A Question: Why aren't principles "caveat-laden"?

[Kyle]

Ian:

But surely everyone who commits a crime thinks that (with the exception of psychos)? And yet the prisons are full. So the principle must be "don't steal."

It fails to satisfy uniqueness to hold that a criminal needs perfect foreknowledge while ignoring the fact that other, non-criminal proposals also involve risk taking. Yes, some criminals will eventually screw up and won’t turn a profit – but the same thing happens with some stock investors. Unless you’re going to say that stock investing is also sometime immoral, then, you need to why it is that criminals will always mess up.

Inspector:

(MP3) Is not a principle at all, but a contradiction.

A principle must be free of such contractions. Do you even know what a principle is?

What do you mean by “contradiction” here? I imagine you don’t mean logical contradiction, because (MP3) isn’t anything close to a logical contradiction. You may not like (MP3) and you may think that its false, but not every false statement is a contradiction.

Why does Jones, in principle deserve different consideration vis a vis rights than other human beings? I.E. Why is it right for him to do what it is wrong for others to do?

It doesn’t matter because we don’t care about opaque stuff like “desert” here – we’re only concerned with what’s in Jones’ self interest. I’m not saying that Jones deserves a principle that gives him special rights – I’m saying that it’s in his self interest to follow one that does.

And I’m having more than a little trouble seeing how it is that you could read this far into this thread without figuring this out. Everyone else has figured it out (or so it would seem).

You very badly need to listen to that lecture here and stop wasting our time...

I listened to it last night. It doesn’t cover this. If you think it does, reference the spot (i.e. give me the time at which it occurs in the lecture) and I’ll go look at that spot again.

Bold Standard:

Because Objectivism is not Pragmatism. The goal of ethics is not to identify possible adverse consequences that might arise from some taking some specific actions, in order to figure out how to take those actions in a way that minimizes risk. The primary goal of ethics (as I understand it) is to define the principles which are proper for man to follow in order to obtain happiness on Earth.

You’ll remember that I’m not advocating a principle-less pragmatic approach – I’m suggesting only that the principles that get used should contain caveats. Ethics, then, needn’t look at particular situations, but it should take into account features of situations which merit caveats.

And if you think about it, principles outside of ethics – I think Piekoff mentions principles of agriculture – are caveat laden. For example, I might have principle like “don’t plant corn before June” but usually a principle like that is qualified with something like “unless you’ve gotten a lot of rain.” Caveats are a recognition of the fact that there are sometimes abnormal situations in the real world and that the general direction of a principle won’t always fit well with those abnormalities.

So if it’s ok to recognize abnormalities in principles about agriculture, why isn’t it ok to recognize them in principles of ethics?

I believe that the most fundamental reason that stealing is wrong is not because of the risk of getting caught, damage to self-esteem, or harming others, although I think those are all legitimate adverse consequences to consider. But I think the most fundamental reason not to steal is that respecting property rights is something a person should do on principle. Property rights are universal-- but in particular situations you may have the choice to recognize them or not.

I’m pretty sure that this will fail to satisfy non-circularity. If you say that principles which forbid stealing should be caveat free because principles about property rights are caveat free, then I’m simply going to ask you why principles about property rights should be caveat free.

The benefits gained from respecting them in all situations-- including the material benefits, the benefits to your self esteem, and to your reputation, are more important (in my judgment) than the harms that may or may not accrue from not respecting them in some situations.

But its these benefits which just haven’t been demonstrated. (I’ve already responded to the self-esteem argument, btw) And you can’t insist here that benefits like these are situational because you’re insisting that they’re general benefits – so you need some justification for claiming that there’s no room for caveats here.

Based on my experiences with these authors, I think Ayn Rand has more credibility than Nozick does. In which essay does he "show" The Objectivist Ethics to be logically invalid?

It’s called On the Randian Argument and you can find it in Socratic Puzzles. Nozick’s one of my favorite authors of all time and the essay – like everything Nozick does, really – is hugely good.

Nozick, I should note, isn’t as hostile to objectivism as a lot of other authors are, so the essay is actually pretty dispassionate and well reasoned.

But "The Objectivist Ethics" isn't the only essay in Virtue of Selfishness which is relevant to this thread. I'd say "Man's Rights" is maybe the most direct relation to your question in that book. I think going to the primary source is more efficient than trying to discern the Objectivist position through secondary sources like these forums or from Libertarian criticisms of Ayn Rand. Reading her own words, I tend to find she didn't make the same mistakes that her critics or even her own defenders on Objectivist forums sometimes ascribe to her. [edit: Although, forums can be a great place for leads to which materials are most relevant.]

I have Man’s Rights with me at my house – I’ll take a look at it. The Piekoff lecture was interesting – even if it doesn’t decide the issue here – and so I’m willing to look at other stuff as well.

-Kyle

Edited August 15, 2006 by Kyle

[miseleigh]

It fails to satisfy uniqueness to hold that a criminal needs perfect foreknowledge while ignoring the fact that other, non-criminal proposals also involve risk taking. Yes, some criminals will eventually screw up and won’t turn a profit – but the same thing happens with some stock investors. Unless you’re going to say that stock investing is also sometime immoral, then, you need to why it is that criminals will always mess up.

