The Individual
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Posts posted by The Individual
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Yes. I can stand the idea of my own death. I cannot stand the idea of killing someone I love. Of what value would my continued life be then?
If someone you loved passed away, it doesn't mean your life would no longer have any value.
Surely there are still things you treasure just as much as your loved one.
Ayn Rand lost her husband which she said was her greatest value but she didn't lose the will to live. She was crushed by her husband's demise no doubt and she learned to cope with it. There are things which still mattered a lot to her - her philosophy, her love for life, etc.
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http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebui...sri-lanka-case/
I have a few questions about this man's mind.
How on earth could a hedge fund investor, who ran Galleon Group (a hedge fund), and who was willing to act on a free-market principle, betray all of that by supporting loads of democrats and a Socialist Guerilla group?
Now I can understand a man like Warren Buffet; he supports democrats, yes, but he also has managed to keep in line with regulations and has been pretty compliant with the government. He hasn't caused much major trouble, and is more moderate-democrat than Nancy Pelosi liberal.
But how can someone who commits insider trading support the very people who are most opposed to it - liberal politicians and socilaist guerillas? How? That's insanely illogical, I don't see how that can work! The man ran a hedge fund, not a subsidy seeking factory plant! He catered to enormous investors, he acted in defiance of government regulation and in favor of a very free market ideal by doing insider trading, and yet he supports left-wingers?
Why is Insider Trading a free-market ideal?
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The crucial question, I would say, is whether improper force was used. Generally speaking, it is immoral to lie and if you do not want to admit the truth you should refuse to answer the question. Obviously, you have the choice of speaking versus not speaking, and you don't have to speak (and if you do, the moral choice is to speak the truth). However if someone forces you to speak, then you do not have that initial choice, and thus you cannot morally condemn a person for lying when there is improper force. Under the circumstances that you describe, I would say that the captain used improper force (against Y), though possible legal force. Equally, when you have good reason to believe that the person asking intends to use your answer in aid of the initiation of force (against X), you have no obligation to answer truthfully.
Change the scenario from "saying unpatriotic things" to "passing secrets to the enemy" and everything changes. Saying unpatriotic things is not the initiation of force, whereas passing secrets to the enemy is. It would be proper for the captain to use force against such an initiation of force by X (had the situation been different).
I see. Okay, I get it. Thanks.
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I watched Letters from Iwo Jima couple days ago.
There was a scene in the movie where two soldiers - call them X and Y - were digging trenches in the ground. Soldier X said some unpatriotic things to Y which were overheard by captain Z. Z rushed over immediately and furiously confronted X demanding he admit to his saying of unpatriotic things. X denied. Z then questions Y about X. At this point, Y, conscious of what X had done, intentionally lied to captain Z so that he could save his friend X from punishment.
Are such forms of lying immoral?
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Yes, they absolutely should do so. However, the arrest of a suspect is a reactive act, not proactive. The criminal initiates the police response by way of his initiation of force. No "sting" operations, no fiat declarations of legality on the basis that everyone "might" be irresponsible, no regulatory agencies setting rules on the assumption that an entire industry is corrupt while setting conveniently low fines for the criminal acts of the extreme minority. Law enforcement should act as a body's immune system. Vigilant, adaptive, but essentially reactive.
Okay, understood. Thanks.
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The "open" vs "closed" system debate has been done to death here. You might want to search for the threads.
Just a brief explanation:
You as an individual must always be active minded looking to gain ever more and better knowledge, but Objectivism is a closed system in the sense that it's Ayn Rand's philosophy, and any additions to it aren't her work. Of course, you should add to it if you have discovered something, and if what you add is true and right then all rational men should accept it if they evaluate it as such.
Okay, I wasn't aware of the other threads about this topic.
Can I delete this thread? I cannot seem to find the correct link to click.
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I was reading about David Kelley's split from the Objectivist movement and he went on to found the Atlas Society, distinguishing it from Leonard Peikoff's Ayn Rand Institute. I'm slightly confused. Naturally one would stick to Peikoff because he is acknowledged as Rand's intellectual heir but does Kelley deserve any kind of recognition?
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I echo the individual's take on rights. Inmates still retain many rights while incarcerated. If they were under absolute control there would be no way prison gangs could form or for inmates to murde, assault, and rape while in prisons. All of those things are consistent and widespread problems within the penal system. Prisoners lose the application of their rights to the extent necessary to punish the specific criminal act and protect the citizenry. At least within a just system anyway. Looking at the current system, I would hypothesize that the justice system isn't going far enough with true crimes.
