How do you know murder is wrong?

[moralist]

10 hours ago, Peter said:

Greg, some bureaucracy is not necessarily a bad thing, as with the U.S. Constitution, and it is necessary to protect individual rights.  

Agreed, Peter... 

...and the size of that bureaucracy is directly proportional to the failure of people to govern themselves.

 

Quote

Watch to see if President Trump lowers the budget and decreases the deficit, and keeps us out of wars with “superior tactics.” He is definitely doing away with regulations at a fast pace. So, at the end of the year will we be able to say, we are freer now than when past Presidents were in residence at the White House? Will 2018 be a good and prosperous year?

 

It sure will be for me... but then again I've consistently prospered over many decades no matter who happened to be the President. That's what American freedom is, Peter... freedom FROM the government created by others. And without the Capitalist freedom of private property ownership, none of the others matter.

My freedom depends on my own budget, and I'm a wizard at managing my finances. So it has nothing to do with the government's budget. I have no control over what the government does... but I do have control over what I do.  And in America, I work to earn the money to buy my freedom.

 

Quote

Trump is our bonus spin.

 

He's a wild card for sure!

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

12 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The "square of opposition"  is an inference diagram applicable to the constipated Aristotelian logic of categorical syllogism. This diagram does NOT supply true propositions  categorical or otherwise. Valid inference rules do not tell anyone which premises are true.

Jeez, another blockhead. Why am I not surprised? For the benefit of others, here's an example:

Diagonally in the Square of Opposition, only one predicate can be true (they are contradictory; contradictions cannot exist). Therefore, either "All propositions are true" or "Not all propositions are true." Either "Some propositions are true" or "No propositions are true." It is a proof that some but not all propositions are true.

[Wolf DeVoon]

12 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Justice.  Justice?   What is Justice?  On alternate Tuesdays  of months  containing the letter "R",    Justice is Revenge. 

Don't be deliberately stupid, sir. You'd find yourself in need of definition of revenge (or any other word you use).

[Brant Gaede]

13 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

How so?

A wolf pack is hierarchical.

--Brant

[anthony]

No one who wants to pursue "justice" (not Justice) the virtue? I think sometimes the concept of virtue isn't fully realised, and it was not anything I quickly grasped either. This needs quite a mind shift from old perceptions. To recap, virtues (rationality, productiveness, integrity, etc.,) are selfish and self-interested, all means to an end - for one's own purposes, to "gain and/or keep" one's values. Ultimately, the greatest value, a life. To lessen the confusion I find when explaining this to anyone else, I sometimes (but less accurately) refer to virtues as "qualities" by which one achieves one's ambitions - since "Virtue" is most fraught, traditionally the requirement of living a Godly life, and being esteemed "virtuous" by others. Another critical difference, the accepted religious Virtues are seen as an end and an achievement, in themselves.

(While it's not that the Objectivist's self-benefiting virtues do not have the consequence, while secondary, of benefits to others too. They do).

Getting back to justice. Briefly written in VOS by Rand, though fully expanded in many places and depicted in her novels:

"....that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of justice)". [AR].

Which *values* are gained and kept by making objective judgments of "justice", applying them and asserting them actively, may be worked out for oneself from one's experiences. The values run wide and deep in all ways involving other people, "in matter" and I find more often, especially "in spirit" (character). The corollary of Rand's definition: that what is earned by oneself or by others, must be gladly acknowledged and rewarded as a moral right.

[moralist]

33 minutes ago, anthony said:

No one who wants to pursue "justice" (not Justice) the virtue?

I don't make any distinction between the two, Tony.

There's no need to chase after justice as if it was externally elusive. When a person is just in their own life first by being fair and honest in their dealings with others, they will naturally find their own kind who will be just with them.

Quote

"....that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of justice)". [AR].

Those are truly beautiful words to live by. Here's a few more...

"Owe nothing to anyone except to love and seek the best for one another"

Those two are the bedrock foundation of American Capitalism.

Greg

[anthony]

1 minute ago, moralist said:

I don't make any distinction between the two, Tony.

There's no need to chase after justice as if it was externally elusive. When a person is just in their own life first by being fair and honest in their dealings with others, they will naturally find their own kind who will be just with them.

Greg

Chase? Ha, not so. Fairness and honesty are not elusive for you, so why should justice be so for anyone (e.g., me)? The Law and Justice is not anything I have total control over, justice I do.

[moralist]

17 minutes ago, anthony said:

Chase? Ha, not so. Fairness and honesty are not elusive for you, so why should justice be so for anyone (e.g., me)? The Law and Justice is not anything I have total control over, justice I do.

