My Interview With Adam Smith

[George H. Smith]

In responding to various critics it is fairly easy to give a misleading impression. I by no means wish to argue that the overall influence of Christianity has been pro-freedom. Far from it. My roots in freethought run too deep ever to defend such a claim. The main problem with Christianity was its reliance on the Bible -- whether interpreted by Catholic authorities or by Protestant laypersons. This source trumped everything else, including appeals to reason, for centuries. It was not until "special" revelation" was subordinated to the judgments of reason -- e.g., by Deists and Latitudinarians -- that a credible approach to freedom became credible and influential. And this doesn't really occur, at least not in any substantial and comprehensive way, until the 17th century.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

A.G. was a go along to get along politician and a Keynesian instead of an Austrian. --Brant

This looks suspiciously like a "no true Scotsman" move to me. Rand thought highly enough of Greenspan to include an article by him in CUI.

Ghs

You can be sure she had heavy input as editor and feed-backer. I didn't ever get the impression he did much intellectual give and take with her, maybe Branden.

--Brant

[9thdoctor]

Yes, Hilary was writing when the Arians, who were favored by one of Constantine's sons, were persecuting advocates of what would later become the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. But I have seen no evidence that Hilary ever favored persecution of any kind.

He was known as the "Hammer of the Arians" and the "Athanasius of the West". He was involved in the excommunication and exiling of Christians he disagreed with. If this was done in response to violence it may not qualify as initiating persecution, but history isn’t very reliable on this, having been written by the victors.

I think this is the place to roll out one of my favorite Voltaire quotes:

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

So long as every religion is a minority, they all have an interest in maintaining rights. By this logic, Christian ecumenicism is a grave threat to liberty, it’s a wonder Peikoff hasn’t denounced it! In my opinion, it’s futile, no one can reconcile Calvin to Luther to Erasmus, never mind Smith (Joseph, that is). Vive la différence!

The validity of the pro-freedom principles defended by some Christians is an issue distinct from whether or not some Christians remained true to their own principles.

My observation is that it usually takes a generation or two of dominance before persecution begins in earnest. It’s reported that some of the Bishops at the council of Nicea (325) had visible scars from the Diocletian persecution. Constantine was fairly tolerant, it wasn’t until the 340’s (under his sons) that paganism came under attack. Perhaps the people who have had personal reasons to argue for tolerance have to die off, then the pattern Rand talked about in the Faith and Force lecture takes over.

[Brant Gaede]

I think the main idea here is that a theory of rights built on a Christian base is like a house built on sand, as Jesus might have said.

Okay. Let's then go with a rational, secular, human political-philosophical base. --Brant

I would never attempt to build a theory of rights on a Christian base, obviously. Nor do I believe that Christianity can provide a completely rational foundation for rights. My point is that a completely rational foundation is not necessary to sustain a free society, so long as enough people believe in the validity of rights, for whatever reasons. Moreover, when dealing with a hierarchy of reasons, a valid mid-level principle of individual rights can rest on arguments that are not valid in every respect. This is not an either/or situation. There are degrees. Ghs

That's circular and a fallacy revealed by today's world wherein hardly anyone believes in or knows of individual rights. --Brant

What is "circular"? And what "fallacy" are you talking about?

Ghs

If people believe in rights thus not needing an explicit philosophical base begs the question of why they believe in rights--socio-economic-individualism?--and puts the cart ahead of the horse IMO and amounts to implicit circular reasoning and such is a fallacy. It's not even a chicken-or-the-egg-came-first(?) argument. I don't think Americans in the mid-18th C. needed that philosophy, it just went along well with the individualism came from self-reliance on an expanding frontier. But maybe I've just answered my own criticism of your statement: rights psychologically and culturally fit Americans then so they naturally put them on(?).

--Brant

[Dennis Hardin]

As Dennis said, a "moral code will dictate the society’s political structure." That structure is built on a framework or rights, and my paper is an attempt to add arguments in support of a political standard based on ethical egoism, a standard that enables understanding of the rights principles that summarize and integrate proper resolution of political conflict.

I agree that rights provide the moral framework of a free society. In fact, this has been my point all along. My major disagreement with Dennis has been over his claim that only Randian egoists (in effect) can provide a rational justification for rights. This is incorrect.

