JeffS
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Posts posted by JeffS
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@logicalpath - I'm not sure why you keep quoting me since you're not disagreeing with me. In fact, you're not really adding anything more to what I've already written. Is there something I'm missing?
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But there´s probably something keeping others from issuing their own monies and along with its price in said private monies, also putting a divergent price on whatever product which is its market value in dollars, right?
Banks, and other businesses, issue their own money all the time in the form of credit cards and checks. Money is simply that which easily facilitates the exchange of value. As sN pointed out, no one would want to issue something that doesn't facilitate that exchange. US dollars must be accepted, but (as evidenced by the businesses which do not accept credit cards and/or checks) other forms of payment can be.
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While it is no longer illegal for American citizens to own gold it is STILL illegal for American citizens to use gold as currency. I believe the Executive Order/Law states that Gold cannot be used as legal tender. Obviously this is done because otherwise many business people would demand gold as their desired form of payment...I know I would!
All legal tender means is that a business can't refuse payment in it. So, a business couldn't refuse to be paid in dollars. However, you can pay with whatever form of money you wish as long as the business agrees to accept it. So, you can use gold as currency.
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"On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt ordered all gold coins and gold certificates in denominations of more than $100 turned in for other money. It required all persons to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve by May 1 for the set price of $20.67 per ounce."
" In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed legislation that permitted Americans again to own gold bullion."
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-takes-united-states-off-gold-standard
(Google's an amazing thing.)
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DancingBear, the exceedingly important concept you're dancing through is that one must prove their rights have been violated. If I am accused of murdering someone, it must be proved that I did before you put me in jail. If you accuse me of causing the climate above your property to change, then you must prove I've changed the climate (or that my actions have changed the climate) before you demand recompense.
Now, you might be tempted to argue that proving my actions have changed the climate would be nearly prohibitively difficult to do. Well, "difficult to do" is not a valid justification for pre-emptively initiating force against me. A tenuous link between CO2 and rising temperatures is not going to be enough when you're dealing with the incredibly vast and chaotic system that is planetary climate.
If you can prove that someone's actions have caused you harm (e.g. the BP oil spill), then the government has the obligation and the authority to impose punishment and restitution. There's no justification in pre-emptively regulating oil companies who have done no harm to you.
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We're missing some context here, so I'll have to make a pretty important assumption: You and your employer are rational individuals who have freely negotiated a contract (even if only implied) for employment. Maternity leave is a benefit, as such it is part of your total compensation - part of what your employer has agreed to voluntarily give up in order to convince you to work with him/her. Presumably your employer has had to reduce certain parts of your total compensation in order to provide you with his benefit (e.g. perhaps a slightly lower salary than a man's).
So, in essence, you've been paying for this benefit from day one of your employment. As such, future considerations are not really germane to the issue - you've paid for the benefit, and your employer voluntarily agreed to provide the benefit regardless of when it happened or what you decided to do after the birth. Degree of the benefit is not germane to the issue - your employer agreed to the amount of the benefit. You're not using force against anyone, nor are you demanding that someone else initiate force in order to satisfy your contract. It would be as immoral to refuse the benefit as it would be if you were to refuse your paycheck.
*edit - silly mistake
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Seems you're putting rationality on hold. You clearly recognize your actions as irrational after the outburst. The trick is to recognize your actions as irrational while you're considering an outburst.
Here's how I deal with stress: see how much I can take before cracking - and, of course, I very rarely crack (perhaps once every decade) because I'm always trying to push my stress level. When you feel the anger coming on, recognize that you're angry and try to determine why you're angry. What stimulus is causing you to be angry? Usually, that will do the trick - it's the one moment you need to gain control of your emotions again. It's like taking a deep breath. If that's not enough, try to see how much more stress you can take before cracking. Make a game of it. "Yeah, you *#!@, you've pissed me off. Bet you can't do anything else to piss me off even more." Laugh at it. Walk away.
The point is to give yourself time to allow the hold you're putting on rationality to end and for thinking to come back on-line.
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Cool, thanks, Brian. A much easier and clearer way of looking at the data.