Minor offenses are another story. In many, probably most, cases a minor crime is based in other improper systems. The issue isn't if the justice system is coming down to hard on parking tickets, drug use among adults, and other fiat crimes. The issue is that they shouldn't be coming down at all on these things. Not that mistreatment shouldn't be dealt with, but handling current unjust actions by the justice department is an intermediate step to solving the problem. That would be the premise that the legislative body can declare an action a crime by fiat based on faulty principles.
Take the parking ticket example. The owner of the road or parking area can apply fines for certain behaviors he deems undesirable regarding the use of his property. He has no right to enforce them violently, but he does have the right to deny the offender access until they are paid. If the offender refuses to leave or later uses the property without permission he can contact law enforcement to deal with the trespassers. No one goes to jail unless they flagrantly violate another's rights, and there is no proactive police involvement. The worst a serial parking violator can get is blacklisted from facilities, unless he escalates his behavior to the criminal level. Correct implementation of property rights with stern and impartial enforcement solves a wide range of issues, from minor issues like the parking example to huge ones like pollution.
Yes, agreed. But can you explain the "there is no pro-active police involvement" part? Shouldn't the police be involved to arrest the person who flagrantly violate the rights of others?
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I apologize if the following seems vague... But I was wondering your opinions on prisons and the sense of absolute control they hold over an individual during their time spent there. Do you believe that the person no longer has rights as they've committed to crime? What if they were arrested for minor violations of, say, not paying for parking tickets over the course of time? Does the crime itself have any influence over your views on their punishment? Is it moral for prisons to manipulate every detail of a person's existence?
Thank you.
Again, I realize that I did not provide a lot of specifics... Hopefully you can work with the above.
Prisoners still have rights. A prison doesn't have absolute control over a prisoner. It is definitely immoral if prisoners are abused or manipulated.
Because in an Objectivist society the car park would be owned by private individuals, if a person has been arrested for a minor crime such as not paying parking tickets, the first thing the authorities need to do is to make sure he pays the parking ticket to the private owners of the car park.
Whether he deserves further punishment is subjected to the Law of the country.
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I think you jumped to conclusions.
Look as I read it you stated that it is moral crime. I am not an expert on Objectivism and I want to learn about it. I am and therefore I will think and I have chosen that I will not take anything dogmatically. So I see this website as a chance test my believes and understandings. I've read some of Rand's books and I like them and I like Objectivism, at least to the extend that I understood. I think it is also wise to say that I probably have a different cultural background then you, I am Dutch.
I do agree that sex (especially with strangers ) has it dangers. As I see it, it is still a value for value transaction. I wouldn't advise anyone to practice prostitution, but as a matter of fact I read on a blog a woman who is in debt and wanting to try prostitution for extra income. She said it was hard at first but after a couple of times she started to like it. Now I don't know what conclusions one can draw of that, but it seems to me that it is better than being in debt and not trying to get out.
About self-immolation, I do not mean cutting one-self or any of that obvious kinds. I mean for instance that people smoke, which is generally seen as bad (I don't know if this is so by objective standards). Rand wrote: "When man thinks there is a fire in his mind, it is proper that he holds fire at his fingertips" (I apologize if I misquoted that. Using traffic one has a greater chance of getting hurt than if one chooses to stay in bed per unit of time statistically. Doing hard physical work can damage one's body. Sitting at a computer all day can result in repetitive stress disorder. One can get hurt if one plays sports, and one damages himself if one does not.
What I want illustrate is that one should make choices by what one understands to be right and if you choose so I think that we should agree to disagree
When Rand wrote "When man thinks there is a fire in his mind, it is proper that he holds fire at his fingertips" it is not meant as a positive comment for smoking. It is symbolism.
Self-immolation is the deliberate attempt to harm or sacrifice oneself. Doing hard physical labor or intensive sports isn't a deliberate harm to one's body. Furthermore a sportsman can prevent such injuries to his body by playing responsibly and maintaining his body well.
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Honestly, it might be a move for the better. Not that religion isn't destructive and wrong, but a moral compass pointing in the wrong direction is slghtly better than one spinning wildly. At least he's thinking in terms of absolutes. Perhaps you can work from there if you want to. At minimum you have a basis by which to at least partially anticipate his behavior. I'll take "I can't be a thieving, murdering cheat because Zeus tells me I must never do those things." over "I don't have a subjectively valid reason to be a thieving, murdering cheat today. We'll see what tommorrow brings." that isn't an assessment of your friend btw, just a joking paraphrasing of the views. Religion is a primitive attempt at philosophy so maybe this decision is just a waypoint on his journey, it was for me. At least the friction caused by the stealing won't be in your relationship.
Yeah, Castle, at least he stopped stealing. It's a start.