Being personally just is what protects you from the Law and Justice in the world over which you have no control. That's why I don't make any distinction between the two...

... when only one is the sole determinant of your own personal experience of justice. 

 

Greg

[anthony]

5 minutes ago, moralist said:

Being personally just is what protects you from the Law and Justice in the world over which you have no control. That's why I don't make any distinction between the two...

... when only one is the sole determinant of your own personal experience of justice. 

 

Greg

That's a great country you live in. But even there, there will be the distinction.

[moralist]

13 minutes ago, anthony said:

That's a great country you live in. But even there, there will be the distinction.

There may be a distinction for others, Tony... but my point is that to the extent that I'm internally just... that is the extent to which I'm protected from external Law and Justice.

What's inside of us overrides everything outside of us.

In my whole life, I've had zero involvement with the justice system here, except for serving on jury duty. It's a fascinating experience to be a participant in rendering a just verdict in a trial.

Greg

[Peter]

What is *justice*? I looked for Ghs and the word “justice.” Hopefully there are not repeats.

Peter

From: "George H. Smith *Atlantis" Subject: ATL: Re: Natural rights??? Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 21:34:57 -0600 Joe Maurone wrote (to Morganis): "Maybe my problem is that when I hear the term" natural rights", I take it to mean that some entity named Nature enforces this right to life. But if nature is red and tooth and claw... I think immediately to the term" natural causes"..."

 

The term "natural rights" became especially popular during the 18^th Century Enlightenment. And when philosophers of this period used phrases like "natural rights," "natural religion," "natural morality," and even "natural revelation," they often meant "natural" in contradistinction to "supernatural."

 

"Natural," in this context, pertained to man's natural faculties, especially reason -- so a "natural right" was a kind of moral claim that could be justified solely with the use of reason, without recourse to divine inspiration or supernatural decree. Similar, "natural religion" (i.e., deism) consisted only of claims that could be justified by reason alone, without recourse to faith or "special revelation," such as found in the Bible. The same idea applies to "natural laws," which referred to general principles, including those of science (then called "natural philosophy"),  that can be known without recourse to anything except our natural faculty of reason.

 

Later, with the widespread eclipse of religious justifications, "natural rights" were often contrasted with legal -- or so-called "positive" -- rights." Natural rights theory stood opposed to the legal positivism of Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarian disciplines, according to which all legitimate rights originate in the decrees of a sovereign authority, or State.

 

A natural right, in contrast to a positive right, was seen as an enforceable moral claim that was possessed by all human beings in virtue of their common nature as moral agents, regardless of what a government may or may not authorize. And "moral agency"  -- i.e., the interaction of reason and volition --  was regarded as the essential characteristic in question.

 

Thus neither usage of "natural rights" had anything to do with "nature" enforcing, or even issuing, some kind of decree. "Natural" in one case simply denoted a moral claim justified solely by the natural faculty of reason, without recourse to supernatural authorities or decrees. In the other case it meant "pertaining to the nature, or essential characteristics of man" -- and when this idea was incorporated within a theory of "natural justice," it signified a moral claim that could override the unjust decrees of government.

 

The result was a immensely radical and influential theory that spawned pro-freedom revolutions in England, America, France, and elsewhere.

Ghs

 

From: "George H. Smith To: "Atlantis" Subject: ATL: Re: O'ist Ethics Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 14:08:44 -0600. I wrote: "And while you're at it, please explain what Rand meant when she expressly repudiated, as a tenet of statism, the notion that "the good of *some* men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals" (CUI, p.21). For if I ignore or violate the rights of others in the name of my solipsistic "self-interest," am I not treating them as "sacrificial animals" whose interests may legitimately be subordinated to my own? Are you saying that Rand, by her own definition, was an advocate of statism and collectivism?"

 

And Gayle Dean replied: "No, quite the contrary.  I agree with Rand, but I interpret her to mean what I have been arguing all along...that sacrificing individuals to a group is wrong.  That is what I interpret your view to be advocating and to a somewhat lesser degree, and in a different way --Bill's argument as well.  In my view, you all have adopted this same statist principle, by denying the individual cases that should be subsumed by it.  For example, IF it is in a terminal cancer patients interests to rob a bank and take a final trip to Rome, then to hold him to the principle -- is in fact "his" sacrificing his interests to the collective.  And this is the problem as I see it ... perhaps it is a problem in making the leap from egoistic ethics to ethics in a social context...I don't know."

 

Let us clearly understand what Gayle is claiming here. She is claiming that Rand was opposed only to the coercive sacrifice of the individual to a *group*, but was *not* opposed to the coercive sacrifice of one *individual* to another individual, if the aggressor deems this to be in his own self-interest. Thus, according to Gayle, Rand would condemn the dying man who refuses to rob a bank in order to finance a final trip to Rome.  Why? Because this person would be practicing altruism, in effect, by "sacrificing his interests to the collective."

