Climate of a rational world

[syrakusos]

About 20 years ago, when he was Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich delivered a series of dinner talks to Republican Party audiences. In one, he explained why welfare does not work in America. He said that Germans are a good, bureaucratic people. They wake up, they want to know what the law is so they can obey it. They do not want a speed limit on the Autobahn, so there is no speed limit. In, America, on the other hand, the posted speed limit is seen as a benchmark of opportunity. "Folks," he said, "the speed limit is not an advisory from the Chamber of Commerce." He went on to say that after another such talk, a couple came up to him "... and they were so obsessive they wanted me to know that they never broke the speed limit." He said that after a talk once a woman came up to him and asked if he did not think it was terrible that people on welfare sell their food stamps for 75 cents on the dollar and use the money to buy booze and cigarettes. He said, "No, I do not." He said, "These are Americans. You cannot give an American a negotiable instrument and then complain when they negotiate it for something they want." His plans for welfare included paying kids to read. If you want kids to read, give them a material incentive. He said that was no child in America so poor as to not understand money.

I was one time in Zuerich and the train station is at the airport. I was going to Basel. I went to the window, read the fares and asked for a ticket to Basel. I then saw the schedule. The clerk was doing his thing, and I spoke up, "Ich habe nur drei Minuten." He replied, "Sie haben noch drei Minuten." In other words, the train would sooner move sideways or even leap vertically from the tracks before it would leave in anything other than 3 minutes from now. I had plenty of time.

[Xray]

Article 92.I:

Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

You mean article 29. (1)

I especially love the Orwellian way of putting it: how it's in the individuals interest. Slavery is freedom.

Equating duty with slavery is fallacious, since one's own rigths imply the duty to respect the rights of others.

As for the "community" aspect, we are group beings and therefore always live in some kind of community. Can you imagine living in a community without having certain duties?

As humans, we strive both for individual freedom and for the appreciation by our fellow men; the task of ethics lies in productively balancing the two. Any ethics which is to work with human nature has to take both these factors into account.

An ethics which disregards the human individual's yearning for personal freedom will result in collectivism; the opposite, an ethics solely concerned with superman-type individuals to whom rules of the human community don't apply (the Nietzschean-type of fallacy) will result in disaster as well.

[john42t]

Equating duty with slavery is fallacious, since one's own rigths imply the duty to respect the rights of others.

I doubt that the charter means the respecting the rights of others when it talks about duty. I believe it has much more to do with taxes. After all, someone has to pay for all the perks it lists before it comes to talk about duty. It wasn't going to be the net-tax-receivers that produced the document.

As for the "community" aspect, we are group beings and therefore always live in some kind of community. Can you imagine living in a community without having certain duties?

I have no duties in the sense that the charter means. No one has them, it's an irrational con job. Rand wrote an article about it, a summary can be found here. I fully agree with that article, and it's written so well I couldn't add anything to it.

An ethics which disregards the human individual's yearning for personal freedom will result in collectivism; the opposite, an ethics solely concerned with superman-type individuals to whom rules of the human community don't apply (the Nietzschean-type of fallacy) will result in disaster as well.

I fully agree with this statement, but if you mean that I or Rand promoted such an ethics, I hold that this is a strawman. I don't know whether Nietzsche did it.

Community is a crucial necessity for the individual. This fact is one powerful weapon in the hands of the collectivists.

EDIT: I don't agree that in the last quotation the two proposed ethics are their opposite.

[anthony]

Human rights 'expect' the worst from people, and will deserve it when it happens;

Individual rights 'expect' the best from each citizen, and can accomodate the worst.

Human rights apply to the bureaucratically-defined 'needs' of stockyard animals, whereas individual rights apply to the volitional nature of men.

When every minority group, and sub-group has rights, then nobody has rights.

The only minority in a fully free country is the individual.

John calls human rights "cattle rights" - rightly, I think. I imagine them as the rights of chickens in a hen-battery, squawking when they lose 2 millimetres of space in their cages.

