ethan_a_dawe

Verbal aggression? He condones real-life physical aggression and you censor me for verbal aggression? Disgusting. Shayne Hopefully this will get through... Shayne simply refuses to acknowledge that the idea of 'choice' becomes very murky when we deal with addictions/mental illness. He lashes out at someone who doesn't approve of crack dealers. He needs to try to understand why some might legitimately see the sale of highly addictive and dangerous drugs as predatory and worthy of legal prevention efforts. Bob Bob needs to recognize that the choice issue was decided when the person chose to take the drug. Blank out? I don't think people should do crack (or any drug that harms them.) I respect their right to do as they please. I would help someone I thought I could help try to get off drugs. I don't think my money is wisely spent trying to stop people from getting drugs. Prohibition in the U.S. failed for a good reason.

No, it isn't. Okay Michael, I'll head out. Some day you may publish your treatise and I'll read it then and give it it's due. I assure you that I look forward to it. Despite your claims, you haven't shown me anything to prove your point. I honestly wanted to give your ideas a hearing after the nasty turn it took on RoR. I spend a great deal of time thinking about things, and have gone rounds in my head and with people about Objectivism as I learned and integrated. That will never stop. I will always be willing to listen to a challenge, as that's the only way to learn and understand. I'll refrain from saying more becasue I find I regret saying nasty things, even if I feel they are deserved. You and I don't argue the same way, and I'll leave it at that. Make of it and my brief visit what you will. Ethan

"Bilbo, the ring is still in your pocket."

You can throw in OPAR if you like (use the Index), but that's Peikoff, not Rand. Still, he claims to represent Objectivism, so it is instructive. Now, all you do is compare one against the other. Give it a try. You apparently represent that IOPD mess and find no problem at all with it. At least you frequently advocate in defense of the author. Please correct me if I am wrong. But if you do the donkey-work, you will see that some of the things are OK in the IOPD, but some of them are really out there and are totally misrepresentative of Rand's ideas. This is from a guy who says he speaks in Rand's name and is out to save the world. One day when I have nothing to do but piss away my time and correct the bs published by others, I will make a comparative chart of that mess and publish it. Or, who knows? Maybe that thing will get a much needed overhaul before then. But that's what I call piling it on Rand. Not a person questioning her view of human nature and other concepts under his own name. Michael Again, you didn't answer the questions put to you. This "I'll show you mine of you'll show me yours" thing has become tiresome. That and your not partiucularly veiled jabs at Joe :poke: are par for the course here. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN! THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE OZ HAS SPOKEN! I'll keep reading occasionally to see if you actually answer the questions I and others have put to you regarding your own assertions. :logik:

:no: Michael, I don't mean to suggest that I know what you are thinking. When I say "you must think" I mean that is my conclusion based on what you have said. Of course your answer was not an answer, just a smoke screen. Now below your answer to Ellen is just that as well. You haven't answered my question, which is just asking you to define and prove what you have said on this thread. My suggestion to you is that you stop looking for the smart-ass teacher responses and start actually proving something. So far we have baseless assertions. I want to know what your theory is! Stop telling me how I've got it all wrong. Start showing me how you've got it all right. Anything else is BS obfuscating the issue. At this point I think you don't have any proof of your assertions. That will change only if you prove it. If you say that your belief is good enough for you and your not going to explain it, fine. Just don't keep telling the rest of us how wrong we are. I gave up faith ong ago. Ethan

By all means, keep piling. I'm not buying it. You must think we are all jargon spewers who haven't integrated what Rand said. I disagree. Ethan

Define: What is a right to life? What is a right? You have taken this phrase, "right to life" and made a lot of it. I don't see the contradiction that you are talking about. You say people here don't understand what you're saying or twist it. All of us? I'm not known for being particularly stupid, and I don't think the others posting here are either. Are we all just narrow minded or dogmatic? You have made statements that things are a not as we would say. You say we are wrong. You say that you are figuring this out. If you are figuring it out, then I don't think you know that Rand was wrong. This debate is a waste until you can put your money where your mouth is. You need spell out exactly what you mean and show why it is so. You haven't done that yet. Please don't bother to tell me how my question is wrong and how I'm wrong. Just answer your own statements as to children having rights, what those rights are, and what that means to others. Focus on that. Write it down. Put it up for scrutiny. Then I can read it and see. Anything else here is just waste and words. Ethan

Michael, For someone who doesn't like government, and doesn't like being told what to do, you seem strangely willing to support a law for punishing people who don't do what you think should be done. :logik: In any case, I look forward to seeing the final conclusions you draw in your investigations. Once you have it all together and thought out I'll read it and discuss it then. I assume we'll see it here sometime?

