Capitalism Forever

Either your study of Objectivism has been progressing extremely fast ... or not at all.

See OPAR Chapter 2, "The Perceptual Level as the Given."

No, "unlimited" simply refers to the absence of some kind of limit--the exact kind of limit depending on the context in which the word is used. For example, if your cellphone package allows you to send an unlimited number of text messages for free, that simply means you are not subject to a limitation on the number of messages you can send. The reason the idea of omnipotence is invalid because it simply denies the Law of Identity. It posits the existence of an entity that can make reality whatever it wants it to be, regardless of the natures of the entities involved. That's just a flat-out negation of the Law of Identity. The Universe is not an entity, but rather an abstract concept referring to an open-ended collection that includes all entities that have ever existed and will ever exist. By saying that the Universe is eternal, we mean that there was no such thing as "the beginning of time" when entities magically appeared out of nothing, and that there will be no such thing as "the end of time" when all entities simply disappear. In other words, entities have always been there in some form or another, and will always be there in some form or another.

Could you provide the relevant quotes please?

Well, if you do something from duty, the action may get you a benefit--but once you know that this kind of action results in this benefit, then the next time you do it, to the extent you are motivated by the anticipation of the benefit, you aren't acting from duty anymore. So the only way to be sure you are acting from duty is for you to expect no benefit at all (and preferably expect a lot of suffering instead).

I agree, those are just the kinds of premises that would make one posit something like this. Good philosophical-detective job!

It is productive if and only if it contributes to achieving your values--assuming that your values are: based on life as a standard; existential values (as opposed to merely valuing some pleasant sensations or emotions).

In what way do you consider the Universe to be odd?

I consider formalities to be unimportant. This has two implications: I never insist on anyone addressing me using a title; I don't have a problem with addressing others using the titles they prefer. I get the impression that Ayn Rand thought about these matters pretty much the same way. If she and Immanuel Kant lived at the same time, I would not be surprised to hear her call him "Herr Professor Kant" (before she proceeds to explain why she considers him the most evil man in history...).

"That which negates, opposes, or destroys the life of a rational being is the evil." Marxism certainly IS evil. Whether Marxists have an "innate evilness," though, and whether dollardoctrinaire is an honest learner as he claims to be, are different matters.

What pending issues in ethics do you have in mind?

I interpret it as saying that being the victim of force sucks. Which I completely agree with. If somebody asked me, "Hey, CF, why do you dislike being a victim of force?" or "Why would you support a government that bans the initiation of force?" then I would answer something along the lines of what Dr. Bernstein says in that quote. If, on the other hand, somebody asked me: "Hey, CF, why do you not initiate force against others?" then I would tell him that initiating force is not my idea of life qua man. Note that the first question is a political one (What type of government do you support?) while the second one pertains to ethics (What principles do you live by?)

Your question seems to be based on a HUGE misconception about Objectivists ethics: Objectivism does NOT say that the theft is immoral because it prevents the millionaire from living qua man. It is immoral for the thief to steal because it is incompatible with the thief's life qua man. The reason for that is that stealing is antithetical to life qua man--because life qua man means surviving by means of your own rational faculty. The millionaire's life is solely the millionaire's business; it has no direct relevance as far as the morality of my actions is concerned. Objectivist ethics is not altruistic; it does not make it my responsibility to worry about some other guy's life. If I cancel some contract with the millionaire and thereby reduce his bottom line by one dollar, the effect on him is still the same--he has lost $1--but such an action may well be moral on my part. It is not the effect on the millionaire that matters, but the effect on me.

Yes, absolutely, because it is capitalism that can restore the "proper distribution of wealth." In a capitalist society, where wealthy but unproductive people cannot rely on political pull to keep them afloat, but the best producers are free to rise from poverty, the former will quickly be out-competed by the latter. Here's a relevant quote from OPAR:

Exactly. As long as you're alive, you get to make choices, and you don't get to make choices unless you are alive. So being able to make choices is (for man) logically EQUIVALENT to being alive. To advocate against choices is to advocate against life.

But I have already told you my opinion on that--and you have disagreed with it. We could leave it at that, or we could go on and discuss the principles involved, which is what my posts have been meant to do. First I am trying to get you to agree on the basic idea that consent can be given implicitly, and afterwards I hope to convince you that sometimes you can implicitly consent even to things that you do not want (such as being slapped). Of course, if you prefer to agree to disagree, that's fine too, this is certainly not the most important issue facing mankind today.

