THE LEPERS OF OBJECTIVISM

[L W HALL]

"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.

"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

Here is a good example of why I believe it is erroneous to group Muslim countries where terrorism of a mystical origin exist, in with the likes of North Korea. You are dealing with two different types of motivation, and they should be viewed in the light of what their particular goals are in order to device the best response to each.

Of course if your solution to the whole problem is "nuke them all", then that doesn't take a whole lot of mental work.

L W

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

LW,

I agree with your view. The Korean culture presents other intellectual challenges altogether from Islamic ones. If we don't take Islamic culture seriously as intellectuals, the Islamist fundamentalists certainly do so. They are glad to do it.

Incidentally, since the present thread started about SLOP, it is only fair to mention notable exceptions when they appear. There is one NZ person, Robert Winefield, who has posted several times on a thread started by Phil Coates called "A Craven Act of Surrender" and has vehemently opposed the idea of nuking an entire city like Tehran to radioactive leftovers. His arguments have been put forth in the same language as the environment, which is to say full of gratuitous vulgarity used in the mistaken belief that this denotes "passion," but his arguments are reality-based and a heartfelt call to use common sense in preaching how to wage war.

It is a relief to see those kinds of arguments in that environment.

Michael

[AndrewED]

Hmmmm...

Chickenhawk curmudgeon fights. What an image! And it does have a nice ring to it.

I wonder if we can turn this into some kind of entertainment, like dog fights or rooster fights, and charge admission...

(Sorry. I couldn't resist that...)

Michael

LLAAADEEEEES and GENNNNTLEMUNNNNN,

In this corner,

Reynold, the Rabid Randian!

And in this corner,

Terry, the Terrible Tolerator!

Lock horns boys, this is going to be a fight to the bitter axioms. Free cigarettes for everyone! Come the end, we shall not fail to pronounce moral judgment on the winner and loser alike.

[Philip Coates]

> this is going to be a fight to the bitter axioms. Free cigarettes for everyone! Come the end, we shall not fail to pronounce moral judgment on the winner and loser alike. [Andrew]

A fight to the bitter axioms!! I love it!

>Robert Winefield, who has posted several times on a thread started by Phil Coates called "A Craven Act of Surrender" and has vehemently opposed the idea of nuking an entire city like Tehran to radioactive leftovers.... It is a relief to see those kinds of arguments in that environment.

Michael, he made many excellent points. I think many people are reluctant to post over there and fight a whole crowd and get slimed instantly. It's unpleasant. I wear plastic wrap and rubber gloves before I go over there. :-)

[Rich Engle]

Martin pulled up an interesting fish while he was out:

I recall reading on SOLOP a poster who basically argued that people living in a police state have no rights left anyway, therefore killing them is not violating their rights, since their rights have already been eliminated by their government.

I would like to see this quote in-the-flesh before commenting, but if Martin's recollection is accurate, then...

That is an abhorrent, piece-of-shit comment. Does it only occur to me that here is a person who is playing God? A person that has made a life/death (er, emphasis on the death part) for another human?

This is where you truly see why the humans-as-chess-pieces view is wrong, and why it will always be wrong. Evil comes from hateful thinking, and that is evil thinking. It is as callous as my fingers are after playing a 3-hour gig. If that statement is as advertised, bring me that person, I want to have a little personal time with them; I might want to tune them up a little.

r

Today's phrase is "Fuck you, a-hole."

Edited September 30, 2006 by Rich Engle

[Victor Pross]

“I recall reading on SOLOP a poster who basically argued that people living in a police state have no rights left anyway, therefore killing them is not violating their rights, since their rights have already been eliminated by their government.”

This is a particularly abhorrent statement not only for its ugly viciousness—but also—for its philosophical ignorance. Does this person really consider themselves an Objectivist? Rights cannot be “eliminated”—only violated. The person’s whose rights have been violated still retains rights as a human being—and all that which it implies. This guy is a total asshole.

Edited October 3, 2006 by Victor Pross

[Rich Engle]

I guess it would be prudent to track down that quote if possible.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is a site owned by Daniel Barnes that is critical of Ayn Rand and devoted to Greg Nyquist's book, Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. Greg made a post entitled Is Rand's Influence in Decline? I just posted an answer to a few points raised, but one part of that post is pertinent to our discussion here, so I am giving that part below.

However, Greg’s post does bring up an intellectual concern I hold regarding image. This is the question of nukes. I have seen that when irresponsible use of nukes becomes wedded to the image of a person or group, public rejection is high. ARI has been preaching the morality of preemptive nuking (as defense) in a barrage of lectures, articles, courses, op-eds and letters to the editor (one of which even states that war should be waged against the whole Palestinian people, not just the government). As ARI claims to be the official voice of Objectivism, this "nuke-crazy" image is being stamped on the philosophy in the public mind.

For a historical perspective, this is one of the main factors that buried Goldwater’s presidential bid. In Brazil, an upcoming political star, Eneas, with a new political party PRONAS, got severely marginalized for the same reason - preaching the glories of nukes. These are two examples off the top of my head. I am sure a little research will wield many results.

In my analysis, this is a common sense thing that cuts out all rhetoric. People have traditionally and soundly marginalized atom bomb/nuke preachers because they perceive that those who preach delight in nukes will use them if they get their hands on them. They are afraid that the enthusiasts will use nukes recklessly. (I think they are right, too. If a guy tells me he wants to destroy and kill on a massive scale without mercy, I give him the benefit of the doubt and take him at his word. History is replete with examples of people who do just that. And reality is always far worse than the rationalizations preached.)