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I wonder what country went from an average life span of over 50 years to below the x-axis in a matter of years. (around 2:09-2:12)
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Awesome! Love it! Well done!
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As I said, provide a question with a contextually equivalent analogy.
Why can't I get an answer to that question? If it's not "contextually equivalent," then you can shoot me down for that if I ever use it in a context where it doesn't apply. I just want to know if it's moral to accept money from someone who steals money from me if I know that money is stolen. Why won't you answer that question? Should I start a new thread and see if you'll answer it there? I don't want to know if it's moral to accept money from a thief when I don't know where his money comes from.
You're evading, RB.
EDIT: Have a great Thanksgiving!
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Among other things, you are excluding the fact that the robber has numerous willing accomplices providing him with money as well.
Why should that matter? I know he stole money from me. I know he has no money now. I know the only way for him to get money is to steal it from someone else (i.e. no one is going to give it to him willingly, and he produces nothing so can not earn money). That is the context. Is it moral for me to accept money from him when I know he stole it from someone else?
It's a simple morality question.
Yes, it is. To say that it is material to the issue means it it pertinent or important. To say that it is beside the point is to say that it is not pertinent, not important, or... immaterial.To say that something is beside the point is also to say that it is extraneous, incidental, off the subject, or not at issue, which is clearly my meaning.
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I don't agree that you can determine exactly when specific funds are being spent, those specific dollar bills that were taken from one person and when those specific bills are no longer available to that person for the purposes of value recovery. I think that specific money goes into accounts (investment accounts even?) with a pool of other money, thus making it difficult to determine exactly whose money is being spent at a specific time.
When the government is running a deficit, then one thing is certain: the total of money collected in taxes is greater than the total money spent on services. That's the definition of deficit, RB. We don't need to determine exactly when specific funds are collected or spent, and any attempt to do so, and use that as some sort of justification, is just rationalizaton. The simple fact is: money coming in is less than money going out. Any addition to the latter merely widens the gap.
You keep denying it, but I think that in essence you continue to communicate that we should just keep being victimized and have no moral right to recoup what was taken from us.And I'll deny it yet again. You have no evidence for either of these claims, and it's irrational for you to believe them, especially since I've specifically denied them countless times and provided arguments why I deny them.
The initiation of force starts and stays with the robber, not his victims.I agree completely, and have stated that all along. When my writing has implied that I do not believe this, and this was pointed out to me, I corrected it and made it clear that it is the government initiating force.
Can you just answer a simple moral question for me?
If someone stole my money, would it be moral of me to accept a return of the value of the money stolen if I know that the robber has to steal the money from someone else in order to return it to me?
Which is the same as saying they are immaterial.No, it isn't.
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Not at all. I've always argued that I'm not a party to it to begin with. I'm the victim, the victim is not a party to a crime simply because they seek to get back the value that was taken from them. One seeking the recovery of what was taken from them is not "getting in on the action".
Given that the government currently runs a deficit, where will the money come from to provide the OP with food stamps?
These are the questions I would like to see answered as well.Of course I have. What's the point? That I'm a hypocrite? When have I stated that I live a moral life? I haven't, and I don't. Hypocritical would be claiming that I'm living a moral life while ignoring all the principles upon which morality is based.
No one has attempted to argue this [that the government will just take money from the socialists] anywhere in this thread, and I'm quite sure everyone here would agree that such a view is ridiculous. I have no idea where you got this from, but it wasn't this thread.Here's where the analogy differs from the robber; many people willingly give the money to the government without the reservation of thinking it is stolen from them; they think it is proper. Its nigh on impossible for me to tell where the money I recoup comes from, but I generally suspect (based on my experiences) that the number of people who think the government is forcibly a robber is in the minority. Since they are supportive of the "robber", I have no qualms recouping my money at their expense.Especially don't sacrifice yourself to the lowest scum in society.... The people who actually condone the welfare state: socialists, communists, collectivists.Not the ones who explicitly condemn the welfare state and would be happy to see it go but who, nonetheless, must live non-sacrificially while it does exist.
