The Prudent Predator argument

[blackdiamond]

Well, if you're going to devilishly advocate Gary Brenner's argument, you might as well do it justice. First, Gary Brenner feels that thinking is not necessarily beneficial,

Is thinking about how to rob a bank beneficial since thinking, according to you, is necessarily beneficial?

You will be forced to qualify this statement, and it will be your qualification that the pro-looters will attack as not necessarily following from the ethical foundations of Objectivism, since they are proposing a PRUDENT (thinking) looter.

[Freddy]

You will be forced to qualify this statement, and it will be your qualification that the pro-looters will attack as not necessarily following from the ethical foundations of Objectivism, since they are proposing a PRUDENT (thinking) looter.

Not only that, another problem is that the intent is moral, since the end is to benefit yourself. If it is the bad odds that makes it immoral then that argument can extend to any number of activities. It is immoral to try to become a writer unless you have an outstanding talent for writing and so forth.

[blackdiamond]

...

I can see I've made the Devil very happy!

[Gary Brenner]

Seeker wrote:

How do you know what your risk of being detected is?

By carefully and intelligently appraising the situation. The same way a cop on a stakeout knows what his risk of being detected is.

How do you know what your lifetime indirect losses are from the loss of productive activity that the corporation cannot now undertake because you stole its $1 million?

I do not presume omniscience. I never claimed that the prudent predator is incapable of making choices that prove regrettable in the future. It is possible that before it was looted Corporation X was on the verge of inventing an anti-aging drug that would make it possible for anyone to increase his life-span by several centuries and thus his lifetime income by many millions.

Life is a matter of choosing the most promising option. If Option A on close examination appears more likely to pay higher dividends at lower risk than Option B, then it is rational to choose A over B. If over time B proves to have been a better choice, we can’t retrospectively call choice A “foolish” or “irrational.”

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. How do you know that by not investing $200 in Delta Airlines stock this week you will not deprive yourself of a lifetime net gain of $1 million?

I won’t accept “somehow” as an answer. Nor will I accept that we know that the predator is prudent because that’s a hypothetical given. I want to know how the predator knows what he claims to know, in justifying the assertion that his decision to loot is rational.

On this thread I have already given an example of how I could have made myself thousands of dollars richer by stealing from an elderly and confused friend of mine. He kept over a million dollars worth of gold coins in unlocked filing cabinets in his home. He was forgetful, not good at keeping records and was never quite sure whether or not he had sold a particular coin or not. On my visits my friend would often fall into a deep sleep and not awaken for hours. I had many opportunities to transfer his easily negotiable wealth into my own pockets. That I never did so is not proof against the ease of theft.

If you are omniscient enough to answer those questions, then why wouldn’t it be a more optimal path for you to apply that power to consistently achieve a much greater life as a producer rather than a parasite?

Omniscience is not necessary for the prudent predator to live a long, profitable life, any more than Ted Turner required omniscience in order to speculate that his first foray into broadcasting, the purchase of a single UHF TV station in 1970 for $1 million, was a good investment.

[Inspector]

In this example, you have the cleverness of one mind - yours - on your side, while your enemies have the minds of an entire civilization on theirs to stop you. You're not the only one who's prudent; suppose they put in place measures to detect you of which you were unaware. Waging a war of one against all is not prudent. And it is a war. By choosing a path of destruction, you have taken a risk you did not need to take - particularly considering that your cleverness could have applied productively, i.e. in a manner that does not result in conflict among men. Prudent predation is an oxymoron.

Oh, it's much worse than that. The "prudent" predator has declared war on civilization and every man in it, but his enemies are not limited to every person on the face of the earth. He must make war on reality itself, because he must utterly conceal his intentions from everyone, everywhere. Any crime he commits will force him to make the fact of his having committed it his enemy. The larger and more numerous the crimes, the larger and more numerous the number of facts of reality he must obliterate. He must always and at all times continue a perfect awareness of his fraud, with perfectly executed lies and alibis for every possible contingency. And then he must make up lies to cover his lies. His enemies multiply and multiply, and he must at all times be aware of and out-think every last one of them.

And that is supposed to be "prudent?"

