Please rationally support this decision

[RobinReborn]

I'm responding to the original post, not the argument that has since arisen. While you don't say so, it seems that you're describing software/intellectual property theft which is harder to condemn then theft of physical property

First, while you say the risk is low it's not clear to me how you are taking into consideration all factors. If the risk is that low then why aren't Peter or Mark doing the selling themselves? How are you planning on selling these tickets? The risk increases if you're using any sort of official channel (craigslist, facebook etc) and if you're just selling by word of mouth to your friends you're going to have to do a reasonable amount of work just to sell a few tickets.

Even if you don't get caught, ever single person you sell to (or try to sell to) knows that you're willing to sell unlicensed information for cheap. I wouldn't expect them to go into any sort of business with you, tell you any sort of secrets or personal information or even trust you very much. It's a lot of reputation loss for a little bit of money.

I don't know you, but I would hope that you'd be able to find more productive ways of making money

[Francisco Ferrer]

You asked for an example of a case in which "a person's expected long term payoff is greater by violating the rights of others." The kapos of Nazi Germany are such an example. That they had no way of knowing how long the war would last (no one did) or whether they would survive or be eventually gassed is irrelevant to the issue. The fact remains that they expected that being brutal to other prisoners would help extend their lives and at the same time make them a bit more comfortable. It proved to be a safe bet.

A drug peddler is a businessman who deals in a commodity that the government has outlawed. The sale of heroin violates no one's rights. Thus to serve as an accomplice to those who would steal from the dealer and place him in a cage for many months or years, is to be a rights violator.

Rand's ethics does not derive the conclusion to respect the rights of other from its premise that an organism's life is its standard of value.

The fact that the kapos had no way of knowing how long the war would last or whether they would survive or eventually be gassed is germane to the issue. In fact, it is the issue.

Part of Rand's philosophy is that in order to survive, a person must control his own destiny. The scenario of the kapos is similar to the following simpler scenario:

Assume that a wealthy man came along and told you that he would guarantee you a life without want for as long as you lived as long as you agreed to be his prisoner.

It is tempting to conclude that the rational man would accept the deal because he would no longer have to worry about his worldly needs. His food, shelter, clothing, and the best medical care money can buy would be guaranteed to him for the rest of his life, guaranteeing him a long and healthy life barring some unforeseen problem such as an untreatable illness. At least, he would be guaranteed to live at least as long as he would have on the outside.

The problem is that there is no way of knowing what the guarantee is worth. The prisoner of the wealthy man would be at the latter's mercy, never knowing when or whether he might decide to end the deal and eject prisoner out into the world penniless or worse, kill him.

The kapos faced a similar situation. What if Germany had won the war? The Final Solution was to exterminate all the Jews and that would presumably include the kapos.

I have read that the Germans used the kapos to help control the other prisoners, thereby allowing the Germans to use far fewer SS guards at their prisons. If that is true, it might have been possible for all of the prisoners to escape if the kapos had joined with the other prisoners and staged a prison break.

Alternately, if all of the prisoners had refused to be kapos, the German Army would have had to assign more soldiers to guard their prisons which would have removed some of the soldiers from the front line, increasing the likelihood of German defeat and bring that defeat more quickly, allowing all of the prisoners to be freed.

Why would someone agree to be a kapo hoping to briefly extend his life when refusing to be a kapo might extend his life for another 50 years by helping to bring the war to an end?

I don't know what you mean by saying the kapos "briefly" extended their lives. Unlike other inmates, they were fed adequately and not subject to debilitating labor. Their survival rate was many times that of the regular prisoners. Yes, Jews could have refused in unison to serve as kapos, and by remote chance the war might have been shortened--or just as likely the SS might have accelerated the extermination of unwanted ethnic groups to get fighting men back on the front.

But we don't have to speculate about what-ifs. The historical fact is that there were sell-outs among the Jews, and those sell-outs today serve as demonstration of the unfortunate fact that some people can survive by by preying on others. Life does not always deliver happy endings, even when one follows the Golden Rule.

If the drug dealer believes that the drug laws are justifiable, then he is not consciously violating his principles, if he has any, because he is acting to reduce crime. However, if he believes as you believe that he is helping to steal from a legitimate peddler, then he is violating the principle that one should not steal --- he is violating the principle that one should respect the property of others.