But moral principles are formed based on their long-term effects on the life of the actor. The importance of the principle and the importance of the (long-term) effect are one and the same. If your actions are immaterial in improving and furthering your own life, then either you're applying the principle wrong or the principle itself is wrong. In this case, I would argue the former.I didn't argue that actions are immaterial, I argued that the question of their materiality is beside the point. Shouldn't actions properly follow from principles? One must first form their principles, then apply them before any evaluation of their efficacy can be made. If the principle is flawed, and properly followed, then the action is flawed. But if the action is correct, the principle may still be flawed. We must begin with principles.
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If by "simple" you mean "unrelated to reality" and "false" then mission accomplished. Once you switch to my analogy, your whole argument falls apart because C can't "demand" anything from Rob, he's the one with the gun remember.
Who is initiating force is a crucial issue and you've been trying to skirt it and pretend that it doesn't matter since I entered. It is not only disingenuous of you to pretend there is no difference between your analogy and mine, it is dishonest. It is dishonest because I pointed this issue out to you and you conceded the point before you constructed your failed analogy.
Unreal. So, the OP can't demand food stamps from the government, right? The government has the guns, remember?
This is reality: we live in a nation of some 300 million people. Of those, somewhere around 170 million pay federal income taxes totaling around $5 trillion. Some pay willingly, some do not. Of that $5T, the federal government spends all of it, then it borrows money and spends more. If you asked for your money back you could not get it, the government could not give it to you, your property does not exist, it has already been consumed. The only way the government could return your property to you is if it went out and collected more revenue - i.e. it must get money from someone. Even if the government borrows money to return your property to you, that only delays the inevitable - the governmnt must get money from someone who has produced something of value.
If you go from paying federal income taxes to not paying federal income taxes, then federal revenue goes down. If you then accept welfare of any sort, federal expenses go up. Net result: the gap between what the federal government receives and what it spends gets even wider. This doesn't change the fact that the government spends all of the revenue it receives and that any money you personally have had taken from you has already been consumed.
The question is: Where does the government get the money to provide you with welfare when all the money it took from you has already been consumed? It has to get that money from someone who produced something of value, Marc. It can't reach into its bag of surplus money because there is no surplus money! So, where does the government get that money?
You want to rationalize that the government will just go to those who agree with wealth distribution to obtain the money to give to you. "Oh, the government won't take the money from those who agree with me that the government shouldn't steal. In order to pay me back, the government will just take money from the socialists." That's fine. Rationalize away.
I'm done with you, Marc. Your continued insulting tone, dishonesty, obfuscation and intentional misinterpretation and misrepresentation of my argument has already wasted far too much of my time.
REGARDLESS of whether or not I ask for the return of my property, the current government is STILL going to rob from me and others again, repeatedly, while it is in a deficit and probably while in surplus. My actions in this context are immaterial to what the government has already taken from me, and will continue to take from me in the future.I don't see how that is relevant to the current topic. Yes, the government will continue to rob from us at least until everyone understands the proper function of government. Are you arguing that since the crime is going to occur anyway, being party to its perpetuation isn't such a big deal? If so, then I disagree. Whether or not your actions are immaterial is somewhat beside the point. The important thing is not the effect - the important thing is the principle upon which the action taken is based.
I'm not sure you mean it this way, but your position is essentially; I'm already being victimized by the government so the moral thing to do is continue to be victimized by the government.Certainly not, and I don't know how many times, or how many different ways I need to say so.
I also think that the reality of the situation is that we are facing a robber who will never get caught, so to speak. There is NO legal recourse to seek the return of my property OTHER than the manners prescribed by the robber himself.I can't subscribe to such a defeatist attitude. The robber will get "caught" when the majority of the population has a rational philosophy, or at least understands the importance of principles and living by them. We can't get there if those who purport to hold a rational philosophy try to rationalize away those principles.
By becoming a receiver of such wealth-redistribution -- the argument goes -- one would cause the government to take more than it otherwise would. I don't think this is actually true if one considers the long-term. I think governments end up taking as much as they can get away with.Sure, but that's just another rationalization: "The government's going to take it anyway, I might as well get in on the action." If we keep disregarding the principles that would stop governments from taking as much as they can, then we'll never escape it.