Edited April 5, 2007 by Inspector

[Gary Brenner]

hunterrose wrote:

What\\\'s your difference between “immoral” and “ethically prohibited”?

As far as I’m concerned, nothing.

Oh, I acknowledge that; I just don’t see what your point is. Your premise is that no action is necessarily self-destructive, including looting and firing guns at one’s head. Why would it matter which of your “not necessarily self-destructive” behaviors I use to disprove your premise?

Clearly you are not paying attention. I have said that no human action carries a 100% risk of self-destruction in the same sense as 2 + 2 has a 100% likelihood of equaling 4. I have also said that the prudent predator minimizes the chance of losing his life or freedom by avoiding activities with a high risk. That means, given certain circumstances, the prudent predator may eschew activities with a risk level of only 5%. If you are going to compare prudent looting to firing a loaded gun at one’s own head, then I can with as much justification compare employment as a fireman to jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

I’m suspecting that if you define “prohibition”, no one would make the case that initiating force is prohibited (in your sense of the word, anyway)

Good, then the prudent predator will not have to worry about anyone on this forum wanting to prohibit his initiation of force.

I can make a logical case that some behaviors are necessarily detrimental to the attaining of one’s goal.

Fine. Prove that stealing is necessarily detrimental to my goals.

As a segue to that, I have made the argument that if there is no behavior that is necessarily beneficial or necessarily detrimental to the attaining of one’s goal, then there are no right or wrong choices, and thus no ethics. And you have repeatedly failed to acknowledge that.

Not true. Ethics does not require 100% certainty about the outcome of the choices with which one is presented. Therefore, if extending one’s life and prospering are one’s goals, then “right” or “good” conduct consists of behaviors that will likely increase the attainment of those goals.

Ah, so you say that my argument is that not every fact of reality must be considered in determining whether X is necessarily beneficial/necessarily destructive. Sure, okay, let\\\'s go with that. Since you ask me to support that argument, I assume you disagree with it?

I do not disagree with it at all. I hold that we are not omniscient beings, that we operate on intelligent conjectures, not 100% certainty about everything in the world around us. Accordingly, a farmer should not give up his occupation because of a remote chance of being stuck by a bolt from the blue.

Marty thinks every day. One day, a meteor hits his home and annihilates Marty. Therefore, thinking isn’t necessarily beneficial, and Rand is clearly wrong when she says otherwise.

...do you see **ANYTHING** wrong with that conclusion? Anything at all?? Please don\\\'t tell me you agree with it...

The argument is invalid because the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Your next magic trick is to show how this is in any way related to my statement that U.S. tax collectors are proof that looters do not cause their own destruction.

[Gary Brenner]

Inspector wrote:

What is destroyed is the principle of property rights; the very principle that makes wealth and prosperity possible.

A principle is a basic truth, law or assumption. I do not see how a physical act confined to a particular place and time can destroy a concept that resides in the minds of millions. Last year a bench was stolen off my front porch. I reported it to the police and have heard nothing since. However, I have not noticed my neighbors or the rest of the U.S. population abandoning their adherence to property rights as a result of that theft. I haven’t seen a sudden breakdown of the capitalist system.

[Gary Brenner]

Viking wrote:

To be fair, he couldn’t say that, since taxation is always a negative-sum game (it creates deadweight loss), not a zero-sum game, with 1 extremely rare exception.

I grant your point. X’s theft of Y’s car causes additional costs (police investigation, replacement of car, Y’s time and stress, etc.). However, from X’s point of view, which admittedly is limited to X’s self-interest, there is an increase not a decrease of assets.

[Inspector]

A principle is a basic truth, law or assumption. I do not see how a physical act confined to a particular place and time can destroy a concept that resides in the minds of millions. Last year a bench was stolen off my front porch. I reported it to the police and have heard nothing since. However, I have not noticed my neighbors or the rest of the U.S. population abandoning their adherence to property rights as a result of that theft. I haven’t seen a sudden breakdown of the capitalist system.

The old "good for me but not thee" thing again? And you claim to uphold reason?

[Gary Brenner]

exaltron wrote:

I am a rational human being who knows what it takes to create wealth. Wealth has value in societies where individuals recognize this cause and effect relationship. Happiness is an emotional state that stems from the consistent and independent achievement of values, from exalting in one’s own effectiveness. While we don’t have an objective criteria for measuring happiness, we can deductively bring to bear the general causes of happiness to make the case that ignoring those causes completely is likely to lead to misery.