So if there is a decline in Rand/Objectivism hits on Google, my guess is that it would be more due to this "nuke-crazy" image than anything else.

This is not my main reason for opposing ARI's approach, but it sure is a factor.

Michael

[Dennis Hardin]

If I quote Ayn Rand, it is only because I think she has eloquently summarized an issue better than I could possibly hope to do so. Obviously her arguments may have been flawed at times. I have my share of disagreements with her on specific issues. But whatever her mistakes, I do not think we can accuse her psycho-epistemology of reflecting “rationalism” or “floating abstractions.”

We can certainly fault her for the use of hyperbole at times, but those labels simply do not apply when we are talking about her thinking processes. There may be a few exceptions, but I do not personally know of any. So when you are attacking viewpoints that she explicitly clarified, you are simply going to have to do better than that.

In the case of Soviet Russia, she obviously did not regard the fact that people were prevented from leaving as in any way relevant to the issue of their rights when their government threatens a free nation. If the citizens of any nation allow their government to descend to that level of barbarism, they have lost all legitimate claim to their rights. That is the moral-political principle involved. The suggestion that her view of Soviet Russia constituted a “floating abstraction” is ridiculous.

Incidentally, I disagree with Barbara that this same principle of responsibility could logically be extended to apply to specific laws. There is a fundamental difference between conducting your life as ‘business as usual’ when your government does something of which you disapprove and continuing to do so when it becomes openly cannibalistic.

Michael,

The Ford Hall Forum quote from Ayn Rand that I posted was taken from my own archives, and I am sorry that I did not note the original source. However, as I recall, this was the pre-Mayhew version posted on the ARI website. It does appear that some liberties were taken, but what specifically and by whom we cannot say without actually seeing the verbatim quote.

Please accept my apology for not answering any other recent (respectful) responses to my previous comments. The truth is, as much as I might like to, there is simply no way I can devote the amount of time to this discussion that I might like. I generally ignore anything that reflects a tone of disrespect, but I would like to answer those people who ask sincere questions, and I regret that my present schedule and other commitments simply do not allow me to do so.

For the record, I want to say that I take a viewpoint in radical opposition to that expressed by most participants on this thread, who contend that the “insanity” advocated by Biddle and others at ARI must be repudiated in order for Objectivism to be taken seriously as a rational philosophy. There is no doubt in my own mind that Ayn Rand would adopt a position similar to that of ARI. Her prior statements, often quoted on this thread, clearly point to such a conclusion. And while this obviously does not mean that such a position is necessarily correct, I think it does mean that such a position is thoroughly consistent with Objectivism.

And, further, a watered-down, “moderate” version of Objectivism, which does not spell out clearly the moral-political implications of egoism—that a nation which upholds terrorism can legitimately be threatened with annihilation until it renounces such a position, that we must reject any suggestion that American lives can be sacrificed to save “innocents” who stand by while their dictatorial governments threaten our freedom—will not serve to sustain this great nation in a time of crisis, when it needs a rational philosophy more than ever.

Dennis

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

It is a delight to disagree with you. For as much as we do disagree, we acknowledge that we are both using our minds independently in the best, most rational manner we know how.

There is a huge difference between you and the “preconceptual stooges” as you so aptly called them. Just as there is a huge difference between me and some nasty folks (usually found on select libertarian sites) who are hostile to the American government. I feel that we both love this life, love reason and love liberty, and that there are factors that have occurred along the courses of our different lives that have led us to be on opposite sides of how best to defend our country. (Maybe I should say “apparently” opposite sides, since I am pretty sure that if push came to shove on either side, neither of us would hesitate to act decisively.)

Now, I have some highly interesting observations. I know you don’t have much time to discuss, but you might have time to read. You wrote:

There is no doubt in my own mind that Ayn Rand would adopt a position similar to that of ARI. Her prior statements, often quoted on this thread, clearly point to such a conclusion. And while this obviously does not mean that such a position is necessarily correct, I think it does mean that such a position is thoroughly consistent with Objectivism.

This would depend on your concept of what Objectivism is. I don’t happen to completely agree with Rand in her Q&A answers on this issue (although I agree with parts). Barbara certainly does not agree with Rand. Once again (to repeat), in Post 63 on this thread, she wrote:

As for the idea that the citizens of a statist country in some sense implicitly support their government, I consider this preposterous. Do you support our anti-trust laws? -- or universal health insurance? -- or the mess that is our public education? Should you be held responsible for them? And note that in Soviet Russia, Rand did not join the underground. Did that mean she supported the Communist regime? Did her family, who also did not rebel and who did not attempt to leave Russia, support it? I've never understood how she could say that the citizens of a country are responsible for their government, and should be held responsible for it. This seems to me to fly in the face of the reality of a dictatorship.

In terms of Objectivism, I presume you will not mind using ARI’s standard of defining this since we are discussing ARI’s interpretation of Rand. I also presume you will not mind using the quote below for that standard. From Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff, “Preface,” p. xv:

"Objectivism" is the name of Ayn Rand's philosophy as presented in the material she herself wrote or endorsed.

We both agree that the Q&A you presented was later altered at ARI by someone. But let us stay with the most recent version as given in the Q&A book (now posted on the ARI site) for simplicity. Here is what Robert Mayhew wrote in Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by him, “Introduction,” p. x:

I believe I have done a good job in editing this material. Nevertheless, no one can guarantee that Ayn Rand would have approved of editing she herself did not see. For this reason, however fascinating and useful, these Q&A should not be considered part of Objectivism.