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It's so disappointing to see such massive intellectual dishonesty from a self-professed Objectivist.
I offered to use your "closer to reality" analogy, Marc, and you still evade the question.
If rational people can't step away from dogma long enough to actually evaluate arguments, then what hope is there? If self-professed Objectivists must rely upon obfuscation, misinterpretation, and dishonesty in order to convince themselves they've won an argument, then the odds of a rational philosophy gaining wide acceptance are greatly reduced.
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No, there is a crucial difference. In your analogy you said:
"Neither Ms. C nor Ms. D believe this, but they go along with it because Mr. A and Mr. B have guns and threaten to put the ladies in jail if they don't."
You make A and B the initiators of force. You attribute to them the functions of the government: they have the guns and the power to jail C and D. This is not reality. In reality the other citizens do not have the power of the gun nor can they imprison you. This has been your argument all along as I demonstrate below.
Very well, I was trying to make a simple analogy. I suppose we need to make it more complicated. Let's use your analogy then. What principle makes it moral for Ms. C to demand that Rob the Robber take money from Ms. D in order to pay Ms. C?
On the question of when you asked me how you should retaliate, I was wrong. You did ask me. A month ago. I apologize for not catching that. As I pointed out in the post immediately after your question, it was getting to the point where I had to reply to many different posters who were contesting the same things. It was at that point that I tried to simplify everything.
I think it's a bit disingenuous of you to imply that I intentionally neglected your question, especially since you had ample opportunity to ask again in the several posts after mine. But, you're right; you did ask, I did not answer. I apologize.
Not much of a pinpoint there but OK, so you think when a robber robs me, I am "allowing" it to happen. "Allow" implies "voluntary" but I guess, according to you, when I later have the robber arrested, then he can legitimately claim that I gave him my wallet of my own free choice and the police should accept that explanation and let him go. Absurd.For the third time, then what would you call it?
You must be kidding, your entire argument is based on this false premise. Here is a partial listing:None of the quotes you provided explicity state, or imply that Ms. C would be initiating force against A and/or B. Read themadkat's post if this is still unclear.
Dante has already addressed the moral/practical dichotomy, so, yes, the moral is the practical. Apparently you think the moral is the impractical, just like the altruists.This is a false dichotomy. You're arguing that if don't accept your sweeping generalization that "the moral is the practical," then I must think the moral is the impractical. There is another option - the option Ms. Rand wrote about: the moral does not need to contradict the practical, as long as both are supported by solid principles.
You should drop the debt issue because it gets you nowhere and only confuses the issue. Until the entire country defaults and the government collapses the debt changes nothing: the debt is still serviced by taxes it just taxes people yet to be born.No, we can't drop the debt issue regardless of how confusing it is. The reality of the situation is that this country is in debt. If we're going to ignore it, then what other parts of reality do we get to ignore?
Besides what is your argument here, that as long as the country isn't in debt then it is OK for us to collect food stamps?Absolutely, and I've already stated as much. If the country were running a surplus then it certainly could return your property to you without finding more victims (or taking more from its existing victims). Yes, the food stamps were still provided by taxation, but that was a crime which has already occured. If the government doesn't need to commit another crime in order to return your property to you, then it is moral to get your property back.
When the government runs a deficit, in order to return your property to you it has no course of action but to find more victims, or take more property from its existing victims because it doesn't have any property to return to you. That is a crime which would not have occurred (all things being equal) had you not demanded your property back (in the form of food stamps).
You said that we are "culpable for the government's use of force". I guess you'll have to look up what the word "culpable" means.Once again, you are being disingenuous. I don't mind if you parse my posts, I certainly do enough of it. However, when I do it I try to make sure I'm getting the central point the other poster is trying to make. Had you even read a little further into the quote you cut up, you would have realized that "That is not what I'm arguing" referred to your erroneous supposition that I'm arguing you could get your bike back. You can't. Your bike no longer exists. It has been converted to cash and the cash has been spent on something already consumed.