 

Will someone please get me a paper bag while I hyperventilate?

 

Rand repeatedly states that groups or collectives per se do not exist, but are merely collections of individuals, so the sacrifice of an individual to the "group" is in fact a sacrifice of one individual to other individuals.

 

More importantly, Gayle's interpretation stands everything Rand stood for on its head. Fortunately for us, Rand  specifically addresses the issue of pursuing one's "self-interest" via robbery in the Introduction to VOS (p. ix): "There is a fundamental moral difference between the man who sees his self-interest in production and the man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does *not* lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in *what* he regards as to his own interests; *not* in the fact that he pursues his values, but in *what* he chose to value; *not* in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level. (see "The Objectivist Ethics)."

 

This is part of Rand's rejection of what she calls "the beneficiary criterion of morality" (p. viii). The morality of an action does not depend on whether it is altruistic or selfish, but whether it is *right* for man qua man, as judged by an objective standard of value. This is the point of her remark (which immediately follows the above passage) that "what I mean by 'selfishness' is not what is meant conventionally." Rand's egoism upholds the "man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others." There is no mention of a "group" here (or in dozens of similar passages).  The traditional view of "selfishness" is flawed, according to Rand, because "it permits no concept of *justice*" (ix). Yet it is precisely this conventional view of "selfishness" -- an egoism without justice -- that Gayle is attributing to Rand.

 

There are many, many additional passages to support my contention that the recognition of rights (justice) is inextricably linked to Rand's notion of *rational* self-interest, and that the two cannot be severed. Gayle's interpretation of Rand is way beyond the pale.

 

Gayle wrote: "But, there are three different formulations going on here. Your's and Ellen's which seems to derive (as far as I can tell) from "rationality," and mine and Bill's, which while both derive from egoism -- come at it in different ways."

 

I am not here concerned with our different approaches to egoism, but with Rand's own views. Gayle may disagree with Rand's point that justice -- a respect for the rights of others -- is an integral component of rational self-interest, but that is not the issue that is currently being debated.

 

In my earlier post, I wrote: "Okay, so rather than citing Ari or some other interpreter of Rand, please quote a passage *directly* from Rand where she says that the rights of others are contingent on my personal assessments of "self-interest," and that I can legitimately violate the rights of others when I deem it in my "self-interest" to do so."

 

Gayle did not quote any passage to this effect because no such passage exists.

Ghs

 

From: "George H. Smith" To: <atlantis >Subject: ATL: Re: Rand's emergency ethics (was Why be moral when you have cancer?) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 22:14:18 –0600, Bill Dwyer wrote: "Moreover, to say that a person has a right to his property simply means that others have an obligation not to steal it or to use against the owner's wishes.  But if the starving man has no such obligation, then by stealing the property, he does not violate the owner's right against ~his~ (the starving man's) stealing it, since in that situation, the owner has no such right.  The owner does, however, have a right to be paid back when and to the extent that the starving man is able to do so, and in keeping with that right, the starving man does, of course, have a future ~obligation~ to repay him (for which I gave a rationale in my previous post).  I agree that by repaying him when he is able to, the starving man does, as Rand says, recognize the property right of the owner, because the owner has a right to that repayment."

 

Property rights, if Bill is correct, would die the death of a thousand qualifications. If I have a right to the food that I own, does this mean that my right does *not* apply to the millions of starving people in the world, who may expropriate it as they please without violating any moral principles?  What kind of *right* is this? Certainly not the kind that Ayn Rand ever wrote about. On the contrary, to maintain that my rights do not apply if only your needs are sufficiently desperate -- e.g., during an "emergency" --runs directly contrary to everything that Ayn Rand ever wrote against altruism.  We find the source of Bill's tortured interpretation -- I know of no other way to describe it -- in his opening paragraph: "A moral principle is designed to enable one to make choices.  That is its purpose.  Therefore, true moral principles cannot conflict.  I cannot have a moral obligation to refrain from stealing someone's property, on the one hand, and a moral right (i.e., a justification) to steal it on the other.  By "moral on both parts", I believe that Rand was referring to the morality of stealing the food when the man's life depended on it, and the morality of paying it back when he could afford to do so."

 

I agree with the last part of Bill's statement. But why would Rand argue that you are  morally obligated to provide restitution, even after an "emergency" situation, unless she also believed that your theft did indeed violate the property rights of the owner?

