This is my first post, so let me introduce myself. The only exposure I have to Objectivism is through Atlas Shrugged. I decided to join this forum after I reached the chapter “This is John Galt Speaking” in the book. They say, the best books are those which tell you what you already know, And Galt’s words gave me words for that which I knew but had no words to describe. I haven’t finished the book because I got some questions that I need to get off my mind before reading what comes after John Galt’s speech.
I am sure these questions gets asked a lot here:
Bill Gates is funding a vaccine that can block the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum while it is in the mosquitoes. Although such a vaccine could not stop infection in the first host, it should prevent its spread to the next, so reducing the size of malaria epidemics. Will you pay for such a vaccine? Will you use the vaccine if it is free of cost to you? (Gates paid for it). Remember, this vaccine has been shown to help you stay alive.
I hang around a lot with skeptics who debunk claims of the paranormal, supernatural and medical quackery. One thing I have come to experience is that most people are not rational. Even people who want to be rational can be deceived & persuaded to act against their self-interest. How do objectivists hope to sustain a world which based on the premise that people ought to behave rationally? For example, there exists virulent cults that cannot be resisted without ending up getting ostracized, or hurt physically. There are cults and brainwashing techniques that cannot be resisted no matter how much rational you are. And those cults lead to self-destruction. How do you propose that children born into such cults save themselves?
A few years back there were forest fires in Indonesia. The resulting thick smog spread around South-east Asia and started to hurt businesses (like beach resorts, tourism and outdoor life) in Singapore. So the government of Singapore and other nearby governments forced/threatened Indonesian government to put out the fires so as to serve the common good or else to face restrictions on imports from Indonesia. Was this moral?
How would pure rational self-interest put an end to forest fires? Remember, there is the first-mover problem i.e. Which business will make the first move to put out the fires? Why should other businesses join the first mover to put out the fires? Why wouldn’t the other businesses be tempted to take free ride and let the first mover bear the cost of putting out the fires? If every business waits for a free ride on the first mover, there will be no first mover and businesses will destroy themselves. So who will choose to be the sacrifice when reality requires that there be a sacrifice?
Hi Edwin. Nice to see a fellow S’pore native on these boards. I was born there originally and lived there for six years, so I consider it my home-town even though my parents emigrated to the US.
I can try to answer some of those, but (obiously) my views aren’t representative of Objectivism any more than someone else who has only read Atlas Shrugged and a few other random pieces of Rand literature.
The key to eradicating malaria is Capitalism. There is a reason why in most Western nations malaria is extremely rare. DDT could be instrumental in destroying malaria, but it is banned by government for environmental concerns, (something about it effecting bird eggs. Birds > humans.) In the case of Bill Gates funding a vaccine, if he sees value in giving them out for free as an act of charity, there is nothing altruistic about that. Nor is it altruistic to accept one. Altruism carries with it a sacrifice which means force is involved. As long as Bill Gates isn’t doing it because he is being forced to, or because he has a duty to self-sacrifice, then it is not immoral. It is an act of charity. If he chooses to make people pay for it, then people will be willing to pay for it if they find value in it, but no one has a right to steal from him at gunpoint.
How do objectivists hope to sustain a world which based on the premise that people ought to behave rationally?
By banning the initiation of physical force. There is no utopia in which all human beings’ minds will be evolved. There will always be brutes who choose to reject individual rights and act violently. That is why men protect themselves through police and courts which have the sole purpose of protecting rights. Other than this, people who espouse immoral ideas can only be combatted through espousing moral ideas.
There are cults and brainwashing techniques that cannot be resisted no matter how much rational you are.
Examples?
How do you propose that children born into such cults save themselves?
It is (and should be) 100% legal to indoctrinate your children into believing whatever it is you want them to believe as long as you don’t violate their rights. Your use of “brainwash” may imply some sort of coercion, I’m not sure how you are defining it, but as long as their rights are respected, they can only save themselves by choosing to think.
This is a complicated issue on the surface because government is here to protect you from men, not from nature. However, the pollution effecting people in S’pore constitutes smoke-aggression onto the private property of individuals, which means vandalism. They have a right to sue for damages against the responsible people in a court of law. Since the damages were ongoing, the S’pore and M’sia government are right to contact the Indonesian government and demand the smoke-aggression be ceased. How the Indonesians accomplish that is their responsibility, not the Singaporeans. Another way would be for firefighters to be hired to put out the flames, then send the bill to the Indonesian government.