The risk to stock investors is not the same as the risk a thief is taking. When the criminal screws up, he goes to jail - he is risking his own life for however long he would spend in jail for the crime he got caught for. The investor, on the other hand, is only risking a product of his life - his money. In essence, the thief can't value his life very much if he's willing to risk a portion of it for the sake of a few cds, whereas the investor values his life just as much as he did before he invested. Because of this difference, they are not analogous situations. It is not 'risk' that is the differentiating factor - it is what is being risked for what. On the other side, where the thing that is being risked is the same, the differentiating factor would be the value it is being risked for - for example, a man risking his life, or a portion of it, to keep someone he loves from harm is a completely different situation from a man risking his life (or a portion of it) for a cd. Uniqueness holds.

You’ll remember that I’m not advocating a principle-less pragmatic approach – I’m suggesting only that the principles that get used should contain caveats. Ethics, then, needn’t look at particular situations, but it should take into account features of situations which merit caveats.

And if you think about it, principles outside of ethics – I think Piekoff mentions principles of agriculture – are caveat laden. For example, I might have principle like “don’t plant corn before June” but usually a principle like that is qualified with something like “unless you’ve gotten a lot of rain.” Caveats are a recognition of the fact that there are sometimes abnormal situations in the real world and that the general direction of a principle won’t always fit well with those abnormalities.

So if it’s ok to recognize abnormalities in principles about agriculture, why isn’t it ok to recognize them in principles of ethics?

I’m pretty sure that this will fail to satisfy non-circularity. If you say that principles which forbid stealing should be caveat free because principles about property rights are caveat free, then I’m simply going to ask you why principles about property rights should be caveat free.

I believe the principle the farmer is acting on is actually 'Plant corn when it will grow best.' Period. No caveats. He recognizes that to follow this properly, he should usually plant it in June, unless there's been a lot of rain. 'Don't plant corn before June' is a concrete interpretation of a more abstract principle. I think that a principle, by definition, is a general, abstract guideline. If the thief's guideline is 'Don't steal unless...' he is not following a principle because his guideline is not general - he's added specifics such as 'I don't think I'll get caught' or 'my name is Jones' to it.

In other words, a principle with caveats is not a principle, and therefore, although you keep trying to deny it, your question should probably be 'Why act on principle?'

Feel free to correct me on the definition of principle if you don't agree. I simply used Google to get mine, which requires some filtering to find, so I could very well be wrong on this. Maybe you should define principle as well? What is a principle?

[Kyle]

miseleigh:

The risk to stock investors is not the same as the risk a thief is taking. When the criminal screws up, he goes to jail - he is risking his own life for however long he would spend in jail for the crime he got caught for. The investor, on the other hand, is only risking a product of his life - his money. In essence, the thief can't value his life very much if he's willing to risk a portion of it for the sake of a few cds, whereas the investor values his life just as much as he did before he invested. Because of this difference, they are not analogous situations. It is not 'risk' that is the differentiating factor - it is what is being risked for what. On the other side, where the thing that is being risked is the same, the differentiating factor would be the value it is being risked for - for example, a man risking his life, or a portion of it, to keep someone he loves from harm is a completely different situation from a man risking his life (or a portion of it) for a cd. Uniqueness holds.

A kid who downloads mp3s really isn’t very likely to spend much time in jail. At worst, and this is really unlikely, he’ll be sued (which means he’ll lose money, but that’s no different than the investor). That’s not to say you’ll never spend time in jail if you traffic music on the internet, but it’s just not a serious concern if you’re only downloading a few songs. The same also holds for a kid who shoplifts a CD – jail time is rarely given for first time shop lifters.

I believe the principle the farmer is acting on is actually 'Plant corn when it will grow best.' Period. No caveats. He recognizes that to follow this properly, he should usually plant it in June, unless there's been a lot of rain. 'Don't plant corn before June' is a concrete interpretation of a more abstract principle.

Then why isn’t the only principle in ethics “do what’s in your self interest”? A person may, of course, realize that to do so he should usually respect property rights - unless doing so isn’t in his self interest. “Respect property rights”, then, is a concrete instantiation of a more abstract principle.

I think that a principle, by definition, is a general, abstract guideline. If the thief's guideline is 'Don't steal unless...' he is not following a principle because his guideline is not general - he's added specifics such as 'I don't think I'll get caught' or 'my name is Jones' to it.

We need some kind of standard for determining whether something is general or concrete because we’re obviously talking past each other here. I’m taking general to mean that I can apply a principle to a large number of concretes (which is how, I think, Piekoff defines it) – and I can do that with (MP3). The caveats don’t mean that you can’t apply (MP3) to situations in which the caveats don’t come into play.

So how are you defining “general” – what I really want is a test along the lines of “A principle P is general if and only if…”

In other words, a principle with caveats is not a principle, and therefore, although you keep trying to deny it, your question should probably be 'Why act on principle?'

If you’re correct that may be what I’m pushed to (at which point I’ll concede), but I don’t want to concede this claim just yet.

Feel free to correct me on the definition of principle if you don't agree. I simply used Google to get mine, which requires some filtering to find, so I could very well be wrong on this. Maybe you should define principle as well? What is a principle?

I have this from the Objectivism wiki [it’s also in the first page of The Anatomy of Compromise which is in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]:

A principle is "a fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend." Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes. It is only by a means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and achieve it.

But this seems consisitent with both caveats and (MP3) – caveats don’t limit the number of concretes to which a principle can apply. If anything, they increase it.

(Your post was very well written, btw)

[JMeganSnow]

What do you mean by “contradiction” here? I imagine you don’t mean logical contradiction, because (MP3) isn’t anything close to a logical contradiction. You may not like (MP3) and you may think that its false, but not every false statement is a contradiction.

Every false statement is a contradiction, OF REALITY. I'm closing this thread, read the books, listen to the lectures, and quit wasting our time.