Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

If Corporations Can Get Billions of Dollars in Stimulus is It Hypocritical For People To Say That Looting is Wrong?

Rate this topic


dadmonson

Recommended Posts

  • 5 months later...

Hypocrisy is where an individual advocates one position but consciously and without justification acts contrary to that position, that is, it is an individual embracing a contradiction. It is not a “social” phenomenon where a group decision overrides the judgment of an individual. Biden has been elected president: it is not hypocritical for me to criticize his actions as president, regardless of whether I voted for him or against him. The fact that Congress and the president approved a certain massive welfare law does not mean that I also personally endorsed that law. FYI I condemn looting.

Many people believe that having an inconsistent philosophy with contradictory premises and acting on that philosophy constitutes hypocricsy, but that misrepresents the historical meaning of the term. You should find a actual person who supports the CARES Act and who also opposes looting to see what the contradiction is. One important feature of looting is that it is a specific kind of unlawful taking of property, which arises during riots. The CARES Act did not legalize any additional taking, it in fact commanded the return of governmentally-stolen property (taken under cover of law, in the form of taxes).

It is completely pointless to focus on whether some individual is being hypocritical in supporting one kind of action while opposing another. Instead, you should focus on a particular position, for example “people earning less than $X should receive this benefit”, or “people earning more that $X should receive this punishment”. The wrongness of these positions has nothing at all to do with hypocrisy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...