Initiation of force.

[JMeganSnow]

That something is immoral doesn't mean that it should be made illegal. Doing drugs is immoral whether you ask others to pay for it or not. Prostitution is immoral even if you earn your money honestly.

Careful . . . call the act immoral and you ignore situations when it CAN support your life and thus be moral. What do you mean by "doing drugs"? Which drugs? In what amount? How often?

What about prostitution? How can it be immoral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

[Sturmgeschutz]

This is a very common objection we've heard many times before--so often it's given a name: lifeboat scenario.

I highly recommend you read this topic, which was previously recommended by tommyedison.

I just read through that thread, and I suppose I will just have to continue reading to understand.

I am under the impression that a philosophy should be able to be applied.

As of right now, I am planning a career in the military, which put me at a much higher probability with ending up in one of these "lifeboat scenarios." It is easy for most people to shrug them off, but when deployment is a virtually accepted fact in today's Army, and being put under fire, is a very likely situation, the odds of me ending up in one of these situations is much higher.

I don't so much have a question as to what I would do - I would eat the other person in a heartbeat if it meant that I would live rather than die. I am just trying to find out how that is justified, if at all.

(Let's try to keep this on topic and not focus on my career in a communist organization - the army; I'm just trying to set my own personal context)

[tommyedison]

Prostitution is immoral even if you earn your money honestly.

Wasn't Kira in We The Living essentially a prostitute?

[Sturmgeschutz]

I have The Virtue of Selfishness on my bookshelf in line waiting to be read. I saw in another post that there is an article in there "The Ethics of Emergencies", or something to that effect. Would that give me any guidance in my "lifeboat" question?

I don't usually have a lot of time to just sit around and read. But I'll devote some time to that if it will be worthwhile.

(I am averaging about 50 pages a week on The Fountainhead.)

[Tom Rexton]

I just read through that thread, and I suppose I will just have to continue reading to understand.

I am under the impression that a philosophy should be able to be applied.

It is applicable--to a given context. One certainly would not bring up Objectivist morality when one is asking "should I get a hot chocolate, or the vanilla latte?" Morality cannot apply to ALL situations. It is what Ayn Rand called "contextually absolute"; i.e., moral principles are absolute within a certain context (i.e., situation or scenario).

As of right now, I am planning a career in the military, which put me at a much higher probability with ending up in one of these "lifeboat scenarios."  It is easy for most people to shrug them off, but when deployment is a virtually accepted fact in today's Army, and being put under fire, is a very likely situation, the odds of me ending up in one of these situations is much higher.

I don't so much have a question as to what I would do - I would eat the other person in a heartbeat if it meant that I would live rather than die.  I am just trying to find out how that is justified, if at all.

(Let's try to keep this on topic and not focus on my career in a communist organization - the army; I'm just trying to set my own personal context)

War is a wholly different situation--with a wholly different set of principles that apply. And I must admit I don't have a very clear understanding of this subject at the moment. There have been many discussions about what properly applies in war. Read over the threads concerning what is the proper strategy in this forum, particularly the thread entitled "A challange to Yaron Brook".

[Charles]

Stephen Speicher: "I think what you are trying to express are situations known as lifeboat scenarios, highly unusal emergency situations that (thankfully) most everyone never gets to experience in real life. We define our ethical principles where rights and rational choices are possible, but in lifeboat scenarios there are no rational choices that can respect rights. Morality does not apply in lifeboat scenarios."

I think that about sums up your scenario. (from tommyedisons link)

If there is no choice there is no morality.

The one exception to this, which JSnow brings up, is suicide - in a situation where you are being coerced at the point of a gun under an oppressive regime which essentially prohibits personal choice you can make the final decision - to die fighting against it. The same could apply to Volountary Euthanasia - if your incapable of interacting with reality and are merely a burden to someone (one you can't repay) you have the choice, hence arguably the moral obilgation, to end whats left of your existence.