Suppose that many people in a free society believe that they have a moral obligation to help other people, but that charity has moral value only when it is given voluntarily --so government has no right whatever to coerce people in this realm. (This position was defended by many early libertarians). Would you say that this "altruistic" belief will ultimately corrode the very freedom in which these people so passionately believe?

Implicit in a theory of rights (as understood by libertarians) is the moral right of individuals to pursue their own interests. In this broad sense, a theory of rights is inherently "egoistic." Nevertheless, many people in a free society may believe that their interests are best served by voluntarily helping others as much as they can, because this is what makes them happy. So how are such people undermining rights? I don't get this at all.

Ghs

George,

Please note that there is a vast difference between saying that "a society's moral code dictates its' political structure" and saying that "rights provide a moral framework" for society. Rights are a political consequence of a (rational) moral framework.

You said: My major disagreement with Dennis has been over his claim that only Randian egoists (in effect) can provide a rational justification for rights. This is incorrect.

And then you apparently offered the following as a “rational justification for rights.”

Some people believe they have a moral obligation to help other people, but only if they freely choose to offer such help. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from coercing people to help others.

I thought of some other “rational justifications” for defending rights:

Some people believe they have a moral obligation to stone infidels, but only if the infidels are masochists who wish to be stoned. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from mandating the practice of stoning all infidels.

Or:

Some people believe that ugly people have a moral obligation to wear bags over ther heads, but only if the ugly people want to wear bags over their heads. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from coercing all ugly people to wear bags over their heads--unless, of course, they don't mind wearing a bag over their head.

Some of your other posts seem to imply the following: Historically, many religious people have held that religious faith is only legitimate if people are religious by choice. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from mandating religious belief.

In other words, you can randomly pick any arbitrary piece of behavior, declare it a moral obligation but only if done voluntarily, and you have provided a rational justification for defending rights. (Of course, you have also legitimized a whole pattern of perfectly insane behavior without providing any objective basis for distinguishing those who "feel" it should be "voluntary.")

You put such arbitrary assertions on the same level as Ayn Rand’s derivation of individual rights from the biological nature of man as a rational being? You think such arguments are going to work just fine to prevent the triumph of statism and tyranny? Really?

When you make an arbitrary assertion your starting point, you have abandoned reason altogether, and there is no objective basis for determining whether voluntarism should or should not be a factor. To put libertarianism on such a “rational” footing is to declare that any random moral justification of individual rights is just as good as any other (which means, moreover, that the noncoercion axiom is libertarianism’s one and only moral "foundation").

Beyond voluntarism, it’s deuces wild.

[Dennis Hardin]

If people believe in rights thus not needing an explicit philosophical base begs the question of why they believe in rights--socio-economic-individualism?--and puts the cart ahead of the horse IMO and amounts to implicit circular reasoning and such is a fallacy. It's not even a chicken-or-the-egg-came-first(?) argument. I don't think Americans in the mid-18th C. needed that philosophy, it just went along well with the individualism came from self-reliance on an expanding frontier. But maybe I've just answered my own criticism of your statement: rights psychologically and culturally fit Americans then so they naturally put them on(?).

--Brant

You seem to be referring to the American sense of life here, and to suggest that maybe Americans don't really have need of any "explicit philosophy" on which to base their love of freedom.

It was Ayn Rand's view, and I happen to agree with her, that the reason America has prospered under liberty for two centuries has directly to do with her sense of life – a largely implicit, pro-reason focus on man’s happiness and this Earth which we inherited from the Enlightenment. Because it is pre-conceptual, an individual’s or nation’s sense of life can clash with its openly held principles, with the result of that the two forces work against each other, and that has certainly been the case thoughout America’s history. That fundamental cultural contradiction—religion/mysticism vs. reason—has brought us to the brink of collapse. She felt that whatever respect America had retained for individual rights was directly proportional to the legacy of the sense of life which prevailed at our nation's founding. She wondered if enough of that sense of life was left in America's people to enable her to survive.