 

An emergency situation, according to Rand, is one in which there exists a legitimate conflict of interests -- and therefore a conflict between one's self-interest and the precepts of justice. But she nowhere says or suggests that rights somehow disappear in an emergency situation. (Nor, for that matter, does she argue that one is morally *obligated* to pursue one's own interests at the expense of justice; she merely treats this as a morally legitimate option.) In such a case, we are indeed faced with "true moral principles" which conflict, and which one must seek to reconcile in some fashion.

 

In rereading several of Rand's essays, including "Man's Rights," "The Ethics of Emergencies," and "The Conflicts of Men's Interests," I have been unable to find a scintilla of textual evidence that supports Bill's interpretation. Where does Rand ever say, or imply, that my rights are in any way dependent on your needs?

 

Suppose, to revert to Rand's emergency example, that the owner of the food happened to return while I was in his house.  Would he have the right to evict me by force, if necessary? Yes, of course he would, and I cannot imagine that Rand would ever deny this. Yet, if I am not violating his rights at that moment, then on what basis could his use of force against me be justified? For violence, according to Rand, is justified only in defense of one's rights -- so if Bill is correct, if I am *not* violating the owner's rights, then his action against me could not be justified. He would be *initiating* force against me if I were not violating his rights, even though I am in *his* house and eating *his* food.

 

Does Bill seriously wish to attribute this position to Rand? If so, must you first inquire whether the aggressor (a thief, in this case) is facing an "emergency" before you have the right to repel him with force?

 

If this is not Bill's position, if he agrees that the owner would have the right to evict me from his house with force, even though I am embroiled in an emergency, then it is clear that I must be violating his rights in some fashion -- or he would

 

"George H. Smith" To: "*Atlantis" <atlantis> Subject: ATL: Re: Emergencies Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:45:28 -0600 Will Wilkinson wrote: "Rand did argue that there is no path from one person's needs to another's obligations. So think of it this way... According to Rand, rights are necessary for liberty, liberty for the exercise of reason, the exercise of reason for life and happiness. Having your rights respected means not being aggressed upon. So, by the transitivity of necessity, we all need to not be agressed upon for life and happiness.

 

Now, if I happen to need to agress upon you to survive, it remains that you need to not be aggressed upon. We have conflicting needs. Now, since there is no way to get from a need to an obligation, your need not to be agressed upon doesn't morally oblige me not to do so, and my need to aggress upon you doesn't morally oblige you to allow me. The altruist position would either say that your need not to be agressed upon obliges me not to (George's position, it seems, in which the need not to  be agressed upon is more special than other needs) or that my need to agress upon you obliges you to let me (nobody's position). In situations like this, one can choose how to phrase it. Either rights disappear, or they don't disappear, but one is under no obligation to heed them."

 

Let us recall how Rand addressed the emergency situation: "But to state the issue in brief, I would say that you would have the right to break in and eat the food that you need, and then when you reach the nearest policeman, admit what you have done, and undertake to repay the man when you are able to work. In other words, you may, in an emergency situation, save your life, but not as "of right." You would regard it as an emergency, and then, still recognizing the property right of the owner, you would restitute whatever you have taken, and that would be moral on both parts."

 

There is a possible confusion here, inasmuch as Rand says (1) "that you would have the right to break in and eat the food that you need," and (2) "you may, in an emergency situation, save your life, but not as 'of right.'"

 

Now what does it mean to say that you "have the right to do x," but cannot do x "as of right"? What kind of distinction was Rand making between these two usages of "right"?

 

Here is my take on this problem: Rand was speaking off the cuff, not writing an essay, so she was using "right" in the first sense in the same loose, informal way that many people use it, i.e., to mean "morally justified." Thus a wife who discovers her husband's infidelity might say, "You had no right to cheat on me." Or we might say to a deceitful friend, "You had no right to lie to me." Or we might say, "I had a right to expect more from you."

 

Such usages of "a right" refer to unenforceable moral claims against other people, i.e., moral claims that, since they do not involve the violation of rights, do not fall within the purview of *justice* and so cannot be coercively enforced. In modern political theory (such as we find in Pufendorf, Locke, and Hutcheson) these were often called "imperfect rights"; they were unenforceable moral claims, such as the "right" to be treated with due consideration by one's friends and with respect by one's children.

 

"Perfect rights," in contrast, were regarded as juridical rights (i.e., those pertaining to matters of justice) which may be coercively enforced. When Rand says that you may save your life in an emergency situation, "but not as 'of right,'" she is obviously making an important point (and one which Bill, Gayle, and others have not considered). What she is here saying, in my opinion, is that you have no juridical (or "perfect") right to another person's property, even in an emergency -- i.e., that you cannot expropriate his property as a matter of *justice.* In other words, you have in fact violated the other person's right to his property, so you must provide restitution.