I even used your analogy to make it clear. So, either you didn't read the rest of the post, or you simply want to be dishonest. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
I understand why you want to keep avoiding the question posed in the rest of that quote, but it really doesn't help your argument to do so.
culpable - deserving blame
If you demand Rob the Robber returns your property, knowing full well he will have to go out and rob someone else in order to do so, then you are culpable - you are deserving of blame.
Issues of taxation and government financing are not emergency situations. If they were, then Ayn Rand wouldn't have said that they would be the last issues to deal with on the way to laissez faire. I'll let you discover for yourself what actually constitutes an emergency, I'll bet it's even covered in the Lexicon. If not, there is a whole essay on it in VOS.Well, my bad. Since Ayn Rand didn't say taxation was an emergency situation, it must not be. Let's ignore the principles upon which the concept of emergencies are based and just go with what she said.
Ayn Rand said taxation and government financing were the last issues to deal with because people need to understand the principles of a proper government long before they demand a different way. In fact, they need to understand a great deal more of her objective philosophy long before they can even understand the principles of a proper government. She was arguing that one can't simply force a conclusion on people without them having an understanding of the objective evidence the conclusion is based on. In fact, I bet she would argue that once people understood the premises, the immorality of forced taxation would be a foregone conclusion.
Every year, on a particular day, of a particular month, a man accosts you in the street. He puts a gun to your head and says, "Give me your money, or I will confine you in my basement until you do." Would you consider that an emergency scenario?
Ahh, so you do want us all to become Timothy McVeigh. And is this how you conduct your life? When is the last time you shot someone from the IRS? What a hypocrite.What? How am I a hypocrite?
I always start out by giving someone the benefit of the doubt but the longer they refuse to concede after their argument has been defeated the more insulting I get.You keep ignoring my questions, and misinterpreting my argument, so it's hard for me to imagine how my argument has been defeated. I think you do it because you're experiencing cognitive dissonance. You know your argument is flawed, I've punctured a big hole in what you believed to be true without really analyzing it, so now you're lashing out. You've been insulting from the beginning.
The issue here is sacrifice: you are calling for it, it has been pointed out to you many times but you have not acknowledged it. Let us see how, what are your solutions:- fire the thieves. This is legitimate, I advocate for it, but unfortunately the fired thieves keep getting replaced by more thieves.
So, now what? Alter your principles? Tacitly compromise on them?
- pick up a gun and shoot the tax man. This would result in me going to jail and I am not willing to sacrifice my life that way. And it isn't necessary right now: (you have to recognize that there is a not only a difference in degree between the US-2010 and Nazi Germany but a difference in kind.)Ahhh, so it's to be compromise.
- allow the socialists to benefit at my expense. This is clearly a sacrifice. If you recognize a difference between us and Nazi Germany and if a happy life is possible here, then while we are firing the thieves and moving toward laissez faire and if shooting a govt agent isn't the answer, then we have to work within the system.The socialists are benefitting at your expense, and have been increasingly benefitting at your expense your entire life (assuming you're under 80 years old). So, who is it that's calling for sacrifice?
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... This point is absolutely central to her ethics. Her whole moral system is built upon the practical needs of a life of man qua man. Here's your citation, it's in the lexicon after all.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/moral-practical_dichotomy.html
I suggest you re-read the passage. Rand is not arguing that the moral is the practical. She's arguing that the practical and the moral need not contradict.
However, let's assume you and Marc are correct, and morality is simply what is practical; the good is what "works." Nearly three generations of Americans have lived their lives based on what "works." They've gone from cradle to grave sucking off the government teat - that has "worked" for them. It was practical for them to live like that. These people lived moral lives?
To make this more germane to our discussion, since it's practical to use the roads to get to work, it's moral to use the roads. No reference to principles, no reference to Man's only means of survival. It works, it's the best we can do in the situation, so it's moral.
I think you're both doing a dis-service to Rand and Objectivism. I'm by no means an expert on Objectivism, and I probably know significantly less than either of you. But I find it very hard to believe she would agree with your sweeping generalization.