Edited February 9, 2005 by Charles

[Charles]

(Sturmgeschutz @ Feb 9 2005, 02:26 PM) "As of right now, I am planning a career in the military, which put me at a much higher probability with ending up in one of these "lifeboat scenarios."  It is easy for most people to shrug them off, but when deployment is a virtually accepted fact in today's Army, and being put under fire, is a very likely situation, the odds of me ending up in one of these situations is much higher."

There is an element of choice here - you have chosen to join the US military - you have the intellect to judge to what extent the military is used for political or immoral purposes and must draw your own conclusions.

My thoughts would be that 'joining up' entails a contract for a period of time - time in which political changes could see you carrying out operations in direct conflict with your prescribed morality. Im pretty sure that the contract you sign obliges you to obey orders regardless and as if you choose to sign it walking away doesn't seem like an option.

I suppose a nation of truly freemen would train up men but then ask them if they are ready to commit themselves to a specific operation.

[Inspector]

I would usually say "wrong"

I think "immoral" is possibly the most accurate.

The terms "criminal" and "irrational" were also brought up.

I can't provide a definition for the terms, and I don't know which fits what I am asking the best, so I was trying to provide a "choose your poison" approach to answering my question.

I apologize for the confusion.

(edited to add:)

I am primarily concerned with the Ethics behind this, not the Political implications.

"Wrong" and "immoral" mean essentially the same thing in this context. In Objectivist ethics, anything irrational IS immoral and anything immoral IS irrational, so in this instance, they are the same as well.

"Criminal" is an act which is against the law, and in the context of our discussion, it has meant, "against what a proper government would legislate."

So there, I have defined your terms. With those definitions, could you provide your question from scratch?

P.S. If it's the ethical considerations that you're after, then you would NOT want to make the thread "stick with the rules governing the actions in regard to other human beings," since I would read that to mean you are primarily concerned with the legal/political aspect.

I hope this clears things up for you. I am eager to hear your question rephrased.

[AisA]

By "a process of thought" do you mean, "his process of thought"  I.e. to initiate and sustain his own thought process, versus the collective idea of thought processes that all men have?

The only thing that is capable of thought is an individual human consciousness -- so I am not sure what you mean by "the collective idea of thought processes that all men have".

On another note, one hypothetical situation bothers me with the application of "not initiating force."  I'm not particularly familiar with the story, but I believe I have enough of the facts to reveal my dilema....  An airplane goes down, say in the mountains of South America somewhere.  Say, 2 people survive, and begin the trek to try to find some form of civilization because that is determined to be their most rational option.  Along the way, they run out of food, and are starving to death.  Rather than mutually starve and die, one resorts to "initiating force", murders the other, eats him, and drives on.  The murderer reaches civilization due to the energy he got from eating the other man, and continues to live.

This is (I realize) very loosely based on an actual incident.  The problem I see here is that initiating force was in the man's own rational self-interest (actually, both of them).  By not initiating force, they mutually starve to death, and their lack of force is the cause of their death.

In the first place, no one can claim the right to exist at the expense of others, especially not at the expense of another person's life, even if that life only has a matter of hours left to live. I can see no justification for extending one's life by killing another.

Beyond that, however, I question the premises of the hypothetical situation. It strikes me as highly unlikely that the two survivors could know that both are doomed to death and that one could survive to reach civilization by feeding off the other.

There is considerable variation in human survival times under different conditions, depending on one's health and degree of conditioning. How many of us can say, right now, how many days we can survive without food? How many of us can say that we would, in fact, know when we are minutes or hours from starvation?

In addition, one cannot know what actions others might be taking. Perhaps someone is looking for the survivors, or perhaps someone will find them accidentally. Or, one might come upon food discarded by others.

Nor can one say for certain that chances are better for one than for two. Suppose a situation arose that two people could cope with, but not one alone. You encounter a ravine that can only be crossed by placing a log across it, but the only log available is too heavy for one person to move.

Given these uncertainties, the only rational course of action is for both parties to continue the struggle to find a means to survive.

[JMeganSnow]

I suppose a nation of truly freemen would train up men but then ask them if they are ready to commit themselves to a specific operation.