She believed that her philosophy of Objectivism represented the translation of that sense of life into an explicit philosophy, and that America's only chance of survival was for those who agreed with her to take on the intellectual battle for America's future. She not only felt that it was necessary to fight collectivism, but also collectivism’s underlying moral foundation, altruism. And she did not feel that we could successfully uproot the prevailing cultural domination of altruism and self-sacrifice without fighting their epistemological base, irrationality and mysticism. She believed that only a philosophy based on reason as an absolute could pave the way toward a new intellectual renaissance.

Here are a couple of quotes from Ayn Rand. Since these are all key points she emphasized over and over again, I don’t know why I should bother to post them here. I can’t imagine that anyone who is familiar with Objectivism would be ignorant of her views on this. But I will post them anyway, just for the sheer hell of it. Who knows? Maybe there are members of OL (besides me) who actually care what she thought.

Americans have known how to erect a superlative material achievement in the midst of an untouched wilderness, against the resistance of savage tribes. What we need today is to erect a corresponding philosophical structure, without which the material greatness cannot survive. A skyscraper cannot stand on crackerbarrels, nor on wall mottos, nor on full page ads, nor on prayers, nor on meta-language. The new wilderness to reclaim is philosophy, now all but deserted, with the weeds of prehistoric doctrines rising again to swallow the ruins. To support a culture, nothing less than a new philosophical foundation will do.

from For the New Intellectual

Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics – on a theory of man's nature and of man's relationship to existence. It is only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempted to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as "conservatism."

from The Objectivist Newsletter, January, 1962

". . .that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality. . ."

That was how she characterized any approach to salvaging America's future that was not based on a philosophy of reason.

[George H. Smith]

As Dennis said, a "moral code will dictate the society’s political structure." That structure is built on a framework or rights, and my paper is an attempt to add arguments in support of a political standard based on ethical egoism, a standard that enables understanding of the rights principles that summarize and integrate proper resolution of political conflict.

I agree that rights provide the moral framework of a free society. In fact, this has been my point all along. My major disagreement with Dennis has been over his claim that only Randian egoists (in effect) can provide a rational justification for rights. This is incorrect. Suppose that many people in a free society believe that they have a moral obligation to help other people, but that charity has moral value only when it is given voluntarily --so government has no right whatever to coerce people in this realm. (This position was defended by many early libertarians). Would you say that this "altruistic" belief will ultimately corrode the very freedom in which these people so passionately believe? Implicit in a theory of rights (as understood by libertarians) is the moral right of individuals to pursue their own interests. In this broad sense, a theory of rights is inherently "egoistic." Nevertheless, many people in a free society may believe that their interests are best served by voluntarily helping others as much as they can, because this is what makes them happy. So how are such people undermining rights? I don't get this at all. Ghs

George, Please note that there is a vast difference between saying that "a society's moral code dictates its' political structure" and saying that "rights provide a moral framework" for society. Rights are a political consequence of a (rational) moral framework. You said: My major disagreement with Dennis has been over his claim that only Randian egoists (in effect) can provide a rational justification for rights. This is incorrect. And then you apparently offered the following as a “rational justification for rights.” Some people believe they have a moral obligation to help other people, but only if they freely choose to offer such help. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from coercing people to help others. I thought of some other “rational justifications” for defending rights: Some people believe they have a moral obligation to stone infidels, but only if the infidels are masochists who wish to be stoned. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from mandating the practice of stoning all infidels. Or: Some people believe that ugly people have a moral obligation to wear bags over ther heads, but only if the ugly people want to wear bags over their heads. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from coercing all ugly people to wear bags over their heads--unless, of course, they don't mind wearing a bag over their head. Some of your other posts seem to imply the following: Historically, many religious people have held that religious faith is only legitimate if people are religious by choice. Therefore, we must uphold the principle of individual rights by preventing the government from mandating religious belief. In other words, you can randomly pick any arbitrary piece of behavior, declare it a moral obligation but only if done voluntarily, and you have provided a rational justification for defending rights. (Of course, you have also legitimized a whole pattern of perfectly insane behavior without providing any objective basis for distinguishing those who "feel" it should be "voluntary.") You put such arbitrary assertions on the same level as Ayn Rand’s derivation of individual rights from the biological nature of man as a rational being? You think such arguments are going to work just fine to prevent the triumph of statism and tyranny? Really? When you make an arbitrary assertion your starting point, you have abandoned reason altogether, and there is no objective basis for determining whether voluntarism should or should not be a factor. To put libertarianism on such a “rational” footing is to declare that any random moral justification of individual rights is just as good as any other (which means, moreover, that the noncoercion axiom is libertarianism’s one and only moral "foundation"). Beyond voluntarism, it’s deuces wild.

