against the Iranian nuclear facilities and arms production facilities. Honestly, Iran is a petty third world dictatorship and if we stop sending aid (via UNICEF and USAID) to them they will probably just implode. About the only things Iran can produce is knock off soviet AK47s and Caviar. Because of the attacks made on US Troops in Iraq by the Iranian Quds Force (special forces), which we have plenty of proof for, limited strikes would even be justified under the extremely restrictive and altruistic "Just War Theory."

Existence is an axiom, so does not require a "proof" for you to be 100% certain of it. An axiom is a "self evident truth that requires no proof" (there are only three axioms). Proof is a derivation of a conclusion from antecedent knowledge, and nothing is antecedent to axioms. Any attempt to disprove reality would require the use of the three axioms: existence (reality exists), consciousness (I am aware of it), and identity (A is A, existents have a specific nature). This is why Objectivists have said they are 100% certain that reality exists, and not merely that they accept the fact because it is useful to believe it.

I'm actually taking the second half of a "History of the Middle East" class right now, taught by a leading Muslim apologist. I haven't read any other objectivist views on Islamic history, but I agree that Ghazali is a leading culprit in Islamic decline. Here are the notes I took on Muslim philosophy with my first reading of Hodgson's "The Venture of Islam" Plato vs. Aristotle al-Safa (514?) Ibn-Miskawayh (932) <------------al-Farabi (950) Ibn-Sina (980) Ghazali (1058) Ibn-Rushd (1126) Ibn-Bajjah (1138) Suhravardi (1145) Ibn-Tufayl (1185) Al-Suhravardi (1191) Davani of Sharaz (1427) Obviously its a lot more complex than just "Plato vs. Aristotle," but I think this should act as a good guide for further research. There were more that fall into the Plato column but there were so many mystics that I lost track. I'm not really prepared to conclude that "Ghazali caused the fall of Islam" but I think its safe to say that he ended the "Golden Age of Islam." (when Muslims contributed enormously to technological innovation and science) In the period that followed, some of the Aristotelian writings by Ibn-Rushd were even considered "too good to read" in that they would bring the reader bad luck by looking upon them, so many of them were lost. Really, since I haven't finished the class yet, I'm only making observations and I'm not ready to make serious conclusions. My theory is currently "Islam is a more complex religion that Christianity (because it includes Political in addition to Ethical rules). Islamic institutions, in this sense, were also more efficient at stamping out deviation. Since Islamic thought was actually philosophically more complete than Christian thought, Muslims were less able to overcome mysticism or even entertain Aristotelian positions when confronted with the choice between Plato and Aristotle."

Agreed. There is no such thing as a "right" to fight in a particular military unit. As the commander of the Spartan troops Leonidas was perfectly justified in deciding who fights in his unit; his men trust him to make the right decisions. If a handicapped American showed up in Iraq with a gun and pulled a platoon leader aside and demanded he be placed in his unit than I don't think anyone would be so eager to defend his "right" to endanger the other troops by joining in with no military qualifications. The hunchback had plenty of options open to him besides joining the Persians He could have taken the "combat support" job offered to him of picking up bodies, or he could have sabotaged the Persians on his own. He could have started doing physical therapy to be able to lift his shield high enough to fight in a Phalanx, etc.