Two words: Starship Troopers.

[Charles]

Please elaborate Jennifer (is it Jen, Jenny or Jennifer?), I recall the movie - quite amusing - but I thought they had a form of national service for citizenship in their future world.

[JMeganSnow]

Please elaborate Jennifer (is it Jen, Jenny or Jennifer?), I recall the movie - quite amusing - but I thought they had a form of national service for citizenship in their future world.

I don't care what you call me; it's only the same name as twenty thousand other women my age.

The book, not the movie.

Some of the attrition was from casualties, deaths or injuries, some of it was just from refusing to enter the capsule--which some did, and that was that; they weren't even chewed out; they were just motioned aside and that night they were paid off.  Even a man who had made several drops might get the panic and refuse . . . and the instructors were just gentle with him, treated him the way you do a friend who is ill and won't get well.

...

The M.I. [mobile infantry] is the smallest army in history for the size of the population it guards.  You can't buy an M.I., you can't conscript him, you can't coerce him--you can't even keep him if he wants to leave.  He can quit thirty seconds before a drop, lose his nerve and not get into his capsule and all that happens is that he is paid off and can never vote.

At O.C.S. we studied armies in history that were driven like galley slaves.  But the M.I. is a free man; all that drives him comes from inside . . .

[Charles]

wow, in that case, spot on.

[RationalBiker]

Careful . . . call the act immoral and you ignore situations when it CAN support your life and thus be moral. What do you mean by "doing drugs"? Which drugs? In what amount? How often?

What about prostitution? How can it be immoral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

Can you elaborate on this as a (or the) criteria for the morality of an act? Is stealing (murder, robbery) moral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

[JMeganSnow]

Can you elaborate on this as a (or the) criteria for the morality of an act?  Is stealing (murder, robbery) moral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

Murder? Absolutely, although deciding that requires tremendous moral rectitude. As for the robbery question . . . Ragnar Danneskjold could answer that one better than I.

The act isn't immoral, it's where and when and why and how you decide to commit the act that determines its moral status, along with what you intend to accomplish. All the context needs to be considered.

[AwakeAndFree]

Wasn't Kira in We The Living essentially a prostitute?

Either you didn't understand the story, or you don't understand the meaning of the word prostitute.

[Dominique]

Murder?  Absolutely, although deciding that requires tremendous moral rectitude.  As for the robbery question . . . Ragnar Danneskjold could answer that one better than I.

The act isn't immoral, it's where and when and why and how you decide to commit the act that determines its moral status, along with what you intend to accomplish.  All the context needs to be considered.

I agree. Objectivism gives each individual the ability to decide what is moral for himself based his own rational faculty. It doesn't list commandments about moral or immoral actions. It just provides the groundwork for how to decide, not what to decide.

[AwakeAndFree]

Careful . . . call the act immoral and you ignore situations when it CAN support your life and thus be moral.  What do you mean by "doing drugs"?  Which drugs?  In what amount?  How often?

What about prostitution?  How can it be immoral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

Obviously I didn't mean life supporting drugs, i.e. medicine - and I don't think my post was unclear in any way. I certainly don't need to proscribe amounts and list chemicals to make my point.

Any action that is inherently irrational is immoral. If you want to start a discussion on drugs, you'd better check previous discussions first.

I think you are having a problem "chewing" the Objectivist concept of immorality. Most people ARE immoral, according to Objectivism. They are sacrificing important values for lesser ones, they don't follow moral principles at all, or they follow the wrong ones. That being said, there are many degrees of immorality - and I have friends who I consider immoral in certain ways (for example people who regularly smoke pot), but which I still respect in other ways. Certainly I don't think they deserve any artificial punishment by me, society, or the government - beyond the damage that they inflict on themselves.

[RationalBiker]

The act isn't immoral, it's where and when and why and how you decide to commit the act that determines its moral status, along with what you intend to accomplish.  All the context needs to be considered.

That sounds better than ....

How can it be immoral if it is the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to your life?

