Dante

The OP. He seems to be viewing drug dealers as just average people who happen to be operating in an illegal market that should be legal, when the reality is that the people who survive and prosper in a black market generally do it through evil. The people who sell drugs would be the same type of people that run today's legal drug companies if we ever legalized drugs (moral businessmen), but the fact is that while the market is still illegal, evil men will always run and operate it.

I would just like to point out that one of the side effects of pushing the drug market underground is that drug traffickers have to be able and willing to enforce deals personally (through violence and fear), and also able to scare their street-level pushers enough so that those people would choose a few years in prison over rolling on their bosses. This requires the threat and frequent use of brutal violence. Those are the type of people with a comparative advantage in a black market. So just because the drug laws shouldn't be there, doesn't mean that the black market is full of moral people who don't deserve to go to jail. In any black market, no matter the product, criminals and rights-violators will rise to the top. I seriously doubt that, if you are a drug trafficker, any of your 'colleagues' deserve any consideration of the kind you're suggesting.

There's a big difference between 'not likely' and 'impossible;' between 'Most Objectivists remain Objectivists' and '100% do.' Decide which you are arguing for and stick to it. So if they make an error and contradict Objectivism's fundamentals, they 'still have not rejected Objectivism'? How exactly do you figure that? Objectivism consists of much more than just honestly seeking the truth.

Let's take a hypothetical person who understands and accepts the philosophical system of Objectivism, but then learns some new piece of knowledge, which they cannot integrate with the system. To them, it appears that this new fact contradicts some principle of Objectivism, that the two cannot be integrated into one system of knowledge. If we accept that Objectivism is true and not internally contradictory (which I do), then we are left with two possibilities: either this person's original idea of Objectivism was wrong, or there is some mistake in the connections they are forming between Objectivism and this new piece of knowledge; they are mis-integrating it. Now, it seems that some people here think that only option A is possible; we know for sure that they didn't understand from the start. However, this line of reasoning implies that it is impossible for someone who does understand Objectivism to make a mistake when integrating knowledge; this line of reasoning requires us to assume that option B is impossible. Are the rest of us to take from this that you think that for Objectivists, reason and integration is now infallible? That it is impossible for a true Objectivist to make an epistemological mistake later in life? If so, I think you should check your premises. The proper application of logic and reason never becomes fully automatic or infallible. Forming and refining concepts will never be like forming percepts, no matter how much of a 'true Objectivist' you are.

No. This just illustrates the fact that Objectivism has a definite identity, it does not mean that someone cannot at one point in their life fit this identity, and then later choose to reject part of it. Now, being an Objectivist myself, I think that someone who rejects it has made an error, but that's the whole point; people are fallible, and Objectivists are no exception.

Or... they just decided they disagreed with one of its positions on any number of topics, because they have attained some more knowledge that they believe does not integrate properly with Objectivist principles. Saying that they just 'didn't understand it before' is to treat the attainment and integration of knowledge as an automatic and infallible process, which is contrary to Objectivism itself.

Wow, you personally knew George Smith in the 60s and 70s and had in-depth discussions with him about Objectivism? Or wait... are you just comfortable generalizing him because you've classified him as a 'Libertarian' and you therefore just presume to know his entire belief system? Oh...

You're being called closed-minded for the positive position you're taking, not this odd brain damage discussion. You simply refuse to recognize the possibility that someone who is a knowledgeable Objectivist might later come to reject some part of the philosophical system; as if once someone accepts Objectivism at a sufficiently deep level to be called a 'true' Objectivist by you, suddenly their reason isn't fallible anymore, and integrating new knowledge becomes automatic for them. I would certainly agree that the majority of people who call themselves 'Objectivists' for a few months after reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and then later reject O'ism never really understood the philosophical system in the first place. However, there are plenty of people out there who do understand it and come to reject parts of it.

This is really the heart of the question. What is the fundamental reason that we have property rights? According to most anti-IP viewpoints, we have property rights because resources are scarce (rivalrous), and we need rights to decide who can do what with those scarce resources. Since ideas are not scarce (non-rival), property rights should not apply to them. However, the Objectivist approach to individual rights, and property rights in particular, is quite different, and scarcity is not the fundamental starting point for property rights. We need property rights because at a fundamental level, human beings survive by using our minds to create value. In order to successfully live and thrive by creating value, we need to have control over the value that we create. It's not about scarcity, fundamentally, but rather about what we need in order to be able to live by our own productive work. It's about what kind of society is required by man's nature as a productive being. This is obviously a bare-bones account of just the general thrust of two approaches to property rights, but we can already see that there is no reason in the second account to limit the values that are protected to just physical goods. An inventor who lives by generating new ideas has just as much right to the product of his labor as a craftsman who creates physical objects, and a society intended to allow men to flourish under it should protect both of them. Property rights do also help us deal with scarcity, but that is not fundamental to their nature in the Objectivist account. I'd definitely recommend looking at the links Grames posted for a more in-depth look at a theory of property rights not based on scarcity; there's only so much that can be presented in an internet discussion forum.