As I have said elsewhere in this thread, the prudent predator may be quite enthusiastic about living in a society of private property and capitalism. The more wealth that is created, the more there is to steal. As for your ideas about happiness, they are mere assertions. I can understand that creating wealth on one’s own may be a source of great satisfaction. However, the predator may be utterly delighted with his own ability to get others to do the work while he reaps the rewards. In short, we cannot definitively state that the producer enjoys a greater level of happiness than the predator.

As for the quoted Amazon review, it is a rough summary of the man qua man argument, which I have effectively dealt with several times earlier in this thread: 1) Rand and her supporters have not shown why the producer is more qua man than the looter. 2) Even if we accept the producer as the essence of man, we still don’t have a compelling reason why the individual should necessarily pursue that mode of living.

The question that needs to be addressed is this: is there an objective basis for happiness, or is it a completely causeless, subjective emotional state? Is the “prudent predator” happy or unhappy for some reason? I think ultimately if you’re asking whether Objectivism can prove that there are no consistently “happy looters” out there, it can’t, no more than it can prove that there are no flying pigs. It’s just that all evidence would lead one to believe that in the general case being a fraudulent parasite does not lead to self-esteem or happiness.

Well, that is certainly a more modest claim than what I’ve been hearing on this thread so far. I concur that people on the whole feel better about doing for themselves rather than getting others to do it for them. The problem is that we don’t have a basis here for declaring looting to be an ethical “should not.” If a predator derives both sustenance and happiness from looting, we can’t argue against him from the standpoint of self-interest.

In short, a looter pits himself against reality and the truth. He makes his goal not the pursuit of real values and success, but the subversion of these. His success depends on not being found out, on the reality of his situation not being brought to light. While the producer is in harmony with reality and the nature of human life (ie, he must use his rational mind to produce his own values), the looter is in constant rebellion against them.

Well, here you veer away from what is objectively verifiable. If a looter is prudent and successful, he has hardly pitted himself against “reality and the truth,” “values and success” or the “rational mind.”

The producer is surrounded by the constant benefits and proof of his efficaciousness and worthiness of life, hence his self-esteem. The looter cannot enjoy any meaningful level of self-esteem without constantly deluding himself as to his worthiness of life.

The looter would only be deluding himself if he imagines the false to be true. If a robber succeeds in taking and keeping $50,000 from the First National Band, it is hardly evading reality to think the money is now his. It is. The only thing that would prevent it from being so is his capture by the police. Yes, the robber would be absurd to think that he created the wealth. But I imagine few robbers flatter themselves this way. The robber would be entirely correct to give himself credit for planning and carrying out the theft. And if he takes pride in that accomplishment, I have no way to know that the teller he took it from is the happier person.

[Gary Brenner]

Inspector wrote:

The old “good for me but not thee” thing again? And you claim to uphold reason?

I do not see how it is anti-reason to observe that the theft of my bench did not destroy the principle of private property in America.

[exaltron]

Is thinking about how to rob a bank beneficial since thinking, according to you, is necessarily beneficial?

You will be forced to qualify this statement, and it will be your qualification that the pro-looters will attack as not necessarily following from the ethical foundations of Objectivism, since they are proposing a PRUDENT (thinking) looter.

No one can choose "not thinking" as a way of life, he would perish quickly. They can certainly choose to abnegate some responsibility to think and act according to reason in all aspects of life. Thinking is necessarily beneficial, but only if you choose thinking as a principle, ie, you always think about what you are doing and why. When you knowingly fail to act according to reason, you can still use some thinking for damage control, basically to stem the everp-rising tide of disaster that not thinking and running out of victims will eventually bring about. But if your ultimate goal is depraved and irrational (say, the extermination of the Jewish race), all the ruthlessly efficient, organized and rational thinking you do to that end will be poisoned by the mindlessness of your underlying premise.

There is thinking that brings about an ever-expanding, ever more secure level of wealth, pride and happiness, and there is thinking that barely shores up a precarious existence that is under constant threat of discovery and impending doom. They have about as much in common as Hank and Phillip Rearden.

