themadkat
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Posts posted by themadkat
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Still, suppose you get one of these ridiculous drug cases where someone who had at best a tangential connection to some drug deal is looking at a draconian mandatory sentence. It would be impossible for me to convict an essentially innocent person of a non-crime to years in prison no matter what the law says or what oath I were to take as a juror.
This is kind of what I was driving at.
Highly dubious. It is anarchy dressed up in a suit. The only context I can imagine it being morally acceptable is if the law itself is plainly improper, and you are forced to participate in a conviction -- for example a drug possession or tax evasion charge. Whereas there is nothing improper about a law against murder.I think this is the distinction I was trying to tease out. So in that case, it seems like as a juror it is only moral to vote to nullify if you believe the law should never be enforced ever against anyone (i.e. I would vote "not guilty" if I was supposed to convict a woman for having an abortion) but you can't nullify a sound law like the one against murder without risking the destruction of lawfulness itself, no matter how much you feel the person was justified in what they did.
By the way, in my original example, there was not supposed to be any doubt at all that the murdered man killed the murderer's girlfriend. Say there was a videotape showing it, like a security tape, but because the police obtained the video illegally for some reason it was thrown out of court and the jury was never allowed to see it, but the boyfriend saw it and it undisputably showed the guy he later targeted killing his girlfriend. It may sound farfetched but critically damning evidence gets thrown out of court all the time. More incentive for the police to keep it clean I guess.
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Along these lines, what is the morality of jury nullification? What if, say, the aforementioned lover kills his girlfriend's killer (who everyone knows is the killer and he got off on a technicality), then turns himself in and goes to trial, counting on the fact that when he gives his reasoning the jury will sympathize and hand down a "not guilty" verdict. If you are a jury member, is jury nullification in such an instance appropriate or must you morally follow the law? Is jury nullification EVER appropriate? I personally think it is in cases where the law is unjust (and I mean that in the sense that the law itself is wrong and shouldn't be enforced ever, as opposed to a claim that this is one instance where the law shouldn't be enforced). I think jury nullification is a valid protest on the part of a citizenry that a certain law should not exist. However, I recognize that it is a double-edged sword and that jury nullification can be used to let someone off who really ought to be punished.
I know this is a little off-topic but I think it's relevant because the cost-benefit equation for retribution changes when you think you will get the benefit of the doubt from a jury of your peers.
Objectivism is against vigilantism -- of taking the law into your own hands -- because the accuracy of your knowledge before committing retribution needs to be checked carefully, preferably in a court of law with proper investigations of the facts. The only real exception is for immediate reactions to a direct threat of force that one must act on or be killed or maimed. One has the right to self-defense, and can call upon it at any time, but having everyone act on what they think is the best solution to an injustice would break down law and order; it would basically be anarchy. And as someone else pointed out, it won't just be the rational man who seeks vigilantism, but the irrational as well, and we don't want people running around and taking the law into their own hands because then there will be gun fights in the streets, endangering everyone.Seeking redress for a known criminal getting off due to lax laws or lax trials is a difficult one to assess. But if you do take action against the law, then you become a criminal. I suppose in the very rare case where you are willing to go to jail for life to kill a known killer who has gotten off, would be the only time it should even be considered; otherwise, you have to let justice run its course. And I don't think one should throw one's life away in that manner, so I'm not recommending it at all. It would basically be suicide by law or jail.
When a society becomes so corrupt that one can no longer count on the law in many cases or in most cases, then I would say that is the time to protest the laws or even go on strike. Or try to change the laws or campaign for better justice. Maybe hire a better sheriff or judge.
I mean, unless one is willing to live the life of some sort of masked avenger always sought by the law, I don't see any other recourse.
All kinds of injustices can occur, but in the long run, justice is metaphysical -- you can't really get away with committing a real injustice indefinitely, because fundamentally, an injustice is anti-reality.
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Thanks for your post - it was thought-provoking and salutary!