Making it possible for other people to steal your idea is not the same as consenting. If I leave my wallet or my iPod lying around unsupervised, I shouldn't be surprised when someone steals them, but that doesn't mean it's not still stealing. Property rights don't disappear just because you're careless.

This discussion is bordering on the absurd. Of course it's possible for an Objectivist to change his mind about some fundamental principle of Objectivism and no longer be an Objectivist, and it doesn't take brain damage to do it. Knowledge is not automatic, and the truth isn't just absorbed passively. No one is infallible.

You're not just claiming it's hard to change your mind about it. You're saying it's impossible. I guess I won't know whether I was ever truly an Objectivist until I die as one.

Certain about that, are you?

The point is that if your conception of knowledge has no necessary connection to reality, in what sense can it be considered knowledge? You can term it whatever you want, but at the end of the day justification either ties claims to reality, or it doesn't. Your favored brand of 'justification' doesn't.

But the root of the issue must go deeper than this. The fundamental question is, are we justified in using coercive force in order to attempt to 'even the playing field' as much as possible, in order to equalize opportunity? The issue is about our fundamental enforceable obligations to our fellow men, and not just about the immediate picture of what bad things might happen if we didn't force people to help others. It's a question about what we owe one another, and that's the premise you'll ultimately have to get to in any discussion like this.

It follows by rigorously determining what we mean by 'truth,' and then examining the different methods we have for obtaining it (in this case, for connecting claims or propositions with reality). ... Seriously? We examine the evidence of their existence... with our senses. I'll take the example of atomic nuclei since I know more about the original evidence supporting that than I do about electrons. Rutherford performed the gold foil experiment, which gave him results that he could examine visually, and he used this evidence to support the phenomenon in question. No matter what tools are required for the experimentation or the evidence gathering, the ultimate results of those tools must be examined by a human being, using his or her senses. In fact, we did not know about the existence of electrons or nuclei, precisely because they are unseen, until we were able to devise tools that interacted with them to produce results that we could examine visually. That is how all knowledge formation must be done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#History

The problem with that epistemology is that it's not an epistemology in any helpful sense. It draws no difference between different reasons that beliefs 'seem' true to people; whether they seem true because they are consistent with the evidence, or whether they seem true because, say, the individual in question really wants to believe that they're true. There is no method for determining anything other than appeals to feelings; there is no method of evaluating how those feelings were formed and whether or not they themselves are valid. Thus, contradictory claims 'seem' true to different people, and there is no proposed method for sorting them out.

Well, first we would need to flesh out that claim a little. 'Must' for what purpose? We are talking about verifying claims, determining the truth of claims. If we take 'true' to mean 'consistent with fact or reality,' then we need to connect a claim to reality in some way in order to evaluate its truthfulness. Ultimately, all of our connections to reality come from the evidence of the senses. Think of all the evidence used for scientific inquiry throughout our history. All of it is ultimately processed and evaluated by the scientists and experimenters themselves, using their senses; that is the stopping point. All roads lead through there. Thus, we can evaluate the claim you have proposed above, using the evidence of our senses and logical reasoning, and support it using the methodology you are arguing against.

There's an interesting discussion about competition that occurs between Dagny Taggart and Dan Conway in Atlas Shrugged, page 80 in my edition, after the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog rule is passed. That law essentially destroys Dan Conway, who is a competitor to Dagny, and secures Dagny's Rio Norte line (but through coercive legislation, not honest competition). Afterwards, she says the following to Conway: "Look, I intended to give you the battle of your life, down there in Colorado. I intended to cut into your business and squeeze you to the wall and drive you out , if necessary... Only I didn't think it would be necessary. I thought there was enough room there for both of us... Still, if I found out there wasn't, I would have fought you, and if I could make my road better than yours, I'd have broken you and not given a damn about what happened to you. But this... Dan, I don't think I want to look at our Rio Norte Line now. I... Oh God, Dan, I don't want to be a looter!" There's another conversation between Dagny and Rearden a few pages later (83-88 in my version) that touches on the same topic. They're haggling over the price of rails, Dagny is desperate and Rearden knows it: Rearden: "So you think it's right that I should squeeze every penny of profit I can, out of your emergency?" Dagny: "Certainly. I don't think you're in business for my convenience." Rearden: "Don't you wish I were?" Dagny: "I'm not a moocher, Hank." Basically, all's fair in free market competition; because it is based on competing to offer the most value to consumers, it is entirely proper to compete wholeheartedly and without regard for your competitors. It's their job to try to produce even more value than you. Competition is simply the way that you earn the business of your consumers. Free market competition occurs within the context of harmony of interests; it's all about producing value, and doing it as effectively as you can. However, using government power to shut down one's competitors is always improper; using coercive force sets you in direct conflict with the lives and livelihoods of your victims.