Bill Gates is funding a vaccine that can block the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum while it is in the mosquitoes. Although such a vaccine could not stop infection in the first host, it should prevent its spread to the next, so reducing the size of malaria epidemics. Will you pay for such a vaccine? Will you use the vaccine if it is free of cost to you? (Gates paid for it). Remember, this vaccine has been shown to help you stay alive.
If it works and I lived in a malaria zone, sure I’d get it. How does this work? Is it a vaccination of the mosquitoes?
I hang around a lot with skeptics who debunk claims of the paranormal, supernatural and medical quackery. One thing I have come to experience is that most people are not rational. Even people who want to be rational can be deceived & persuaded to act against their self-interest. How do objectivists hope to sustain a world which based on the premise that people ought to behave rationally? For example, there exists virulent cults that cannot be resisted without ending up getting ostracized, or hurt physically. There are cults and brainwashing techniques that cannot be resisted no matter how much rational you are. And those cults lead to self-destruction. How do you propose that children born into such cults save themselves?
Everyone is rational to the extent of being practical in coping with the problems of life. Many people are usually less rational in the more abstract areas of life, because it isn’t obvious how to be rational in dealing with abstractions. Also, one needs to both know how to be rational and choose to do so. They can certainly be more rational than they are if rationality were more widely taught and encouraged.
I don’t see why the cults problem is philosophically important. Those cults are self limiting because contradicting reality is self defeating. Individual cult members will come up against this realization in some form in their own lives and then walk away. Or not, and suffer the consequences. Freedom.
A few years back there were forest fires in Indonesia. The resulting thick smog spread around South-east Asia and started to hurt businesses (like beach resorts, tourism and outdoor life) in Singapore. So the government of Singapore and other nearby governments forced/threatened Indonesian government to put out the fires so as to serve the common good or else to face restrictions on imports from Indonesia. Was this moral?
Yes. The “common good” reference was meaningless, they meant the good of Singapore and those who agreed with Singapore. Boycotts are a moral form of persuasion and negotiation.
How would pure rational self-interest put an end to forest fires? Remember, there is the first-mover problem i.e. Which business will make the first move to put out the fires? Why should other businesses join the first mover to put out the fires? Why wouldn’t the other businesses be tempted to take free ride and let the first mover bear the cost of putting out the fires? If every business waits for a free ride on the first mover, there will be no first mover and businesses will destroy themselves. So who will choose to be the sacrifice when reality requires that there be a sacrifice?
The fires don’t need to be put out, they need to be not started in the first place. Why is so much land being clear cut in the first place? There may very well be a gov’t policy causing this synchronization of so many people to clear cut their land at the same time. Indonesia built the Petronas Towers, the worlds tallest buildings, for no reason other than to have the world’s tallest buildings. Their entire economy is distorted by gov’t edicts.
I found this study that researched underlying causes of the fires. I just skimmed it, but it looks like the theme is a lack of clear property rights, conflicts being settled with fire as a weapon, deliberately clearing land for agricultural use and not caring when the fire escapes into “public/open access” land, and a bit of actual resource harvesting. There is a lack of capitalism and property ethics here, not a surfeit of it.
Thanks for the quick answers. I need to clarify some of my questions.
The altruistic vaccine I mentioned does not protect the individual. It only prevents the parasite from going from one host to another. In other words, the vaccine will only protect you if everybody takes it. Will you accept such a vaccination if it it paid for by Gates?
Although this may sound hard to believe, there are methods of persuasion which do not require consent of the victim/force of the indoctrinator. One which comes to my mind is the Confusion Principle (http://changingminds.org/principles/confusion.htm). It works better on a rational victim who is willing to to listen and be open minded. The cult indoctrinator will try to tell you stuff that might seem like there is a hidden meaning to the words. You will also be surrounded by a group who pretends to understand what the indoctrinator is saying. And since you are willing to analyze meaningless bullshit thinking there is some meaning you will tire out mentally. The indoctrinator will continue churning out meaningless sentences until you will crack. Trust me this will work on anyone given enough time… The communists used to use techniques. It is even used by therapists to introduce a desired behavioral change. Now that I have told you, and with hindsight, you could be able to think out a strategy to resist it, but if you are unaware of this manipulation, you can easily be a victim, given enough time, no matter how rational you are.