I did not defend, in any manner whatever, the argument that you attribute to me. You are now reverting to a juvenile type of Randan polemicism, and I don't appreciate it. We are not at an ARI conference. You have no sense of how rights developed historically, and why a libertarian theory of rights (broadly conceived) did not emerge until roughly the early seventeenth century.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe Ayn Rand was around in the early seventeenth century. Yet rights theory -- the same kind of rights theory that Rand later appropriated and used -- was able to take off like a bullet without her. How could this possibly have happened? Without Ayn Rand, how could Jefferson have possibly written the Declaration?

I just got up. Later today will address, in general terms, some of the points you raised.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Dennis,

Rather than write one long post, I am going to spread my comments over several short posts.

George, Please note that there is a vast difference between saying that "a society's moral code dictates its' political structure" and saying that "rights provide a moral framework" for society. Rights are a political consequence of a (rational) moral framework.

First, no free society, or at least no free society of any size, has ever had or will ever have a uniform "moral code." This is the main reason why a rights-based legal system is so crucial to a free society. Rights enable individuals with different beliefs -- moral beliefs, religious beliefs, etc. -- to pursue their own values in their own ways, so long as they respect the equal freedom of others.

Second, to speak of rights as being the "political consequence of a (rational) moral framework" is to make a very complex claim about the causal relationship between given a moral code and rights. And there is no way to ascertain the soundness of this claim without undertaking a historical investigation of how the theory of individual rights -- a theory virtually identical to Rand's -- actually developed through centuries of European and American thought.

You might like to believe that rights grew out of a type of Randian egoism, but this is not what happened historically in many respects. Your a priori theory would make the historical development of rights theory an inexplicable mystery.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Dennis,

In order to respond adquately I need to establish some background. Rather than write everything from scatch, it is much easier for me to post this brief article that I wrote for the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism a few years ago.

Ghs

Conscience

George H. Smith

Liberty of conscience, according to J.S. Mill, was “first of all the articles of the liberal creed.” Lord Acton agreed that the idea of conscience played a key role in the development of classical liberalism. A “reverence for conscience,” which consists of “the preservation of an inner sphere exempt from state power,” is essential to a free society. This “appeal to personal autonomy” is the “main protection against absolutism, the one protection against democracy.”

The idea of conscience is deeply rooted in Western thinking about ethics, religion, and politics. Among ancient schools of thought, it was developed most fully by the Stoics, especially Epictetus, who spoke eloquently of an inner freedom that is immune to external coercion. We can achieve this independence only through the use of “right reason,” a moral faculty that enables us to discern the precepts of natural law and thereby distinguish good from evil.

Thomas Aquinas holds a place of pride among medieval philosophers for his discussion of conscience -- a fact that led Lord Acton to dub Aquinas “the first Whig.” In some cases, according to Aquinas, a person is justified in acting according to his conscience even if his judgment is objectively mistaken. Although Aquinas did not pursue the logical implications of this theory, it left open the possibility of innocent error in matters of religious belief.

The expression “liberty of conscience” had become commonplace by the seventeenth century, and this sphere of inner liberty gradually developed into the notion of inalienable rights. An inalienable right is a right that cannot be surrendered or transferred by any means, including consent, because it derives from man's nature as a rational and moral agent. For example, we cannot alienate our right to freedom of belief, because our beliefs cannot be coerced. Similarly, we cannot surrender our right of moral choice, because an action has moral significance only if it is freely chosen. Our beliefs and values fall within the sphere of inner liberty, the domain of conscience. This sphere is inseparable from our nature as rational and moral agents.

According to the seventeenth-century English clergyman John Hale, “All the power in the world is neither fit to convince nor able to compel a man's conscience to consent to anything." The inalienability of conscience was also defended by more secular thinkers, such as Spinoza, who wrote:

"Inward worship of God and piety in itself are within the sphere of everyone's private rights, and cannot be alienated.... No man's mind can possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so to do."