...which is lacking all the items above it, or the context. You allude to context in the first part of the former quote (that I initially questioned) and then asked a question that drops context, which was kind of what you were challenging from your response to begin with.

So to answer that question;

Prostitution can be immoral, even if it's the only means available to accomplish something that is vital to one's life, if one has placed themselves in that position by acting against their own values or by making decisions that evaded reality.

For instance, suppose a woman despises and feels degraded by the thought of giving her body to men for money, but then through her own decisions and/or indecisions, she fails to take actions that would open opportunities for her to make money by other means. She then finds herself only being able to make money by prostitution.

[AwakeAndFree]

Murder?  Absolutely, although deciding that requires tremendous moral rectitude.  As for the robbery question . . . Ragnar Danneskjold could answer that one better than I.

The act isn't immoral, it's where and when and why and how you decide to commit the act that determines its moral status, along with what you intend to accomplish.  All the context needs to be considered.

Murder is by its very definition a violation of rights, and hence is always immoral.

Killing, however, is not always immoral, with that I agree.

[JMeganSnow]

I think you are having a problem "chewing" the Objectivist concept of immorality. Most people ARE immoral, according to Objectivism. They are sacrificing important values for lesser ones, they don't follow moral principles at all, or they follow the wrong ones. That being said, there are many degrees of immorality - and I have friends who I consider immoral in certain ways (for example people who regularly smoke pot), but which I still respect in other ways. Certainly I don't think they deserve any artificial punishment by me, society, or the government - beyond the damage that they inflict on themselves.

Hmm. How do you square this with yourself? Your friends may not deserve artificial punishment, but do they deserve to receive a benefit? If they are irrational, aren't they a threat to your life? (A potential one, if not a current one).

I have the same problem with my family (they don't do drugs, but they engage in other irrational behaviors) . . . we "get along", I suppose.

[y_feldblum]

If they are irrational, aren't they a threat to your life?

No, unless that irrationality includes the initiation of force.

(A potential one, if not a current one).

Everyone and everything is a potential threat to your life. But the potential is not the actual, nor need it ever become the actual.

There is no reason to assume without evidence that anything is an actual threat to your life, and there is no reason to care one way or another whether anything may ever become a threat to your life if you don't have evidence indicating that it will.

[JMeganSnow]

I apologize for the incoherence of my responses on this thread; I hope it hasn't been this bad other places I've replied. I hit something like a new low in the caffiene-addiction/sleep-deprivation cycle, so I'm making less sense than usual, if such a thing is possible.

[EC]

I apologize for the incoherence of my responses on this thread; I hope it hasn't been this bad other places I've replied.  I hit something like a new low in the caffiene-addiction/sleep-deprivation cycle, so I'm making less sense than usual, if such a thing is possible.

In general I like your posts here or otherwise.

[Sturmgeschutz]

"Wrong" and "immoral" mean essentially the same thing in this context. In Objectivist ethics, anything irrational IS immoral and anything immoral IS irrational, so in this instance, they are the same as well.

"Criminal" is an act which is against the law, and in the context of our discussion, it has meant, "against what a proper government would legislate."

So there, I have defined your terms. With those definitions, could you provide your question from scratch?

P.S. If it's the ethical considerations that you're after, then you would NOT want to make the thread "stick with the rules governing the actions in regard to other human beings," since I would read that to mean you are primarily concerned with the legal/political aspect.

I hope this clears things up for you. I am eager to hear your question rephrased.

Rephrased attempt #2:

Is it possible to initiate force against another person without the act (initiating force) being immoral?

When I said I wanted to stick to the acts regarding other people, I meant acts of force. I.e. focus on hurting other people, not self-mutilation and/or suicide. I wanted to know if it is immoral or not, regardless of whether there should be a law against it.

I still don't quite have a firm grasp on the answer, but I believe I may have found the root of my confusion, that I will probably address in another thread if I get some time. I do appreciate all the conversaton though, it is helping to clear the muck in my brain surrounding this issue.

I apolgize for the delay in response, but I have a fairly busy schedule here usually, and I haven't gotten around to responding till today.