For the Singapore government to make a believable threat to the Indonesian government, the SG govt will have to intervene by threatening to end trade between Indonesia and SG. But our Obectivist moral code holds that it is immoral for the government to intervene in the freedom to trade. So how should the government act in this situation if government intervention is the only solution left to avoid the free-rider problem?
Fact correction: Indonesia did not built the Petronas Towers.
The vaccines are given to human beings. The vaccines only prevent the parasite from going from one host to another.
You are right to say cults are destined to fail because the contradicting reality is self-defeating. But sometimes it takes thousands of years for a cult to fail entirely. Because the cult can choose to adapt slowly to the affects of reality by changing the tenets so that the believers feel comfortable. That is how Christianity works. Everytime a Jonestown event happens their leaders disown the perpetrators of the event using the “Not true scotsman” fallacy.
For boycotts to be believable, the government will have to mess with the freedoms of trade between Indonesia & SG which is immoral under Objectivism.
Forest fires have existed since the beginning of forests on this planet purely due to natural causes. It is within the reach of human ability to put them out. But who will bear the cost under a rational self-interest based society? Every business will hope to get a free ride on another business’s costs to put out the fires. In other words every business will hope that another business will act and as a result no one will act.
If the SG govt hires firefighters and sends the bill to the Indonesian govt, what will happen if the Indonesian govt chooses not to pay up? Remember the threat of boycott is only believable if the government can mess with the freedoms of trade between the nations which is an immoral precept in Objectivism.
You are assuming that all forests will be owned by someone. A friend of mine in India owns 0.15 square miles of a forest but he doesn’t own the whole of it, nor does anyone. So if the rest of the forest catches fire we could still have the Indonesian forest fire problem.
Fact correction: Indonesia did not built the Petronas Towers.
Oh right, Kuala Lumpur is in nearby Malaysia. Nevertheless, Indonesia is not an example of a capitalist society.
You are right to say cults are destined to fail because the contradicting reality is self-defeating. But sometimes it takes thousands of years for a cult to fail entirely. Because the cult can choose to adapt slowly to the affects of reality by changing the tenets so that the believers feel comfortable. That is how Christianity works. Everytime a Jonestown event happens their leaders disown the perpetrators of the event using the “Not true scotsman” fallacy.
I don’t follow your equation of all religions with cults. Anyway, for each person who does leave a religion or cult, it has failed entirely for that person. To have much vested interest in destroying religion is not really rational, because time spent refuting falsehoods is not as valuable as time spent creating values. Existentially, negating a negative does not create a positive.
For boycotts to be believable, the government will have to mess with the freedoms of trade between Indonesia & SG which is immoral under Objectivism.
Believable? Boycotts are not threats to act, they are acts. When the money stops flowing that is totally believable even when it is a small amount.
Partial boycotts can be partially effective, or just take longer to get the desired result. The morally motivated sanctions of South Africa for its apartheid policies took a decade or more.
A government acting on the behalf of and in defense of its citizens in the case of a legitimate grievance has the power to fight a war, and certainly can take measures short of war that have the same aim if they are equally justified. Interfering with freedoms of trade is not always and automatically immoral. Capitalist governments would not be powerless or paralyzed.
You keep referring to the free rider problem. From this thread:
In a nutshell, the whole free-rider problem is invalid because it contradictorily supposes that society is rational enough to have a government based on Objectivist principles, and that it is so irrational that it will not do what it necessary to sustain its life.
If some people are willing to join your boycott and some not then that is a debate over the true economic cost of the pollution. There will be legitimate differences of opinion, and it is not actually necessary for the government to step in and act as a final authority in the debate with a legislated boycott so long as a voluntary partial boycott can be partially effective.
And turboimpala properly guessed that the government (i.e. nobody) owns large amounts of land in Indonesia, other large swaths are in dispute. Too few people are interested in preventing or fighting fires. http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/fire/Underlying_causes.htm
It is rational to try to end religion, because atheism is a prerequisite for achieving Objectivism in the world (Read John Galt’s speech). Achieving Objectivism in the world is rational for the same reasons why John Galt found it rational to achieve Objectivism in the world.
3.1 Even if boycott is an act, the SG government will need to force businessmen to boycott and that is against Objectivist morals. The aim is to get Indonesians to act, and to not make Singaporean individuals suffer under a boycott. Therefore Indonesians should have reasons to accept that Singaporeans would act collectievely to enforce a boycott and such a reason can only come if the Singapore government is capable in principle of restricting business freedoms.