Part of Rand's philosophy is that men must live according to principles. It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible. Therefore, if the dealer can justify violating one man's property rights, there is nothing to prevent him from justifying the violation of another man's property rights. If it is ok to steal from one man, it is ok to steal from another whenever the opportunity presents itself. But, such a philosophy is a prescription for disaster in the long run. The probability of continuously getting away with rights violations is small.

A person that constantly violates the rights of others soon finds himself morally lost and uncertain about what to do on a daily basis. His world turns into a frightening series of calculations about when to lie, or cheat, or steal, and how to evade detection, and the end is usually disaster.

It is said that when an honest man is arrested and placed alone in an interrogation room, he paces up and down, worried about what will happen to him and how he can fight it. A criminal falls asleep. For an honest man, his fight is just beginning. A criminal is exhausted from the constant struggle to avoid detection. His battle is over.

BTW, similar considerations apply to the kapos. If it is ok to mistreat another man under one set of circumstances, is it not ok to do so under others? And, if he goes down that path, it is hard to see how he could have a decent life even if the conflict ended.

Darrell

You say, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible." If caregiver A takes jewels from senile patient B's dresser while she is sleeping, there may be 100 to 1 odds against of getting away with it, 50-50, or 100 to 1 odds on. It depends entirely on the circumstances, which the predator must evaluate with cold logic. If there is no other one with knowledge of the jewels to look out for them and there are no witnesses to the theft, A could safely take the the goods and rest assured that they would not soon if ever be reported missing.

But risk is not limited to the violators of individual risks. As I said in an earlier posts, there are numerous occupations fraught with danger. The jewel thief may be taking a risk far smaller than that of a logging worker or coal miner, occupations I've never heard Objectivists criticize as not being in one's rational self-interest.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As I said in an earlier posts, there are numerous occupations fraught with danger. The jewel thief may be taking a risk far smaller than that of a logging worker or coal miner, occupations I've never heard Objectivists criticize as not being in one's rational self-interest.

I doubt you ever will, either. Why? Because that has nothing to do with Objectivist fundamentals.

I seriously doubt you will ever understand this.

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

(This last comment is for the reader as I think it is wasted on you.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Gee, it's as if for Francisco no one has any psychology.

[moralist]

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

I'd also add that happiness (as opposed to excitement or entertainment) is found within the context of doing what's morally right.

Greg

[Darrell Hougen]

..., you'll lose your self-respect. this is one of the main reasons why i decided not to do it, under these circumstance you can not possibly be happy. (as a side note that is connected to this: i've stolen in the past. i've been able to forgive myself because i was a dumb teenager with no moral reasoning. if i stole now however, where i'm older and can think about my actions and where i know that it's wrong, i'll destroy my forgivness for my past faults, i'd have to forever see myself as scum.)

The answer to your question is that man must live according to principles. A principle might be something like, one should not steal. If you violate the principle, it is no longer a principle. If you can justify violating it once, you can justify it again. There is no practical way to limit the number of times you violate the principle.

To use Christian terminology, if you do something wrong, you must repent. To repent means more than to seek forgiveness. It means to turn away from a wrong course and back towards a righteous course. In non-religious terms, you must recommit yourself to upholding rational principles. But, if you commit another bad act, you have again violated the principle in question. If you continue to violate it, soon it will mean nothing to you and you will become unprincipled.

FF has brought up the notion of a "prudent predator". The "prudent predator" presumably only steals or commits other crimes when he can get away with them and thereby gets ahead of the game. The problem is that life doesn't work that way. Your expected payoff in living that way is always less than your expected payoff in living a morally upright life. That's because, as a practical matter, it is impossible to estimate with any accuracy your chances of succeeding. Moreover, the odds of succeeding aren't in your favor. So, if you engage in such behavior, you'll eventually be caught.

The not so "prudent predator" is the man that attempts to live without principles, attempting to calculate the odds of succeeding in his contemplated action separately each time. It is simply impossible for a human to rationally expect success in living that way. The fact that some people might have succeeded doesn't alter that fact. They just got lucky. But, the odds are always against the man that attempts to live without principles.