[exaltron]

Not true. Ethics does not require 100% certainty about the outcome of the choices with which one is presented..

I concur that people on the whole feel better about doing for themselves rather than getting others to do it for them. The problem is that we don’t have a basis here for declaring looting to be an ethical “should not.”

Why is it that in order to make an ethical case for not looting, Objectivists must prove that not one single person can make it work, that all of them are miserable, whereas all you seem to need to prove looting is ethically viable is the prospect of a few successful looters, who we must hypothetically imagine are happy (since we can no more prove happiness in your case than in ours)?

Some people win the lottery, does that make it moral to plan your life around potentially winning? Does the looter have a better chance of being successful than the "lottery investor"? I know the risk element has been debated ad nausea, but do you really think the prudent predator's talents are better spent in the service of warring against civilization, with all the risk inherent and the massive amount of work necessary to sustain such a lifestyle, compared to the massively more "prudent" prospect of cooperating with other individuals? I honestly don't think the real life examples you provide are compelling to make a case for looting as a viable ethical principle, again, I see the chances of "making it work" purely as a looter, ie, producing nothing, as being no better than winning the lottery, that is not a smart plan for survival and flourishing.

I am setting aside all the psychological arguments as I do not have the background to "prove" that a looter by definition must be miserable. All I can say is I consider it near impossible that some combination of guilt, fear, dependency issues, etc, would not sabotage the looter's happiness. Everything I know about the basis of true happiness supports this, as well as my own experience with lying, stealing, etc. And I see no evidence, other than hypotheticals to refute that reasonable assumption.

Finally, you've argued that, within a system of looting, people may be happy. I've given it some thought and I agree that it is possible, provided they believe that they are being productive, which in the context of the system they are, eg, IRS administrators are producing something for the system, which they believe to be just. The problem is what they don't know can hurt them. Consider the very convincing spiritual crisis of the Will Ferrell character in Stranger than Fiction, when he realizes that his job is to destroy the dreams of people like the Maggie Gyllenhall character, whom he falls in love with. That is a perfect example of the looter being at war with virtually everything that is good in life: honesty, integrity, reason, productive achievement.. for which he trades what? A lot of empty material things that can't mean much to him, since he did not achieve them.

[exaltron]

Contrast this:

And what makes you think the principle i gave does not apply to everyone, accross the board? I am making that statement as a looter (that i should survive, even at the expense of others) because i believe everyone should do that. So, it is a principle, even by your definition.

Against this:

I do not think that everyone should become a looter, just as a swimmer should not think that everyone should become a swimmer. The result would be "disastrous" in either case if everyone went out and did what we seem to have no ethical problem with.

Seems the problem with being a Devil's Advocate is the same as that of a looter, one must expend enormous effort to avoid having one's dissembling depravity exposed

[Gary Brenner]

exaltron wrote:

Why is it that in order to make an ethical case for not looting, Objectivists must prove that not one single person can make it work, that all of them are miserable, whereas all you seem to need to prove looting is ethically viable is the prospect of a few successful looters, who we must hypothetically imagine are happy (since we can no more prove happiness in your case than in ours)?

There is no double standard. I have not held Objectivist morality to a more rigorous proof than the morality of the prudent predator. Under both sets of ethics, one’s life is the standard of ones’ values. The difference is that Objectivism insists that this premise leads to the conclusion that all men should become non-coercive members of the community, whereas the prudent predator recognizes that some can maximize their values by means other than peaceful production and trade. The prudent predator does not claim that all men should become predators. Nor is there any inconsistency in not making such an insistence. People will try to maximize their happiness to the best of their ability. The prudent predator understands that not everyone is well suited for looting.

I will not ask you to hypothesize the happiness of the looter if you will summit a scientific means of gauging an individual’s happiness.

Some people win the lottery, does that make it moral to plan your life around potentially winning?

In this thread I have already stated that I do not consider 80 million to one odds a rational bet.

Does the looter have a better chance of being successful than the “lottery investor”?

Clearly some looters do. I know of a man who made over a million before he was 30 by selling local companies cheap versions of software that he had pirated. It does not require the luck of a lottery winner to get rich illegally.

