Jake_Ellison Posted April 9, 2010 Report Share Posted April 9, 2010 If it is immoral to initiate force, you must stop aggressors with guns. Then you're enforcing moral behavior with guns. Some gunmen wear yellow hats, and you stop them with guns, therefor you're enforcing the removal of yellow hats from society with guns. Does that sound logical? It's just as logical as your line of reasoning. In reality, we stop rights violations with guns, not immoral behavior in general. I wrote "(objectively) immoral" in order to use the term "moral" as defined by objectivism and of course differentiate from any definition of moral that includes a "soul". You didn't read "(objectively) immoral" or it was not clear enough? (fair question, not rhetorical) Rand used the term soul all the time. It just means your rational consciousness, the part of you consistent immorality destroys. The Police have no business safeguarding that for you, they just need to make sure no one physically harms you in your rights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2046 Posted June 2, 2010 Report Share Posted June 2, 2010 So I have a question on blackmail. There is a situation I am debating and I am having trouble with it. Is it a violation of rights to blackmail someone into performing sexual acts on the threat of revealing some displeasing information? For example, "perform a sexual act with me, or else I will expose XYZ to everyone." Then, to keep XYZ quiet, continued sexual acts are demanded. I can't think if this is some type of menacing sexual assault, but it does seem like force is being used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted June 2, 2010 Report Share Posted June 2, 2010 There is a situation I am debating and I am having trouble with it. Is it a violation of rights to blackmail someone into performing sexual acts on the threat of revealing some displeasing information? For example, "perform a sexual act with me, or else I will expose XYZ to everyone." Then, to keep XYZ quiet, continued sexual acts are demanded. I can't think if this is some type of menacing sexual assault, but it does seem like force is being used. I cannot see how you could conclude that force is being used. Why is the question framed in terms of performing sexual acts? The right way to make this general is to pose the situation as "Do Q or I will expose XYZ to everyone". Revealing information isn't force so the threat isn't the initiation of force. (As always, we assume that this is not proprietary information). If you rape a person, that is a violation of force. If you give them a choice between having sex or some other consequence that they don't like (revealing information, you acting pouty or whatever) and they choose to have sex with you, then because they chose to do so, it is not a rights violation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluecherry Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 A variant on that question which may be simple perhaps if somebody just has legal knowledge I don't or something. What about if somebody did something like move away from a dangerous, abusive former romantic partner who didn't seem to be heeding a restraining order well and somebody else said something like, "Do thing Q or I will tell your ex where you moved to." This sounds like it could be a dangerous situation, however the person doing the threatening here would not be encouraging that other person to do a rights violation of any sort, just telling them and leaving it up to the other person to possibly become a further menace or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nanite1018 Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 A variant on that question which may be simple perhaps if somebody just has legal knowledge I don't or something. What about if somebody did something like move away from a dangerous, abusive former romantic partner who didn't seem to be heeding a restraining order well and somebody else said something like, "Do thing Q or I will tell your ex where you moved to." This sounds like it could be a dangerous situation, however the person doing the threatening here would not be encouraging that other person to do a rights violation of any sort, just telling them and leaving it up to the other person to possibly become a further menace or not. In this case I would say it should not be illegal, though it would probably be immoral. After all, you are not initiating force, nor threatening force. The person doing the illegal stuff is the ex who is stalking, beating them, etc. etc. etc. Since he always has free will, he can choose to stop at any time; since the person doing the "threatening" (I don't think that's the best term) is not hiring the person to initiate force, nor even telling or asking them to, then I don't see how it could be construed as a violation of anyone's rights. And so, it should not be illegal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 What about if somebody did something like move away from a dangerous, abusive former romantic partner who didn't seem to be heeding a restraining order well and somebody else said something like, "Do thing Q or I will tell your ex where you moved to." This sounds like it could be a dangerous situation, however the person doing the threatening here would not be encouraging that other person to do a rights violation of any sort, just telling them and leaving it up to the other person to possibly become a further menace or not.In that case, the "or else" act is "assist in the initiation of force", and therefore has the moral status of acts like beating a person. However, I don't know to what extent current law recognizes this. Part of the problem is that it is only recently, and only partially, that the law has recognized that ex-lover abuse is not just "a lovers quarrel". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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