A significant development occurred as the authority of conscience was applied to spheres other than religion. From the distinction between the inner sphere of liberty and the external sphere of compulsion there emerged the distinction between the voluntary sphere of society and the coercive sphere of government. As Guido de Ruggiero wrote in The History of European Liberalism:

“At first, freedom of conscience is considered essential to [man’s] personality; this implies religious liberty and liberty of thought. Later is added all that concerns his relations to other individuals: freedom to express and communicate his own thought, personal security against all oppression, free movement, economic liberty, juridical equality, and property.”

Herbert Spencer, who described the tradition of Protestant dissent in which he was raised as “an expression of opposition to arbitrary control,” provides an excellent example of how later libertarians would extend the argument from conscience to spheres other than religion. In one of his first articles (“The Proper Sphere of Government,” published in The Nonconformist in 1842), Spencer maintained that the “chief arguments that are urged against an established religion, may be used with equal force against an established charity.”

“The dissenter submits, that no party has a right to compel him to contribute to the support of doctrines, which do not meet his approbation. The rate-payer may as reasonably argue, that no one is justified is forcing him to subscribe towards the maintenance of persons, whom he does not consider deserving of relief. The advocate of religious freedom does not acknowledge the right of any council, or bishop, to choose for him what he shall believe, or what he shall reject. So the opponent of a poor law, does not acknowledge the right of any government, or commissioner, to choose for him who are worthy of his charity, and who are not.”

[George H. Smith]

Dennis,

A brief comment about my last post....

Notice how Spencer defends freedom in matters of charity. He does not consider whether charity is morally good or morally bad, whether we should be charitable or not, which people are "worthy" of charity and which are not. He doesn't discuss such issues, in this context, because they are irrelevant to the issue of rights. These are matters for each individual to decide for himself or herself. You can believe anything you like about charity, but you don't have a right to force others to conform to your beliefs.

This and similar cases for freedom had been argued for over two centuries by the time Spencer wrote, and these libertarians defended individual rights in far more detail than Rand ever did. Many would have disagreed with Randian egoism -- but guess what? They scored substantial victories, especially in the realms of religious freedom and property rights, that would have seemed inconceivable not many years earlier. Their arguments proved far more successful than Rand's arguments have been thus far, even though they faced far greater obstacles in many cases.

Despite all this, I am told that only Randian egoism can possibly provide the moral foundation for individual rights.

I guess we will need to reset the History Clock to 1957 (the year Atlas Shrugged was published), and ignore everything that happened previously. We have nothing to learn from history, after all. All the history we need to know can be deduced from rational (i.e., Randian) principles.

Ghs

[rhartford]

The historical development of respect for rights is different than a logical derivation of the validity of rights. The development can inform and aid the derivation, and the derivation can add perspective to understanding the development.

My analysis in the paper mentioned in post #57 adds new insight to the derivation of rights. Otherwise, I hope, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (JARS) would not have published it. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I would call the analysis in the paper Hartfordian rather than Randian.

I would be happy to forward a copy of the JARS issue to the discussants on this thread. If the email feature of OL is working, just request a copy and include your snail mail address.

[George H. Smith]

The historical development of respect for rights is different than a logical derivation of the validity of rights.

I agree completely, and I have made this point several times in this thread.

My basic point is this: Even moral justifications for rights that we may not consider satisfactory (from a philosophical perspective) have sometimes established a strong motive to respect rights. Thus the notion that only a valid (i.e., Randian) justification can fill this role is simply and unequivocally wrong. Any such thesis, which is an empirical claim, has been falsified by many historical examples.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Dennis,

I said earlier that I think you interpretation of Rand is mistaken. If you read the first two pages of "Man's Rights," you will see why I said this.

Rand says, "Every political system is based on some code of ethics" -- but the code of ethics she speaks of here is a respect for individual rights, not egoism per se. We see this in her remark, "The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state...."

When Rand characterizes the opposing viewpoint, she speaks not merely of altruism but of "the altruist-collectivist doctrine which subordinated the individual to some higher authority...."