 

This is the point of Rand's conclusion that, by providing restitution, you do what would be "moral on both parts." The two "parts" referred to here are the two different meanings of "right" -- one imperfect, the other perfect (as previously defined). In other words, it is restitution that ultimately reconciles what would otherwise be a conflict between your morally justified action, on the one hand, and the rights of others, on the other hand.

 

Given this, I cannot agree that Rand viewed juridical rights are irrelevant to emergencies. I cannot agree with Will that, according to Rand, "one is under no obligation to heed them." There is clearly an obligation, as indicated by Rand's stress on the need for restitution. What Rand is saying is that a juridical right may not be the *paramount* obligation during an emergency. But to say this is manifestly *not* to say that this obligation ceases to exist altogether. The starving man has stolen another man's property, to which he had no juridical right (i.e., his action was not "of right"). He has violated the owner's rights and so must pay restitution, even though he did so out of extreme need and may have been morally justified.

This simply means that other considerations may sometimes outweigh our obligation to respect the rights of other persons. It does not mean that their rights cease to exist altogether, and with them our obligations.  For if I am obligated to restitute the owner, as Rand insisted, then I must clearly have violated his rights in some fashion. I owe him restitution as a matter of *justice,* not merely because I happen to be a nice guy. I owe him restitution as a matter "of right."

 

Look at it this way: If, when confronted with an emergency, I injure an innocent person or deprive him of his property, would that person have the juridical right -- and I am speaking here of justice, not merely law -- to demand restitution from me, and to extract that restitution by force, if need be? Yes, of course he would. But he could have no such restitutive claims against me UNLESS I HAD FIRST VIOLATED HIS RIGHTS. Does Bill, Will or anyone else wish to argue that an innocent victim has no right to demand restitution from me, if my actions were taken under the duress of an emergency for which the victim was in no way responsible? On what possible moral grounds can we lay the burden of *my* misfortune on him in this manner?

 

I am not saying that I personally agree with every aspect of this analysis. I am presenting it as the most reasonable interpretation of Rand's approach, taking into account her explicit statements in the emergency example and her manner of treating rights in various essays. As I have said repeatedly, to maintain that my needs can nullify the rights of others goes against everything that Rand ever wrote against altruism.

 

Ghs From: "George H. Smith" To: "*Atlantis" <atlantis> Subject: ATL: Ragnar, Rearden, and Justice Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:38:08 -0600

 

What's so special about rights, according to Ayn Rand's moral theory? After all, she defends egoism -- if of the natural-law variety – and rights appear to be "other regarding," in the sense that they demand we take the interests of others into account while pursuing our own interests.

 

The question is not merely how Rand justified rights, but also *why* she placed such great emphasis on justice within her egoistic ethics. This is a very complex issue, but one place to begin is by exploring the views of Ragnar Danneskjold and Hank Rearden in "Atlas Shrugged."

 

Ragnar describes the state of the world as follows: "There are two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either."

 

Ragnar depicts the world of "Atlas Shrugged" as having degenerated, in effect, into a Hobbesian state of nature, a world of conflicting interests (or what Hobbes called "a war of every man against every man") in which one must choose between exploiting others or being exploited by others. Thus it also represents a variant of the "emergency" situation that we have been discussing.

 

Yet Ragnar "did not choose to be either" exploited or exploiter. What did he choose instead? When he is asked by Rearden, "But what sort of life have you chosen? To what purpose are you using your mind?" -- Ragnar replies with the single word, "Justice" (AS, Signet pb, 539)

 

Now Ragnar appears to the public as the most "selfish" of individuals in the conventional sense, a pirate who steals from others for his own benefit. Yet even in the degenerate social situation in which he finds himself, he nonetheless presents "justice" as the motive power of his life. Ragnar had  devoted himself to the cause of justice in the sense that his "piracy" was an ambitious scheme to provide restitution to those who, like Rearden, had had their wealth expropriated by others.

 

Ragnar was fighting "the idea that need is a sacred idol requiring human sacrifices," and he was opposing the popular symbol of Robin Hood, according to which "need, not achievement, is the source of rights" Ragnar, in other words, was combating the altruistic notion that "in order to be placed above principles, above morality, placed where anything is permitted to him, even plunder and murder, all a man has to do is to be in need" (p. 540).

 

Such passages (which recur throughout Rand's writings) are a clear indication that Rand did not believe that the rights of one person are contingent on the needs of others, even during an emergency where interests conflict, for Ragnar was operating within precisely that kind of crisis situation -- a global emergency, so to speak, in which the world was in "ruins" (p. 543).

