Maken

Well what about a lobotomy? That nearly destroys a human's ability to think. Is this moral in anyway?

But, objectively speaking, if one maintains a value that is not objectively protected (say, something altruistic in nature), wouldn't they really have something that is a lack of a value? I thought Rand never accepted something as a value unless it was objectively defined? *** Mod's note: Discussion on "false values", was split: see here. - sN ***

So the differentiating factor is that of force. Extortion is nothing more than blackmail threatening with force.

But what if the value you are trying to maintain is a corrupt value?

Yea I agree that the context of the blackmail is really important to decide its legality and ethical merit.

Are blackmail and extortion not two sides of the same coin?

But it is it ok to ask your employee to do his job and to threaten his family if he does not?

Well, I think that blackmail has several different faces. There is emotional based blackmail, fear (threats) based blackmail, and information based blackmail. I don't think its fair to put a giant umbrella of blackmail and to try to classify rights and legality based on one "idea" of blackmail.

But at the same time, information does not have a direct ownership label attached to it. If I have information that is sensitive to you and I obtained said information in a legal manner, I have the ability and freedom to release this information to the general public. That being said, why is it immoral or illegal for me to have you pay me in order for me not to release the information. Like the OP said, that connotes a voluntary exchange.

I think it depends on how the black mailer comes across the information he is using to blackmail the person with. Did he steal it? If so, the violation of rights is obvious. Now, on the other hand, say the information was discovered in a legal manner. Usually the information used in blackmail is incriminating or at least would tarnish the reputation or life style of an individual. Either way, it will harm the person being blackmailed if it were to be leaked to the general public, otherwise the blackmailing process would not be effective. Since that is the case, it would make sense that the person who is being blackmailed performed some act or did SOMETHING he would not want other people to find out about. Being that that is the case, it seems like he made the conscious act to do something that would get him into trouble, aka he took a risk. Just because his plan or act backfired on him does not mean that someone using that information to his or her advantage would lead to a rights violation. I am going to sit down and think about this more and see if I can find some abstract connection to a rights violation, but at first glance, it seems perfectly acceptable.

Sorry for the new topic, used search to see if there was already existing one but apparently I did a bad job at it

BlackWolf brings up another valid point. What about government run colleges. I can see why we can excuse High School because we are required by law to attend and its often a matter of your parents deciding that you WILL attend a public school. So I can see that we can dismiss attending high school as being hypocritical. But what about community colleges?

Ah ok! I was focusing on point one when I wrote this out and never even thought about point two. Valid point.

*** Mod's note: merged with an existing topic. - sN *** Ok, this is an example that I think is applicable to today's day and might actually be an issue for some people. Say you are an Objectivist and you have fallen on tough times and are struggling financially to the point you are near poverty. As an Objectivist, would it be hypocritical at this point to accept government support through, say, Medicare, food stamps, etc?

Very good distinction to make. I thought that financial aid or economic aid entailed that it was for free. But yes, my example applies to free aid.

I guess the banking industry is what I was getting at more or less. If you give the banks more economic freedom, and they use that economic freedom in a bad way, they can rely on government bailouts instead of the "invisible hand" to deal with them. So really, too much capitalistic freedom in a mix economy can lead to bad economic spending and when these companies fail, they are revived by the government instead of failing. And that just starts the chain over.

I thought of something else to add right after I hit submit. The World Cup in Africa is actually an economic boon for the people living there. Tourists WILL spend a bushel of money on African goods and will help fuel their economy that way. By us giving them economic aid, we are only "helping" the people in the short run. It will actually HURT them in the long run, as they will never learn to create their own economy, they will just be stuck relying on economic aid.

I actually had a debate topic about the idea of financial aid to impoverished countries in Africa. Most people argued that we need to help the poor countries in Africa and then they can climb out of their poverty and become like America. My partner and I had several cards backing up the idea that economic aid to these foreign countries hardly, if ever, does good for people. Corrupt leaders pocket aid money a lot of times, and in the majority of situations, aid never reaches the people because these countries don't have stable infrastructures, so food often ends up rotting on docks or aid never trickles down to the poor citizens. In other cases, it actually hurts these countries economically to aid them. Look at it this way. These countries have, say, corn farmers who try to grow corn and profit off of it. When farmers profit, they spend money in THEIR economy and that money starts the infinite money chain. When people spend, economies grow. When we send barrels and barrels of corn to these countries to "aid" their economy, we are actually putting people out of work. The corn farmer in Africa cannot profit or compete with American financial aid. When he cannot profit, he cannot spend money. When he cannot spend money, there is no economic growth. I can elaborate more if you need me to, but I think my point is well understood.

But can't capitalist ideals be dangerous unless its a full capitalist society? It seems like under current laws, a mixed economy leaning towards capitalism could be problematic.

I wish I had a teacher that taught Rand. Most of my teachers scoff at her as a philosopher but every one of them seems to like Atlas Shrugged.

I see what you did there.

Ok, so basically it doesn't matter what happens in politics so long as the chief institutions (altruism, anti-individualism, socialism, etc) prevail in society. I completely agree that the key to curing ignorance lies within a proper high school education. The state/government has done a bloody awful job at teaching students the value of education. I am a Junior in high school and I feel that the biggest thing that has educated me in high school was Atlas Shrugged and other Rand essays/books. The ability to reason and think logically will trump any of the snooty, altruistic, socialist theories that we learn in school and if we want a shift in culture, it will have to happen in the schools.

Here is some more food for thought that I realized. In an Objectivist society, the government would rely on volunteerism to maintain a budget to spend on its few necessary duties. As Objectivists/Capitalists on this forum, I am sure that a majority (if not all) of us would be willing to donate to a proper government as it would be in our rational self interest. But what about the people who would not donate. Would there really be enough people who would VOLUNTEER to donate? I ask this only because of the state of society, it seems that many people are either to ignorant or to stubborn to understand what a proper government is.

So I was doing a lot of thinking about Objectivist morals and capitalism being predominant in society and how it would work. The question I came across was, simply put, would it even be possible to live in a pure free market and objective society without having a majority of people being educated about what a moral and free life is. With the statist and altruist mindset being overly predominant in today's society, how would it ever be possible to even implement or arrange for a pure capitalist society to rule. It seems that even if we formed an Objectivist government, there would still be so many people uneducated about what Objectivist morals entailed and what it means to live "selfishly". Let me know if I need to elaborate more, but I think you can understand what I am asking.