"The Objectivist Death Cult"

[Matus1976]

..but killing human beings no matter who they are is a grim business and not the business of the Objectivist philosophy which is about the positive, productive, creative and rational side of being a human being.

--Brant

What about killing Hitler or Stalin is not "positive, productive, creative and rational"? Some people need killing. We should celebrate their deaths and the people who kill them.

here here! we cross posted the same sentiment...

...with their cumulative death toll of almost 200 million innocents, there could have been no greater tribute to justice, reason, and productivity than killing any one of those scumbags

[tjohnson]

No, it was about murder, or killing in general, MichelleR stated that it is sometimes justified, but never good or noble, writing:

"There is nothing good or noble about murder. The question is whether the murder is morally justifiable or not"

If something is justified, then it is right, always good, and in some cases noble depending on your definition. Something can not be JUST AND wrong that is a conceptual perversion.

Before that Michelle wrote;

That being said, I'm not a pacifist, either. If this country wishes to maintain its freedoms, it'll have to do some killing. But let's be as rational as we can about the killing, and let us not delude ourselves into thinking that the enemy is a part of the evil hordes of Mordor. If some women and children have to die in the process, so be it, but don't say that we are not responsible for the deaths we deliver them to, or that it is good and noble to mow down foreigners without regard to what role they are playing. A person does not deserve to die because they live in the wrong country.

If you can just kill the evil people that's great but, in reality, this is not usually possible.

[Michelle]

Uh-huh.

I'm not wasting any energy on this.

Just stay away from me and my own.

Uh-huh... I'm curious how you can simultaneously consider something JUST... AND *Wrong* But hey, don't let me get in the way of your contradictory premises.

People sometimes seek the truth, but most prefer like-minded views

http://www.physorg.com/news165643839.html

"Perhaps more surprisingly, people who have little confidence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose themselves to contrary views than people who are very confident in their own ideas"

In fact, if you read my posts in this thread, you will find our opinions differ very little, the major difference is that you find something RIGHT and JUST (intentionally killing an evil person) as someone wrong, never good, never noble. I can only suspect this is some remnant pacifistic tendency, since you still advocating defending values rationally, but for some reason don't think it's morally praiseworthy if it results in the justified killing of an evil person.

By what standard would you say that killing another human being is morally justified? What does a person need to do to deserve death in your eyes?

(And I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm honestly asking.)

[Michelle]

If you can just kill the evil people that's great but, in reality, this is not usually possible.

Fine. But let's not pretend that it is noble to kill innocents in the process. War is a messy business, and these things happen, but no innocent deserves to be killed for living in the wrong country.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I know what I felt when I first saw, and then posted, the hanging of Saddam Hussein on OL.

A grim sense of correctness, sadness that life shouldn't have to be that way, relief that it was over, and in terms of Hussein's life itself, I did feel indifference. I did not like that feeling, either, but I cannot imagine myself feeling anything different.

If I could have been the one to operate the gallows on him, I would have done it without a second thought. But it would have been in the same spirit as I would have when cleaning up a large mess.

I did not rejoice in the death of that man just as I do not rejoice in cleaning up messes. It would have granted him far too much value in my view of existence. Hanging a man of that level of monstrosity or keeping him in prison for the rest of his life is a matter of insignificant detail inside me. He is no longer in power and no longer among us. That is the only value I feel for him as a human being, for the fact that he existed at all.

Actually there is a very faint feeling of embarrassment I also experience when I think that I belong to the same species as this man. I can't do anything about that fact, but the slight touch of bitterness and shame is there anyway.

I am delighted my subconscious is in perfect alignment with my conscious convictions on this.

Michael

[Michelle]

It might do well to note that I am not at all fully confident in my views in this regard. I have not thought through this issue as much as I have thought through other things. Discussing it will do well for me. Either I'll learn the errors in my own approach or the errors in the approaches of others. Either way, I win. And I don't mind admitting this. Knowledge is not gained automatically, I'm still relatively young, and I am confident that if I bounce this issue around enough the truth of the matter will emerge.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michelle,

Let me give you some rather non-Objectivist advice: go with your heart on this issue, then follow with your head. (But do both.)