You're very welcome. I'll get back with you when I have a bit more time to do it properly. I appreciate this type of discussion because my area of research is closely related to these sorts of questions, although not exactly (my research question is how environmental conditions affect social cohesion in nonhuman primates). My philosophical interests lie most strongly in epistemology and ethics as well. So these kinds of inquiries have a strong bearing on my area of interest.
I will put the caveat out there that I'm not an Objectivist scientist, nor necessarily an Objectivist, nor even a proper scientist quite yet (PhD student). The reason I say this is that I don't want you to take my responses as "this is the Objectivist POV" so much as "this is my POV", although on this subject I can't think of any departures from Oism on my part offhand.
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Hi gurugeorge,
I'm coming in a bit late to the discussion but I wanted to add to the folks that have been telling you that you are not necessarily interpreting the science correctly or separating the observed facts in these studies from the researchers' interpretation of them. My own research interest is behavioral ecology and I've got a good grounding in evolutionary bio, genetics, and philosophy. When you spoke of "mental modules" some ways back it evoked thoughts of evolutionary psych, e.g. Tooby and Cosmides and specials with John Cleese. Please, please do not consider the matter settled on evolutionary psych. A lot of researchers, me included, have serious problems with the methodology and the conclusions of that field and many of their claims about the "era of evolutionary adaptation" that supposedly occurred in the Pleistocene are not only untested but practically untestable. The human brain did not radically develop according to the world of "the Pleistocene" (which was, keep in mind, a huge, expansive, heterogenous world) and then stick that way. We are always evolving and adapting. It did not magically stop 50,000 years ago and to suggest it did is ridiculous.
Also, don't confuse the structure and function of the mind with its content. Of course we have certain inborn features of our mind. That's the whole reason a "faculty of reason" exists at all, why we have "volitional consciousness". Tabula rasa does not mean that we emerge from the womb with our brain as an unformatted hard-drive, if you will. In the later stages of pregnancy a fetus may well be making "observations" (especially by touch or even hearing) while still in the womb, which would be the first step towards mental content, but a newborn baby certainly doesn't have anything resembling innate knowledge. Knowledge implies content which we don't have.
I know there's more to discuss here but I don't have time or inclination to make a huge long post right now, so I'll leave you with this question - obviously the senses are fallible. How did we come to understand that the senses are fallible?
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Pick stupid over evil. Republicans are stupid, democrats are evil.
The most evil politician of my lifetime is probably Dick Cheney, so your analogy doesn't hold.
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When I asked why men should not attain perfection I meant to imply that they should strive to attain perfection. Whether that goal is reachable or not is another question.
Actually Kat, he attributed your comments to me, or at least my handle was the one used in the post.
Not prior to his edit.
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She is highly intelligent. Her problem is she is not well read and she has a bad philosophy.
On what do you base your judgment? I'm curious. I would agree that some of her "down-home-ness" is probably a front that she puts on but from every appearance and television spot I've seen she does not exactly come off as a genius. I don't think you have to be well-read to have a basic mastery of your native language and string a sentence together.
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OK that helps. Could you elaborate on the intellectual aspect? In the book he was a brilliant guy. In terms of his plan and ideas, there was no room for improvement at all, so you could literally call his discourse objectivist perfection. Is it implied that someone else could have come up with the same theories and ideas if John Galt had never existed?
Firstly, careful with the quotes. You attributed something to me that was actually what Zip said. I'm leaving the issue of "perfection" and whether it's actually an appropriate concept for human beings alone for the moment.
All I'm going to say is that someone DID come up with the ideas and theories, and her name was Ayn Rand. Although the heroes and events were not real in the sense that the book is a work of fiction, remember that their words and principles were effectively made real by the publication of the book by one very brilliant lady.
I admit that occasionally I find topics like this tiresome because the truth is, not everyone who is interested in Rand and Objectivism is particularly concerned with what Galt would do or how they can be more like Roark. While it's great to have a hero and a model, what's important is applying reason to YOUR life so YOU can be the best exemplar of YOUR values. I think it's a terrible irony to use an individualistic philosophy like Objectivism to be something other than yourself.
