Francisco Ferrer

Apparently the evidence you require is for someone to openly admit they have made a mistake with their own psychology. People don't really do that. They pick an identity and they try to become that. If they want to be the type of person who "doesn't give a shit" about another's right to property, then they will do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to defend that decision. However, while that identity may be attractive for obvious reasons, there is a necessary cost if one does not want to surround himself with people like him. The cost is revealing what he thinks of himself. Or, the more likely route, is to accept relations with people about as morally depraved as he is, even though it isn't what he really wants--and even with these he cannot reveal his lack of self-esteem for it would reflect also his lack of esteem for those like him. Actually, admissions of wrong-doing and regret are not at all uncommon. Scared Straight and similar programs have made use of felons engaging in self-reproach to discourage teens from committing crimes. The question in this thread is whether a successful (i.e. unpunished) predator would experience "necessary" (your word) psychic costs. If it is your position that they do, then your claim must be backed by evidence other than your merely saying it is so. In my experience a significant minority of the population is willing to violate property rights without the least regret. In college I met socialists who bragged about stealing works by Mises and Hayek from the university library in order to prevent other students from reading them and being "misled." I've met fast food employees who think that they are entirely justified in "hooking up" friends with "free" burgers and fries because restaurant employees work a minimum wage job and their corporate bosses would never feel the loss. I've met politicians who were happy to accept donations and gifts from alcohol distributors who wanted entry to the market and thus competition to be kept limited. I know an AIG employee who justified the Fed's bailout of his company on the grounds that he had four sons to send to college. I think none of the above individuals has the least worry that he might "surround himself with people like him."

You are still being highly materialist FF. If you're going to quote Rand extensively you have to accept what she meant, implicitly as well as explicitly. She begins with the independent being (of mind and body) as the bench mark. Yes, the thief, looter and dictator may exist to old age - in apparent success - and not get what one considers their just desserts, explicitly. They have in the mean time, without fail, abandoned themselves to others - either in their lust for absolute power, or in feeding off them. (Altruism, in its fundamental state). Either way, he needs them. Whatever you or anyone may perceive as their outward thriving belies that each is a husk of a man. All his victims have ended up owning him. Actually, Rand does not begin with independence. She begins with why man needs a code of values and goes on to argue that "An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil." It is not until halfway through "The Objectivist Ethics" that she brings up "independence" and it is to assert "the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence)." Granted, we can see how forming one's own judgments is essential to the furtherance of a human life; one must depend ultimately on one's own mind to choose the path that is most likely to further one's own good. However, "living by the work of one’s own mind " is not the only logical conclusion we can derive from the premise of one's life as its standard of value. Prudent transgression against others may result in benefits with minimal or no costs. As for the charge that predators have "abandoned themselves to others": is the predator's life or secondary values in jeopardy because others work for his benefit? As I've pointed out in this thread, thousands of federal employees have spent most of their adult lives in the employ of an agency devoted to transferring wealth from the most productive citizens to the least productive. But this remunerative dependency on others is hardly likely to disappear tomorrow at dawn. Nor is there any evidence that internal revenue employees suffer self-doubt to any greater degree than the rest of the population. Mao was owned by his victims, you say? If so, why didn't any of the victim/owners think to sell off or discard this thing they owned?