I would act to save Hank by pushing the button. But..... 1) No he is not legally required to act. 2) Yes, he could be charged for assaulting Wesley. 3) If the judge ruled thus and confirmed that his ruling was based on thinking Wesly should have acted then it would be open to appeal. What if Wesley went to hit the big red button and accidently hit one that casued a bunch of other workers to be injured or killed? Then he get's to court and say's he tried to do the right thing but was in error or confused? What if he claims that but the judge thinks he did it becasue he hated Hank and the other workers? What if What if What if. Scenrios like these tell you nothing.

I was under the impression that you had concluded that babies had a right to life that required action by those able no matter how related. Is that not true? What I mean is, you have argued against others here and asserted that something is so. Now, if you just have a hypothesis that that is the case, that's one thing. That's fine. If you start telling other people they are wrong and that you don't accept their view I would assume that you had a conclusion or proof. Maybe not. You say you're still working this out. But you also claim others are blanking things out and are insistent that a child has a right that extends to a requirement on unrealated people. I'm just reacting to your claims. I'm doing so in good faith and with what I think is clear reason. Perhaps the others here can say if I'm making myslef clear or not. E.

Ethan, That's totally backwards. You don't start with a conclusion. On a metaphysical level there are no rights for anyone or anything. There is only existence. Philosophically, rights pertain to the branch of politics. The concept of rights rests on metaphysics, not the other way around. This is very indicative of the problem with understanding I have experienced on this issue. You appear to be debating to win some kind of pre-determined position or arguing to arrive at some kind of pre-determined conclusion—or expecting me to do the same. I'm on another wave-length entirely. When I start from the ground up, I start from the ground up. I empty my mind of prejudice. Why not start with Socrates?: "I only know that I do not know." Then one can look, see, integrate, learn and conclude. The way I have typically expressed this time and time again is that the proper manner of conceptual thinking is make a cognitive identification, and only after that has been done, to make a normative evaluation. I do not subscribe to Peikoff's admonition that all existence is normative by nature to a human being. I have seen too often people who follow this replace facts with their beliefs and opinions. Normative only works conceptually if the cognitive part is correct. Rights are normative by definition. They belong to politics, which sits on ethics, which is the normative branch of philosophy. Michael Michael, I know that. EDIT (That you don't start with a conclusion. That's why it's called a conclusion.) You said you are building this from the ground up. You said the child has a right to life. You said that you don't agree with the positive/negative right thing. I'm saying show me how you have built from the ground up to that right to life. I'm saying show me how that translates into an obligation. You are saying you think it does. I don't want to hear how the Oist version is wrong, or Rand said this or that. I don't want to rehash this from the old angles. I want to hear YOUR grounds-up reasoning since YOU SAY that's what you are doing. You are saying that you believe that this right to life exists and is legally enforceable. Show me how you arrive there. (CAPS for accent not "yelling")

Ethan, You haven't been reading me correctly. I have been constructing the definition from the ground up and I have stated clearly I do not have the answer. And I have essentially been asking you these questions. All I get is recycled jargon, not concepts. I reject recycled jargon. This is too important. Michael This is a repeat of my post #96 which seems to have gotten overlooked in the debate......... Okay, let's throw away Rand's comments and all that has come before this and start fresh with what you've said. You have stated clearly a conclusion that the child has a right to life. If you are building this from the ground up, and have come to this conclusion, the process of building it should give you the answer. Please explain your process so I can see how you have arrived at the child having a right to life. Ethan

I agree Jeff, great post.

Ethan, You haven't been reading me correctly. I have been constructing the definition from the ground up and I have stated clearly I do not have the answer. And I have essentially been asking you these questions. All I get is recycled jargon, not concepts. I reject recycled jargon. This is too important. Michael Okay, let's throw away Rand's comments and all that has come before this and start fresh with what you've said. You have stated clearly a conclusion that the child has a right to life. If you are building this from the ground up, and have come to this conclusion, the process of building it should give you the answer. Please explain your process so I can see how you have arrived at the child having a right to life. Ethan

Michael, Rand was talking about positive and negative rights. You can't quote her and then claim she meant some other type of rights. You have specifically quoted her on the childs "right to life." What do you mean by a right then? What is your definition? The negative rights in Objectivism are just identification of what we are as human beings. What is it in our nature that puts an obligation for our well-being onto another? Furthermore, if you were right, and babies had this right that causes obligations, then we WOULD be obliged to deal with all the unwanted babies of the world, wouldn't we? Then, by continuation, the governement would justifiably be able to require us to pay for any and all of them?

That's not just an implication. That's stated very clearly by Ayn Rand herself. btw - Do you have any opinion about the derivation of rights, or do you prefer to accept the positive/negative rights model as a predigested metaphysical given that needs no thought? Michael, I think Ellen has the right of it. Rand had no intention to suggest that the child's right to life was a positive right that required action by people other than the parents. Again, I don't know of anyone who would willingly abandon the babe in the woods. I think that private organizations would be more than capable of handling any wayward children. Can you agree with that?