You are a really good person. That is worth preserving over all else.

Michael

[ginny]

This thread is turning spooky. Celebrating someone's death? Sure, some people deserve killing, Hitler and company being the obvious winners here. But one would kill out of necessity (to rid the world of their evil). I can't imagine celebrating their deaths. Or anyone's death. I mean, what kind of a cake would you order?

Ginny

Edited July 1, 2009 by ginny

[Brant Gaede]

I am not amused that someone who has probably never killed anyone or is unlikely to is telling us how he would feel about it if he were to kill a monster like Hitler or Stalin. Let's get a little more practical: In effect the crews that dropped the atomic bombs were killing Tojo and the military rulers of Japan. I've never read anywhere where any of them experienced any "profound joy." Of course, when Japan then surrendered the soldiers and the families of soldiers who weren't going to die invading Japan felt tremendous joy. Why? No more killing. The country--our country--went wild in celebration.

--Brant

[Michelle]

I can't help but feel suspicious of anyone who would celebrate death. If you killed a tyrant, and felt pride, would not the feeling of pride come from having liberated a people from tyranny, and not from killing the creature?

[Michelle]

Michelle,

Let me give you some rather non-Objectivist advice: go with your heart on this issue, then follow with your head. (But do both.)

You are a really good person. That is worth preserving over all else.

Michael

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how a person can take almost any philosophy and use it to rationalize the significance of the lives of others out of existence.

[ginny]

Michael - "go with your heart on this issue ..." I love it. You mean go with your emotions!! It's funny, but I'm currently in need of something to read and have picked up The Fountainhead after many years. Yesterday, I got to the scene where Roar interviews for the Stoddard Temple. Every fiber of his body is SCREAMING not to sign with Stoddard. He doesn't feel good about this at all. Yet he goes with his head.

Imagine how much smarter he'd been had he gone with his gut? I like to think things out, but if my emotions interfere, I assume there's a damn good reason and I don't budge till I get to the bottom of it. My emotions are actually pretty damn smart and spot on as a rule.

Ginny

[Michelle]

Michael - "go with your heart on this issue ..." I love it. You mean go with your emotions!! It's funny, but I'm currently in need of something to read and have picked up The Fountainhead after many years. Yesterday, I got to the scene where Roar interviews for the Stoddard Temple. Every fiber of his body is SCREAMING not to sign with Stoddard. He doesn't feel good about this at all. Yet he goes with his head.

Imagine how much smarter he'd been had he gone with his gut? I like to think things out, but if my emotions interfere, I assume there's a damn good reason and I don't budge till I get to the bottom of it. My emotions are actually pretty damn smart and spot on as a rule.

Ginny

People will many times intuit something that they are unable to immediately recognize conceptually. In that case, Roark knew the signals of an unprincipled an disingenuous man on a subconscious level, but he had no rational, conceptual reason to refuse the commission.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Michelle R

[ginny]

Michelle - EXACTLY!!

[Matus1976]

By what standard would you say that killing another human being is morally justified? What does a person need to do to deserve death in your eyes?

(And I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm honestly asking.)

That is a good question, well first of all I would say in self defense in a generally proportionate level of response, e.g. if someone is tries to pick your pocket shooting him is not appropriate, but if he is brandishing a gun and acting in a threatening manner, it is. But I don't think that's what you're referring to, and once the immediate threat to you is removed, the nature of what is just or not changes. It's not appropriate for someone to knife a mugger 3 days after they were mugged, the delayed retaliation of force is the province of law enforcement agencies and must be subjected to appropriate legal and moral standards (you might be mistaken for instance if that person was actually your mugger) ... I can't say I am a fan of capital punishment either, mostly because mistakes can be made and permanent sequestration is good enough, but in cases of unequivocal guilt with no reasonable possibility of mistakes...well I'm still hesitant to say someone guilty of 1st degree murder even deserves death. Conversely someone like Hitler or Mao absolutely deserves death immediately, with no hesitation. Where I draw the line in between 1 intentional murder of an innocent person and millions for what is deserving of death... honestly I don't know, I'll have to mull it over some.