I know the risk element has been debated ad nausea, but do you really think the prudent predator’s talents are better spent in the service of warring against civilization, with all the risk inherent and the massive amount of work necessary to sustain such a lifestyle, compared to the massively more “prudent” prospect of cooperating with other individuals? I honestly don’t think the real life examples you provide are compelling to make a case for looting as a viable ethical principle, again, I see the chances of “making it work” purely as a looter, ie, producing nothing, as being no better than winning the lottery, that is not a smart plan for survival and flourishing.

First of all, it is not necessarily true that the looter is in a “war” against civilization. I have already pointed out the opportunities that capitalism offers those who are good at stealing. But if the U.S. becomes a Marxist state, it won’t be because we suddenly became overrun with car thieves and purse-snatchers. Secondly, it is not necessarily true that looting requires more work than, well, working. If I make $20/hour and I find an unattended $600 laptop on a park bench, why is it more work to grab the laptop than to save my wages for it?

Finally, to point out the flaw in Rand’s argument, I do not have to make the case that it is easy for anyone to become a full-time looter. I only have to show, per the thread title, that looting does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the looter.

I am setting aside all the psychological arguments as I do not have the background to “prove” that a looter by definition must be miserable. All I can say is I consider it near impossible that some combination of guilt, fear, dependency issues, etc, would not sabotage the looter’s happiness. Everything I know about the basis of true happiness supports this, as well as my own experience with lying, stealing, etc. And I see no evidence, other than hypotheticals to refute that reasonable assumption.

If looting makes people miserable, then why do we need so many walls, burglar alarms, security guards, policemen, criminal courts and prisons? Surely the average purse-snatcher would be so grief-stricken that he would rush to the nearest police station to spill his confession and offer to make amends.

Finally, you’ve argued that, within a system of looting, people may be happy. I’ve given it some thought and I agree that it is possible, provided they believe that they are being productive, which in the context of the system they are, eg, IRS administrators are producing something for the system, which they believe to be just. The problem is what they don’t know can hurt them. Consider the very convincing spiritual crisis of the Will Ferrell character in Stranger than Fiction, when he realizes that his job is to destroy the dreams of people like the Maggie Gyllenhall character, whom he falls in love with. That is a perfect example of the looter being at war with virtually everything that is good in life: honesty, integrity, reason, productive achievement. for which he trades what? A lot of empty material things that can’t mean much to him, since he did not achieve them.

“What they don’t know can hurt them?” Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly is hurting IRS employees? As for the Will Ferrell movie, I saw nothing in the ending that indicated that Harold Crick had changed his occupation. In any case, I don’t see how a work of fiction, Stranger Than Fiction, proves anything about actual IRS employees.

[exaltron]

Finally, to point out the flaw in Rand’s argument, I do not have to make the case that it is easy for anyone to become a full-time looter. I only have to show, per the thread title, that looting does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the looter.

I wonder about the interpretation of the word "destruction". Is your argument that a looter won't necessarily suffer complete annihilation as a result of his looting? If that's the case you'll get no argument from me; I don't think that's what she meant in the text you quoted.

I would argue that she used the word figuratively in her fiction and non-fiction, as in Galt's speech where he says he grants the looter the only thing he has the right to "his own destruction". I've seen Rand-haters run the wheels off of that one line to try to argue that Rand wanted "unlimited retaliatory force", since anyone who initiates force is granted "destruction". Clearly that is no what she meant.

I think it takes a full understanding of the nature of man, the benefit of living in a rights-based society, the need for self-esteem (which must have its basis in an objective scale of judgment), the importance of consistency and the significance of the spiritual value of wealth to grasp the generalization that looting is evil.

Perhaps the comparison of a "plant sprouting legs" is less than apt, since it suggests the absolute impossibility of succeeding as a predator. But I think she is justified in saying as a general rule, looters (and looting systems) are much less successful and have a much smaller chance of success than producers and systems based on production, private property, etc.

In terms of the spiritual aspect of wealth, I found this quote from Siddhartha in a similar discussion apropos:

Kamala’s point to Siddhartha was not that he would suffer if he forced her. But he would be worse off:

“You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen. In this, you have come up with the wrong path. No, it would be a pity, if a pretty young man like you would want to tackle it in such a wrong manner.”