I think there is a big difference between saying "this is my vision of the ideal man and how he would handle a scenario where his productivity is enslaved" and "everyone should be exactly like this regardless of their personal context". Now of course there are external standards and some people are just objectively smarter, better-looking, more energetic and hardworking, and more successful than others. It would be unjust to put the achievements of a great typist on the level of the achievements of the person who invented the computer she's using, but both can be moral and successful within their frame of reference and if they are both making use of their abilities productively and for their own happiness, neither has anything to be ashamed of.
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I know I will very likely regret it, but I have to ask: why so much hostility towards Palin? She's no worse than 99% of all other politicians.
Because she's so unbelievably stupid it's embarassing, and if we had elected McCain it would have put us one heartbeat from having Caribou Barbie as president. Specifically she's not only ignorant but she wears her ignorance like a badge and plays it off as a good thing which it is in certain backwards redneck circles.
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Intellectually and physically perhaps no, but Rand definitely holds that every man is capable of being perfectly moral. Remember that morality does not require omniscience and that errors of knowledge cannot be immorality (although evasion is).
It's actually a two-parter:Is John Galt considered literally a perfect man, or is he a symbol of perfection, towards which all men should strive but not necessarily attain? I don't recall him having any room for improvement either past or present in the book.
Does objectivism teach that all men are capable of the same accomplishments in terms of self-improvement, or does it acknowledge that some people will attain a higher level of self-improvement than others? I use the term "self-improvement" because not all men are capable of the same physical accomplishments and also to keep it broad, inclusive of morality, intelligence, selfishness, etc. For instance, there wasn't anyone who could "live up" to John Galt's example....or, could it be assumed that someone could have come along in the future with the same ideas if he never expressed them?
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It doesn't really matter who the Republicans choose to run in 2012. They're not going to get elected. From what I can tell, Obama is here to stay.
Well if nothing else maybe Alaska can get a real governor now.
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The issue here is whether or not CO2 is a pollutant. I think there might be some impact on ocean acidity, but as far as global temperatures are concerned, it is not a pollutant. Current cap and trade proposals are designed to effect the climate, not the ocean.
Agreed, I don't see anything wrong with cap-and-trade in principle, especially if it's applied to something like fishing rights among a local group of fishermen (this would be a contractual agreement between them, not a legislative act). The issue is what is being capped and traded, and in the case of both CO2 and taxi licenses, those are not things that should be morally capped.
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You are throwing a lot of junk out here at once, my friend. The truth is that a "god of the gaps" is no God at all, and I'm not exactly sure why you seem to have this psychological need to believe in an intelligent creator. I'm only going to address one part of your post, as it happens to be my areas of expertise and the others are not.
EVOLUTIONAccording to this theory, more complex life forms emerge from simpler ones over long periods of time. It is believed by Evolutionists that life began in the oceans as single cell organisms that evolved into more complex life forms which finally ended up as terrestrial animals and then birds with insects somewhere. Life beginning in water necessarily implies that fish, whales, sharks etc., came first before lions or eagles. Which is why I talked about fish (or if you wish, some other water based ancestor) turning into elephants. In order for life forms to become more complex over time, there has to be an alteration of genetic structures in very significant ways. All examples that people give of evolution in progress are simple minor changes within species. Transformation from one species to a different one has never been proved. I would like anyone to please give me any information that shows intermediate fossils in the evolution process. For example, I would like to read about fossils showing the transition from reptiles to mammals or mammals to birds.