Do you think in any case someone is deserving of death, and if so, what would make them earn that?

[Matus1976]

If you can just kill the evil people that's great but, in reality, this is not usually possible.

Well, there are two simultaneous discussions going on, one relates to the accidental deaths of innocents in war and how much effort should be made to try to avoid that, and the other whether or not it's good to kill an evil person, and what your emotional reaction to that ought to be. Since you say "If you can just kill the evil people that's great" I assume you are ok with the intentional killing of someone as long as they 'deserve' it?

[Matus1976]

If you can just kill the evil people that's great but, in reality, this is not usually possible.

Fine. But let's not pretend that it is noble to kill innocents in the process. War is a messy business, and these things happen, but no innocent deserves to be killed for living in the wrong country.

On that I wholly agree

[Matus1976]

I am not amused that someone who has probably never killed anyone or is unlikely to is telling us how he would feel about it if he were to kill a monster like Hitler or Stalin. Let's get a little more practical: In effect the crews that dropped the atomic bombs were killing Tojo and the military rulers of Japan. I've never read anywhere where any of them experienced any "profound joy." Of course, when Japan then surrendered the soldiers and the families of soldiers who weren't going to die invading Japan felt tremendous joy. Why? No more killing. The country--our country--went wild in celebration.

--Brant

Obviously you're referring to me, no I have never killed anyone, and I hope I live a life that should never come to that point. But this is an important question, because it relates to the world we live in very directly - and it's equally important to dispense with irrational foundations. Christianity for nearly a thousand years bludgeoned everyone with the notion of feeling shame for their sexuality, causing all kinds of psychological problems and even explicit harm. While the western world is more enlightened and secularized than those medieval days, that remnant of *shame* is still profoundly present, as a walk through Pompeii will make startlingly clear. As objectivists, the similiar remnant of original sin so deeply embedded into society by centuries of christian doctrines now pokes it's ugly head through in environmentalism even in explicitly atheistic people. The christian virtue of unearned forgiveness, similarly meme pounded over centuries, along with humility, has it's own remnant in this irrational separation of furthering values and killing the most evil opponents to your rational values. With the eastern influences creeping into the west, this unearned forgiveness doctrine is morphing into a stoicism like rejection of emotions. Today, children of the baby boomers celebrate peace, without any context, as the highest ideal. Not JUSTICE, not FREEDOM, but PEACE! They don't care what people are fighting for, only that they are fighting, and that they should not be. PEACE without JUSTICE ... is just a well run prison camp.

And this surely plays no small role in the psychological scarring that many soldiers experience, when their rational minds, principles and values tell them that sometimes it is right to kill, and that they killed for the just reasons, to come home to whining pansies who insist that what they did was JUST but WRONG and shameful and/or disgusting is a recipe for a psychological melt down – especially when coming from the very people who enjoy all the fruits that have come from their predecessors killing people who opposed the very freedom and progress they so enjoy. If you feel shame and disgust at killing someone who should have been killed, then you should also feel shame and disgusting at enjoying all the fruits of their killing labors. I await your ascetic abandonment of the fulfilling western life...

"I've never read anywhere where any of them experienced any "profound joy."

Again, you use this phrase, again, I will say that "profound joy" is something you experience with a great achievement you have worked very hard for. Please do me the courtesy of at least attempting to understand my points and respecting them enough to not deliberately mislead people into thinking I said something else. If you do not cease in trying to imply that "profound joy" is something I say someone OUGHT to feel after killing someone, then I see no further point in discussion with you.