I don't want to get bogged down in Randian exegesis, but Rand's approach in this essay is consistent with the approach of earlier classical liberals and libertarians. We see this in her remark that man "is an entity of a specific kind -- a rational being -- [who] cannot function successfully under coercion." And: "To violate a man's rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values."

I don't recall if Rand uses the word "conscience," but her arguments are virtually identical to the arguments I sketched in my article on conscience, posted above.

Ghs

[anthony]

Dennis, I said earlier that I think you interpretation of Rand is mistaken. If you read the first two pages of "Man's Rights," you will see why I said this. Rand says, "Every political system is based on some code of ethics" -- but the code of ethics she speaks of here is a respect for individual rights, not egoism per se. We see this in her remark, "The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state...." When Rand characterizes the opposing viewpoint, she speaks not merely of altruism but of "the altruist-collectivist doctrine which subordinated the individual to some higher authority...." Ghs

Ghs,

I am confused with the "not egoism per se". Surely egoism is Rand's linchpin of individual rights, which are derived from it?

The code of altruism similarly achieving its opposite, statism.

?

Tony

[George H. Smith]

Dennis, I said earlier that I think you interpretation of Rand is mistaken. If you read the first two pages of "Man's Rights," you will see why I said this. Rand says, "Every political system is based on some code of ethics" -- but the code of ethics she speaks of here is a respect for individual rights, not egoism per se. We see this in her remark, "The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state...." When Rand characterizes the opposing viewpoint, she speaks not merely of altruism but of "the altruist-collectivist doctrine which subordinated the individual to some higher authority...." Ghs

Ghs, I am confused with the "not egoism per se". Surely egoism is Rand's linchpin of individual rights, which are derived from it? The code of altruism similarly achieving its opposite, statism. ? Tony

Rand's justification for rights involved a lot more than her egoism. It Included her theory of value, her claim that the rational interests of rational men do not conflict, and more. Nevertheless, Rand understood the value of rights even for people who disagreed with her egoism.

Would you say that it is impossible to justify rights if we don't agree with the particulars of Rand's metaethics, e.g., her claims about the concepts "life" and "value"? If disagreements are possible here, then why not in other areas as well?

As for egoism and rights, please explain why it is always in one's self-interest to respect the rights of others. (I am not speaking of emergency situations here.) If, late at night, you see a drunk passed out who has a lot of money hanging out of his pocket, and if you are certain you will not get caught, then why wouldn't it be in your self-interest to steal the money and take off? No one will ever know, except you.

I ask this old question because I have grown tired of assuming the burden of proof in this exchange. I would therefore like more conventional O'ists to do more than cite Rand in a general way. I would like to see some specific arguments that explain how Rand's egoism provides the necessary foundation for rights.

Yes, it serves your interests to have your rights respected by other people, but why it is always in your interest to respect the rights of other people? Why not violate the rights of others when you will suffer no adverse consequences?

I'm am not attempting to be cute here. On the contrary, I addressed this very issue (including the example of a passed out drunk with money) in a 1971 issue of Invictus, in response to a quasi-Stirnerite article titled "Every Man For Himself." (This was one of my first published articles) Thus I can answer my own question, but my answer is not part of the Randian canon. I would therefore like to see how others would deal with this problem. This will give us something specific to deal with, rather than considering vague generalizations about how Rand's egoism supposedly justifies rights.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Dennis, I said earlier that I think you interpretation of Rand is mistaken. If you read the first two pages of "Man's Rights," you will see why I said this. Rand says, "Every political system is based on some code of ethics" -- but the code of ethics she speaks of here is a respect for individual rights, not egoism per se. We see this in her remark, "The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state...." When Rand characterizes the opposing viewpoint, she speaks not merely of altruism but of "the altruist-collectivist doctrine which subordinated the individual to some higher authority...." Ghs

Ghs,

I am confused with the "not egoism per se". Surely egoism is Rand's linchpin of individual rights, which are derived from it?

The code of altruism similarly achieving its opposite, statism.

?

Tony

Or the statists latched onto altruism. Rand's witch doctor essay polemic might be worth a reread here.