The material ARI uses to justify, in moral terms, the preemptive massive killing of unarmed civilians is all taken from Rand's Q&A answers, which by definition "should not be considered part of Objectivism."

As we shall see, the real problem in citing Objectivism for defining the moral responsibility of unarmed civilians for their government is that Rand did not agree with Rand. Let us see what she actually published on pertinent matters (i.e., "official Objectivism"), especially as to whether a person is morally responsible for the government of the country he/she lives in. The following quote is taken from “The Question of Scholarships” by Ayn Rand, first published in The Objectivist, June 1966, and later included in The Voice of Reason.

Third—and most important—the young people of today are not responsible for the immoral state of the world into which they were born. Those who accept the welfare-statist ideology assume their share of the guilt when they do so. But the anti-collectivists are innocent victims who face an impossible situation…

(…)

The issue is primarily ideological, not financial. Minimizing the financial injury inflicted on you by the welfare-state laws, does not constitute support of welfare statism (since the purpose of such laws is to injure you) and is not morally reprehensible. Initiating, advocating, or expanding such laws is.

(…)

So long as financial considerations do not alter or affect your convictions, so long as you fight against welfare statism (and only so long as you fight it) and are prepared to give up any of its momentary benefits in exchange for repeal and freedom—so long as you do not sell your soul (or your vote)—you are morally in the clear. The essence of the issue lies in your own mind and attitude.

That is pretty clear. People "are not responsible for the immoral state of the world into which they were born." Those who “accept the welfare-statist ideology” are morally responsible and “anti-collectivists are innocent victims who face an impossible situation.” So long as you do not “sell your soul,” you are “morally in the clear.” I don’t see where this (both principle and moral evaluation) differs in any essential manner for a person in a foreign country under a dictatorship. Don't forget, this is official Objectivism, at least according to ARI.

Now let us see how Rand acted—and presented as proper—in terms of her own conduct in Communist Russia. According to the following quote, she would have been morally responsible for the Soviet government if the Q&A standard were used. From the way she wrote, however, she did not seem to be accepting any share of moral responsibility. On the contrary, she wrote as if she and the young people were victims. The following quote is taken from “The ‘Inexplicable Personal Alchemy’” by Ayn Rand, first published in The Objectivist, January 1969, later included in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, which was later renamed and expanded without her authorization to The Return of the Primitive.

I do not mean that I would have been one of the accused in that Soviet courtroom: I knew enough, in my college days, to know that it was useless to attempt political protests in Soviet Russia. But that knowledge broke down, involuntarily, many times; so I would probably have been one of those protesters in the street who engaged in the terrible futility of debating with the secret police.

(…)

Consciously or not, in the mind of any rebel in Soviet Russia, particularly of the young, there is only one court of final appeal against the injustice, the brutality, the sadistic horror of the inhuman social system in which they are trapped: abroad.

The meaning of that word for a Soviet citizen is incommunicable to anyone who has not lived in that country: if you project what you would feel for a combination of Atlantis, the Promised Land and the most glorious civilization on another planet, as imagined by a benevolent kind of science fiction, you will have a pale approximation. "Abroad," to a Soviet Russian, is as distant, shining and unattainable as these; yet to any Russian who lifts his head for a moment from the Soviet muck, the concept "abroad" is a psychological necessity, a lifeline and soul preserver.

(…)

It is not that one hopes for material help or liberation to come from "abroad"; it is that such a place exists. The mere knowledge that a nobler way of life is possible somewhere, redeems the human race in one's mind. And when, in moments of despair or final extremity, one cries out in protest, that cry is not consciously addressed to anyone, only to whatever justice might exist in the universe at large; but, subconsciously, the universe at large is "abroad."

None of that sounds like people morally responsible for the Soviet government.

I have claimed that if Objectivists wish to punish Iran and other Islamist countries for being dictatorships and terrorist threats, they should first advocate not doing business with them. It is hypocrisy to support business with them while declaring them enemies to be attacked by bombing. In ARI’s version of official Objectivism, Rand agrees with this. The following quote is from the same essay as above.

There is only one form of protest open to the men of goodwill in the semi-free world: do not sanction the Soviet jailers of those young people—do not help them to pretend that they are the morally acceptable leaders of a civilized country. Do not patronize or support the evil pretense of the so-called "cultural exchanges"—any Soviet-government-sponsored scientists, professors, writers, artists, musicians, dancers (who are either vicious bootlickers or doomed, tortured victims). Do not patronize, support or deal with any Soviet supporters and apologists in this country: they are the guiltiest men of all. Speak out on any scale open to you, public or private, in protest and in defense of those young victims.

What does Rand think about making ideological efforts under a dictatorship, especially if a citizen is going to be attributed with moral responsibility for the government's wrongdoing? The following quote is from The Ayn Rand Letter, Vol. 1, No. 7, January 3, 1972, "What Can One Do?"

It is too late for a movement of people who hold a conventional mixture of contradictory philosophical notions. It is too early for a movement of people dedicated to a philosophy of reason. But it is never too late or too early to propagate the right ideas—except under a dictatorship.

Rand exempted private citizens from being able to perpetrate the act of war itself. But as stated in the Q&A standard, private citizens are responsible for their government, so they are responsible for what their government does. For the sake of clarity, here is a quote from official Objectivism as recognized by ARI. It is from “The Roots Of War” by Ayn Rand, first published in The Objectivist, June 1966, later included in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Remember that private citizens—whether rich or poor, whether businessmen or workers—have no power to start a war. That power is the exclusive prerogative of a government. Which type of government is more likely to plunge a country into war: a government of limited powers, bound by constitutional restrictions—or an unlimited government, open to the pressure of any group with warlike interests or ideologies, a government able to command armies to march at the whim of a single chief executive?