Of course, when Japan then surrendered the soldiers and the families of soldiers who weren't going to die invading Japan felt tremendous joy. Why? No more killing

I hope you are not seriously suggesting that those soldiers, who just left Okinawa and iwo jima, where HALF of them were killed, were celebrating not having to KILL JAPANESE, instead of celebrating NOT BEING KILLED and getting to go home to their families. A very large portion of all of the deaths in WWII of US Soldiers came in the last few months!

The point is, if it is sometimes JUST to kill someone, then it is also RIGHT and GOOD, something that is just CAN NOT be NOT GOOD, and something that is good CAN NOT be UNJUST. This line of reasoning is weak emotionalism and is muddling the righteousness which comes from standing up for ones values.

You tell me, if someone was stalking and harassing someone you love dearly, and then ultimately tried to KILL them multiple times, seriously injuring them, then, say, killed their parents and siblings just to cause her grief, and then you found yourself in a dark alley with a gun with this person - what would YOUR emotional reaction be? Would you lay down the gun like a good christian and FORGIVE him? Would you tell him that an emotional attitude of peacefulness and tranquility, like a good Buddhist, are the highest ideals, and that you can not harbor any ill feelings toward him, because that 'makes you no better than him' or some such nonsense? Or would you kill him, and if you did, what would you feel? Would you be glad? Indifferent? SAD?

This is an important notion because the implicit foundation of the rejection of moral praise for killing evil people that deserve death is rooted in ambiguity and compromise, it is saying that NO value is so important as to cause harm to another person in when furthering it.

[Selene]

Great question:

By what standard would you say that killing another human being is morally justified? What does a person need to do to deserve death in your eyes?

I believe that when you get into micro analyzing a situation there is much to much grey.

Matus' example of knifing the mugger three days later seems disproportionate, but if you are the black dude in a Mississippi town and it is 1964, that may be the first and last shot you get at the good ole boy.

Additionally, trying to use less than deadly force if you draw a weapon, e.g., a pistol for example, you shoot to kill or do not pull the weapon.

Hesitation leads to a deadly situation for you and who you are protecting.

Therefore, maybe it would be more effective a discussion to decide when or at what point you have the right to respond with lethal force,

Or, and I had a lover of seven years who absolutely believed in a non confrontational belief, even to the extent of risking her own life, you never have that right.

I would believe that most of us as Matus said, would set the deadly force bar at self preservation. I also agree with the banning to Coventry solution, short of execution. However, I extend the death penalty, and this is purely personal, to treason and child molestation.

Someone wise prosecutor once quipped that the difference between murder and assault with a deadly weapon was being a piss poor shot!

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Killing an evil man, and finding it prideful is as proper an emotion as profound Joy is when achieving something great.

Well, I won't argue with this if there is pride on the one hand and what you call "profound Joy" on the other, but why would I not be confused for I see no reason in your example why the killing wouldn't result in what you call "Joy" as well as pride.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I am not amused that someone who has probably never killed anyone or is unlikely to is telling us how he would feel about it if he were to kill a monster like Hitler or Stalin. Let's get a little more practical: In effect the crews that dropped the atomic bombs were killing Tojo and the military rulers of Japan. I've never read anywhere where any of them experienced any "profound joy." Of course, when Japan then surrendered the soldiers and the families of soldiers who weren't going to die invading Japan felt tremendous joy. Why? No more killing. The country--our country--went wild in celebration.