Why does it matter if it's legal? I said I believe it would likely be rational to save a family rather than not steal a loaf of bread. And if the thief believed it was rational, then it would not have any adverse effects on his conscience. So if he trusts someone, he may tell them about it, or at least he may reveal his values. That is the difference between a rational and irrational transgression. I didn't say "successful predators", I said psychopaths. A normal person can be a "successful predator", but that does not account for the psychic cost--which is really the source of all value. Sure, and it may even be rational to steal a phone in a certain scenario, but your original number was 5% of people and you didn't stipulate any extraordinary circumstances. My argument has been that there is, in fact, a psychic cost to such actions that would create problems with intimate/honest/vulnerable human interactions. "Why does it matter if it's legal?" It shouldn't matter at all to a man who cares nothing about the possible consequences of his theft in the area of law enforcement. According to his own personal ethics, a man may be willing to go to prison for 50 years in order to establish the moral principle that a needy man may steal a cell phone or a loaf of bread. But it may matter a great deal to the man who regards the avoidance of arrest and prison as a higher value than possession of bread or a phone. As you said in Post #167, "there must be some room for subjectivism in ethics." With regard to the thief, you now say that "if he trusts someone, he may tell them about it." But earlier in Post #179 you wrote, "If it was rational to steal the bread, then no, he wouldn't have anything to hide." "Not having anything to hide" suggests an entirely different degree of openness than merely telling a person one can trust about a crime. Now if willingness to reveal violation of someone's rights is "the difference between a rational and irrational transgression," then we would have to state that those who boasted of mass murdering Indians in the19th century (for sport, not defense) were rational. The Khmer Rouge leadership boasted of the need to reduce the population of Cambodia by millions: "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." You write, "I didn't say 'successful predators,' I said psychopaths." Since you grant that distinction, the position that one may pursue his rational self-interest without regard to the rights of others may be even stronger. As for having to "account for the psychic cost," how do we go about that? Unless a predator admits to having experienced some "psychic cost," we have no basis for assuming that there has been any cost. Furthermore, even if we grant the existence of such a cost, we cannot say with any certainty that the psychic side effects outweigh the benefits of having made good use of someone else's property. My estimate of 5% who would steal a cellphone was rough. A more precise measure of the number of unscrupulous people in a population was probably gained by an experiment conducted by Reader's Digest. They "lost" 192 wallets around the world. In each of the 19 cities, they included a name, cellphone number, family photo, coupons, and business cards in the discarded wallet, as well as $50 in whichever currency the country used. They then left 12 wallets around each city near parks, shopping malls, and on sidewalks, and counted how many were returned . . . Out of the 192 wallets they dropped, 90 wallets were returned, or about 47 percent. I will stipulate that taking and keeping a valuable item that is explicitly labeled with a name and contact number is a form of theft. Thus the number of potential thieves in human society may be much higher than 5%. The essential point is that there is no evidence to support the claim that one necessarily experiences a psychic cost for taking the unearned and undeserved or that such cost is not offset by the benefits of the taking.

...but I wouldn't.And it's due to the fact that you and I view the world differently because we each live by different moral standards. We will each take to the grave with us what we chose and all of its consequences... ...just as we each deserve. Greg The actual date of the Gettysburg Address or the mental state of Mao Tse-Tung in his later years have nothing to do with how we view the world or how "we each live." "Reality, the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears." --Ayn Rand

That is still just your opinion filtered through your values... of someone else's opinion filtered through their values. We'll always have different views because we each live by different moral standards. Greg You could argue that the statement "The Gettysburg Address was delivered on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863" is an opinion filtered through the opinion holder's values of someone else's opinion filtered through their values. However, saying that the accuracy of date of the address is an opinion does not undermine the fact that there are a multitude of eyewitness accounts to confirm that date, and there are no accounts to support the theory that the address took place on another date. Similarly, there are no accounts that I know of to support the theory that Mao was an anguished, guilt-ridden man. That's because he ended up on top. Hitler went to hell before he put a bullet in his head as he knew he was losing it all. He was obviously anguished. Who cares if he felt guilt? I doubt it. His any guilt was likely not killing more people or whatever it took to be on the winning side. He did blame his Germans for not deserving that--not being good enough. He felt good about the Jews, however. Yep, he knew the future would deliver thanks for getting rid of them. Some Muslims are doing that now. And think of all the "good" Germans who didn't have to feel guilty because they were just "following orders." Wars and conflicts are structured in such a way--including mass murder--so that the people who feel bad are the victims and the victimizers get to feel good for doing good, usually in the name of the state's ideology. Behind every collectivist ideology is a power luster and a philosopher--sound familiar?--usually many more than one but only one is necessary if you combine the two into a crazy man who goes on a shooting spree. --Brant In "The Virtue of Selfishness," Ayn Rand wrote. ". . . men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship.” Any dictatorship? In the case of Hitler, surrounded by military enemies which by his own recklessness he provoked, the Third Reich's Fuhrer used his Walther PPK 7.65 to put a hole in his head. In the case of Mao, after a 27-year absolutist reign the head of state of the world's most populous nation died of natural causes without a hint of serious threat from domestic or foreign enemies.