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I'm afraid we've gone back to square 1 or even further back.
The good news is he deleted those songs; the bad news is it's not based on Objective morality but his Christian religious morality ("Thou shall not steal" of the Ten Commandments).
I tried explaining Objective reality and the sorts to him. But he said "I can't ever be in a position where I do not believe in God."
Well, I think that's that. I won't end our friendship but we're definitely not philosophical friends.
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Your friend hasn't thought it through enough. He is actually anti-knowledge, in my opinion. Theft of any good serves to reduce the future supply, by way of reducing the incentive for future production. Everything he steals was produced by someone else's mind, using a portion of their limited lifespan. Even making the media available for purchase involves time and resources. Elimination of that person's profit eliminates their incentive to continue to expand knowledge and share it. This friend claims to be operating on a principle of love of knowledge, but is acting to destroy its production and distribution at the source, as far as he is able to. "I love apples so much I rip the tree up by its roots to reach them easier." would be a different way to illustrate the principle involved. Everything this friend says he "loves" is the product of another mind, and within the limits of his ability, he acts on the premise that that other mind should wither, starve for lack of resources, should die if it continued to provide that which he "loves".
Also, by your friends argument, the producer of the stolen items should search him out and cripple or kill him if he finds that the profit he would have gained to be more valuable than the thief's life, as long as he finds that assessment "subjectively valid" and therefore overrules morality. Your friend is a fool who operates on principles that would culminate in his own deprivation and destruction if they were allowed to be truly implemented on a large scale. I would seriously rethink this friendship, especially if he says he values it. Anyone who operates on the premise that "subjectively valid" assessments trump morality is capable of anything.
My friend and I have been friends for more than 3 years and have been idiots longer.
But recently, after poring through many different kinds of philosophies, I discovered Objectivism. The first I read about Objectivism was that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest. My first thought was "It's bloody excellent. It's been what I was searching for." Before I discovered Ayn Rand or Objectivism, I intended to live my life selfishly. But I knew it was lacking something (because pure selfishness without regard to anyone else but oneself, selfishness at the expense of everyone else is insane) and after I read about Objectivism, I found what it was I lacked - rationality. I didn't jump onto the Objectivist's bandwagon immediately. I read on and the more I read the more I agreed - full respect for individual rights which can only mean one economic system (you guys know what it is), Reason as our way of perceiving reality, etc. I thought for weeks about Objectivism and I've come to fully embrace it.
But my friend hasn't. But I do not want to dismiss him just like that. Like him, I used to steal music and movies by downloading them illegally but I deleted everything of it since. I've bought more music CDs in the past month than I had the past 5 years. I'm trying to appeal to my friend's Reason, to explain to him why his actions are morally wrong, to change him.
He says "Knowledge should be free (in the monetary sense)" and that "Paying is an obstacle." I'm trying to explain to him that Paying for Knowledge is a mean of earning it. Otherwise, if he doesn't want to pay, he should get out, do his own research and get his own Knowledge.
It's very tough to convince him. To him, what I'm asking is too overwhelming. I'm quite sure of you people experienced the same when you attempted to Reason with your friends. I do not want to cease this friendship - Oh! My friend just contacted me through MSN to tell me I'm right about Morality. Ah, I shall continue later.
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Well, it's not absolute morality, it's objective morality, in the sense that you used logic to arrive at your point of view, while his is arbitrary, and later rationalized. (which is an error, in his epistemology: if he didn't believe in logic, then he wouldn't try to rationalize, he would accept the arbitrary, and likely end up in some cult).
You'd have to explain to him what the source of your opinion is, why it is rational and his is not. That's a pretty complex issue, but you can at least present him with a short summary: explain how Reason ends where a gun begins, how Reason is our only means of survival, and the source of all the values he is stealing, and how we cannot interact with other rational beings through means other than peaceful, rational trade.
Objective Morality, I get it. But should its application be Absolute and Uncompromising?
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Again, I quote my friend verbatim: "Sometimes morality can be compromised. You accept that as long as the purpose of that compromise is valid - and the validity is subjective - I feel it is valid for my pursuit of knowledge to trump "stealing." You can't say I'm immoral. You can't. People have different views on when it is valid for morality to be compromised. Harm does not have to be one of them. For me pursuit of knowledge is one of the valid reasons - limitless pursuit of knowledge. So morality is not absolute."
Individual rights should be applied universally and absolutely, and there should be no compromise. That is a fact isn't it? Same goes to the fact that Morality should be Absolute as well.
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That's not a standard as he has no way to objectively determine "how much gain" vs. "how much harm". He's just a rationalistic thief.
Yes, he's trying to rationalize immorality.