--Brant

Obviously you're referring to me, no I have never killed anyone, and I hope I live a life that should never come to that point. But this is an important question, because it relates to the world we live in very directly - and it's equally important to dispense with irrational foundations. Christianity for nearly a thousand years bludgeoned everyone with the notion of feeling shame for their sexuality, causing all kinds of psychological problems and even explicit harm. While the western world is more enlightened and secularized than those medieval days, that remnant of *shame* is still profoundly present, as a walk through Pompeii will make startlingly clear. As objectivists, the similiar remnant of original sin so deeply embedded into society by centuries of christian doctrines now pokes it's ugly head through in environmentalism even in explicitly atheistic people. The christian virtue of unearned forgiveness, similarly meme pounded over centuries, along with humility, has it's own remnant in this irrational separation of furthering values and killing the most evil opponents to your rational values. With the eastern influences creeping into the west, this unearned forgiveness doctrine is morphing into a stoicism like rejection of emotions. Today, children of the baby boomers celebrate peace, without any context, as the highest ideal. Not JUSTICE, not FREEDOM, but PEACE! They don't care what people are fighting for, only that they are fighting, and that they should not be. PEACE without JUSTICE ... is just a well run prison camp.

And this surely plays no small role in the psychological scarring that many soldiers experience, when their rational minds, principles and values tell them that sometimes it is right to kill, and that they killed for the just reasons, to come home to whining pansies who insist that what they did was JUST but WRONG and shameful and/or disgusting is a recipe for a psychological melt down – especially when coming from the very people who enjoy all the fruits that have come from their predecessors killing people who opposed the very freedom and progress they so enjoy. If you feel shame and disgust at killing someone who should have been killed, then you should also feel shame and disgusting at enjoying all the fruits of their killing labors. I await your ascetic abandonment of the fulfilling western life...

"I've never read anywhere where any of them experienced any "profound joy."

Again, you use this phrase, again, I will say that "profound joy" is something you experience with a great achievement you have worked very hard for. Please do me the courtesy of at least attempting to understand my points and respecting them enough to not deliberately mislead people into thinking I said something else. If you do not cease in trying to imply that "profound joy" is something I say someone OUGHT to feel after killing someone, then I see no further point in discussion with you.

Of course, when Japan then surrendered the soldiers and the families of soldiers who weren't going to die invading Japan felt tremendous joy. Why? No more killing

I hope you are not seriously suggesting that those soldiers, who just left Okinawa and iwo jima, where HALF of them were killed, were celebrating not having to KILL JAPANESE, instead of celebrating NOT BEING KILLED and getting to go home to their families. A very large portion of all of the deaths in WWII of US Soldiers came in the last few months!

The point is, if it is sometimes JUST to kill someone, then it is also RIGHT and GOOD, something that is just CAN NOT be NOT GOOD, and something that is good CAN NOT be UNJUST. This line of reasoning is weak emotionalism and is muddling the righteousness which comes from standing up for ones values.

You tell me, if someone was stalking and harassing someone you love dearly, and then ultimately tried to KILL them multiple times, seriously injuring them, then, say, killed their parents and siblings just to cause her grief, and then you found yourself in a dark alley with a gun with this person - what would YOUR emotional reaction be? Would you lay down the gun like a good christian and FORGIVE him? Would you tell him that an emotional attitude of peacefulness and tranquility, like a good Buddhist, are the highest ideals, and that you can not harbor any ill feelings toward him, because that 'makes you no better than him' or some such nonsense? Or would you kill him, and if you did, what would you feel? Would you be glad? Indifferent? SAD?

This is an important notion because the implicit foundation of the rejection of moral praise for killing evil people that deserve death is rooted in ambiguity and compromise, it is saying that NO value is so important as to cause harm to another person in when furthering it.

You are reading a lot into what I said that isn't true of me. You don't really know combat and war, but like the ancient Romans know how to send men off to fight with righteousness ringing in their ears propelling them forward into the scythes of death. Killing human beings can indeed be both good and bad in any one instance for the killer. It doesn't have to be both, but the experience is certainly permanently transforming regardless.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

You are reading a lot into what I said that isn't true of me. You don't really know combat and war, but like the ancient Romans know how to send men off to fight with righteousness ringing in their ears propelling them forward into the scythes of death. Killing human beings can indeed be both good and bad in any one instance for the killer. It doesn't have to be both, but the experience is certainly permanently transforming regardless.