What did Rand really think was the “moral” failing of most citizens (the majority)? Passivity. In Christianity, this would be called a sin of omission. Rand also felt that such passivity was “always” a property of “any group, culture, society, or age.” Thus, as given below, she does not attribute moral responsibility per se to the majority. She calls them “social ballast” instead. I understand this to mean they do not having any responsibility one way or the other. They are merely led. Their only responsibility is that they did not get involved. The ones with active moral responsibility are “those who do care.” The following quote is from “The Cashing-In: The Student ‘Rebellion’” by Ayn Rand, first published in The Objectivist Newsletter, July, August, and September 1965, later included in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

The passive supporters of the status quo are always the majority in any group, culture, society, or age. But it is not by passive majorities that the trends of a nation are set. Who sets them? Anyone who cares to do so, if he has the intellectual ammunition to win on the battlefield of ideas, which belongs to those who do care. Those who don’t, are merely social ballast by their own choice and predilection.

How does Rand view this in terms of mental health? The following is from “The Comprachicos,” first published in The Objectivist, August-December 1970, later included in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, which was later renamed and expanded without her authorization to The Return of the Primitive.

The principle involved is clear on an adult level: when men are caught in the power of an enormous evil—such as under the Soviet or Nazi dictatorship—those who are willing to suffer as helpless victims, rather than make terms with the evil, have a good chance to regain their psychological health; but not those who join the G.P.U. or the S.S.

I find it odd that Rand can use a phrase like “caught in the power of an enormous evil—such as under the Soviet or Nazi dictatorship,” consider all such people psychologically unhealthy (otherwise, why would they have to regain their psychological health?), and still call them morally responsible for such an “enormous evil” elsewhere.

And what does Rand advise people to do when they are “caught in the power of an enormous evil”? Here is what she told young men to do about the military draft, which was pretty enormous and evil. The quote is from “The Wreckage Of The Consensus” by Ayn Rand, first published in The Objectivist, May 1967, later included in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

There is, however, one moral aspect of the issue that needs clarification. Some young men seem to labor under the misapprehension that since the draft is a violation of their rights, compliance with the draft law would constitute a moral sanction of that violation. This is a serious error. A forced compliance is not a sanction. All of us are forced to comply with many laws that violate our rights, but so long as we advocate the repeal of such laws, our compliance does not constitute a sanction. Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically; they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom. To quote from an editorial on this subject in the April 1967 issue of Persuasion: "One does not stop the juggernaut by throwing oneself in front of it...")

Dennis, please excuse me for being so long in this post. I needed to furnish a series of quotes from Rand to show that Objectivism does not start and end with her Q&A responses, nor does it start and end with ARI.

If ARI sympathizers wish to advocate preemptive nuking of cities and blaming the unarmed victims because they are “morally responsible for their government,” such sympathizers are free to do so as their own opinions, but they cannot claim that this is consonant with official Objectivism according to ARI's own definition. There are too many conflicts between this position and the above quotes.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

In the case of Soviet Russia, she obviously did not regard the fact that people were prevented from leaving as in any way relevant to the issue of their rights when their government threatens a free nation. If the citizens of any nation allow their government to descend to that level of barbarism, they have lost all legitimate claim to their rights.

If she really meant that, she was a moral monster and a proponent of the worst kind of collectivism. Using the same kind of reasoning, the Jews who were killed in the holocaust had lost all legitimate claim to their rights, after all they allowed their governments to descend to that level of barbarism and they didn't flee to a free country, so it was ok to kill them. I have always thought that Whittaker Chambers's infamous dictum "to a gas chamber - go!" about AS was far over the top, but now I'm beginning to realize that he may have had a point. And as it's likely that in the long run the fanatical, genocidal ARI-type faction will prevail over the more reasonable kind of Objectivists, it can only be hoped that Objectivism is doomed as an intellectual movement. Yuck!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...

Moral monster? Rand?

That would be wishful thinking by Rand haters and I know you are not that. (Well, maybe a case could be made for seeing her that way by homosexuals, women presidents, Beethoven lovers, libertarians, monogamists, and a few others.)

Rand would have been a moral monster if she had preached that principle consistently, but she did not. That was only on a few sporadic occassions in Q&A sessioins. She loved life and produced wonderful pro-life books. You are right, though, about that principle being horribly collectivist.

Let's just say that, like all of us do at times, Rand overreacted because of something she hated (Soviet Russia in her case) and because of fear of losing something she loved (USA).

What pains me is when this overreaction held up to the world as what Objectivism stands for and then used to justify human slaughter. As I showed in the quotes above, her printed views are in conflict with this.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Thank you for posting those multiple quotations from Rand's published work, in which she distinctly did not hold the subjects of a totalitarian regime morally responsible for the continued existence of that regime.

Besides Rand's hatred of Russian culture and her fears for the United States (remember, she made those statements about war with the Soviet Union when everyone knew that such a war would be nuclear, and the prevailing doctrine for avoiding such a war was called MAD, for Mutual Assured Destruction), I would add her overwhelming cultural pessimism as a source for the now-notorious statments from her Q&A.

The ARIans would be far better off excising those statements from the corpus of her "philosophical views" and leaving in her published opinion about women presidents, than keeping their current interpretation which does the reverse.