He doesn't believe Morality and Individual Rights should be absolute; he believes it is subjective, differing from person to person.
When I attempt to explain to him why Morality and IR should be absolute, he retorts by saying "It's only your opinion." or "That's what you think."
He said to me (and I quote verbatim):
"We have different criterion for what is valid. This is what pisses me off. Who are you to say that yours is anymore right than mine. You proclaim your ideas as absolute truth. That is your opinion - that individual rights has to be upheld absolutely" and that I'm "operating on a dogmatic principle."
How do I respond to that? I believe in Absolute Individual Rights and Morality and that is my point of view. He disagrees and he has his own point of view. I have my philosophy and he has his. Is it right of me to claim that my philosophy is the best way to live and that his is not?
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My friend and I, we're students.
I raised the idea of part-time employment. His reply was that he will still be limited to whatever income he receives. He wants unlimited access to his "knowledge", to his music, movies, films and documentaries. And only through illegally downloading is he able to acquire all the music and movies that he want to satisfy his insatiable thirst of knowledge.
Our polytechnic has a library. My friend borrows Music CDs from the library and rip the songs out. I've tried explaining it to him such an action constitutes stealing as well. He knows it is stealing, he knows he is violating the rights of another person(s) but he justifies his actions by saying he values Knowledge higher than Morality. He says he is going to live only once and therefore isn't going to allow a moral issue to hinder his pursuit of Knowledge.
He claims to support individual rights - rights for free speech, rights for homosexuals, etc - but says sometimes such rights can be over-ride for a higher purpose - to him, that higher purpose is Knowledge. Apparently, he has a "standard" by which he decides when individual rights can be over-ride. His standard would be: Benefit to oneself must be greater than harm to another."
He also attempts to justify illegal downloading by claiming that it actually helps the artistes. He gives an example of Camera Obscura. Because no albums of Camera Obscura was sold in Singapore, illegal downloading, he says, helped Camera Obscura by increasing their fan base and when Camera Obscura arrived in Singapore for their concert some time later, many many fans attended it thereby benefiting the band. This would not have happened, he says, if no one in Singapore hadn't illegally acquired their album.
Ultimately he thinks that, whatever form of Means is okay, as long as the End is noble.
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My friend comes from a middle-income family. He doesn't receive much allowance.
He has a high regard for knowledge. Therefore he justify his stealing of music, movies, documentaries, etc (by downloading them illegally) on the basis that he shouldn't allow his financial situation hinder his pursuit of knowledge. He is willing, he said, to forgo morality for knowledge.
This is an absolutely ridiculous justification for stealing. There is no justification for stealing in the first place.
He knows it is immoral. But he isn't going to allow his morality to stand in the way of knowledge. He values knowledge more than his morality and hence he feels fine about it.
I asked him then: What has knowledge taught you? To be immoral?
He had no reply.
What does an Objectivist say to such a person?
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"If someone is destitute and unable to find non-sacrificial assistance (charity) then it may be that the only option is prostitution (or possibly theft, which is clearly worse since it is an initiation of force)." - The Allotrope
In a situation as you described above - destitute and unable to find non-sacrificial assistance - prostitution may be the only option. I think it also depends on the person's valuation of his/her life, principles and his/her body.
Theft on the other hand isn't an option in the first place. One does not have the right to take by force another person's property. Theft is a moral and legal crime.
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From Singapore.
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I've recently finished a painting:
You can see the first sketch of it here. Enjoy!
Small note: the colors are not exactly true to the source; I'll have to post a better picture here tomorrow.
This picture is perfect. What's her name?
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Johann Strauss II - The Beautiful Blue Danube
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Nanite1018, I would suggest do not convert your children into atheists. Teach them Reason and let them discover atheism by themselves.
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I generally agree that prostitution is immoral, but think that it should be noted that circumstances can occur(infrequently) that might change that. A woman with a hungry child in and extremely impoverished area might very well do so morally; Fantine from Les Miserables, for example or even Kira from We the Living sort of engaged in it to help Leo.
Yes, it depends on the context.
Anthony Flew
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted · Edited by The Individual
Is anyone familiar with the works of Anthony Flew? Especially with his book "There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind" (2007).
My friend, D, after my relentless reasoning, almost converted to Atheism. But this afternoon, D paid an unfortunate visit to his cousin.
His cousin's husband is an academic theologian. And he completely turned D around and my friend is now brimming with religious furor and was quick to blast me for being un-objective because I do not consider both sides of the God argument.
I read a bit about Flew and the interviews he gave and articles written about him and his argument for God, and it doesn't make much sense.
But I'm not very familiar with his work.
Can anyone with a better knowledge of him clarify his work?