Cmac19

Wow... that's got to be one of the stupidest statements ever made.

I disagree, and the simple argument that people commit suicide does mean that life is not intrinsically valuable. many people have a hard time understanding the facts of reality and therefore do not recognize things with intrinsic values. i do not believe that there is any logical contradiction inherent value of life but i am definitely open to be proven wrong if there is

I believe that the main issue in your original question is the amount of value you place is a person you would be helping.. i do not really think there are many rational reasons for helping complete strangers, however if you believed that you had a value to gain from helping someone then it would not be a moral duty, but merely another self interest for you to pursue. therefore if it in your self interests to assist a stranger then do it, if not, then you have no moral obligation. In respect to the singer question the main issue with that is in the first premise. the idea of "comparable significance" assumes that everyone has an obligation to sacrifice everything of lesser value for everything of greater value without even establishing a standard of value, which implicitly is obviously the Kantian standard of value which is "whatever is valuable to others" and in this way the argument makes the case that everyone must sacrifice everything to everyone else and is very obviously unacceptable.. i made this argument to my philosophy prof. recently (i'm also doing Singer right now) and it definitely made her stop and think for a minute and eventually she just sort of gave me an answer which skirted around most of my argument.

I am actually in a similar situation currently. I am finding that the only real way to accomplish anything is to talk things over with anyone you're interested in, unfortunately when it comes to learning about and changing someone's world views and beliefs about existence is a long and difficult process, and there are very few shortcuts. what is necessary is to simply find someone who is as close to objectivist beliefs as you can find and who also has an open mind and/or an interest in philosophy.. then just talk things over with them over time

merely instituting a capitalist government is not enough to eradicate corruption in the world or in any one country. politics is merely a branch of philosophy, the 4th branch. capitalism should not, ideally, be the starting point for any plan to remove corruption. the corruption of today is a result of irrational metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. in order to properly remove corruption from society people must accept rationality as the foundation for all branches of philosophy, not just their political views.

While one does not act to gain one's own like (it is given by your parents) one does act to keep it, and therefore it is possible for life to have intrinsic value. also, in objectivism life is used as the standard of all of man's other values.. how could something be used as a standard of value without being intrinsically valuable in and of itself?

Whenever I am asked to evaluate the "vulgar nature" of todays sexual advertising, whether for classes or simply in debate, I always enjoy turning it on its head and talking about the negative stereotypes that are applied to men in advertising (ie, stupid, single minded, easily manipulated etc) it always makes people stop, and in debate people are often unable to even formulate a response because they're so surprised, but if you do it right and make your arguments properly then there's not really anything they can say to refute you.

Excellent response... this is exactly how I would go about it ask them what their understanding of "justice" is and then point out that what they really mean is not "justice" but equality and when they inevitably ask, point them to a dictionary or a pair of textbooks, one law and one sociology, and show them that no they are not the same things.

As a Canadian I think I can help answer that question.. haha. For the past 50 or 60 years while we have been instituting all of these ridiculous policies we have, much like the rest of the "civilized" world, been mooching off of the US in order to survive. The US has been the only thing keeping the world afloat and I am very interested to see what will happen once you guys fully jump on the Socialism bandwagon... my predictions are not exactly optimistic

Since I am from Canada unfortunately I have been living under the "single payer system" my entire life, and yes, it is literally a tax, not only on you being alive, but on you for everyone else being alive as well.. As for what I intend to do, I intend to endorse my local municipal, provincial and federal candidate for the libertarian party as I know that is the only political party today which actually supports freedom and capitalism.