Don't ever raise your heads and look around you, chickens!

Tony

[Xray]

The Declaration of Human Rights is a good example of the mystical residue you were talking about. The document basically says that every human being gets a country to live in, has a duty to serve this country but in return gets a list of benefits, the most ridiculous example being the right to holiday. I call them cattle rights, because for cattle they are perfect.

The example is in no way ridiculous, given that at the time when this was written, many had no right to a holiday.

In China for example, I think it was even as late as the 1970s when only Sunday was a free day.

[Xray]

As for the "community" aspect, we are group beings and therefore always live in some kind of community. Can you imagine living in a community without having certain duties?

I have no duties in the sense that the charter means. No one has them, it's an irrational con job. Rand wrote an article about it, a summary can be found here. I fully agree with that article, and it's written so well I couldn't add anything to it.

I disagree about "duty" being presented as an "invalid concept" in the article. Even if one applies Objectivism's own criteria, "duty", qualifies as a perfectly valid concept, for it actually exists (as e. g. legal duty (Rand' minarchist government would have the legal duty to protect people's rights). Thus duty as such is nothing irrational; and the meaning of the term duty is not exclusively restricted to

"the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to any personal goal, motive, desire or interest." (Rand)

Contracts for example contain mutual duties which are very well related to both the interests of both parties.

Where irrationality comes in is when it is claimed that humans have a duty toward a supernatural being (an attitude which Rand rightly attacks) .

I'm by no means a 'deontologist' who would put duty before all else, but I don't see all duty as an attack on reason;

I believe that duty can well have a productive place in a rational society. I see (rational) duty as part of a "give and take".

But of course one has to beware of manipulators who try to exert 'moral duty' pressure on others because they want to profit from them.

[john42t]

Contracts for example contain mutual duties which are very well related to both the interests of both parties.

Yes, that could be meant by it. Let's call this obligation (I believe that's what the article calls it) for the sake of this discussion. I don't think the human rights charter is talking about a contract -otherwise it wouldn't say you have a duty to community, but a duty to whomever you have a contract with. You don't have a contract with a community. (The latter idea is the con-job of the social contract theory.)

Where irrationality comes in is when it is claimed that humans have a duty toward a supernatural being (an attitude which Rand rightly attacks) .

Supernatural being (God) and society are Rand's prime examples. The duty towards the latter is what the human rights charter is talking about.

But of course one has to beware of manipulators who try to exert 'moral duty' pressure on others because they want to profit from them.

There's no doubt in my mind that the authors of the declaration had been such manipulators. I also have no doubt that no such manipulator consciously knows that he is that. Evil comes from the irrational, and the irrational never knows what it's doing. There is no *conscious* evil that manipulates in the actual sense of the word "manipulate". All evil is unconscious.

[anthony]

Equating duty with slavery is fallacious, since one's own rigths imply the duty to respect the rights of others. As for the "community" aspect, we are group beings and therefore always live in some kind of community. Can you imagine living in a community without having certain duties? As humans, we strive both for individual freedom and for the appreciation by our fellow men; the task of ethics lies in productively balancing the two. Any ethics which is to work with human nature has to take both these factors into account. An ethics which disregards the human individual's yearning for personal freedom will result in collectivism; the opposite, an ethics solely concerned with superman-type individuals to whom rules of the human community don't apply (the Nietzschean-type of fallacy) will result in disaster as well.

Amazingly, yes I can imagine living without "certain duties" in a community: that's the trader principle. Even under statism I practise it all the time.

The "duty to respect others rights" is a moral choice, and a practical one. Do you call the Golden Rule a duty? where's duty?

"Yearning for personal freedom" sounds about right - given these Statist premises: Yearning, and not achieving.

Your compromise between collectivism and (I suppose) individualism would require collective force to implement and sustain. You don't see the contradiction? Which will be wiped out by the other?