 

More interesting, however, is the question of how an egoist like Ragnar could devote himself to the cause of justice, even in cases where he did not appear to benefit personally. Here is what Ragnar says:

 

"Because my only love, the only value I care to live for, is that which has never been loved by the world, has never won recognition or friends or defenders: human ability. That is the love I am serving -- and if I should lose my life, to what better purpose could I give it" (p. 543).

 

Thus Ragnar was willing to *lose* his life in pursuit of the ideal of human ability, and while engaged in the struggle for justice. Moreover, although Rearden initially disapproves of Ragnar's methods, he too expresses a similar devotion to principles:

 

"I'll tell you that I have no hope left, but I have the knowledge that when the end comes, I will have lived by my own standards, even while I was the only one to whom they remained valid. I will have lived in the world in which I started and I will go down with the last of it."

 

This reinforces the point that the entire scenario of "Atlas Shrugged" is a prolonged state of emergency, in which some of the protagonists do not even expect to survive. Yet what do these "egoists" do in this situation? They adhere to their principles, especially the principle of justice, as essential to their well-being. As Rearden says elsewhere, "I do not recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life....[N]obody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices....[W]hen you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all...." (p. 452).

 

The relevant point here is that, according to Rand, adherence to the principle of justice -- a respect for the rights of others – is inextricably linked to one's *rational* self-interest, even during the kind of emergency situation that is depicted in "Atlas Shrugged." Indeed, Ragnar, Rearden and other Randian heroes are willing to sacrifice their own lives in pursuit of justice, including (in Ragnar's case) justice for others.

 

I won't here discuss why Rand took this view; I merely wish to emphasize that this was in fact her view. She did not adopt the position that your rights are contingent on my needs, or on my personal calculations of self-interest. Your rights are to be respected, period, to whatever extent is possible in a given situation. Does this mean that Rand was not really an egoist? Of course not. Rather, it means that Rand was correct in distinguishing her conception of "self-interest" from the conventional view.

 

Those who claim otherwise need to examine with care how Rand viewed the role of abstract principles, such as justice, in one's pursuit of happiness. Adherence to principles, for Rand, is an essential component of moral integrity, and such integrity, in turn, is necessary for happiness. And this is so even if it may result in one's death.

Ghs

[Peter]

Justice? What are you? As the originator of this thread wonders, is a deity required for morality? Should a government in a time of war limit the rights of its citizens or consider bombing the enemy if innocent lives are put in jeopardy? Do *Rules* like the Star Trek Prime Directive supersede individual *rights* and *Justice*? In the following synopsis, an injured Enterprise crewman is discovered by aliens. Should Picard ignore the rights of the injured crewman and leave him on the planet unattended to, just to keep from further contaminating the culture of the alien planet? In the following famous episode after cultural contamination Picard decides to beam aboard the female leader of the aliens, who is highly intelligent and rational. When he shows the bronze age woman the Enterprise . . . it is inspiring. What great writing.

Peter

From Wikipedia. Prime Directive. In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive is the guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets. The Prime Directive, used in five of the six Star Trek-based series, prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations. This conceptual law applies particularly to civilizations which are below a certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development; preventing starship crews from using their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on them. Since its introduction in the first season of the original Star Trek series, it has served as the focus of numerous episodes of the various series. As time travel became a recurring feature in the franchise, the concept was expanded as a Temporal Prime Directive, prohibiting those under its orders from interfering in historical events. end quote

From Wikipedia. Star Trek episode, “Who Watches the Watchers?” ‘ Federation starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, arrives at the planet Mintaka III to resupply and repair a Federation outpost being used to monitor the Mintakan people, a proto-Vulcan race near a Bronze Age level of cultural development. As the Enterprise assists the outpost, an accident causes the holographic rockface to disappear, exposing the outpost to Liko, a Mintakan. Liko attempts to approach and is hit with an electrical shock, which causes him to fall off the cliff and sustain critical injuries. When Chief Medical Officer Dr. Crusher rushes to provide aid, she realizes the injuries are too severe to treat there and has him transported to the Enterprise for treatment despite the action violating the Prime Directive. Liko becomes conscious and witnesses everything occurring in Sick Bay, and focuses on Picard giving instructions. Dr. Crusher is able to heal Liko and attempts to wipe his memory of the incident before returning him to the planet. First Officer Riker suggests that he and Counselor Troi disguise themselves as Mintakans in order to search for Palmer, a missing member of the anthropological team, and to monitor Liko, to make sure the memory wipe worked. They discover to their horror that the mind wipe did not take, as Liko recalls an image of "the Picard", and has convinced other Mintakans that the Picard must be their god.