[exaltron]

“What they don’t know can hurt them?” Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly is hurting IRS employees?

I would be the first to grant that enslaving and killing people is the surest way to make a society less productive.

Are IRS employees "hurt" by not having access to the dynamism of a completely laissez-faire, rights-respecting, looter-free society? You seem to indicate that they are.

[hunterrose]

Given certain circumstances, the prudent predator may eschew activities with a risk level of only 5%.

At what % does taking the risk become immoral?

“Right” or “good” conduct consists of behaviors that will likely increase the attainment of those goals.

What constitutes immoral conduct?

Marty thinks every day. One day, a meteor hits his home and annihilates Marty. Therefore, thinking isn't necessarily beneficial, and Rand is clearly wrong when she says otherwise.

The argument is invalid because the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Your next magic trick is to show how this is in any way related to my statement that U.S. tax collectors are proof that looters do not cause their own destruction.

1. Marty thinks
   
   
2. Marty subsequently suffers
   
   
3. Ergo, thinking isn't necessarily beneficial
   
   

1. tax collectors loot
   
   
2. tax collectors don't subsequently suffer
   
   
3. Ergo, looting isn't necessarily detrimental
   
   

In what way is one invalid that the other isn't?

[exaltron]

But how would you know you are an idiot if you don't even know that you are "blissfully ignorant"???

That's my whole point, ethically we should seek the truth, whereas the looter's incentive is not to discover the nature of his game.

Well. Being poor is not a desirable state, is it? Therefore being rich is a desirable state. I'll speak only for myself here (and not even as Devil's advocate): no matter what your proof is, I would rather be rich than poor, just as I would rather be healthy than sick. To quote a certain Christian evangelist, "I've been poor and I've been rich. Um... rich is better!"

That's a complete dropping of the context. We don't live in a world where we can simply choose to be rich or poor. If that were our world, we would not need ethics, everyone could just exercise their preference. The world we live in is one where we must recognize the real and spiritual causes and effects of wealth. My point was that simply being rich doesn't cause happiness, and this definitely bears out in study after study. Being rich for the sake of being rich will not lead to the kind of fulfillment that actually achieving and producing the wealth yourself would, because you wouldn't have the moral foundation to judge yourself positively based on your success. No more than having sex with a whole series of worthless women who don't admire you will provide the kind of satisfaction of one woman of integrity who does.

Well, you say, the looter simply has a different moral foundation on which to judge himself. OK, fine, but in order to be rational and consistent (which happiness requires), he must judge others on that same scale. So either he surrounds himself with other looters (who are likely to loot him as well, why wouldn't they), or he surrounds himself with the morally depraved producers, who he clearly can't respect since they don't recognize his moral right to loot them, nor can he benefit from any admiration or psychological visibility they might offer as they might rat him out or reject him if he did.

So maybe this guy just wants to be alone with his unearned millions. Or maybe he just sees looting as another occupation, like fishing or.. being Paris Hilton. But looting is not a preference, it is a moral choice. It is to recognize what it takes to be an independent human being and to opt out. Morality is not subjective, it is not a question of preferences. Morality, to be morality, must apply equally to all. Once you have made your moral choices, then you can exercise preferences, such as what kind of worthless airhead skank you want to be. But if you are exercising those choices with no regard to whether they are moral or not, you have no claim to any kind of morality, no scale on which to weigh your own worth or others, no basis for condemning the acts of others, nor any rational basis for your own self-esteem or pride.

There is no double standard. I have not held Objectivist morality to a more rigorous proof than the morality of the prudent predator. Under both sets of ethics, one’s life is the standard of ones’ values. The difference is that Objectivism insists that this premise leads to the conclusion that all men should become non-coercive members of the community, whereas the prudent predator recognizes that some can maximize their values by means other than peaceful production and trade. The prudent predator does not claim that all men should become predators. Nor is there any inconsistency in not making such an insistence. People will try to maximize their happiness to the best of their ability. The prudent predator understands that not everyone is well suited for looting.

Refuted in the last paragraph of my response to Black Diamond.