I'm sorry to say but your ignorance is showing here. First off, you don't really have a firm understanding of biological history of the tree of life. The fact that life began in water does NOT imply that fish, whales, and sharks came before lions and eagles. There was also not one smooth transition between water and land. It may have happened multiple times but the "major" transition where vertebrates became terrestrial for the first time and it stuck was in an ancient group called the lobe-finned fishes (as opposed to most of the fish you are commonly aware of which are ray-finned fishes). Even today there are living fish, such as lungfish, that can leave the water and travel on land to get to another body of water. Mind you, this is not a fossil, this is a LIVING organism that exists in Africa in habitats where pools of water are seasonal. As to your prior example, sharks were the earliest in that sequence from which arose fish, and then land animals. Whales are an example of an animal that actually has its origins on land and subsequently returned to the oceans, as all mammals originally occupied land. What eventually became eagles probably evolved concurrently with the return to the water of what eventually became whales. As for lions, what we identify as the modern lion is actually a fairly recent arrival, only about 2 million years old. In other words, human ancestors became bipedal before lions ever existed.
I'm not really sure what you mean by simple minor changes within a species. If you have minor changes through time, plus tons of time, just what do you expect to happen, exactly? Evolution isn't even necessarily all that slow. Certainly in microorganisms it can occur on the scale of weeks (we're talking major changes like metabolic pathways). With bigger animals you can see fairly dramatic change on the scale of tens of thousands of years. What constitutes "proof", to you, of a "transformation" of one species into another? Things are what they are. The law of identity applies to organisms and species just like anything else. It really depends on your definition of species when something is "different enough", but the truth is that these lineages are continuous. An organism does not wake up suddenly one day and find that it is something else.
And then there is the "transitional forms" canard. Transitional is a relative term. No animal wanders around living its life thinking "gosh, I'm a transitional form, not a real species". Transitional between what and what? Australopithecine apes were "transitional" between ancestral chimpanzees and modern humans but that does not imply that they weren't their own species with their own unique characteristics and lifestyles. But you can clearly see that some of their traits are what you would call "intermediate" between other great apes and modern human anatomy, while others are completely unique to this group of animals. Going back farther, the ancestors of what would become mammals were extremely small and meek reptiles appearing as early as the Triassic period (200+ million years ago). That is your "transition" between reptiles and mammals, and the change progressed slowly over the entire Mesozoic era until mammals were fairly well differentiated by the Cretaceous and had their major adaptive radiation after the K-T boundary when the largest reptiles, i.e. dinosaurs, were gone. As for your second example, your ignorance is showing again. There is no connection between mammals and birds. They are completely separate lineages altogether. Birds arose directly from reptiles, most likely from raptor-type dinosaurs. In fact, many scientists now theorize that feathers were a feature of certain dinosaurs. Not modern feathers, of course, but I guess what you could consider "proto-feathers", very thin and wispy like down. They secondarily evolved warm-bloodedness, independently of the mammal clade. So the last common ancestor of birds and mammals would be some random dino from all the way back in the Triassic. They haven't been in the same lineage for 200 million years. Tell me, what would you call Archaeopteryx?
You've got something of a Platonic view of species and this is part of your problem. There is not some ideal "kind" that every organism falls into. Classifying life is messy and complicated. The goal of systematics is to "cleave nature at its joints", so to speak, such that our conceptual divisions reflect real and significant differences in reality to the best of our knowledge. But that does not make the classifications themselves somehow more real than the animals. You're better off thinking of each group as just another lineage and family in one giant tree of life.
As I said, this is not the only problem with your post by far, but as far as I know I'm the only evolutionary biologist on the board so I felt like I should be the one to respond to this section.
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I'd like to get a few opinions on this.
If you were married to an Objectivist and he/she commited adultery what would you do? Is this a deal breaker? Can your spouse still claim to be an Objectivist? I realize that I am leaving out the context so PM me if you would like more detail. I could really use the advice...
Thanks.
To my way of thinking infidelity is the ultimate show of disrespect in a relationship. The person who was cheated on deserves to be respected and deserves better than someone who would treat them that way. I know it can be incredibly hard to disentangle from someone you love and admire and have put in many years with (if in fact that is the case), but there comes a time when you have to look at what the other person's actions say about how they see you.
