john42t

Imo questions like the following have not been covered enough in Objectivism: "Can a decision by a person be called rational if it uses the irrationality of the other party to achieve the goal?"

The answer is yes, just look at the way rational men treat irrational (non-human) animals.

The reason why Rand didn't cover the question was that she had unrealistic expectations of the degree of rationality in human beings. I bet she thought covering it suggests a level of importance it doesn't deserve.

All she ever said to the question of "how to deal with irrational" people was "find the rational".

It's probably the right answer as advice for a good life, but I don't think it's the whole answer technically speaking.

Again, this becomes, in utero, a question of technological advancement. When the "entity in utero" can be removed and safely placed in another live human womb, or, an artificial womb and brought to full growth there is another provider...correct?

In theory that could reduce the sacrifice demanded of her.

Still, I doubt that you will be able to reduce it to a negligible level: The toughest price she pays might not even be the health part, but the social harm done by an irrational social conservative climate that believes the child owns her.

If there is an option to bring the child out of her without a health risk (and the bill payed by the foster parents presumably) and either anonymously or the Zeitgeist does no longer condemn such an action - then I'd say a law against abortion would approach zero in its degree of injustice.

I'd like to say something else in this context: Individual rights don't equate "treated nicely/being loved" or anything like that. In a way it's probably even the opposite.

Here's an example of a thing that is treated very nicely and is often loved but is rightless: The house cat.

Here's an example of a thing that is treated like crap and is often despised but has rights: The successful entrepreneur.

There's plenty of other reasons why the killing of (born) babies can be outlawed, there is no need to have this based on individual rights (not the baby's rights anyway).

I find it important to make that disctinction because consistency matters. This argument is the only one that doesn't appeal to feelings and doesn't involve arbitrary compromise.

It may be a rational decision, but imo the rational is not automatically the moral.

(Of course the rational can often be the moral, but not in all cases).

That disagreement of ours is the fundamental one in a lot of questions I believe.

In the absence of a legal system the rule puts those who obey it at a disadvantage.

I think we can disregard the hypothetical case of no legal system existing when we speak of morality in our modern world.

Depends on what you call legal system. There's lots of pretty lawless places in the world. Depending on where you draw the line, it might be a majority of mankind not living under legal systems. Also, most legal systems are unjust - which amounts to the same thing for the sake of this argument.

As as rule, those who play fair are also respected by others.

In so far that's your reward, I don't object to the rule. But then it's phrased in a misleading way.

People are not that different when it comes to their psychological needs. For example, your will hardly find a human being who does not want to be appreciated. (Again, this is something biologically hardwired in us).

But they want to be appreciated for different reasons by different people than you might.

Sexual preference differs vastly and what is attractive to one woman is harassment to the next. You don't know in advance.

I remember having said to a salesclerk that this "schlecker radio" (an pseudo-talk-radio program produced for the chain store) must be annoying when you have to listen to it all day. I was really horrified by the idea of working there. She just answered that it's often very interesting. Of course no way in hell it would ever be interesting to me.

People are different.

I think she was nuts to believe it, but I think she most certainly did believe it. Not for long though.

I think "nuts" is not the right word. She was naive and gave the average human being way too much credit (which is ironic given the kind of criticism she received).

Ah, I see. It's less of an issue of the baby's lack of rights, which I think the baby does have rights, than the mother having the choice of her child's life or death. I had understood it before as "Kill all babies."

If the mother has the choice it means the child has no rights. It's really either-or.

"Rights" of a dependent can ultimately only ever be positive rights, since even the right to life for a dependent means: someone is forced to provide. In this case, the mother.

Interesting. One part of objectivism, the fact that the unborn have no rights, I still don't understand. What makes them less than a human?

That's not the point at all.

They have no rights because their lives depend on a another human being. Individual rights are grounded in the fact that human beings need to exercise their independent judgement freely to live as such - but that obviously doesn't apply to unborn children and babies.

As far as born babies are concerned, the same argument applies, but in this case letting the child live is not necessarily linked to a sacrifice (there are places that take care of orphans) - so it's not so much of an issue.

I can't quote Rand on this, I know this argument only from a narrative in "Goddess of the Market" and I'm aware that the ARI gives a different (and in my opinion wrong) justification for the pro-life stance.

If someone knows a quotation by Rand herself I'd be interested.

Interesting though that Ayn Rand advocated playing the lottery as a form of 'voluntary taxpaying' in a minarchist state.

That's funny.

Where did she write this?

A frequent fallacy in argumentation is to misinterpret someone's explanation of an issue as being advocation of the issue.

I wasn't advocating any looting or mooching.

I didn't believe you did advocate it or would do looting and mooching after I suggested it. I was merely using a rethorical device.

I merely pointed out that the life form parasitism can be biologically quite successful.

And I agree with that. Band worms are successful. Not sure what this has to do with human beings though.