[exaltron]

If looting makes people miserable, then why do we need so many walls, burglar alarms, security guards, policemen, criminal courts and prisons? Surely the average purse-snatcher would be so grief-stricken that he would rush to the nearest police station to spill his confession and offer to make amends.

Simply because not everyone (in fact I would argue a tiny portion of the population) has the ethical understanding to recognize the cause of their own discontent. Apparently I somehow implied that looters should have an automatic knowledge of the precise philosophical issues that cause their cognitive dissonance?

[blackdiamond]

Contrast this:

Against this:

Seems the problem with being a Devil's Advocate is the same as that of a looter, one must expend enormous effort to avoid having one's dissembling depravity exposed

Not so fast, Exaltron. You have not identified any contradiction between those two statements (i was acrually conscious of the first when i was writing the second one). The principle (that one should do things for himself EVEN at the expense of others) does not mean that everyone should be a looter, because there will be times when it will not be necessary to do it at the expense of others. The looter is simply one who ALWAYS does it (i.e. his "job") at the expense of others. So, no contradiction. No "dissembing depravity" exposed.

Edited April 6, 2007 by blackdiamond

[blackdiamond]

That's my whole point, ethically we should seek the truth, whereas the looter's incentive is not to discover the nature of his game.

That's a complete dropping of the context. We don't live in a world where we can simply choose to be rich or poor. If that were our world, we would not need ethics, everyone could just exercise their preference. The world we live in is one where we must recognize the real and spiritual causes and effects of wealth. My point was that simply being rich doesn't cause happiness, and this definitely bears out in study after study.

Has "Study after study" proved that the wealthy mafia bosses are not as happy as "slave wage" workers in Indian sweat shops who earn their little money by being productive?

Being rich for the sake of being rich will not lead to the kind of fulfillment that actually achieving and producing the wealth yourself would, because you wouldn't have the moral foundation to judge yourself positively based on your success. No more than having sex with a whole series of worthless women who don't admire you will provide the kind of satisfaction of one woman of integrity who does.

Study after study has shown that all the people who are rich and happy recognise the spiritual causes of happiness? And all who are rich but have no such philosophy are sad? And if you have a mistaken identification of the cause? Like if you believe that God has made you rich - will you be sad (according to study after study)?

Well, you say, the looter simply has a different moral foundation on which to judge himself. OK, fine, but in order to be rational and consistent (which happiness requires), he must judge others on that same scale.

And he does! He believes that a man must do anything to survive, even if it is at the expense of others; this principle does not only cover active looters, but even "legitimate" producers who are doing everything possible to survive. So, by his moral system, whoever is doing whatever to survive is moral. Larry Ellison (Oracle) called on the Department of Justice to investigate his competitors (Microsoft) for its "anti-competitive" practices. The looter will like Ellison for doing everything possible to survive, just as he will like Gates (Gates did not defend his moral right to compete, but instead tried to deny the "accusations"). Are these such bad friends to surround yourself with as a conscious looter?

So either he surrounds himself with other looters (who are likely to loot him as well, why wouldn't they), or he surrounds himself with the morally depraved producers, who he clearly can't respect since they don't recognize his moral right to loot them...

See my response above. (And, he can respect them even if they don't agree with his philosophy on one area of life - is that impossible? What if he believes they will come to learn it one day since they are intelligent enough, or that they do in fact practice it can't just admit it, like his friend Larry Ellison!)

Morality, to be morality, must apply equally to all.

See my response above.

Once you have made your moral choices, then you can exercise preferences, such as what kind of worthless airhead skank you want to be. But if you are exercising those choices with no regard to whether they are moral or not, you have no claim to any kind of morality, no scale on which to weigh your own worth or others, no basis for condemning the acts of others, nor any rational basis for your own self-esteem or pride.

See my response above.

[Inspector]

Has "Study after study" proved that the wealthy mafia bosses are not as happy as "slave wage" workers in Indian sweat shops who earn their little money by being productive?

As a devil's advocate, it is your responsibility to bring only clear arguments into play, not jumbled nonsense like that.

[Gary Brenner]

exaltron wrote:

I wonder about the interpretation of the word “destruction”. Is your argument that a looter won’t necessarily suffer complete annihilation as a result of his looting? If that\'s the case you’ll get no argument from me; I don\'t think that\'s what she meant in the text you quoted.