Troi and Riker subtly try to dispel the myth of the Picard, which gains traction as a hunting party arrives with a delirious Palmer in tow. While Troi provides a diversion, telling the clan that another "like Palmer" is heading for the caves, Riker ties up an elderly man who was left behind to keep an eye on Palmer, and Riker and Palmer run away, and narrowly escape back to the Enterprise. Unfortunately, Troi is captured and held captive for her hand in the escape, leaving Picard to take steps to rectify the situation without further violation of the Prime Directive. He transports Nuria, the leader of the village where Troi is being held, to the Enterprise and attempts to show her that he and the rest of the crew are mortal, including having her witness the death of a crewman in Sickbay. Picard returns with Nuria to the surface in the middle of a thunderstorm, which Liko has taken as a sign of the Picard's anger. Nuria attempts to rationalize with Liko, but Liko demands his own proof of Picard's mortality and aims an arrow at Picard. Picard insists that if that is the only proof that Liko will accept, then Liko should shoot. Liko does, but his daughter pushes him so that he only wounds Picard. Nuria shows Liko Picard's blood from the wound, and Liko and the others come to accept that Picard is not a god. Picard and Troi return to the Enterprise, and after he is treated, Picard returns to the surface one last time, and explains to the Mintakans that they will be removing the outpost and allowing them to develop on their own. Before Picard leaves, Nuria gives Picard a Mintakan tapestry as a gift. end quote

[anthony]

"The basic *social* principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others--and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacificing himself to others, nor sacificing others to himself." VoS, p.27

Justice the virtue, is separate from individual rights like anyone's morality is. Evidently - many varieties of ethical systems have existed in a society and will continue to do so - regardless of which - individual rights, all can enjoy and benefit by. And not. Whoever (whatever) he is, he must have his freedom to act as he sees fit. A respect for his rights is not however the "justice" given to another. The rational person regards all lives as ends in themselves, as the metaphysical premise of the "basic social principle". But simply respecting others' rights isn't sufficient indicator of how rational one is. Rights aren't a morality.

Justice, conversely, is a rational and selfish objective judgment of someone, individually. I.e. by his observed actions: his character - integrity, pride, productiveness etc.(or shortage of) for one's own good. "In spirit", [AR] indicates to me that 'one's own good' certainly extends to the fact of a good, rational person's existence as end in himself, from which to take pleasure and spiritual benefit, while perhaps, nothing more. (Nothing 'material').

There is a disjunct beween libertarian individual rights and Objectivist individual rights I think.

[BaalChatzaf]

18 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Jeez, another blockhead. Why am I not surprised? For the benefit of others, here's an example:

Diagonally in the Square of Opposition, only one predicate can be true (they are contradictory; contradictions cannot exist). Therefore, either "All propositions are true" or "Not all propositions are true." Either "Some propositions are true" or "No propositions are true." It is a proof that some but not all propositions are true.

Here is a valid syllogism in the figure AAA

all mice are trees

all trees are plants

all mice are plants.

two false premises yield a false conclusion validly

all mice are trees

all tress are rodents

all mice are rodents

another valid syllogism in the figure AAA

one true premise, one false premise yield a true conclusion  validly

validity of the argument form has NOTHING to do with the truth of the premises,  however true premises  always produce a true conclusion.  In Aristotelian logic truth value is never reduced by a valid categorical inference.  

 

I was a paid logician for 40 years, sonny.   Don't argue logic with me.  I know it much better than you do.

I have forgotten more logic than you ever knew. 

[BaalChatzaf]

18 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Don't be deliberately stupid, sir. You'd find yourself in need of definition of revenge (or any other word you use).

I am not being deliberately stupid.  I am deliberately making a true point.  Justice is not well defined. It never has been.  The closest thing to justice the human race has produce is the lex talionis.    An eye for an eye,  a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life.  This was first codified by Hamarabi  about 3,300 years ago.

Both rational justice and revenge  fit this equivalence pattern.  One person's revenge is another person's justice  --- sometimes. 

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am not being deliberately stupid.  I am deliberately making a true point.  Justice is not well defined. It never has been.  The closest thing to justice the human race has produce is the lex talionis.    An eye for an eye,  a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life.  This was first codified by Hamarabi  about 3,300 years ago.

Both rational justice and revenge  fit this equivalence pattern.  One person's revenge is another person's justice  --- sometimes. 

It's a shame, really, but I'm going to ignore you from now on. Adios, blockhead.

[Brant Gaede]

5 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am not being deliberately stupid.  I am deliberately making a true point.  Justice is not well defined. It never has been.  The closest thing to justice the human race has produce is the lex talionis.    An eye for an eye,  a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life.  This was first codified by Hamarabi  about 3,300 years ago.