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You're looking at the question the wrong way. It's fine for Salk to choose not to patent his vaccine so long as he does it for the purpose of furthering his values, ie saving as many children as possible in the shortest period of time. It would only be wrong if he valued his personal profit more and only refused to patent it out of a feeling of duty. But neither choice, either to patent or not, is right or wrong without benefit of the context of Dr. Salk's values.
Also keep in mind that the source of funding matters. If Dr. Salk were working purely for a private corporation, it would actually be the company's patent, not his. This is usually the contractual agreement someone makes when they are hired. Similarly, in this instance Dr. Salk has to take into account serving the interests of his sources of funding, namely the nonprofit and the government. The source of funding is nearly as important as the discovery itself - it's what makes it all possible in the first place.
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150 years is rather arbitrary, or based on mere populist rage. The guy deserves jailtime, and there is no doubt he is a huge looter..But everyone deserves justice, a fair trial and a reasonable sentence.
Not really. Think of it in terms of the value of all that he stole. He was such a monumental destroyer and looter of other people's productivity that I really don't think it's a harsh sentence. Pointless, of course, as he's already getting on old age, but I don't see it as any more arbitrary than any other sentence that has to have a time bound. He's exactly what we need to be trying to eradicate, a person who believes that money is only stolen not made.
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That implies that your boyfriend didn't see anything wrong prior to the taking of the camera, on the BMW driver's part, especially his use of his gun.
If taking the camera was wrong, then so too was taking the keys even if they were left down the road.
Assuming the incident wasn't staged, if pulling the gun was not wrong (in your boyfriend's view), what would have been the right thing to have done after the armed confrontation? What would you, or especially your boyfriend, have done were you the ones in the BMW, again, after the armed, gun vs. bat, confrontation?
Edited for clarity.
No, neither of us saw anything wrong on the BMW driver's part up to that point. I mean, here they are, pulled over in a remote dead-end location, and these two dudes come over with baseball bats, presumably to smash up either the car or the occupants or both. I think he was entirely justified in pulling a gun to protect himself, his companion, and his property. I don't think it was unjustified for him to take the keys either, since the hillbillies' ability to follow after him was part of the continuing threat, and temporarily separating them from their keys neutralized that threat.
The reason, as my boyfriend put it, that they couldn't just walk off with the camera is because you can't take someone's property just because you have them over a barrel, even if they're stupid rednecks. It's probably illegal. His point was more that the guy should have blurred out his face on the video, though, so he couldn't be arrested for it.
What would we have done if we had the rednecks at gunpoint after they'd been harassing us? Probably the most humiliating things we could think of, offhand, which I shall not detail here LOL Also could have played a fun game of "Dance, sucker!"
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I sent that tape and my reply off to a local Texas lawyer friend of mine, and I'm very curious as to what his response will be. If he permits me, I'll post it to this thread.
My bf pointed out that if in fact the video is real (which he doubts), the guy in the BMW did not do anything wrong until he took the camera. That would constitute theft regardless of the circumstances of the situation. He can only make them stand down, he can't use having them at gunpoint to take property from them. But he thinks the video was staged anyhow.
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Are you taking into account that many of these "babies" (they were), weren't either dead already or horribly deformed?
By the way, his murderer should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Just because I think the guy who got killed was a dirtball doesn't make his murderer any less a murderer, and doesn't mean that I believe any less in the rule of law.
Yes, I am taking that into account. I do not need to evade knowledge of what kind of procedure is going on here to stand firm in my position. And they are still not babies. It is a fetus unless and until it is physically separated from its mother, no longer depending directly on her body as its sole source of survival.