That is still just your opinion filtered through your values... of someone else's opinion filtered through their values. We'll always have different views because we each live by different moral standards. Greg You could argue that the statement "The Gettysburg Address was delivered on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863" is an opinion filtered through the opinion holder's values of someone else's opinion filtered through their values. However, saying that the accuracy of date of the address is an opinion does not undermine the fact that there are a multitude of eyewitness accounts to confirm that date, and there are no accounts to support the theory that the address took place on another date. Similarly, there are no accounts that I know of to support the theory that Mao was an anguished, guilt-ridden man.

If it was rational to steal the bread, then no, he wouldn't have anything to hide. As far as Mao being a psychopath, human nature comes before ethics, Human nature may not apply to certain anomalies and therefor neither would an ethics derived from such nature. If everyone were a psychopath, the human race would not be as successful as it is. It could not be normal, so when speaking generally of human beings, psychopaths may or may not be concidered. If i was a baker I would not want people stealing from me, but depending on the situation, I may forgive it. A bread thief has nothing to hide? Is it legal to steal bread in your state? It is hardly a certainty that successful predators are scarce anomalies. In the U.S. about 100,000 citizens work for an organization that regularly uses force and the threat of force to seize income from over 100 million productive citizens. The average cell phone owner would not want his phone stolen from him, but depending on the situation, he might forgive it.

The adage is moronic. If you kill him before he was coming to kill you, then perhaps he should have risen early to kill you before you came to kill him.

If you want a good, reliable single book on the history of the western world (from the later middle ages through WWII), I recommend R.R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World. I don't know how many editions of this book were written, but I use the 2nd ed, Knopf, 1964. Yes, I still have that same edition, purchased during my freshman year of college.

Principles and values are largely objective as all human beings are largely the same, and to the extent that they are different by nature they will have to customize those principles and values. I never said the thief thinks everyone else has stronger principles, I said that when he does encounter people who he sees as having stronger principles--those that he values in others, meaning that he would rather surround himself with people who have these principles than those who do not--then he will have the burden of hiding his own depravity. I can't prove anything about Mao's relationships. And if he's a psychopath what does it matter? I'm saying that if you behave like a person you would not want anything to do with, then of course you are not going to be able to sustain mutually beneficial relationships unless you are constantly covering up your shortcomings. If I was a baker, and someone stole a loaf of bread from me to keep their family alive, I'd understand. If your principles would not allow you to forgive such a small and circumstantial transgression then I think your principles are out of wack. Yes, just as the phone thief may find it necessary to hide his depravity, so may the bread thief. Mao may well qualify as a psychopath. But assigning him to that category does not prove that he did not successfully pursue his self-interest. I am not aware of any evidence that Mao was unable to pursue mutually beneficial relationships or that among his associates he had to spend much time covering up his shortcomings. The more a baker understands the importance of feeding hungry people without charge, the closer he is to becoming an ex-baker.

I always get quite amused by this 'self-ownership' notion. Is it like owning a slave? No because, given that we have a right only to our own bodies, we cannot assert ownership over someone else. Self-ownership and slavery are logical contradictions. If you reject the idea of a mind body-split, then you would have to object to a person selling her own blood or organs or hair. Following Locke, one acquires the right to property in nature by mixing his body (labor) with it. Self-ownership before real estate ownership. "Whatever works for me" is not my philosophy. Apparently you have never encountered a person who presents a position he does not necessarily agree with in order to show a weakness in another's thinking.