Both rational justice and revenge  fit this equivalence pattern.  One person's revenge is another person's justice  --- sometimes. 

This is what happens when you are stuck in your science mode. And that mode here--your post--is not science for science doesn't travel to justice and morality and the general complicatedness of human existence. All you have for justice is this primitiveness.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

5 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 I was a paid logician for 40 years, sonny.   Don't argue logic with me.  I know it much better than you do.

I have forgotten more logic than you ever knew. 

 

What logic are you now deficient in having forgotten it?

--Brant

[moralist]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I was a paid logician for 40 years, sonny. 

Bob was just a paid bureaucratic chimp...

...however, he should take that as a compliment since he chose monkeys as the ideal model for his own behavior.

 

Greg

[moralist]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am not being deliberately stupid...

...because that requires no deliberation at all.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

This is what happens when you are stuck in your science mode. And that mode here--your post--is not science for science doesn't travel to justice and morality and the general complicatedness of human existence. All you have for justice is this primitiveness.

--Brant

Science mode is reason and sanity mode.  yes. I am stuck in it and gladly so!

The point is,  there is no sure way of distinguishing justice and revenge. 

[Wolf DeVoon]

Disgusting. This, from a man who cannot define justice.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

 

What logic are you now deficient in having forgotten it?

--Brant

I think I have forgotten (and gladly so) the Latin acronyms for  valid Aristotelian  categorical syllogisms.   Aristotle's logic was the first formulation of the principles of logical reasoning.  He based his logic on categorical propositions  and categorical syllogisms.  Which are correct as far as they go. Aristotle's logic was not capable of handling multiple place relations  such as Taller(x,y)  = x is taller than y  or  Between(x,y,z) =  x, y, z are co-linear  and y is between x and z.  It also could not handle    Tail(x,y)   x is the tail of y.   As a result  the following cannot be proved using Aristotle's  categorical syllogisms:

All lions are animals

x is the tail of a lion

therefore x is the tail of an animal. 

or put another way:  the tail of a lion is the tail of an animal. 

Aristotle's logic was not fit for mathematical proofs.  However around the same time as Aristotle taught so this the Stoics.  The formulated a logic based on what we now call Boolean Propositional Logic.  It was based on the condition    if   x then y.  (x -> y).  The mode of proof.  If it is the case that if x then y   and x  is true, we can conclude y is true. This is written x,  x->y |-  y.  This rule is called modus ponens in Latin.   This is a logical foirm later rediscovered by George Boole in 1849  and was the first step in the development of modern mathematical logic.  Frege then spun off of what Boole did and developed modern predicate logic  which later was expanded into set theory,  the basis of almost all mathematical systems.  Aristotle's  syllogistic logic is primarily of historical interest these days. 

As a note of interest Fred Sommers and George Englebertsen  developed a term logic which was an extension of Aristotle's syllogistic  which is capable of dealing with multi-place relations. It is a kind of symbolic logic that models arguments made in natural language and opposed to purely mathematical forms of logic.  The technical name for this extension is Term Logic. A metalogical discipline that  can show the limits of Term Logic as not been fully developed.  

There is a meta-logical discipline which applies  to first, second and higher order predicate calculus and some interesting results have been proven in this context including the Godel Incompleteness Theorems and various undecidabillity results.  Godel, Turing, Post and Church made the most important contributions to this discipline. 

[BaalChatzaf]

3 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Disgusting. This, from a man who cannot define justice.

And you -can- define justice?  In such a way that it is universally acceptable?  That I have to see with my own eyes before I believe it. 

I can work with legal/illegal.  That is a matter of applied logic.   Justice/Injustice has never been fully  worked out.  

The best I can claim in my own private intuition on what is just and not just  but I would never propose that as a system for the world.  It is my own private system and it has a significant subjective component,  which is why I would never propose it for anyone but myself. 

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Science mode is reason and sanity mode.  yes. I am stuck in it and gladly so!

The point is,  there is no sure way of distinguishing justice and revenge. 

Strictly speaking there is in law--what the law says. It may be the objectification through codification of subjective preferences, but law has its legal logic. Read, know and apply the law.

Down deeper justice has moral roots and is expressed as retribution. Revenge is too harsh and narrow an idea and is generally a private matter until it hits the law wall. It's not supposed to have a public (government) reality. Revenge is displaced by retribution by and through the law. The retribution through the public weal and sanction gives the victims some measure of solace revenge generally vitiates as classically illustrated by the Hatfields and McCoys.

--Brant

retribution is constructive and revenge destructive and all revenge hurts the revenger so only be one with your eyes wide open