Robert Campbell

PS. Having butted heads with Robert Winefield more than once in the past, I am pleased to see him objecting to the prevailing nuke-Tehran attitudes over on SOLOP.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

So long as I am furnishing Rand quotes, here is another one from Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by Robert Mayhew (pp. 99-100). This concerns my contention that one should preach not doing business with a dictatorship before preaching preemptive bombing of the dictatorship's cities, and that supporting such trade is gross hypocrisy.

Granted, the Q&A book is not "official Objectivism" according to ARI, but Rand's message is clear about the immorality of trade with dictatorships. If ARI and/or sympathizers preach one thing based on the Q&A (i.e., preemptive bombing of unarmed civilians is moral if it is done in defense), but preach the contrary of the Q&A with respect to another (i.e., doing business with dictatorships is moral if it deals with something the USA needs like oil), then they are not being consistent.

Q: Is it moral for a businessman to sell goods to our government and to foreign governments, when the source of government funds is expropriated wealth?

AR: (...) Whether he should deal with foreign governments is a different issue. You need to judge each case according to the nature of the particular government. It is totally immoral to deal with Soviet Russia, as it was to deal with NAZI Germany, or any genuine dictatorship.

I wonder if Iran or other Islamist nations are considered "genuine dictatorships" by ARI and/or sympathizers when it comes time to trade in oil, or if "genuine dictatorship" is a designation used only at bombing time.

More specifically, if the Saudi oil fields were obtained immorally by American companies, since in the Q&A it is immoral to engage in trade with a "genuine dictatorship," how can the oil fields be "restored to their rightful owners" as Peikoff, Brook, Epstein, Biddle and the whole ARI crew claim?

How does one become a "rightful owner" immorally?

Michael

[dan_edge]

NOTES FROM A LEPER

Rights are moral principles that define man's needs in a social context.  A government's function is to protect the rights of its own citizens, not the citizens of other countries, and certainly not the citizens of violent dictatorships.  We form a government to fulfill *our* needs (for freedom), and our nation's policies ought to function in accordance with those needs.

In a domestic capacity, these needs are best served by applying the initiation of force principle through the police and court systems.  The government acts to to punish or remove from society those individuals who initiate force.  Since protecting the freedom of our nation's citizens is paramount, great care is taken to ensure that innocent civilians aren't significantly affected by crime.  The court system helps protect the innocent from accidental prosecution.  Police make efforts not to hurt bystanders when making arrests.  The military doesn't bomb a city into rubble to kill a single criminal.  Again, all this is done because, in a rational society based on a recognition of individual rights, *protecting the freedom of our nation's citizens is paramount.*

One can apply the same principle to the context of a war.  Every effort ought to be taken to protect the rights of the civilians in the home country.  This means that the government ought to do whatever is necessary to defend the freedom of its citizens for the longterm, making every effort to ensure that innocent civilians (of the home country) are not significantly affected by (international) crime. But in this context, it is not necessary to make individual arrests, place individuals on trial, and make pinpoint attacks on specific targets.  This is the absolute worst way to fight a war, if a nation is primarily concerned with the needs of its own citizens.

Regarding how the principle of rights applies to international policy and the ethics of war, that's as far as one needs to go.  Rights theory dictates the we *need* our government to defend our freedom in every way possible.  When determining the morality of a particular action in war, one must only ask the question: Will this action best preserve the longterm freedom of the defending nation's citizens?  If the answer is "yes," then the action is morally obligatory.  Everything else is a question of military tactics.

Those of you who oppose the targeting of civilians in war must ask yourselves this question: *If* targeting civilians were the best way to end a war quickly and cheaply, and *if* doing so were the best way to preserve the long term freedom of our country's citizens, *then* would you support it?

If your answer is "yes," and your argument is only that targeting civilians is not an effective military tactic, then I refer you to Dr. Lewis's "Sherman" article, or to the defeat of the Japanese in WWII, or a myriad of other military examples throughout history. Based on my limited understanding of military tactics, targeting civilian populations can be *very* effective in certain contexts.

If your answer is "no," then we have a fundamental disagreement. If the principle of individual rights requires that a nation frustrate the needs of its own citizens in order to protect those outside its borders, then I don't know what you're talking about when you say "rights." You've gone into another realm, the World of the Forms maybe, but you're certainly no longer talking about a philosophy for living on earth.

A few ancillary issues:

I would like to briefly address the question of whether or not non-combatants are morally responsible for the actions of their government. I say briefly, because my position is simple: it doesn't matter. Whether or not the civilians we target are morally guilty has no bearing on our right to target them. The question is not: "are they morally innocent?" but: "would targeting them be an effective tactic in protecting *our* morally innocent population?" If the answer to the latter question is "yes," then we have every right to target them.

One last point on the effectiveness of targeting civilians: No matter whether or not civilians in an enemy country sanction the actions of their government, they fuel their country's war machine simply by living and working there. They continue to produce food, cars, fuel, and other things that are used by the enemy. And they continue to provide funds for the enemy government in the form of taxes. An enemy that is bolstered by the unfettered production of its populous is much more difficult to defeat, and has much less incentive to surrender.

--Dan Edge

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dan,

Just because you are going to study at ARI, this does not make you a leper. The lepers are those who take glee (and express it), or who show complete indifference, in the wholesale destruction of human life.

Your comments are interesting, but you grounded them on an argument that has not been advanced hardly at all on OL on either side (but it has by libertarians) - that of individual rights. I keep seeing it stated all over Objectivism/libertarianism-land that rights are inherent, they are attributes, they are properties, yada yada yada.