In a word, yes. Do not confuse Rand's rejection of pragmatism with a rejection of a practical system of ethics. She defined pragmatism as the rejection of the idea of principles altogether. "Whatever works, all things considered, to further your own life" is absolutely the standard of the good. Principles are part of what works, which is why pragmatism is wrong. (On this point, see also Principles)Thanks. I particularly like this passage from the page on principles:
To make it more grotesque, that haggling is accompanied by an aura of hysterical self-righteousness, in the form of belligerent assertions that one must compromise with anybody on anything (except on the tenet that one must compromise) and by panicky appeals to “practicality.”Or, if we search in "Pragmatism," we find:
[The Pragmatists] declared that philosophy must be practical...By itself, as a distinctive theory, the pragmatist ethics is contentless. It urges men to pursue “practicality,” but refrains from specifying any “rigid” set of values that could serve to define the concept.Now, I would agree that with the caveat "all things considered" in place "Whatever works to further your own life" is a true statement. However, that was not the claim made. The claim made was that "the moral is the practical."
If you truly do accept that the principles you've been advocating for here are not good for your own life (but you think people should stick to them anyways), then on Objectivist terms you've already lost the argument.What are you talking about?
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I did not answer because I saw no logical argument: Your analogy is completely inapt.
Hmmm, yet here you are. I find arguments devoid of logic are the easiest to dispense with. Don't you?
And yet the only difference (aside from attributing positions to me that I did not make, which I will address) between what you consider "closer to reality" and my analogy is the thief's name is now Rob instead of "government." Really, quite laughable.
Along comes JeffS. He says he agrees with C and D and is on their side but soon they discover different. Their first clue is when he says to them that they shouldn't allow Rob to rob them. C and D say "allow, we don't allow him to rob us, he has a gun pointed at us, what would you have us do?" "Retaliate" says Jeff. "How" they ask. No answer.When did you ask me how one would retaliate? I, however, can pinpoint where I asked you what you would call it when one passively goes along with a robbery. It was in post #65.
Then Jeff says "you shouldn't accept any money back from Rob as you would be initiating force against A and B". C and D are confused,As am I. Please, also provide the post where I argued Ms. C would be initiating force against A and/or B.
... when the robber offers us our money back,...How could the robber actually give Ms. C's money back? Where would that money come from? This is the question you keep avoiding, Marc, because you realize it's the Achilles Heel of your argument. You don't want to admit that Rob (aka "government") would have to take that money from Mr. D. I'll even let you use your "closer to reality" scenario: where would the money that Ms. C receives have to come from? Do you believe it will come from A, B, or D? Or, perhaps it is just the magic of high-level accounting which will provide Ms. C with funds?
We don't believe that following one's principles should entail pain and giving things up and supporting our own destroyers, that's the altruists. We don't believe in a dichotomy between the moral and the practical. The moral is the practical.Really? "The moral is the practical?" I would love to see the Rand quote on that. My searching of the Lexicon didn't bring anything up. Do you have something else that's not in the lexicon?
The advantage of my analogy over yours though is that at least mine describes the essentials of the situation whereas yours doesn't even correctly describe the facts of the situation.Which facts do I have wrong? Is it not true that the government currently runs a fiscal deficit? Is it not true that the government is in debt?
So a robber robs me and many other people. The police catch him and find some of the stolen goods but unfortunately the robber has already converted and spent much of the stolen property. Many of the people will not get back their property but the police do recover my bike. You are saying that I am culpable for the criminal's actions if I accept back my bike?That is not what I'm arguing, and I suppose the simple logic of my argument hasn't hit you. Perhaps using your own analogy will help you understand. If the robber had converted and spent all of the stolen property, should the robber go out and find new victims in order to buy you a new bike?
First of all, you have no idea what constitutes an emergency.And what evidence do you have that I do not? Let me see if I can make an unfounded accusation of my own: you have no idea what the current state of government financing is.
how do you think we should "avoid it happening in the future"?Ahh, here's where you ask me how I would retaliate - after you accuse me of not answering a question that, by your own admission, had not been put to me yet. Perhaps the simple logic of which should come first hasn't hit you yet?
By firing the thieves. If that doesn't work, pick up a gun and protect your property (and your principles). I realize there's some danger in that, and that you "retain some freedoms and some level of happiness is possible." I guess that's enough to justify ignoring your principles. After all - morality is all about practicality. Whatever works is the good, eh?