3.2 I agree. This is a good answer.
3.3 I agree. This means govt intervention is not always bad.. we need to be rational about when it is necessary.
3.4 DavidOdden’s response to the free rider problem is normative. i.e. He describes how things OUGHT TO BE in a society where people act according to rational self-interest.
But no one can force anyone to behave for rational self-interest just as no one can force anyone to behave for common good. So there will be people sees reasons to expect a free ride but not see the reasons to act out of the desire to exist. Because the degrees of rationality does not lie on scale. One reason need not come along with the other. e.g. There are Christian objectivists who do not see the reasons to accept atheism but they see the reasons to accept everything else in objectivism.
So doesn’t this mean Objectivism is a study of how the individuals OUGHT TO behave in a group? How is Objectivism then different from the looter’s philosophy, because that too is a study of how individuals ought to behave in a group.
What I am saying is, isn’t reality a bit slow to punish the looters/mystics? Shouldn’t we speed up things by intervening just like John Galt did? Since the world does not always have catalysts of reality like Galt shouldn’t we should let mildly collectivist organizations like a government be able to restrict freedoms of businessmen when reality requires us of it?
John Galt did not intervene, he shrugged and created a separate society hidden from the rest of the world.
Ayn Rand used the strike as an example to help explain the concepts of the Objectivist philosophy.
It wasn’t intended to be a practical solution to all the worlds problems.
As an Objectivist, have you decided that your central purpose in life is to solve all the world’s problems?
Why do you think that reality requires that governments restrict the freedoms of businessmen?
If there aren’t enough people who will benefit from extinguishing forest fires to put enough effort into it to be successful, why do you think it is necessary to extinguish them?
Ok. I don’t claim that is a worthless activity, just not an existential value that can feed, clothe and house you.
3.4 Objectivism is a normative study of how the individuals OUGHT TO behave, always. Some differences from other ethical systems are 1) it also applies outside a group 2) it is true.
In case Singapore’s pollution from Indonesia was a truly emergency level, with people in the streets coughing and old people and infants dieing, the government’s responsibilty to act may justify restricting some property rights in order to save lives. Only a true emergency, a temporary outrageous life threatening situation could justify restricting freedoms. But if the pollution is that bad in Singapore, how badly is Indonesia suffering and what is Indonesia doing? Surely Indonesians wouldn’t be entirely happy with even more deadly amounts of pollution. The worse the pollution, the easier it would be to persuade people to act for reform both in Singapore and in Indonesia.
Being “a bit slow to respond” is not a sufficiently objective criteria of law to apply in justifying withdrawal of protection of some rights. See objective law at the Lexicon.
A government acting on the behalf of and in defense of its citizens in the case of a legitimate grievance has the power to fight a war, and certainly can take measures short of war that have the same aim if they are equally justified. Interfering with freedoms of trade is not always and automatically immoral. Capitalist governments would not be powerless or paralyzed.
I disagree with you guys on this one. Going to war is a proper response only when force has been initiated or threatened, not just a grievance. A government imposed boycott is an act of war. A government imposed boycott should be part of a rationally conducted war of self-defense. If a government is going to impose a boycott it should be part of protecting its citizen’s rights, not infringing them. Private boycotts, which are a consequence of free trade, are acceptable.
There are Christian objectivists
There are no Christian Objectivists.
So doesn’t this mean Objectivism is a study of how the individuals OUGHT TO behave in a group? How is Objectivism then different from the looter’s philosophy, because that too is a study of how individuals ought to behave in a group.
Politics is the science of how an individual should behave in society. Objectivism is a whole philosophy which means that it studies the nature of reality and man’s relation to it, it is a philosophy of life and how to achieve it. Most looters don’t have a philosophy or if they do it is a philosophy of death, since, as is demonstrated in “Atlas Shrugged”, the looter’s way doesn’t work, it is a false ideology.
What I am saying is, isn’t reality a bit slow to punish the looters/mystics? Shouldn’t we speed up things by intervening just like John Galt did? Since the world does not always have catalysts of reality like Galt shouldn’t we should let mildly collectivist organizations like a government be able to restrict freedoms of businessmen when reality requires us of it?
John Galt acted freely, he forced no one; government, by its nature, acts by force. Governments are properly instituted to protect rights, not restrict them.