Let's do Objectivism 101. Atlas Shrugged time. Rights are conditions required to exercise reason in society. Reason is not an attribute or anything else in Objectivism. Reason is a value. (Please refer to Galt's speech on the cardinal values and virtues.) This makes rights - all rights - values. They are moral principles that are grounded in man's nature, but they are also social guarantees of possibility of action without interference from others. Everybody is born with human nature, but nobody is born with such guarantees. These guarantees pass through the same process that all values do - they are consciously obtained and they are held. They do not fall from the sky. ("'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the actions by which one gains and keeps it." This is also from Atlas Shrugged, Galt's speech.) If we are born with certain rights in America, it is because others have obtained and held them for us in a body of law.

(Technically speaking, rights also guarantee us freedom of action to pursue a purpose, i.e. to produce, and freedom of action to pursue self-esteem, the other two cardinal virtues.)

The first requirement for obtaining a right is to identify it. If a right is not identified in a society, it is not held by the citizens, unless one wishes to discuss the legitimacy of unknown/unchosen social values. In the case in point, the preemptive and massive destruction of Iran by nuclear arms, this is not being rebutted (by me at least) in terms of rights. Politically, Iranians do not have the same rights Americans have. Philosophically, as human beings, they certainly need the same individual rights to exercise reason. That does not mean that they are in possession of these values.

The opposition I have against the ARI position is because of its gross oversimplifications that result in death, which, once committed, is impossible to undo. I have been around long enough to see that when mass destruction of a targeted people is preached, and this is implemented, it is almost always more horrible in reality than what was preached. I have no problem with defense. I do have a big problem with genocide, regardless of why it happens.

The scenario you laid out rights-wise is pure tribal thinking. On a philosophical level, "our tribe" becomes more important as human beings than "our species." "I as a member of our tribe" becomes more important than "I as an individual." Does that seem far-fetched? Look at it from a different angle: "he as a member of their tribe (the enemy tribe)" is more important than "he as an individual."

I admit that when there is an armed attack from a nation, a certain amount of tribal thinking is forced upon us by circumstances. This is due to the fact that nations exist. Politically this is justified in war and hostilities. But there it stops. Philosophically, there is never any justification for saying that "he is not a member of my tribe so he has no value whatsoever as an individual human being."

When you discuss massive lethal use of preemptive force against unarmed civilians, you are talking on this level. You are not talking politically any longer.

I have stated in unequivocal terms that I believe that states that sponsor terrorism (to coin a phrase) should be severely punished, and if they do not stop, they should be dismantled by force. This is not something that happens from one minute to the next and there certainly is an aspect of proportionality involved. The USA military has been brilliant in doing this twice recently.

I have further stated that we should not be doing business with these governments, especially so long as they sponsor terrorism. ARI is silent on this issue.

I have also stated that we are involved in an intellectual war as part of the whole war effort (the other being military war). ARI has not expressed any interest whatsoever in waging this intellectual war on Muslim turf where there are eyes and ears and minds interested. It prefers to preach to Americans (and allies) only - and then the message is to use force ONLY to convince those who adhere to Islam.

I disagree and I am doing something about it. Not much yet, but it is growing much faster than I planned.

(btw - I wish you all the best in your studies.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Regarding how the principle of rights applies to international policy and the ethics of war, that's as far as one needs to go. Rights theory dictates the we *need* our government to defend our freedom in every way possible. When determining the morality of a particular action in war, one must only ask the question: Will this action best preserve the longterm freedom of the defending nation's citizens? If the answer is "yes," then the action is morally obligatory. Everything else is a question of military tactics.

--Dan Edge

Dan,

Your use of "action" is incorrect for it implies it isn't a military tactic. It is a military tactic. If you want to best present your case you need to ungarble this formulation.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

Interesting discussion, but one thing puzzles me:

The opposition I have against the ARI position is because of its gross oversimplifications that result in death, which is undoable.

Michael, do you seriously mean to say that death can be undone? Surely you meant to say that death is ~not~ undoable (it can't be undone). Or, if that's too wordy, perhaps "irreversible" or "irremediable."

Not unsincerely,

REB

[Brant Gaede]

Military tactics are justified to defeat an enemy, not to justify one's philosophy. If the latter, then in the name of Objectivism or Nazism or religion or anything else anything can go.

If an Objectivist is elected President, mirabile dictu, we all know how rational and pro-life on earth Objectivists are, and the U.S. is in the middle of, say, this war on terrorism then one can imagine Him/Her coming to the "rational" conclusion that it is philosophically and militarily necessary, for the "long-term freedom" of Americans to nuke all Muslim population concentrations. This is tribalism or religion, but it isn't rational. Why call this obvious rationalization "Objectivism?"

To fight a war the question is how is it most rational to fight this war? You don't babble on about rights' theory or even "just war." The "just war" is the war that cannot be avoided fought in self-defense. This does not exclude foreign wars; all wars save civil wars are foreign wars. This does not exclude a "first strike" if that is what is necessary to prevent the other guy's "first strike." But what is it being struck?

One way to be rational is to ask, "How can this war be fought and won with the least cost?" The answer might even be that military force actually applied may not be necessary, that there is a cheaper, more rational way. Another rational question is "How do we fight this war and not lose our moral soul? We get our morality by referring to the humanity of human beings, ours and others, not a philosophy that we can use to justify inhumanity.

And one has to consider that most American wars were a triumph of irrationality and jingoism and should never have been fought in the first place. That's every war I can think of going back to the War of 1812 if not the Whiskey Rebellion and the War of Independence. The "necessary" wars of today derive mostly from the "necessary" wars of yesterday which shaped the world in implicit acknowledgement of American power in the 20th Century.

--Brant

[Dennis Hardin]

Michael,

I’m sorry. I do not see the contradiction in Rand’s pronouncements that you and Robert seem to.