(...chuckle...) Do I detect an attempt to refute me with faint agreement? What you describe above is the present state of the law in the U.S., which might be of interest to e.g. someone of your profession, but is not the subject under discussion here. What we want to know is what the law ought to say, and even more pertinently, what a rational ethics has to say on the matter. (Besides, the number of erotic contacts that end up as rape cases is only a tiny fraction of the number of times that a man concludes, on whatever basis, that a woman consents to be touched by him--precisely because the conclusion is correct most of the time and the woman wants to be touched!) So, to give the discussion a bit more focus, let me put you the question this way: Can any form of verbal or other hints, short of an explicit verbal statement of permission, ever justify a man in touching a woman for the first time?

Here's a riddle: What does the man who doesn't face any choices have in common with the man who has a zero carbon footprint?

I think I get it now. Glenn Beck is the new Bush!

The article does an excellent job of critiquing the health nuts, but I don't think I agree with the alternative it is suggesting. It seems to be built on the premises that: the only things that taste good are the food groups favored by the Atkins diet, and that all the foods recommended by the Atkins diet taste good; and the only things that are healthy to eat are the food groups favored by the Atkins diet. I dispute both premises.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

Ah, my mistake, sorry about that. I now see that when you wrote "I'm not so sure I do based on the reasoning I provided above," you were only referring to the romantic-relationship scenario. Anyway, my best response to that is still what I wrote in my last post: It may seem like this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I'm trying to establish the general principle that non-explicit/non-verbal signs can always be used to communicate consent, and therefore there is nothing unusual about the law recognizing consent given in this way.

...So, continuing that thought, taxes aren't primarily there to finance the government, but to discourage trade. Regardless of what their purported or intended purpose is, that is what they achieve in reality, and that is what matters to us now. What taxes do is reduce the amount of wealth created in the economy, and thus they take their toll on everyone, regardless of which specific individual has to make out the check to the IRS. A transaction that is not taxed is, ceteris paribus, better for the economy than a transaction that is taxed (and much better than a transaction that is made impossible by the taxes); thus, if the two parties involved can find a way to avoid taxation of a transaction, they are doing a service to everyone who has a stake in the flourishing of the economy. The amount of taxes collected right now is so far in excess of what is needed to finance the legitimate functions of the government that the question of legitimate government financing is simply not an issue. If you take a look at the U.S. Federal budget, you'll see that the overwhelming majority of it (excluding interest payments) consists of expenses that can be subsumed under the concept of wealth redistribution. Also, any new tax revenue will be spent on additional wealth redistribution, and any loss of tax revenue will cause an equivalent cutback in wealth redistribution--so right now, the marginal tax dollar is nothing but an instrument of wealth redistribution, and therefore an instrument of injustice. If you reduce your taxes by one dollar, the effect is that you have contributed one dollar to the reduction of injustice. What would happen if everyone reduced their taxes to zero? The result of that would be that the government would have to look for voluntary contributions as a source of revenue, and it would have to limit itself to its legitimate function. I do wish everyone could reduce their taxes to zero.

Agreed. (Although eficazpensador is going to be really p*ssed at you for saying such "crap." "Hitting is physical force. End of discussion!" ) Yes, the OP sounds more like a situation where A is not trying to provoke a fight, but ends up doing it nonetheless. My opinion is that even in that case, it could--again, depending on the specifics of the context--be legally acceptable to touch the person, and perhaps even morally so. But seeing that you aren't even sure about my much less "extreme" positions, such as the legal acceptability of inferring a non-verbalized threat, I probably don't have much of a chance to convince you of that right now. Instead, I'll just try to argue a bit more for the most basic case of implied consent, which I consider to be the implied consent to be touched erotically. I'm not sure about you, but as far as my experience is concerned, I am not aware of any case at all where a woman gave explicit verbal permission for a man to touch her. In fact, if a woman makes her desire too explicit, there is a chance that the man will consider her promiscuous and be turned off by that--and if a man asks a woman for explicit permission to touch her, the chances are the woman will think he's an idiot and say no in disgust. The consent for this sort of thing is nearly always given implicitly; the Roark vs. Dominique example is my "favorite" because it demonstrates the principle in the most clear-cut way, but I could use almost any romantic relationship, in fiction or in real life, as an example.

One of the mistaken premises you guys (scottd and Castle) seem to have is that taxes are specific to individuals. The great majority of taxes are levied on transactions, not individuals. For example, suppose that I somehow manage to avoid paying any income tax or property tax; then suppose that I visit a Ferrari dealership and purchase a vehicle, and that subsequently I spend significant amounts of money filling it with gasoline. The dealership has to pay a sales tax on my purchase, and the gas stations have to pay gas tax--both of which comes out of my pocket, of course. So have I been paying taxes this year, or haven't I been paying taxes?