For example, if it is postulated that life is a process of "self-generating action", and an ethics is built on that, it is built on a wrong premise.

I agree on this as well. I think biology is way too high-level (kin selection, gene, etc.) for this to have a chance to be possible, as I personally would apply the label "ethics" only to concepts of a much more fundamental nature (happiness, self-interest, collaboration, etc).

So ethics can't be built on biology the way I define the words, but then again there is no agreement on the exact definitions.

What I do is to extend insights of ethics *to* biology and find interesting analogies. For example, I observe that my long term happiness correlates to some extent with the success of my genes.

In no way I derive ethics from that.

EDIT: Just thought about this a bit more. If ethics is derived from that, it would probably imply a duty to procreate (to spread copies of one's genes). I'd even go as far as explictly rejecting this particular result of such an ethics.

It is simply the Golden Rule applied: Don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself.

The Golden Rule is among the things that truly work in ethics.

I suppose we're talking about criminal activity? If so, then:

In the presence of a legal system, the rule is unecessary as punishment by the law will be a deterrent also.

In the absence of a legal system the rule puts those who obey it at a disadvantage.

So the rule is at best useless and at worst harmful to the individual that obeys it. In no case the rule is practical for the pursuit of one's own happiness. Which means it doesn't work at all.

And if we're not talking about criminal activity but in fact all sorts of behavior:

What about the many cases in which others want or don't want done to them totally different things than myself? Which, of course, I rarely have proper knowledge about.

How is is short-sighted? Stalin? Castro?

It works for many people for their entire lives. Has to be a better reason than 'short-sighted'.

That some people win in the lottery doesn't mean it's a good strategy. Success depends on luck and on average you lose. That's they way with the mystics also.

EDIT: Of course people who play lottery in the hope of winning it actually really are mystics themselves.

As for people having selfish reasons, since this applies to everyone, it includes Lilian and her family as well.

In AS, Lilian and her family have the role of the 'parasites'; I can imagine you would argue that Lilian and her family are "irrationally" selfish.

But labeling 'parasitism' as irrational is not backed up by biology where parasitism is merely a specific life form (a very successful one) .

Hosts and parasites can coexist and frequently other organisms show up which in turn feed on the parasites.

If we test test the ethical premise of the survival of one's organism being the highest value, we'll see that Lilian Rearden & Co. are striving for their survival every bit as much as Hank.

For some time. Maybe for ages even, but their success depends on ideology.

This is the age of the internet and that's why I believe they've lost. In the long run, they will be on the wrong side - they will be poor, lonely and dysfunctional when all the selfish leave them. They won't have the intellectual leadership any more to prevent this by force. Eventually, this will drive most of them to rationality again. If so, they will accept a lower life standard and less social status, but become productive.

If you believe I'm wrong and the way of the parasite is the way to go, feel free to do so. Become a looter and moocher, go ahead (Mikee will shout at you, but not me). I believe that I'm right and that eventually you'll see that it was a bad choice *for yourself*.

What I'm getting at: imo positing a biological drive - the survival of one's organism - as the highest value can become quite problematic in the field of ethics.

I thought so before I read Rand. Now I see morality as the fitting program for a human being as a life form who's primary tool of survival is his mind - in his *own* interest as an individual, not for the sake of his peers.

To say that you shouldn't loot because it harms others is altruism. You shouldn't loot because it's a short-sighted strategy.

I can't agree with the biological analogy.

Egalitarianism surely is collectivism.

If e. g. the all members of society are regarded as equal before the law, would you call that egalitarianism/collectivism too?

If I take this to mean the ideology that is concerned with the ideal of everyone being equal before the law, then yes.

The German idealist tradition is full of that.

I was speaking of Christian missionaries. Winning souls to Christ has always been a primary motive of Christian activists.

Right. Of course that's a very obvious characteristic I didn't really think of.

My curiosity is whether the early Christian belief was fundamentally about the concern of the souls of others, not only for missionaries, but every believer.

There is at least some collectivist trait in early Christianity, but I don't know how far it went and whether it's actually rooted in theology or merely a practical consequence of an irrational ideology.

You should not overlook or bypass the crucial fact that the incentive of early Christians was to save the souls of other people.

That's fascinating.

How strong was that aspect and what are your sources?

So how are the 'rational few' going to put this into practice? And how is this reconcilable with the idea of individualism?

Two separate cases apply:

A) First, rational people will stop enabling the irrational. An extremely painted example would be Hank Rearden dropping the support for his family. Milder cases are happening every time all over the world. They do this for selfish reasons.

B) Those of the irrational who chose to engage in violent activities will be treated as criminals. Again for selfish reasons.

Note that I put "freedom" in quotes: I played on the fact that the majority either intends no exact meaning or refers to the freedom of the criminal when using this word.

Individualism is not elitism.

Egalitarianism surely is collectivism.

[...]