Did you notice that my prior post specifically distinguished between moral responsibility for specific laws and moral culpability for allowing the government to become cannibalistic and threaten other (free) nations? Most of your quotations from Rand ignore that crucial difference.

No doubt passivity is the chosen course for the majority, as Rand implies. However, I fail to see any implication in the quotes cited by you that she would exonerate the passive majority for responsibility. However, you do exonerate this passivity with the following quote:

What did Rand really think was the “moral” failing of most citizens (the majority)? Passivity. In Christianity, this would be called a sin of omission. Rand also felt that such passivity was “always” a property of “any group, culture, society, or age.” Thus, as given below, she does not attribute moral responsibility per se to the majority. She calls them “social ballast” instead. I understand this to mean they do not having any responsibility one way or the other. They are merely led. Their only responsibility is that they did not get involved.

But their refusal to “get involved” in no way excuses them from responsibility. You apparently think it does. We could not possibly disagree on a more fundamental level. Those who conduct their lives as “business as usual” when their government has become a carnivorous, territorial war machine deserve the consequences. As far as I am concerned, the issue is that simple.

Incidentally, your use of the word “nuking” to caricature the ARI position tends to imply that you have failed to make a serious effort to grasp their specific arguments. It is reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson’s smear campaign against Barry Goldwater, and I think that, as Objectivists, we can do better than that. For the most part, the ARI writers choose their words very carefully, and you would do well not to confuse their reasoning with the eye-poking shenanigans of the preconceptual stooges.

Dragonfly,

If she really meant that, she was a moral monster and a proponent of the worst kind of collectivism. Using the same kind of reasoning, the Jews who were killed in the holocaust had lost all legitimate claim to their rights, after all they allowed their governments to descend to that level of barbarism and they didn't flee to a free country, so it was ok to kill them. I have always thought that Whittaker Chambers's infamous dictum "to a gas chamber - go!" about AS was far over the top, but now I'm beginning to realize that he may have had a point. And as it's likely that in the long run the fanatical, genocidal ARI-type faction will prevail over the more reasonable kind of Objectivists, it can only be hoped that Objectivism is doomed as an intellectual movement. Yuck!

You are obviously free to make whatever accusations you wish against Ayn Rand and Objectivism, but if you make them here, you might want to invest some independent thought into what you say. I can assure you that your vicious attacks on her ideas will not go unchallenged.

To begin with, you are ignoring the context in which the opponents of military action use the concept of “rights” to protect the citizens of a dictatorship. People cannot legitimately claim the “right” to live, work and support an aggressive war machine which threatens the freedom of others. This does not mean that, as human beings, those who oppose the government do not deserve to have their “rights” protected. It means that the social context—created by their government—has rendered such protection out of the question.

When Rand states that the citizens of a dictatorship have relinquished their rights, she means the moral claim to their rights as a political sanction prohibiting intervention from the nations under attack. On the existential level, morality—including respect for rights—ends where a gun begins. When guns are drawn, those who are threatened have the right of self-defense, and are under no obligation to respect the rights of anyone in the line of fire. Nobody can legitimately claim a right which requires that someone else sacrifice their own life. But it is the person who has drawn the gun who has abrogated the rights of the innocent, not the person acting in self-defense.

Rights are moral principles that define and sanction a person’s freedom of action within a social context.. They derive from our nature as rational beings, and in that sense they are inalienable. However, the elimination of force from social relationships is a precondition of the respect for rights. That is the proper role of a government. Those who introduce force into the social equation have made respect for rights an impossibility.

Your characterization of Rand’s position suggests that the person who pulled the gun, having abrogated the rights of all those endangered, is then morally free to kill those whose rights he has abrogated. Hopefully you can see the absurdity of such a conclusion. Placing someone’s life in jeopardy does not give you the privilege of killing that person.. There is a comparable distinction between any crime where hostages are taken and the perpetrators decision to kill any or all of them. The fact that the hostages’ rights have been (temporarily) countermanded does not excuse all subsequent misconduct by the hostage-taker. One heinous crime does not legitimate another.

Politically, the disenfranchised victims of a criminal regime can claim total moral innocence, precisely because they have no say whatever in the actions of that state—whether we are talking about the slaves in the antebellum South, the political prisoners in a Soviet Gulag, or the Jews in Nazi Germany. Their status is comparable to that of employees and customers in a bank heist who are used as human shields in a shoot-out with police. Despite their innocence, the bank robber’s gun has effectively marginalized their rights until such time as he has been disarmed and the threat of force has been eliminated.

Dennis

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Thank you for pointing out where I have not engaged in not not writing clearly. (I corrected it.)

Dennis,

According to your reasoning, the Jews in Germany, then later Poland and other places, because of their passivity, were morally responsible for Nazism, thus they were the ones morally responsible for the extermination camps. Sorry, I just can't go there. I say the issue is a bit more complex than a gross oversimplification. Even you say this:

Politically, the disenfranchised victims of a criminal regime can claim total moral innocence, precisely because they have no say whatever in the actions of that state—whether we are talking about the slaves in the antebellum South, the political prisoners in a Soviet Gulag, or the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Since passivity is the characteristic of the majority of members of ALL groups, not just some groups, it is not a determining factor in the nature of the government. This was Rand's point. And the simple fact is that she was not consistent in her own reasoning on this point, as my quotes from her show when compared against the Q&A quotes.

We are going to have to agree to disagree here.