Just an interesting aside for me, are you getting insulting because you know your argument is flawed, or are you simply always this insulting?
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You have already conceded to me earlier in this thread that it is the government that is initiating force in this situation, are you changing your mind now?
We are not the ones initiating force and retaliatory force is morally obligatory if you want to live.
I have never argued otherwise. My argument all along has been that accepting welfare is to legitimize theft. You're not committing the crime yourself, but you're using the government as your agent to do it. Is a welfare recipient any less culpable for the government's use of force to provide their benefits? Is that culpability eliminated, or even mitigated if the recipient says, with outstretched hands, "Oh, but I completely and unequivocably disagree with the way in which you obtained the funds to provide me these benefits. You are evil, evil, evil. Gimme' my money."
This makes no sense. How are two situations different?In the first case, the crime is committed and over; the emergency situation has come and passed. You have the opportunity then to reason a way to avoid it happening in the future. Your reasoning mind is released from the stultifying effects of force, and you can return to normalcy. In the latter case, the crime continues; the emergency situation becomes the normal. If you remain in that situation, without attempting to escape it, then you're just accepting the morality of the looter. You're sanctioning the acts and morality of the thief and denying your rational mind.
And when someone has a gun at your head you are not "allowing" them to rob you.Then what are you doing?
I'm going to say this again though the simple logic of it hasn't hit you yet:Is that sort of veiled ad hominem really necessary?
Marc, you became reticent when presented with a logical argument, complicated or no, which ended in questions you could not answer. Care to answer them now?
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Apparently you have missed my major point, which is that in trying to understand Rand's positions and principles, it is not enough to read a quote and conclude that it "sounds pretty absolute."
That puts a big sign on everything Rand has ever written that says, "Maybe." I understand your point, Dante, and that everything is contextual. However, when someone writes "... do you hear me? no man may start..." it seems to me they're really trying to make it clear that the initiation of force is anathema. She didn't write, "No man may intiate, unless conditions preclude him from not initiating, or certain contextual situations force him to initiate...."
Rand concluded no person should initiate force upon another from her conclusions that reason is Man's only means of survival and that reason is impossible in the face of force, which she arrived at from the objective facts of the kind of organism Man is and the natures of force and reason. A context which denies the conclusion on force initiation would either need to destroy the relationship between force and reason, deny the nature of Man, or both.
Certainly. I will take possibly the most extreme case concievable where a conflict of interests between two people is artificially imposed upon them. A lunatic kidnaps me and some random stranger, and gives me a choice: I can kill the other person and walk away alive, or I can refuse and he will kill me. In this case, I do not have the option of refusing to sacrifice both myself and other people. In a case like this, either choice can be considered moral.You've constructed an emergency situation. As such, it is no longer a situation in which ethics apply; it is no longer a question to be answered with an appeal to morality. What you "should" do cannot be answered. As pointed out above, you've taken away the relationship between force and reason and supplied an example where reason is not possible.
In regard to the non-initiation of force principle, Objectivism doesn't apply in this situation; no ethical system does. Therefore, this is not a context where it is moral for someone to initiate force against someone else.
In regards to the present question, is the situation the same? Have Ms. C, or the OP, been forced to abandon reason? Can no answer of what they "should" do be given?
No, that is not what I am arguing.In this context [Communism], almost every single pursuit of value by someone in the company necessitated a sacrifice on the part of someone else. Under these conditions, it truly is impossible to live a moral life.So, impossible to live a moral life.
In a country which is mostly free, like the U.S., you are mostly able to navigate society without having to sacrifice others, but the more expansive the state is, the more often you will be faced with win-lose relationships with others. Whenever you find yourself faced with a situation like this, you can no longer guide your actions by a principle which is premised on the possibility of achieving value-for-value (win-win) relationships.Or nearly so impossible.
Dante, you're arguing that it is impossible (in a Communist state), or nearly impossible (depending upon how far away the state is from the ideal) to live a moral life. You're proposing we live in a world where emergency scenarios are considerably more common-place than natural laws would require. I don't think we do.