I am specifically making the case that this man was not a dirtball at all but a very brave man performing a needed service, and it ultimately cost him his life. Where you mention what another doctor had to say about the "necessity" of these medical procedures that sounds like a blatant appeal to authority to me. There is no reason that the Attorney General should even be involved in "overseeing" medical procedures. That is between the doctor and patient, and possibly a third party who pays for the procedure like an insurance provider. You think it's going to be difficult to find a doctor who doesn't like abortion in Kansas for crying out loud? Lots of doctors say lots of things that are wrong. Obstetricians frequently say that episiotomy is safe and effective or that it's best for a woman to give birth laying on her back but that doesn't make either of those things true or correct. The truth is that there is absolutely no medical reason for an episiotomy and a healthy woman should give birth squatting or otherwise upright. Obstetricians hardly have the monopoly on being correct.
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In fairness to Ann Coulter (Can't believe I'm defending her), she was making a play on moral relativity. An argument that pro-abortionists use is "If you don't believe in abortion, then don't have an abortion."
Her statement: "If you don't believe in killing abortionists then don't kill abortionists.", was simply a play on that argument.
On a personal note, I have a really hard time drumming up any sympathy for this guy. The things he did to babies in the third trimester I wouldn't even consider doing to a cockroach.
Are you taking into account that many of these "babies" (they are not) were either dead already or horribly deformed? Those are the two main reasons for having such a late abortion. Not only should you have sympathy for this guy, you should demand his murderer be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, like any other scumbag.
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A good, short video about state run health care. I posted it to my FB page so as to reach a larger, mostly non-O'ist audience.
Hey, that's pretty good and/or funny as well. I think it makes an excellent point about added cost as a result of state-by-state restrictions on what type of insurance policies can be offered.
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... and lots of money.
No kidding, I was class of 06 and I'm STILL paying...
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Like the title says, can application in college increase your self-esteem as much as getting a job? I wonder because Rand says specifically "productive work" should be one's purpose, not learning. My situation:
Not really 100% certain I still like it, but I am going to be going to school shortly for film, and I get paid to go because my dad's a disabled veteran from vietnam so I don't have to work while learning. Will this increase my self-esteem as much as a job, or more or less? Thank you.
Of course it can. There are many kinds of productive work. Work on yourself counts as such, so long as you are not mooching in order to accomplish this goal (and you're not). Go to college and enjoy it. You will never have another chance not only to gain depth of knowledge in your chosen field but broad knowledge of anything and everything that interests you at the same time. The source of your self-esteem during college will be laying the groundwork for the rest of your life as well as having an amazing time.
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I had some friends who on a regular basis were, shall we say, clothing-impaired or clothing-intolerant...those were special days.
I will say this. I am a great lover and appreciator of the male form. Men are beautiful to look at and I feel this way even if a guy does not have "perfect" form...more or less if a guy is not a twig, morbidly obese, or the victim of some really nasty skin problems I am good to go. Hair, no hair, cut, chub, tats, random markings, I don't mind. BUT...as far as daily life is concerned, I have to admit that no matter HOW attractive a dude is I cannot possibly take him seriously with his meat and two veg flapping nonchalantly in the breeze. Naked dude posing for my enjoyment - sure. Naked dude selling me insurance, weeding his garden, going for a bike ride, or walkin the dog - erm, sorry guy, but you just come off looking ridiculous.
Notes on the Abortion Debate
in Current Events
Posted
You couldn't be more right. I've been saying this for a while now. Nearly all the mainstream pro-choice arguments are utilitarian in character and I was never satisfied with this long before I ever heard of Objectivism. To my recollection I have always been pro-choice since I was old enough to understand what it meant.
I don't think anyone is going to argue that the fetus is ALIVE. Of course it is ALIVE, but that is not the point. A cow is alive too but no one except the most strident eco-goofs will argue that consuming beef is immoral on those grounds alone. But the problem with most pro-choicers is that if they even accept rights at all (which many don't, especially utilitarians), they believe rights conflict and it's a matter of whose rights "win". That's the wrong way to look at it too. It's not that the mother's rights trump the fetus's rights, it's that the mother has rights and the fetus doesn't, plain and simple. The key argument here is explaining why a fetus is not the sort of entity that has rights but a baby is. That's what it comes down to.