On the nuking thing, I made an earlier post about this. I am not the one who wants to smear ARI. They are the ones using horrible public relations because this is precisely how the public sees it. By preaching the glories of using nuclear weapons in preemptive strikes and waging a war against a whole people and not just a nation, ARI is marginalizing Objectivism in a manner more effective than any smear effort I can perceive. You said Johnson smeared Goldwater. He didn't do that all by himself. The public went with him.

The public doesn't split hairs on words when nukes are preached. Watch the results unfold if you don't believe me.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

I have not been following closely but have a lot of respect for the quality of the players and ideas in this discussion. I have some thoughts.

Can it be assumed that the citizens of an "evil empire" understand the nature of the choices they make– including the moral principles underlying those choices, the nature of other alternatives, and the consequences of those choice– when they choose to act, or not, against their government? If they are not aware of the nature of these choices and they cannot be reasonably assumed to have acquired this information, how can they bare moral responsibility for a choice they do not see? Without a doubt, they bare metaphysical responsibility. The consequences of their actions or inactions will necessarily fall on them in the same way it does on a drunken driver. The difference with the drunken driver is that it is reasonable to assume that he should understand the nature of his choice when he gets drunk. He should know he is impairing his judgement and should be held morally accountable. The information and ability to integrate it may not be available for the crushed peoples of a totalitarian regime.

If the citizens of an "evil empire" cannot reasonably be assumed to be morally responsible for choices the nature of which they did not understand, then it would be immoral to make them the target of destruction. If they are collateral damage, that is their metaphysical responsibility just as would be dying in an accident.

Paul

Edited October 3, 2006 by Paul Mawdsley

[Barbara Branden]

I am getting dizzy trying to follow all the different arguments on this thread. The problem, in my view, is that people have taken a fairly simple issue and are attempting to approach and deal with it from so many different perspectives and aspects, raising so many tangential and sometimes irrelevant side issues, that it becomes impossible to know what are the actual substantive disagreements about the basic issue. We have gotten lost in a mass of semantics, details, tactics, minutiae, and irrelevancies. It is no wonder that tempers are becoming frayed.

As I see it, the issue is not complex and has little or nothing to do with fascism, collectivism, religion, the definition of obscure terms, or the history of the world. It is this: What is the nature and extent of the civilian casualties that can morally be inflicted on an enemy nation in wartime?

As I attempt to sort out the discussion, I grow more and more convinced that the substantive disagreements among most Objectivist Living members are more apparent than real – despite many assertions to the contrary – and that the differences between Objectivist Living and ARI/Solo members are very real.

Apparently Objectivist Living members are agreed that in wartime -- particularly in modern war, which is fought with weapons more destructive than have ever been known before – civilian casualties are inevitable. We are agreed that there are two major goals to be achieved by war: victory – which means the destruction of the enemy’s capacity to continue its aggression – and the expenditure of the fewest possible American lives in the process of achieving that victory. We are agreed that there is no value, per se, in killing civilians; such actions are justified only as a necessary means to achieving victory as swiftly and decisively as possible. And we are agreed that civilians in the enemy country should never be protected at the cost of American lives.

Where do we disagree with ARI/Solo? I won’t quote them again, as there already are many quotes in this thread attesting to what I shall say; but I’ll sum up what I understand to be their policy. They maintain that war can and should be waged against the civilian population of an enemy country, because that population is complicit in the aggression of its government, and that it is of no relevance that a great many of the citizens disagree with their government, attempt to rebel against it, and suffer and die at its hands. They maintain that war should be waged, not only in the form of argument and propaganda, but with guns and bombs, against the enemy’s ideas – that we must destroy not only the enemy’s military-industrial complex and other targets, such as terrorist camps, deemed necessary to achieve victory swiftly and with the least possible loss of American lives, but we must also destroy the enemy country’s intellectual, educational, and religious centers, its mosques and universities and schools and all those who attend them.

I hope this does something to clarify the nature of our agreements and our differences from ARI/Solo. In any event, it makes me less dizzy.

Barbara

r

[Victor Pross]

Barbara,

Thank you! Thank you for stepping up to the plate to return this issue back to its proper perspective—which was what your original post was about in the first place! The issue has webbed out into an impossible pattern to follow, but among all the hair-splitting and piles of verbiage there was also another voice in this thread—among yours—that remained on the issue, one which I personally never left:

To quote Brant: There is not a single US military unit that would go into a school or church and machinegun clerics and students. It is possible that pilots could be given such bombing coordinates not knowing what the targets actually were. But I doubt that the responsible officers would give out such coordinates even by a direct order from the commander-in-chief who would be impeached and convicted and thrown out of office in a heartbeat.

Thanks again. I can’t tell you how this whole thing irks me to the bones, and I am 100% with you on this issue, whatever our disagreements with other issues. Good work.

Victor

Edited October 3, 2006 by Victor Pross

[Rich Engle]

I also respect the quality of the players in this discussion. Fantastic!

The thing is, I don't see this as a discussion of ethics, although I very much agree with Brant's refining the discussion of "action" down to military action; this is a key distinction, basic Sun Tzu "Art of War" stuff, in a way.

I suppose it goes to show that goodness can spring from the not-so-good. The not-so-good being the original writing Barbara brought forward. So, it is about what Biddle said, and who is is to say it.

Aside from his chickenhawkedness, his ivorytowerintellectuallness, his questionable personal psychology, the bottom line to me is that Biddle is not worth taking seriously--he is not a valid nor useful voice, when talking about matters of human life, of military engagement. Tactically, his solution is beyond even being referred to as "questionable." He is a non-issue, and it wouldn't hurt to simply take him that way.

Edited October 3, 2006 by Rich Engle