Tell us a good way to eliminate the danger of armed attack on our nation. Once we do that, we can crank back and let the sheriff of Mayberry keep the domestic peace. One way is to focus on the nation's defense rather than empire, which is what U.S. foreign policy consists of today. As Rand wrote in her essay "Government Financing in a Free Society," people will voluntarily pay for defense but not "against the danger of aggression by Cambodia." Furthermore, since Rand specifically mentioned "the police, the armed forces, the law courts" as necessary functions, it is unlikely that that she had sheriffs in mind to repel an armed attack on our nation. It may be feasible to withdraw from NATO, but we would still need forward bases. If we withdrew to our continental boundaries we could not successfully prevent air and missile attacks. And we would still need as fleet of aircraft carriers and submarines (perhaps reduced somewhat). Even this reduced defense would be beyond the means of a non-centralized and non-taxing government and certainly be beyond the means of a quasi-private defense force. It is very important to keep nuclear weapons from being exploded in the continental U.S. If that were to happen large parts of our continental territory would become unlivable because of residual radioactivity. In Ayn Rands day a war could happen then end. Post nuclear and war could happen and the radioactivity would be a long, long time ending. In fact it would never end completely in terms of the survival time of our species. Bottom line, we need forward defense and we would have to fight in a proactive manner, that is detect danger and strike first. Like Israel. This is your argument: Without taxation people will not spend enough money on their defense to keep them free. Therefore, we need to force them to be free. Among the problems with this: 1. Once the government has the power to steal from us (which makes it a criminal gang), why must we assume that this form of aggression is necessarily less than what we would face from other gangs? 2. If government has the power to take funds from producers without the consent of those producers, then government has no incentive to conduct itself in a way that would reduce risks or costs. It can act in the most irresponsible manner and simply pass on the costs of irresponsibility to the tax slaves. Proof of this can be found in the growth of statism over the 227-year history of the U.S. 3. In any society under rule of a taxation authority, there will inevitably be net tax consumers and net tax producers. The winners, of course, will be the tax-paid officials controlling the reins of power. Why should we assume that their insight into national security is greater than that of the producers? They are simply better at winning elections. 4. If in the name of "the national good" people may be forced to pay for defense services, why would that principle not also apply to education, or transportation or the production of energy? Given that the government has already set the precedent of forcing people to take care of their defense, at that point there can be no consistent objection to extending that policy to every other sphere of human life. In other words if a man is coming to kill you, you will know it ahead of time by consulting a clairvoyant. That way you can kill him the night before in his sleep.

Tell us a good way to eliminate the danger of armed attack on our nation. Once we do that, we can crank back and let the sheriff of Mayberry keep the domestic peace. One way is to focus on the nation's defense rather than empire, which is what U.S. foreign policy consists of today. As Rand wrote in her essay "Government Financing in a Free Society," people will voluntarily pay for defense but not "against the danger of aggression by Cambodia." Furthermore, since Rand specifically mentioned "the police, the armed forces, the law courts" as necessary functions, it is unlikely that that she had sheriffs in mind to repel an armed attack on our nation.

Who said values were objective? And for that matter who said that principles are objective? You wrote that the cell phone thief was "creating or reinforcing an image of themselves that they will then either project onto others or hold in contrast to others with stronger principles than themselves." Why must the thief necessarily see the principles of others as being stronger? Yes, there is enough room for subjectivism in ethics to fit a phone thief who regards owning a cell phone as more important than not violating the rights of another person. There is no reason to conclude his relationships suffered if he had no shame. In such a case, he is a psychopath, which he must have been. But we're talking about what he did in terms of sane people ethics. If a man is strong in his belief that feeding his family is more important that respecting the property rights of the baker, then it unlikely that he will feel shame. We can say the same thing about the phone thief and his needs. You may apply the word "psychopath" to one, both or neither. Bear in mind that "psychopath" typically refers to a continuous aspect of personality, something we haven't seen in either case that we've examined. The phone thief and the bread thief do not respect others' property. But they do respect property. They both like the feeling that owning property brings. Yes, if I am a baker, I do not want anyone stealing my bread, even someone with a starving family. We would then have to say that the man who stole the bread for his starving family assumed people did not respect property rights and gave himself permission to join in in the disrespect. To say that his relationships will necessarily suffer requires proof, something which at some point you may wish to provide.

