Moral anomalies?

Political Philosophy Law
21

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

I read him as saying that if his feelings are hurt by the actions of another, if he is sufficiently “disturbed” (insert your own joke here), he is entitled to employ physical force in response.

I dunno, I hope he’ll clarify. I’ll just answer with what his post lead me to think about.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

That standard is wide enough to encompass virtually anything.

No, that’s a start to how to think about it. Indirect force (e.g., threats) in some manner constitutes in some manner stopping you from leading your life as you see fit. I didn’t think I needed to state a ton more caveats, since we both know that only force is able to stop people from doing as they see fit. Fitting indirect force in there is hard, so we end up looking how or if something really does hinder you from leading your life as you see fit.

I don’t feel like explaining all my reasoning on how obscenity laws -can- be legitimate. (See the link at the bottom though) I already said I am leery of such laws. I brought it up to show how it’s not as obvious as it seems. Hitting someone is not the only way to initiate force, so we should at least think about if really extreme things are merely annoying, or a real barrier to how you lead your life.

You’re right about the airport part and I already was thinking all of that.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

A man could hurt cats on his own lawn (i.e. his property), and have done so for the last twenty years, but if Nicky moves in across the street tomorrow, now Nicky accords himself the “right” to intervene

I don’t think that’s a fair statement. This is a very different example.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

Perhaps also people who find homosexuality disturbing have a case that such affection should only be expressed “in one’s own sound proof basement?”

Right, so we’d need an objective definition of obscenity, just as we do for privacy.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

This entire line of argument is statism being given an Objectivist skin.

I want the freedom to do or not do some things [for any major reason].

Whatever you put in the brackets doesn’t matter. What matters is the freedom to do it, as long as one ought to be free to do that. The reason you want that freedom motivates you, while justifying that freedom is different. Emotional harm is a motivator, the justification to intervene though is that second block of text in this post.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

  1. you have the right to threaten/use force to get them to stop, and that 2) you get to confiscate their property, determining it to be just recompense for the “damage” they have done to you?

I think the if doesn’t apply so that means 1 and 2 don’t apply. I’m saying any person is allowed to do things like law enforcement would do until they arrive to stop what’s going on, but it is vigilantism to pursue the assailant to their house like Batman might. You think the if does apply, in which case it is vigilantism to you

 

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

I don’t buy that without knowing the “proper legal standard” for separating the wheat from the chaff, you know that it can be done, somehow.

The Majority Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Case Reno et al. v. the American Civil Liberties Union Regarding the Communications Decency Act, June 26, 1997

22

On 6/26/2017 at 11:02 PM, Iatan Petru said:

Well, rights are derived from our ability to reason.

It’s not that simple. Concept formation is a process of induction, not deduction. I don’t think just saying “derived” quite covers how the concept of rights came about.

Won’t go into a lengthy description, because it’s way too off topic and technical, but the main thing to know is that it involves discovering what the essence of the human species is, rather than what every individual human being that existed or will ever exist can or cannot do. There are seven billion people on the planet, every last one of them unique in some way or another. You’re not going to come up with a concept of rights that considers every attribute of every last one of them. That’s why abstract thinkers discard the non-essential.

If you’re interested in the details, check out Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, by Ayn Rand.

23

18 hours ago, DonAthos said:

I read him as saying that if his feelings are hurt by the actions of another, if he is sufficiently “disturbed” (insert your own joke here), he is entitled to employ physical force in response.

Yes, and that would be a stupid thing to say…out of context. But I said it in context, which you left out: it was in the context of the commission of a crime.

At which point, it makes perfect sense: if, in the context of the commission of a crime, someone “hurts my feelings”, I am entitled to additional compensation, on top of any material damage that crime caused. (and I’m entitled to take more severe action to stop the crime, than if I wasn’t being hurt on an emotional level).

Take rape, for instance: you can rape someone and cause less physical harm than if you had punched them…and yet, rape is a far more serious crime than punching someone. And, if a rape victim shoots her aggressor, civilized societies consider the shooting justified. But shooting someone to prevent one punch isn’t. Why do you think that is?

24

34 minutes ago, Nicky said:

 And, if a rape victim shoots her aggressor, civilized societies consider the shooting justified. But shooting someone to prevent one punch isn’t. Why do you think that is?

I agree with most of what you’re saying but not with this. You are morally entitled to do anything to prevent the violation of your rights, so long as you don’t violate the rights of innocents (unless you’re in an emergency situation). If someone says they’re going to punch you and they start running towards you and you have a gun, you can shoot it. It’s on them.

However, shooting them once they’ve punched you, assuming you know they won’t do it again, is not justified, because it would be an act of revenge rather than self defense.

25

1 minute ago, Iatan Petru said:

I agree with most of what you’re saying but not with this. You are morally entitled to do anything to prevent the violation of your rights, so long as you don’t violate the rights of innocents (unless you’re in an emergency situation). If someone says they’re going to punch you and they start running towards you and you have a gun, you can shoot it. It’s on them.

If you want to spend the next two decades in prison, sure. You can shoot anybody, for anything. But, otherwise, no, you can’t. Not in any western country I know of.

26

2 hours ago, Nicky said:

If you want to spend the next two decades in prison, sure. You can shoot anybody, for anything. But, otherwise, no, you can’t. Not in any western country I know of.

We’re talking whether or not it is morally justified. If you hypothethically knew you had ONLY the following two options : shooting your aggressor or letting him punch you, which action is moral (and would be legal under a proper Government) :

-an act of self defense
-letting that person violate your rights
I think the answer is obvious, from an Objectivist perspective at least

27

You may stop the initiation of force, but as far as what is a just response should be proportional. Justice entails, usually, both retribution and fair compensation for damage. So killing someone for stealing a pen from you is far from proportional. Perhaps your concern in the OP is that justified intervention means being allowed to respond to any degree you wish.

Most Objectivist perspectives I’ve seen use some principle of proportionality.

28

I’m coming into this late, but…

Moral action doesn’t require legal permission, and in most cases one’s legal jeopardy would depend more on the morality of one’s peers than the letter of the law when put on trial.  So what might appear to be morally anomalous in a legal context is in fact what a proper government relies on to prove the law (or to check the premise).

I believe it’s in the rational self-interest of a moral witness to intervene, even when not immediately effected by the immoral action of another, because immoral behavior of the kind described undermines the security of individual rights upon which one depends.  Appropriate intervention depends on the circumstance and may amount to simply making ones presence and disapproval known, however I recognize there’s no compulsion to act because it remains a mater of individual choice (liberty).