Yes, government interference does create conflict among rational men. But the rational response is not to perpetuate the conflict, or pass it on down. The proper response is to return to normal life as quickly as possible. Perpetuating the victimization is not the path toward solving the emergency.
Both Ms. C forgoing receiving money from the system when she has, in the past, paid into it and myself refusing to drive on public roads would constitute giving sanction to the state's right to sacrifice its citizens.It is just as valid for me to argue that Ms. C receiving money, and your continued usage of the roads is sanctioning sacrifice if indeed these are emergency scenarios since the question is not a question morality can answer.
However, I don't agree that either are emergencies. Neither of you are being forced to abandon reason in your decisions. You were forced to abandon reason when the government put a gun to your heads and took your money. In Ms. C's case, that emergency has passed. She has no more money to take and the government applies no force in her decision to accept welfare or refuse it.
In the case of roads, if the state took your money, then built a road, there's no reason why you should not use that road. If the state continues to take your money to repair and improve the road, then allowing the state to keep robbing you is sanctioning sacrifice - not because you continue to use the road, but because you continue to accept the emergency situation of a state continually holding you up at gun point. If someday you run out of money, and need a new road to find a new job, should you use any new road built from the government's theft of others' money? If so, how is this different from the argument that the government should tax the rich in order to provide services to those who can't afford it? Would it matter if those others who can't afford services now had paid something into the system in the past?
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To start, Rand's principle of non-initiation of force does not play the same role in her ethics as, say, the non-aggression axiom plays in the ethics of Rothbard, for example. It is not a contextless absolute that applies in all circumstances, which seems to be the way you want to apply it. Your methodology seems to be the following: Find out if the action in question involved initiating force against others. If yes, immoral; if no, moral (or at least not immoral on these grounds). But applying it to a real life situation is often more complicated, and to do that, first we need to understand the context from which it was formed.Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others. (Ayn Rand Lexicon)
That sounds pretty absolute to me. She seems very emphatic about it. Can you provide a scenario where it would be moral for someone to initiate force against someone else?
Under the framework of a welfare state, it is quite common to encounter a clash of interests. Under a system of institutionalized redistribution, like the system we have now, it is literally impossible for me to get every value I require through production. The roads I drive on, for example, are built, maintained, and available for me to use regardless of how much I contribute to their maintenance. It is not possible, without a structural change in the government, for me to live solely through production in that sphere of my life. I am faced with two choices: use the roads as much as I need to (sacrificing others to myself) or refuse to use the roads, and heavily inconvenience myself (sacrifice myself to others). This example is meant to illustrate one simple point: forced redistribution pits men against each other. It imposes an artificial, but very real, conflict of interests among men.It seems like you're arguing it's impossible (or nearly so) to live a moral life (unless the "ideal form of human society and interaction" you mention above exists). Is that what you're arguing?
That is a difficult question, because Ms. C does not have an avenue where she can avoid sacrificing herself and at the same time avoid sacrificing Ms. D. Certainly, it is inappropriate to conclude that either choice by Ms. C is immoral simply by citing the principle of non-initiation of force. Simply citing that principle regardless of context is a tactic which is more at home in Deontological Libertarianism than Objectivism. -
Would you go to a charity operated by volunteerism and true altruism for food rather than a government run program funded on the confiscation of peoples' income?
Yes, I would go to a charity rather than a government run program. However, I disagree with your premise. Charity is not always indicative of altruism. In fact, I would venture to argue that charity is rarely indicative of altruism. I give to charity because it makes me feel good, and I know the charities I give to provide goods and services that genuinely help people become productive. It is in my rational self-interests to live in a society where people are productive. I give to charity because it's good for me.
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RB, I can't disagree with anything you've written.
Is it your position that not admitting to a crime is not evasion?
New to forum and Objectivism
in Introductions and Personal Notes
Posted
I'm surprised to read this. I know one doctor personally and he is not in the least interested in being altruistic. He informs me his opinion is not the minority. In addition, I've read several op-eds from doctors which lead me to believe the medical field will be the first to "shrug."
On what do you base your belief that the medical field is becoming "overwhelmingly altruistic?"