Just as you call a mass murderer a "gentleman", your blind spot is again revealed by your use of the word "benefit". Your only measure of benefit is wealth, and not what a person becomes by doing evil. This is why you don't see what you are. Greg Never said wealth was the only form of benefit. The owner of the self is the only one in the position to evaluate what constitutes a benefit. The biography I referenced supports the idea that Mao was satisfied with his life. Feel free to submit any relevant data that proves otherwise.

Regarding the alleged necessity of taxation: even Objectivists, a group no one would accuse of being weak on national defense, admit that once welfare state functions are eliminated, a government limited to police, armed forces, and law courts would require expenditures totaling only a fraction of the current federal budget. Yaron Brook: "In a laissez-faire society, government would be a lot smaller." More importantly, in order to be convinced of the idea of taxation, I would have to be shown how a politician on the basis of winning a state or national popularity contest becomes automatically better qualified than I to know how to spend the money I earned. That's the hurdle no pro-taxer has been able to overleap.

Do you not think that at least his relationships suffered the more evil he committed? You assume that some people can, for example, snatch a cell phone without losing any sleep--but aren't they creating or reinforcing an image of themselves that they will then either project onto others or hold in contrast to others with stronger principles than themselves and feel, "If they only knew who I really was they would not want anything to do with me." And obviously there are degrees depending on the acts and how many. You cannot judge yourself by different standards than you judge others. If you can get along with a phone thief, then you would probably steal a phone yourself if you knew you'd get away with it. Such low expectations of others implies a certain level of contempt for humanity that likely starts with oneself--informed by one's thoughts and actions. I don't think it is revealing to envy Mao's standard of living, however, to envy Mao in full context, putting those comforts above the need for self-esteem (independence), would betray a twisted mind. To be fixated on the values gained without concideration for the values lost is irrational. Would I steal a loaf of bread to feed my starving family? I think it is rational and I would not judge someone poorly for doing so. You have to weigh both sides and there is not a universal answer to every ethical dilemma. Let's start with your last paragraph: Now let's do a comparison of cases: Case 1. For some people the good of the family outweighs the value of respect for others' property. For Citizen A, full stomachs at his kitchen table matter more than the baker having a full inventory. Citizen A tells himself the baker won't feel the loss too badly, and the bread will make a big difference in the lives of his wife and son. Citizen A could be described as "fixated on the values gained without consideration for the values lost," but, most importantly, in his mind he did not trade a higher value for a lower value. Case 2. Citizen B values owning a cell phone above the right of the owner to keep that device. Citizen B tells himself the rightful owner won't feel the loss too badly, and the new phone will make a big difference in B's ability to apply for and get a job. In his mind B did not trade a higher value for a lower value. But what about principles? Well, the principle of necessary theft has already been established in the first case. We are now left to ask, where is the "scientific" or "objective" level of need that would allow 1 but disallow 2? Furthermore, there is no reason we must conclude that either man suffered the loss of relationships for the evil committed. As for getting along with the phone thief, that's another issue. My purpose here is to show that respect for others' property does not in any automatic or "universal" way (to use your word) follow from Rand's first principles. (There may, however, be excellent reasons to respect others' property that are not detailed in Rand's philosophy.)

Nope. My preference for the color green is not going to lead me to see red as green at a traffic light. Similarly, my preference for laissez-faire capitalism is not going to prevent me from understanding why certain people stand to benefit from a communist dictatorship.