The forum rules need not be 'assumed.' They are clearly stated on the site.

Individuals give to the charity because the work that the charity does is important and meaningful to the giver. Donations are a response to the value that the giver sees in the cause being supported by the charity. There is nothing irrational or immoral about the structure of a charity. There is no reason to object to this type of work from an Objectivist basis. Now, working for a charity is certainly not a more moral profession than other free market professions, as many altruists claim; Objectivism certainly rejects that sentiment. However, the charity does provide value to the people that support it. It is an organization which does abide by the trader principle of giving value for value, and there's nothing wrong with working for one. Of course, this is given that the cause of the charity is generally good and life-promoting, rather than something irrational like giving Bibles to kids.

FYI, you can get the quote tags automatically by simply clicking the "Reply" button below the post you want to reply to.

There certainly are categories of people out there for whom the Objectivist ethics (in fact, any ethics conceived as a code for living) is inapplicable, and you've touched on it: the dying. Objectivist ethical principles are derived from the needs of man to live long-term; they come from identifying the long-term consequences to types of actions and evaluating those consequences in relation to the goal of continued and sustainable living. This is why those principles do not apply to certain contexts, such as genuine emergencies and those on their deathbed. Objectivism as an ethical system does not try for ethical principles which are contextless, categorical-imperative-type principles. That kind of 'universality' is neither necessary nor desirable in an ethical system, given the nature of knowledge as contextual and all. I would be comfortable in saying that there are ranges of extremely high time preference which could be labeled 'irrational,' given that the nature of life is a process which must be sustained, not just a series of moments where we could be feeling pleasure or pain. Given that fact, people willing to sacrifice their entire future for some measly gain today are disregarding the nature of life and thus acting irrationally. However, I would not move from there to claim that we can discover some precise range of time-preferences which are 'rational.' The most specific that I would go would be your suggestion of commensurability with the nature of life as a process which must be maintained in the long term. As long as one isn't in a situation where their expected lifespan is nil (as long as one isn't dying), they need ethical principles to guide their actions; the extreme variability of those lifespans is irrelevant. In short, I would agree with your second option, but I would disagree that we should therefore expect ethics to precisely answer questions about time preference, in the same way that ethics cannot give us precise answers about any other weighing of values in our lives. Most questions about our everyday preferences and actions require the reference of our particular hierarchy of values and preferences, and not just universal ethical principles. The universality of the ethical principle of productiveness is not jeopardized by the fact that some people enjoy being doctors and some people enjoy being engineers. The particulars can vary widely, so long as the fundamentals of productiveness are met, and the same goes for time preference.

Well the ruling is certainly ridiculous (the ruling being just about dancing, and not about protesting), and if these people think it's important enough to protest, then so be it (personally, I'd rather they protest something which actually harms our country and its citizens, like the drug war or Obamacare or something). What I can't stand is all of the police-bashing that generally follows events like this (see the comments on the event page for evidence supporting my generalization). Yes, it's a bad law, but being a police officer means impersonally and dispassionately upholding the law, whether you agree with it or not. Furthermore, police forces which are held to this standard of not enforcing their whims are a necessary requirement of a free society. So it just gets to me when people at these events go from criticizing the judges and lawmakers responsible for the stupid law, to bashing the police officers who have to carry out the law. That's the characteristic of these protesters that strikes me as the most "anarchist": their criticisms of police officers who are granted the authority to carry out the law, and respond when people resist arrest for those laws. Criticize the laws and the overexpansive state all you want, I'm with you, but we need cops who are authorized to respond with force to lawbreakers, in order to live in a free society. People who equate a police state with a state where the police are authorized to respond with force are simply wrong.

Apparently there is another "Dance Party" at Thomas Jefferson's Memorial planned for June 4th: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=150453268357946. From the event page: I'm not even sure the organizers know what they're protesting.