So, superman-types would wreak havoc without "rules of human community" - what are these?

Again - control, control - force everyone to be 'good.'

That's nannyism, simply.

The State is not in the business of morality.

A State that would encroach upon its citizens' independence to judge, and their volition to act, forces duty, and eventually, slavery of mind on them. The mind of an individual must be stifled - for the 'common good', ironically.

Bears out O'Rourke's "Liberals hate people."

Tony

[Xray]

An ethics which disregards the human individual's yearning for personal freedom will result in collectivism; the opposite, an ethics solely concerned with superman-type individuals to whom rules of the human community don't apply (the Nietzschean-type of fallacy) will result in disaster as well.

EDIT: I don't agree that in the last quotation the two proposed ethics are their opposite.

Why do you think they are not opposites?

Supernatural being (God) and society are Rand's prime examples. The duty towards the latter is what the human rights charter is talking about.

Where there exist rights, duties exist as well. They are coexistent actually.

But of course one has to beware of manipulators who try to exert 'moral duty' pressure on others because they want to profit from them.

There's no doubt in my mind that the authors of the declaration had been such manipulators.

What do you do you think their 'goal' was?

I also have no doubt that no such manipulator consciously knows that he is that. Evil comes from the irrational, and the irrational never knows what it's doing. There is no *conscious* evil that manipulates in the actual sense of the word "manipulate". All evil is unconscious.

This is quite a complex issue because there do exist enough manipulators who know exactly what they are doing - like for example people who consciously deceive others in order to extract money from them. So these people know of course that they are manipulating the other person.

As for you claiming that "all evil is unconscious" - this runs quite deep philosophically. It makes me think of the Sanskrit term "avidia" which is at the root of the English term "avid".

"A-vidia" means 'not seeing'; so the "avid", the '"greedy" individual is judged as being "not-seeing", which one could, in your words also call irrational, not knowing what one is doing.

In Hinduism and also Buddhism, suffering results from this avidia, this 'not-seeing'.

So despite diametrically opposing premises [religious versus yours] it is interesting to note that "evil" is seen as coming from the unconscious, the unreflected, in these religions too.

[Xray]

Amazingly, yes I can imagine living without "certain duties" in a community: that's the trader principle. Even under statism I practise it all the time.

The "duty to respect others rights" is a moral choice, and a practical one.

It's a legal obligation as well. A right legally granted to a member of a community the legal duty on the part of the community to respect it.

Do you call the Golden Rule a duty? where's duty?

The Golden Rule is a tool of considerable instrumental value when it comes to living in harmony with one's fellow men.

Your compromise between collectivism and (I suppose) individualism would require collective force to implement and sustain. You don't see the contradiction? Which will be wiped out by the other?

Where is the contradiction? Even in Rand's fully rational society, a minarchist government would act as the protector of individual rights.

[anthony]

Amazingly, yes I can imagine living without "certain duties" in a community: that's the trader principle. Even under statism I practise it all the time. The "duty to respect others rights" is a moral choice, and a practical one.

It's a legal obligation as well. A right legally granted to a member of a community the legal duty on the part of the community to respect it.

Do you call the Golden Rule a duty? where's duty?

The Golden Rule is a tool of considerable instrumental value when it comes to living in harmony with one's fellow men.

Your compromise between collectivism and (I suppose) individualism would require collective force to implement and sustain. You don't see the contradiction? Which will be wiped out by the other?

Where is the contradiction? Even in Rand's fully rational society, a minarchist government would act as the protector of individual rights.

(In such a fully rational society, don't you see the impossible contradiction of combining individualism with collectivism? Only collectivists would suggest such a thing, and then enforce it - eradicating individualism, as well as this presumable minarchist G'ment, pronto. A rational society would not work toward its own downfall.)

Also, to repeat, a government can have no business in morality; when it does, that's Statism.