Since Ayn Rand did not assign a special definition to her use of the word “destruction,” we can take the word to mean just what it says in a dictionary:

“a. The act of destroying. b. The condition of having been destroyed. ”

“Destroy ”: “1. To ruin completely; spoil: ‘The ancient manuscripts were destroyed by fire’ 2. To tear down or break up; demolish. See synonyms at RUIN., 3. To do away with; put an end to: ‘In crowded populations, poverty destroys the possibility of cleanliness’ (George Bernard Shaw). 4. To kill: destroy a rabid dog. 5. To subdue or defeat completely; crush: The rebel forces were destroyed in battle. 6. To render useless or ineffective: destroyed the testimony of the prosecution\'s chief witness.” (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition)

I would argue that she used the word figuratively in her fiction and non-fiction, as in Galt\'s speech where he says he grants the looter the only thing he has the right to “his own destruction”. I\'ve seen Rand-haters run the wheels off of that one line to try to argue that Rand wanted “unlimited retaliatory force”, since anyone who initiates force is granted “destruction”. Clearly that is no what she meant.

So you wish to assign a non-literal meaning to “destruction,” despite the fact that Rand gave no indication that she employed the word in any way other than its common English usage? Imagine what would happen to Rand scholarship if any reader could declare that a certain passage of her works is not to be taken literally. Example, “Well, Rand did not mean that A is literally A.”

I think it takes a full understanding of the nature of man, the benefit of living in a rights-based society, the need for self-esteem (which must have its basis in an objective scale of judgment), the importance of consistency and the significance of the spiritual value of wealth to grasp the generalization that looting is evil.

That is what you think. But the above is not a logical argument.

Perhaps the comparison of a “plant sprouting legs” is less than apt, since it suggests the absolute impossibility of succeeding as a predator. But I think she is justified in saying as a general rule, looters (and looting systems) are much less successful and have a much smaller chance of success than producers and systems based on production, private property, etc.

That may be true, but that does not constitute a sufficient reason for the successful individual predator to abandon his means of survival. In short, Rand his failed to derive an “ought,” specifically a morality mandating the respecting of individual rights from the premise that one’s life is one’s standard of values.

Are IRS employees “hurt” by not having access to the dynamism of a completely laissez-faire, rights-respecting, looter-free society? You seem to indicate that they are.

The fact is that some parties benefit from a welfare state, just as some parties benefit from credit card fraud. To state that the population on the whole would be better off under laissez faire does not rule out the obvious fact that certain groups enjoy more power and privilege when there is legalized wealth redistribution.

So maybe this guy just wants to be alone with his unearned millions. Or maybe he just sees looting as another occupation, like fishing or.. being Paris Hilton. But looting is not a preference, it is a moral choice. It is to recognize what it takes to be an independent human being and to opt out.

Anyone who lives in an advanced technological society is to some degree dependent on the labor of others. You have not shown why the man who steals for the IRS is less well off than the man who sells hot dogs on the street corner.

Morality is not subjective, it is not a question of preferences. Morality, to be morality, must apply equally to all.

Agreed. Everyone should have equal opportunity to be a predator.

Once you have made your moral choices, then you can exercise preferences, such as what kind of worthless airhead skank you want to be. But if you are exercising those choices with no regard to whether they are moral or not, you have no claim to any kind of morality, no scale on which to weigh your own worth or others, no basis for condemning the acts of others, nor any rational basis for your own self-esteem or pride.

Agreed. Unless the predator understands that his life is the standard of his values, he will have no rational way of knowing whether he is attaining his goals or not.

[Inspector]

So you wish to assign a non-literal meaning to “destruction,” despite the fact that Rand gave no indication that she employed the word in any way other than its common English usage? Imagine what would happen to Rand scholarship if any reader could declare that a certain passage of her works is not to be taken literally. Example, “Well, Rand did not mean that A is literally A.”

I find it hard to believe you are being honest in making a statement of that kind. Since looters clearly do not spontaneously combust upon their first act of looting, the fact is that Ayn Rand must have meant meaning other than instant and total destruction.

Edited April 6, 2007 by Inspector