--Brant

don't have time

[Brant Gaede]

Dennis, I said earlier that I think you interpretation of Rand is mistaken. If you read the first two pages of "Man's Rights," you will see why I said this. Rand says, "Every political system is based on some code of ethics" -- but the code of ethics she speaks of here is a respect for individual rights, not egoism per se. We see this in her remark, "The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state...." When Rand characterizes the opposing viewpoint, she speaks not merely of altruism but of "the altruist-collectivist doctrine which subordinated the individual to some higher authority...." Ghs

Ghs, I am confused with the "not egoism per se". Surely egoism is Rand's linchpin of individual rights, which are derived from it? The code of altruism similarly achieving its opposite, statism. ? Tony

Rand's justification for rights involved a lot more than her egoism. It Included her theory of value, her claim that the rational interests of rational men do not conflict, and more. Nevertheless, Rand understood the value of rights even for people who disagreed with her egoism.

Would you say that it is impossible to justify rights if we don't agree with the particulars of Rand's metaethics, e.g., her claims about the concepts "life" and "value"? If disagreements are possible here, then why not in other areas as well?

As for egoism and rights, please explain why it is always in one's self-interest to respect the rights of others. (I am not speaking of emergency situations here.) If, late at night, you see a drunk passed out who has a lot of money hanging out of his pocket, and if you are certain you will not get caught, then why wouldn't it be in your self-interest to steal the money and take off? No one will ever know, except you.

I ask this old question because I have grown tired of assuming the burden of proof in this exchange. I would therefore like more conventional O'ists to do more than cite Rand in a general way. I would like to see some specific arguments that explain how Rand's egoism provides the necessary foundation for rights.

Yes, it serves your interests to have your rights respected by other people, but why it is always in your interest to respect the rights of other people? Why not violate the rights of others when you will suffer no adverse consequences?

I'm am not attempting to be cute here. On the contrary, I addressed this very issue (including the example of a passed out drunk with money) in a 1971 issue of Invictus, in response to a quasi-Stirnerite article titled "Every Man For Himself." (This was one of my first published articles) Thus I can answer my own question, but my answer is not part of the Randian canon. I would therefore like to see how others would deal with this problem. This will give us something specific to deal with, rather than considering vague generalizations about how Rand's egoism supposedly justifies rights.

Ghs

You don't take the drunk's money for that would make you a low-life thief and damage your sense of self. But say it was 1930s Germany and you were a Jew trying to get your family out of the country--this slips into the ethics of emergencies.

If one had no Objectivist or libertarian moral sense and were more of an innocent savage then you don't damage yourself because you don't experience any inner constraints. In my case if I were visiting your home and you had bowls of gold coins lying around and you said "Take what you want," I wouldn't because it represents wealth I didn't produce but you did, but as a young teenager I'd have stuffed my pockets.

It can get much more complicated and ambiguous depending on circumstances mostly generated by the mixed, tending to fascistic, economy we live under, but this is enough right now.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

You don't take the drunk's money for that would make you a low-life thief and damage your sense of self. But say it was 1930s Germany and you were a Jew trying to get your family out of the country--this slips into the ethics of emergencies.

You are saying, in effect, that to steal the money would violate your own principles and therefore "damage your sense of self." Okay, I agree with this -- though there is a lot more to the story -- but we still have the problem: Why should you adopt the principle of reciprocal rights in the first place? Why not say instead, "I will respect the rights of others when this serves my interests, but I will not respect the rights of others when that does not serve my interests."

This is a principle as well, and you would not violate this principle by stealing the money from the drunk, if you deemed the money sufficiently important. Thus, there would be no damage to your sense of self.

Rand once said that the lives of other people are not yours to dispose of. I humbly suggest that this introduces a consideration other than one's own self-interest. It places certain things beyond the consideration of one's own self-interest.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

But say it was 1930s Germany and you were a Jew trying to get your family out of the country--this slips into the ethics of emergencies.

I want to be clear about this. Are you saying that it is okay to violate the rights of other people if your own needs are great enough, as in an emergency situation? If so, does this mean that other people may violate your rights if their needs are great enough?