Referring to individual rights, one is *obliged* not to infringe upon others' individual rights - i.e., to respect them.

This is not "duty".

Respect(moral sensibility) and duty(coercion) are a contradiction in terms. How can one have "the duty to respect rights"? - as you suggest.

"Duty" arises only in a society of 'human rights'- based on the collectivist premise.

Individual rights are NEGATIVE: you will not, cannot, should not, etc., infringe upon others' rights. As they on yours.

Human rights are POSITIVE: you must be given, or give, or do, or provide, or be provided for...etc, etc,. With this confusion of competing rights and duties, your individual rights are bound to be infringed some time.

Way I see it,

The weight of the Law *defends* individual rights.

The weight of the Law *imposes* 'human rights'.

Tony

[john42t]

An ethics which disregards the human individual's yearning for personal freedom will result in collectivism; the opposite, an ethics solely concerned with superman-type individuals to whom rules of the human community don't apply (the Nietzschean-type of fallacy) will result in disaster as well.

EDIT: I don't agree that in the last quotation the two proposed ethics are their opposite.

Why do you think they are not opposites?

That statement was mostly meant as a negative - to exempt this bit from my agreement stated earlier.

I could say various things, but the most important bit is that I don't think individualism is an ethics for "supermen-type individuals". It's for human beings. The only connection to your description is that great minds suffer from collectivism first. But that's only a matter of degree.

But of course one has to beware of manipulators who try to exert 'moral duty' pressure on others because they want to profit from them.

There's no doubt in my mind that the authors of the declaration had been such manipulators.

What do you do you think their 'goal' was?

They will have believed their goal was to do the right thing. To be "good".

They will have believed that because their social environment believed it.

Their social environment believed it because that environment consisted of an unhealthy selection of societial subgroups: People employed by the government (they want to believe that they are useful for something even if they are not), professors (also often in the first group, know a lot of things that no one needs), activists (people without purpose who run around in the world trying to make it better without understanding it). All these people don't *earn* their living in the real sense of the word: They will all want to believe that every human being has a right to all the things in the charter. Because: If not all human beings have a right to them, do they?

That's their motive.

They are egoists, but not not consciously so. They are irrational.

It's the same motive as that of the Marxists, the early Christians and many other of those who bring irrational thought into the world.

So these people know of course that they are manipulating the other person.

Yes, but I don't believe they are the ultimate cause of evil. Without the irrational, it couldn't work: There would be less gullibility and more precise law enforcement.

So despite diametrically opposing premises [religious versus yours] it is interesting to note that "evil" is seen as coming from the unconscious, the unreflected, in these religions too.

Yes, it's a common theme in many religions. It's indeed interesting to see oneself agreeing with certain ideas that belong to a completely alien ideology one is otherwise rejecting thoroughly.

A much cooler example is with actual reasoning: There's a popular German intellectual leftist who compared Leftism to Islam and saw a lot of common ground. He was rather detailed: collectivism, altruism, anti-ursury. I fully agree. I just think it's both evil and he thinks it's both good. The man is a net-tax-receiver, never earned an honest living.

[Xray]

I was one time in Zuerich and the train station is at the airport. I was going to Basel. I went to the window, read the fares and asked for a ticket to Basel. I then saw the schedule. The clerk was doing his thing, and I spoke up, "Ich habe nur drei Minuten." He replied, "Sie haben noch drei Minuten." In other words, the train would sooner move sideways or even leap vertically from the tracks before it would leave in anything other than 3 minutes from now. I had plenty of time.

The Swiss have a certain reputation for not being prone to hectic.

And of running their country smoothly and effectively, like the proverbial Swiss clockwork.

[Xray]

A much cooler example is with actual reasoning: There's a popular German intellectual leftist who compared Leftism to Islam and saw a lot of common ground. He was rather detailed: collectivism, altruism, anti-ursury. I fully agree. I just think it's both evil and he thinks it's both good. The man is a net-tax-receiver, never earned an honest living.