--Brant

You were fortunate. Your health permitted you the privilege of going into combat and killing first hand. I was not so fortunate. Chronic asthma made me ineligible to enlist in the Armed Services (I tried three times and was turned down three times). I did the next best thing. I made weapons for the warriors. One of my best creations was a terrain data compression algorithm for storing radar terrain data about cruise missiles and retrieving the data into the guidance system. My "baby" was used mostly in the pre GPS days (but I understand it is still used for storing data and is still the backup system). Bottom line. My inventions lead to the deaths of thousands. And I am proud of each and every enemy corpse I helped to create. I have blood on my hands up to my armpits and I will bet I have been responsible for more death and destruction than you, sir.

I view my doings with pride. What I did led to righteous kills. I have, in a manner of speaking, scalps on my belt. It does not get much better than that. If one cannot be a warrior then one can be a weapon-smith. Even the bravest warriors still need the tools that people like me make for them.

Before I worked on guidance system algorithms I worked on the design of tactical nuclear weapons. Alas, none of these have ever been used in anger, so I cannot claim any kills with these.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Matus1976]

Matus' example of knifing the mugger three days later seems disproportionate, but if you are the black dude in a Mississippi town and it is 1964, that may be the first and last shot you get at the good ole boy.

Hesitation leads to a deadly situation for you and who you are protecting.

I would believe that most of us as Matus said, would set the deadly force bar at self preservation.

Good points Selene, I agree with you on the justified disproportionate use of force in an act of immediate self preservation. Actually I had a hard time coming up with an example and the pickpocket was the only one since by the time you are aware of the assault, it's over and the threat is gone (he's running away)

But assuming the immediate threat is gone, what actions would justify, in your opinion, the death of a perpetrator? Treason is a good case. But as terrible as child molestation is, I don't think it's deserving of a death sentence.

[Matus1976]

Killing an evil man, and finding it prideful is as proper an emotion as profound Joy is when achieving something great.

Well, I won't argue with this if there is pride on the one hand and what you call "profound Joy" on the other, but why would I not be confused for I see no reason in your example why the killing wouldn't result in what you call "Joy" as well as pride.

--Brant

Maybe it would Brant, I don't know. I wanted to be clear that I was not saying one SHOULD experience *JOY* when killing an evil person. Maybe that is proper, I don't know. But Pride is a different emotion from Joy. Joy often involves laughing, smiling, etc. Pride is more the elevated sense of self esteem that comes from recognizing ones own honorable and just actions. I'm not a linguistic master nor an psychology professor so I can't capture it well, but I should think the difference between these two is significant enough to be worthy of a clear distinction.

[Matus1976]

You are reading a lot into what I said that isn't true of me. You don't really know combat and war, but like the ancient Romans know how to send men off to fight with righteousness ringing in their ears propelling them forward into the scythes of death. Killing human beings can indeed be both good and bad in any one instance for the killer. It doesn't have to be both, but the experience is certainly permanently transforming regardless.

--Brant

Well feel free to clarify, that is the point of discussion. If you bring up a point, and someone doesn't understand it, is the best reaction to just say 'well, you wouldnt understand' you are, after all, appealing to the ol "if I have to explain it to you, you would never get it" fallacy that elevates something other than reason as a tool of cognition. Were you saying those American soldiers here happy to not have to kill any more Japanese, or happy to not get killed by them? Maybe it's both, but I suspect it's mostly the latter, especially from the stories I've read from soldiers of that period.

And now you suggest that I am advocating sending men off to die in some useless struggle like some callous Roman emperor - and you speak of misrepresenting things that are not true of you??? All of the sudden, since I say if it sometimes just to kill an evil man, and that if it is just it is also good, now I am some barbarous war monger?

And, am I not allowed to speak on the morality of killing unless I have actually killed someone? Shouldnt I work out my moral principles BEFORE I kill someone? Am I not allowed to speak on the morality of abortion - unless I have an abortion? The morality of torture - unless I torture someone? Unless you answer YES to these, then dispense with the 'you've never done it so you can't talk about it' argument.