(Boy, nothing pushes more buttons here than the abandoned, starving, crying baby in the wolderness who, BTW, is certainly dead and gone by now.) Yes, that's Objectivism, which supposes to know too much about human being. --Brant Out of curiousity, who in this debate considers themselves an Objectivist? I know Dragonfly doesn't. How about any of you others. Note that I don't care if any of you are or aren't. I've never met another Objectivist face to face, so all my friends are not. :-) How about you Barbara? You certainly have the longest exposure to the philosophy of anyone here. Do you consider yourself an Objectivist? If not, what parts of the philosophy do you disagree with or find wanting given your involvement during much of it's development?

Like is an emotional reaction. Why do you not like it? What is the root of your reasoning? It's to your own benefit to ask yourself these questions and understand why you do not like it. I understand very well why I don't like Objectivists, I've endured them for many years. In general I get along much better with ex-Objectivists. Well, I understand why too. Strange that you frequent places where you have to endure so much, but then you must get some value from it. I think our conversation is done as you clearly don't see the situation as being different and I don't think I'll convince you. Debates serve the purpose of checking one understanding and learning things. To me this last response suggests that you consider emotions to be valid tools of reason. I disagree. I check my emotional reactions to things and always question from where they arise and how, if they are incorrect, I may correct them. It's how I stopped making bad decisions in relationships. Rather than listening to your short ripostes and comments about enduring those Objectivists who obvioulsy just don't get it I think we should stop wasting one anothers time. That way things won't devolve to a level of nastiness and epithet. :-)

Like is an emotional reaction. Why do you not like it? What is the root of your reasoning? It's to your own benefit to ask yourself these questions and understand why you do not like it.

If the premises contradict and there are no contradiction, then you need to check your premises. :-) Seriously though, you are looking at an extremely rare and narrow case, in our society at least. In how many instances would this crop up? Almost never. So it's a massive lifeboat situation. We'll set that aside for a moment. Suppose you have a law requireing the action, suppose that a person comes accross the child and the child is about to be eaten by a bear; Should you be legally required to act to save that child, probably resulting in you yourself being eaten? What if you are wounded and come across the baby? Legally responsible? You seem unsatisfied that everyone involved in these discussions would try to help the child. Suppose in one out of a hundred of these infinitesimally rare cases someone did nothing, is that worth legislation? Is this really a problem with Objectivism, or is it merely that the whole premise of this discussion is wrong?

Killing by non-action can be equally effective. Suppose you drive on a road using the cruise control, and unexpectedly someone steps in front of your car, but at such a distance that you can brake in time to avoid a collision. I think that if you just do nothing but drive on with your cruise control on you're certainly guilty. Such cases may not be not the equivalent of murder, as there is no malice aforethought, but they are a form of manslaughter. It is a silly notion that failing to do something may never be punished. I answered that already in my post #58. The cruise control issue is different. That is obvious. You set the cruise control. You acted. As for having answered my question, that wasn't an answer. Without that answer rationally and reasonably explained we cannot continue. You must answer why legally the person should be held responsible. What fact of reality requires that law? Your answer is a dodge in my opinion. If you'd like to continue with me then an answer to that question is my price. :-)

Okay. Why? For the same reason that it is punishable by law to kill a person. That's not the same thing at all. In the case of a murder you are acting directly to kill someone. The legality of that is obvious. You can tie it directly in to an objective reason. In the case of the motorist, you are legally requiring an action. An action that may very well put you in danger. Why should that be LEGALLY required?

Follow up: What if it is a person you hate, who has done you wrong? Should you still be legally required to help them?

Okay. Why?

In answer to the part about Luke calling Michael's (and your) views facist, I await your answer to Jeff's question about these laws. If you can provide an answer to that that shows why you think that rationally should be a law I will gladly listen. As regards murderers and rapists they have actively sought out others to violate there rights. The baby is a question of positive rights as I see it. The babies "right to life" cannot be legally forced on another party. Perhaps your answer to Jeff will show me why you think it can. I'll give that answer due consideration. As to religious people and immorality. People would not be immoral if they hold their belief due to wrng knowledge. Many hold their beliefs as a tradition and haven't really considered them carefully. Many beleive that we cannot know anything about such questions and can't be bothered to think about them. I wouldn't call them immoral. Then there are many who refuse to check their beliefs and will argue that they are right in spite of any evidence to the contrary. They would be immral in my eyes. By immoral I mean acting in a way that harms your life. Immorality is a buzz word and I wish to clarify it here. People hear you saying such and such is immoral and they get all upset. Ethan