Who is this popular German intellectual leftist?

[Xray]

Referring to individual rights, one is *obliged* not to infringe upon others' individual rights - i.e., to respect them.

This is not "duty".

"Duty" can also be used as a synonym for "obligation". Just google "legal duty" and you will see it used interchangeably for 'legal obligation' in several cases.

Respect(moral sensibility) and duty(coercion) are a contradiction in terms. How can one have "the duty to respect rights"? - as you suggest.

See above. "Duty" = legal obligation in that context.

As for 'moral duty', this is a more complex issue; but I think is important not to mix moral and legal duty here, in order to avoid confusion.

"Duty" arises only in a society of 'human rights'- based on the collectivist premise.

Individual rights are NEGATIVE: you will not, cannot, should not, etc., infringe upon others' rights. As they on yours.

But in order to know what kind of rights you cannot infringe upon, you will first have have to know what these rights are and by whom they have been established as such.

Way I see it,

The weight of the Law *defends* individual rights.

The weight of the Law *imposes* 'human rights'.

But in order to have one's rights defended, one has to be granted them at first. "Right is the child of law", as Jeremy Bentham said.

[john42t]

Who is this popular German intellectual leftist?

Oskar Lafontaine, co-founder of the Linkspartei.

Intellectual is a big word for this person, but in Germany the standards are so low that you qualify with very little. Political leader is more accurate though.

This article contains the relevant quotation:

http://www.hagalil.com/archiv/2006/03/linksruck.htm

Did you say you were German too? Didn't memorize this properly.

[anthony]

Way I see it, The weight of the Law *defends* individual rights. The weight of the Law *imposes* 'human rights'.

But in order to have one's rights defended, one has to be granted them at first. "Right is the child of law", as Jeremy Bentham said.

Don't know much about Bentham, but he could be the father of 'human rights', if he said that.

Objectively, "(Individual) Rights are the child of morality".

Is this even arguable?

Otherwise, we are grateful slaves to whoever "grants" us rights.

In reality too, Law is the child of rights. So he's back to front on this as well.

Tony

[Xray]

Who is this popular German intellectual leftist?

Oskar Lafontaine, co-founder of the Linkspartei.

Intellectual is a big word for this person, but in Germany the standards are so low that you qualify with very little. Political leader is more accurate though.

This article contains the relevant quotation:

http://www.hagalil.c...3/linksruck.htm

Lafointaine really shot himself into the foot with that one! Priceless!

And 'intellectual' is indeed a too big word for him. He's more guided by a power-hungry political instinct, and it was not without reason that he was often called "Saar-Napoleon" in his heyday.

It looks like many politicians will stop at nothing when it comes to currying favor with influential groups.

As to whether he really believes that the stuff he advocates in the quote is "good" - I have my my doubts about that.

For in his personal life, Lafontaine himself never provided the slightest evidence of practising what he preaches.

Instead this bonvivant comes across as the type of leftist the French call "Le coeur à gauche, le porte-monnaie à droite."

I think what Lafontaine considered as 'good' was the goal he intended to accomplish with his sycophantic remarks ...

Altruism as a doctrine is not so much about serving others. It is about being served by those of whom it is demanded to give "to the common good", even if it is their life. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" the Old Romans indoctrinated their soldiers.

Annoyingly, the term "altruism" is often used by biologists in a different, non-doctrinary sense, in the sense of empathy, or for acting cooperatively, like animals 'grooming' ech other. This terminological ambiguity can cause quite a few misunderstandings in discussions.

But Rand used the term "altruism" in the sense its creator August Comte had used it. Like Comte, she meant the doctrine that says the collective always has to be put first, and this doctrinary position was the target of her attacks.

[anthony]

Referring to individual rights, one is *obliged* not to infringe upon others' individual rights - i.e., to respect them. This is not "duty".

"Duty" can also be used as a synonym for "obligation". Just google "legal duty" and you will see it used interchangeably for 'legal obligation' in several cases.