If my assessment of human nature, its rationality, and hunger for truth, is as fickle, but realistic as I believe it is, I would conclude that there are a limited number of Objectivists out there ready to be "converted". Frankly, if it were necessary to 'persuade' new Objectivists >beyond a reasonable degree< I would tend to question their certainty, anyway.

Maybe all that's left is to introduce people to it and wait and see.

I agree with this posting completely, it explains very well what I meant to bring up or twice in this thread.

I would also add that part of this effect is due to the individuals circumstance: It's less difficult to convince somebody that capitalism is good when he desires to show everyone what he's up to, it's more difficult if that person feels impotent.

I don't believe in mincing words.

Example: I studied maths in Germany. I did it through the German educational system for free on a state university. There is limited possibility to do otherwise, there is almost no private sector in academia in Germany.

I did feel like a parasite (also before reading Rand), but I thought I'd "pay society back".

But I no longer believe in the concept of society - the value I received was stolen.

I don't believe my action were immoral, at least not for the reason that the value I received was stolen.

Now I suppose I could give the state a pile of cash to make up for it, but why?

To make people like you like me?

Only if your ego can stand living the life of a tick on a dog rather than as a man.

Isn't this what I said?

The whole point of the human ego is to prevent you from doing it - to prevent you from becoming dependent.

Yes, a negative connotation, and I am implying that persuasion doesn't deal with truth (as the final goal).

Now that I think about it, I agree with this sentiment.

What are the unique characteristics of Manichaeism? The answer to that question should be crucial for the speculation about what would have happened.

I don't have time right now (it's Thanksgiving here in the US) and may not have much time for the rest of the weekend. Manichaeism was similar to Zoroastrianism in terms of the conflict between good and evil. In Christianity if you're good you go to heaven, evil hell. Zoroastrianism has a cosmic conflict, and you have to take a side, and evil can win, meaning the cosmos can go to hell, and you're part of making sure it doesn't (or does).

Could be better. It would depend a lot on what is considered the good.

What has been their stance on ursury and what social group was attracted to the ideology? Those are the first questions I ask to figure out how to classify it

Unfortunately, it's difficult with ancient ideologies where I lack the frame of reference.

Take any time you need, but if you could elaborate on this or the religion's content, I'm interested.

For our language is often quite limited when it comes to applying audiovisual symbols (terms) representing a concept. Hence the problems with so-called fudge words like 'love', 'freedom', 'justice' etc.

I have no problems understanding Rand when she's using these words.

Rational people can agree on definitions.

Yes, I think so, but really I don’t know how to answer you. You say “taken over”, so, if Constantine had promoted Manichaeism, then his sons followed him by progressively outlawing other religions, leading to mass book burnings and the destruction of Roman culture, would the unique characteristics of Manichaeism have made a difference? A shorter Dark Age? I don’t see why. Alternately, if by "taken over", you mean accepted universally without being imposed by violence, this contradicts the thesis of Rand's Faith and Force talk, referenced earlier, and my point about the 4th century being more important than the 1st for understanding the "success" of Christianity.

I don't know. What are the unique characteristics of Manichaeism? The answer to that question should be crucial for the speculation about what would have happened.

I glanced at the Wikipedia article, but I couldn't find anything that allows me an easy categorization.

Why's that?

I'd rather wait until Phil has made his full case, otherwise I'm going to prematurely derail his thread.

You mentioned Manichaeism. If Manichaeism had taken over rather than Christianity, would that be different? (I don't know anything about the religion.)

In the same line of thought, why shouldn't I live on welfare? If the government taxes people, it is not I who do it.

Correct.

It's only immoral in so far you become *dependent* on welfare (don't work on a profession), or in so far as you lose the ability to pride yourself into not having taken any money.

I consider the first reason much more important.

I repeat, Man faces a metaphysical and individual struggle -- not a species/tribal competition to exist.

I hope you don't want to insinuate that I said anything about a species/tribal competition to exist.

How might it apply to finding the most receptive audiences, finding what might be the most "fertile ground" for the victory of libertarianism or for the spread of Objectivism?

The most receptive audience for Objectivism appears to be adolescent boys, as is suggested by her biographer Jennifer Burns (and others I presume). I think the nerdy, alienated Objectivist youth is also a cliche.

I'm not convinced that Rand is ultimately always healthy for them (not conviced of the opposite either, just saying), but:

That's your receptive target group.

People who are happy in their job have no reason to make an effort. People who are unhappy in their job but believe they have nothing to offer will hate her.

It's people who are burning with dreams and ambition and are lost in confusion - most of them are adolescent boys.

A simpel idea would be to translate Rand in other languages (there is no German version of her books still in print).

More ambitious would be more of it, movies, series, etc that bring Objectivist ideas across.

Burns called Rand the "ultimate gateway drug to life on the right". You don't need a movement, you need more gateway drugs.