The Colonies won their war of Independence with the help of France. Without that they would not have won. Even so, the Brits beat the shit out of the American states in the War of 1812. They even burned the White House. Ba'al Chatzaf And the U.S. won other wars with the help of France, Great Britain, Canada, etc. But a country does not require a central government to win allies. In fact, one could argue that the colonies were in fact a group of allies, not too different from the coalition that defeated Napoleon. Since the War of 1812 was fought after the Articles of Confederation had already been discarded, we can hardly conclude from that event that only a central government can repel an invasion. Without a strong government that could raise a powerful army (by taxation and draft) I would have ended up as a cake of soap on some Nazi's bathtub. Ba'al Chatzaf By the same non-logic we could argue that since the U.S. had an income tax and a welfare state when it defeated Hitler, we need an income tax and welfare state to defend against the next Hitler.

...which is your interpretation of someone else's writings filtered through your own values.Greg And your position is that Mao did not live in comfort? And that knowledge is based on direct experience with the gentleman?

One does not himself have to be the exception to show there is an exception to a claim. To illustrate, if someone claims that pole vaulting above 6 mi is impossible, I do not personally have to pole vault 6.16 m to establish that such an action can be performed.

What I know of Mao is based primarily on Philip Short's definitive biography. If you have a better source kindly submit it.

Why was more unity required? The colonies had just fought and won a war against the greatest army on earth--and did so without a President, a Supreme Court, or national taxation and regulation of commerce. Many Americans feared a central government would behave exactly like the British Crown. And they were correct.

Again, you're trying to use a specific example and not looking at the expected payoff. For every Mao, there were 100 would-be Mao's that failed. You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest." I cited Mao as a disproof. You responded with irrelevant statements about expected payoffs and failed would-be Maos. Yet Mao's life shows, among many other things, that at least one person in history did advance his career and build wealth and power through cheating, lying, stealing, murdering. It upends your bald assertion about crime never paying. And as for payoffs, for every successful actress in Hollywood there are a thousand would-be stars. But the existence of overwhelming numbers of failed hopefuls does nothing to prove the claim that being a successful actress is never in one's interest. Same problem. For every person that succeeds as a sleazy politician, there are 100 that don't. And, even politicians have their limits. A lot of them end up going to jail. Look at the recent history of governors of Illinois. Me: Bill Clinton cheated, lied and stole, and now lives a comfortable life. You: There's a problem with your example because the governor of Illinois went to jail. Me: ??? The whole argument is over whether violating other people's rights is in a person's self interest, so you can't use that as a point of argument. I disagree that stealing a necklace is in a person's self interest. You described the prudent predator's behavior as unprincipled. I merely pointed out that the principles she adhered to happen not to be your particular principles. "Twaddle" being defined as any argument that you disagree with. Again, the issue is expected payoff, not the payoff in one instance. Hindsight is 20/20. (I guess, as a determinist, you know the outcome before there is one.) You wrote, "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest." If a person manages to increase her wealth and advance her self-interest through stealing, the expected payoff is irrelevant. It is the actual payoff that matters in my example of a successful thief. That example directly contradicts the claim that stealing is never in one's self-interest. Furthermore, it wasn't hindsight that told the thief that the owner of the necklace was demented, that there were no other witnesses in the house, that no one regularly checked on the contents of the jewelry box, or that other caregivers visited on other days of the week and thus obscured any particular leads for detectives. Your post is an example of a person clinging to a failed theory by claiming that reality must be in error. I know several investors who have done extremely well by picking winners and not blindly following the choices of a major fund. In any case it is the exceptions I'm talking about, and your claim did not admit exceptions: "I will simply assert, without proof at this point, that cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, etc., are never in a person's self interest." [my emphasis]

Your error is the extension of a "preferable" solution in one context to all contexts absolutely. That is not objective justice; it is absolutism. There may be an excellent reason to deal with contract breakers by spreading word of their crime--and doing nothing more. There may be an excellent reason why the consequences for that particular crime should be less punitive than other forms of illegitimate wealth transfer. But instead of presenting such reasons, you content yourself with merely issuing a warning against absolutism.