Respect(moral sensibility) and duty(coercion) are a contradiction in terms. How can one have "the duty to respect rights"? - as you suggest.

See above. "Duty" = legal obligation in that context.

Yes, I confess I struggled to find the right word/concept to explain why one should respect others' rights.

if 'duty' is it, then it's the only duty an individualist would accept.

However, this I still stand by: "Duty to respect...", is self-contradictory. It's no different from "duty to love" - or admire- or loathe.

Duty = unchosen imperative.

Respect = personal moral judgement.

Thing is, if others' individual rights are only observed by most people because of "fear of the law" - as Aristotle put it - then the society is not a rational one, and deserves what it gets. I would far rather live among people who "do without being commanded."

Although the outcome may be precisely the same.

Which is why a rational morality supersedes individual rights. (afaic.)

Tony

[Xray]

But in order to have one's rights defended, one has to be granted them at first. "Right is the child of law", as Jeremy Bentham said.

Don't know much about Bentham, but he could be the father of 'human rights', if he said that.

Jeremy Bentham was a most interesting, multifaceted thinker.

From the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia..../Jeremy_Bentham

His position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, usury, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts.^[2] He argued for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty and for the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children.^[3] Although strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts."^[4]

[anthony]

But in order to have one's rights defended, one has to be granted them at first. "Right is the child of law", as Jeremy Bentham said.

Don't know much about Bentham, but he could be the father of 'human rights', if he said that.

Jeremy Bentham was a most interesting, multifaceted thinker. From the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia..../Jeremy_Bentham His position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, usury, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts.^[2] He argued for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty and for the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children.^[3] Although strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts."^[4]

Right, he has been mentioned several times by Ghs and Shayne, I think..

Snap judgement - looks like he got some right, and some wrong. A liberal, or classic liberal.

"Nonsense upon stilts" should be on his epitaph, if that's what he had to say about natural rights.

So he was for abolishing some obvious evils? Nothing brilliant, about that.

A fair guess of mine: the father of 'human rights.'

(Frankly, when I hear someone is "multifaceted", I think - "all over the place", without any conviction.)

Tony

[Xray]

(Frankly, when I hear someone is "multifaceted", I think - "all over the place", without any conviction.)

Being no native speaker of English, I could think of no other term than 'multifaceted' to convey the wide gamut of Bentham's commitments to various causes. I'm certain though that he was convinced of every single cause he advocated.

[anthony]

(Frankly, when I hear someone is "multifaceted", I think - "all over the place", without any conviction.)

Being no native speaker of English, I could think of no other term than 'multifaceted' to convey the wide gamut of Benthams commitments to various causes. I'm certain though that he was convinced of every single cause he advocated.

Not at all. You very likely picked the appropriate word.

It's only my response to it.

[john42t]

I think what Lafontaine considered as 'good' was the goal he intended to accomplish with his sycophantic remarks ...

Well, he did throw away his position as federal minister to found the Linkspartei. That matches my theory that all evil comes from the irrational: He believe his altruism. He believes he's fighting for the oppressed.

Altruism as a doctrine is not so much about serving others. It is about being served by those of whom it is demanded to give "to the common good", even if it is their life. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" the Old Romans indoctrinated their soldiers.

Yes, Lafontaine envisages the rich to be altruistic, not himself. Presumably he thinks his sacrifice consists in being the star of a new party and being cheered as the hero of the oppressed.

Annoyingly, the term "altruism" is often used by biologists in a different, non-doctrinary sense, in the sense of empathy, or for acting cooperatively, like animals 'grooming' ech other. This terminological ambiguity can cause quite a few misunderstandings in discussions.

Dawkins does it even, he distanced himself from the "Selfish Gene" (especially the title) and is now preaching how seflish genes lead to altruistic human beings when he's not preaching about the alleged evils of Christianity.