I don't know about this, Brant. This is beginning to sound a lot like altruism to me. 8-)

Ghs

[anthony]

Yes, it serves your interests to have your rights respected by other people, but why it is always in your interest to respect the rights of other people? Why not violate the rights of others when you will suffer no adverse consequences? I'm am not attempting to be cute here. Ghs

Reality, basically. Whether they know it or not, or accept it or not, other people are egoists, also.

It is the nature of Man I am talking about, and that I can't refuse some, or confer on others.

To presume special licence as only one man in many, would be an affront to my sense of reality (and justice, secondly.).

Once that moral identification is made, individual rights seem an easy step.

Tony

[Brant Gaede]

But say it was 1930s Germany and you were a Jew trying to get your family out of the country--this slips into the ethics of emergencies.

I want to be clear about this. Are you saying that it is okay to violate the rights of other people if your own needs are great enough, as in an emergency situation? If so, does this mean that other people may violate your rights if their needs are great enough?

I don't know about this, Brant. This is beginning to sound a lot like altruism to me. 8-)

Ghs

It's not a question of okay yes or no. It's a question of what will happen given x circumstances in which your own rights are already being grossly violated tending to the fatal degree. One will suffer psychological damage unless it's complete sociopathy.

This is too much of a digression to go any further (ethics of emergencies) and it's too much of me trying to think the unthinkable because I keep feeling heat from actual instead of hypothetical reality or mere intellectualizations. Things are bad right now and they're going to get a lot worse, right here, in River City. It's called debt. Most of the country has gone into the debt house--most of the world. You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave. I'm talking about countries, your mileage may vary.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

You don't take the drunk's money for that would make you a low-life thief and damage your sense of self. But say it was 1930s Germany and you were a Jew trying to get your family out of the country--this slips into the ethics of emergencies.

You are saying, in effect, that to steal the money would violate your own principles and therefore "damage your sense of self." Okay, I agree with this -- though there is a lot more to the story -- but we still have the problem: Why should you adopt the principle of reciprocal rights in the first place? Why not say instead, "I will respect the rights of others when this serves my interests, but I will not respect the rights of others when that does not serve my interests."

This is a principle as well, and you would not violate this principle by stealing the money from the drunk, if you deemed the money sufficiently important. Thus, there would be no damage to your sense of self.

Rand once said that the lives of other people are not yours to dispose of. I humbly suggest that this introduces a consideration other than one's own self-interest. It places certain things beyond the consideration of one's own self-interest.

Ghs

Well, let's say it's a trade. I won't violate your rights and you won't violate mine. Basic social contract.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Yes, it serves your interests to have your rights respected by other people, but why it is always in your interest to respect the rights of other people? Why not violate the rights of others when you will suffer no adverse consequences? I'm am not attempting to be cute here. Ghs

Reality, basically. Whether they know it or not, or accept it or not, other people are egoists, also.

It is the nature of Man I am talking about, and that I can't refuse some, or confer on others.

To presume special licence as only one man in many, would be an affront to my sense of reality (and justice, secondly.).

Once that moral identification is made, individual rights seem an easy step.

Tony

Sounds good to me, Tony. But betcha George wil be back wih a good one.

--Brant

[anthony]

Ha!

I'm counting on it, Brant.

[George H. Smith]

Yes, it serves your interests to have your rights respected by other people, but why it is always in your interest to respect the rights of other people? Why not violate the rights of others when you will suffer no adverse consequences? I'm am not attempting to be cute here. Ghs

Reality, basically. Whether they know it or not, or accept it or not, other people are egoists, also. It is the nature of Man I am talking about, and that I can't refuse some, or confer on others. To presume special licence as only one man in many, would be an affront to my sense of reality (and justice, secondly.). Once that moral identification is made, individual rights seem an easy step. Tony

I basically agree with your analysis, though I would question your statement that "other people are egoists." They may or they may not be, but even if they are altruists (in the sense that they place a high value on helping others), they still have a right to pursue happiness in their own way. Altruists (again, in this limited sense, not in the Randian sense) value helping others; and they need freedom to pursue this value as much as egoists need freedom to pursue their values.

Let me pose another question: Suppose a thug robs you at gunpoint. We agree that this is an immoral act. But is it immoral primarily because the thug is not acting in his own rational self-interest? Or is it immoral primarily because of the effect it has on you, i.e., because the thug has violated your rights?

Ghs