There is also another argument to make. This is the positive argument. Living in harmony with other people is generally in one's self interest. That's because other people produce things of value to ones own life. Therefore, living by principles that allow each person to be productive is in ones self interest. That argument tells the rational person which principles to adopt. The argument above tells the rational person why he needs principles in the first place.

Darrell

[Francisco Ferrer]

I hold with the school of thought that everything that happens in the world of non-fiction has a prior cause (or multiple prior causes).

...

You seem to view determinism as the simplistic idea that a man is programmed only once by external forces, and that after that nothing can change his motives/actions. I don't know of any determinist who has taken that position. Of course, people change with changing conditions. New factors, including new knowledge, alter patterns of behavior. This is what child developmental psychology is all about.

"New factors, including new knowledge, alter patterns of behavior".

You must explain to me how this happens. Knowledge, which "knowledge"? How does it change anyone?

Example: knowledge that the bridge is washed out may change the route someone chooses to get home at night.

Does the "knowledge" of the existence (e.g.) of brute killers rampaging through countries enter one's mind and force an alteration in one's "patterns of behavior" to the extent of enlisting with them?

Possibly, depending on the alternatives.

What "new knowledge" convinced you to become a libertarian? And why? I suggest you were 'ready' or receptive to become one, in advance, from earlier thinking and observation..

Reading dystopian fiction such as 1984 and Brave New World convinced me. If I had been ready to change before reading those books, why didn't I change earlier?

I suspect that any argument from determinism is self-refuting. Realised or not, everybody has a sense of morality and conviction. Which is self-created by deeper convictions gained from reality (or unreality). This is the real meaning of what a being of volitional consciousness is all about - not: a 'hard volitionism' that whatever one wills and wishes for, will come into existence, or that external forces do not have any influence in one's life.

Then stop asking questions, and use any determinist's argument to refute him.

Self-created morality? One day, Max Stirner said "I shall be an egoist" without ever having previously heard a discussion of philosophy?

I think you became what you are by volition, FF. Your determinism is a cognitive self-indulgence, no more true to the nature of man, than altruism. Either of which, if practised assiduously would ensure a short survival.

The self-indulgence is imagining the existence of a Free Will, which unlike any other thing in the universe, is completely independent of external forces.

Determinism is self-refuting, for to state "I am a determinist" also states "I have a conviction". To own convictions is to say, "I have come to believe in this, not that". So: a being of volitional consciousness.

If the definition of "conviction" is "any belief that results from the exercise of free will or volitional consciousness," then an admission of a conviction by a determinist would betray him as a follower of the free will argument.

Fortunately for the determinist, dictionaries don't define "conviction" in this way and thus, in the words of Merriam-Webster, his "a strong persuasion or belief " could be the product of forces that have nothing to do with the mythical faculty of free will.

With all the myriad of ideological possibilities to be convinced of and by, you were persuaded towards libertarianism by two novels. And if you'd read Das Kapital before those? Would that have met with your approval, too, persuaded you and changed your direction? No, because - I think - you had already half-formed your own inductions of society and economics.

I doubt that I would have read Das Kapital at the age of 11 when I read the other two books. I also doubt that I would have been persuaded by Marx. But who knows? Better intellects than mine, Nobel laureates even, have taken a shine to him.

Even if we establish that one may have an early predilection towards individual liberty, despite environmental influences, it would hardly prove the existence of free will. Certain personality traits may be inherent.

(I have to feel sorry for professed determinists - there is so much enjoyment they deny themselves. To a greater or lesser degree, whatever they may do and achieve they, in essence, believe was written in the stars. How to take full pleasure and pride in one's original thought, accomplishments and discovered certainty... while denying one's free will? How, in fact, to be able to assert "I" with conviction, when everybody and everything before you supposedly made you what you are? Rather than being only contributory factors).

Yes, there are determinists who believe the stars shape human destiny. They are called "astrologers," and I'm not one of them.

Your question about being happy without a belief in free will is the same approach theists have taken with me. How can you be happy, Francisco, without being able to look forward to heaven?

My answer? My happiness depends on having an unblinking recognition of reality, regardless of how cold or grim it may be.

FF, you say "Possibly, depending on the alternatives" - in reply to joining with murderous brutes. Besides the inherent contradiction of their anti-libertarian ideology sharply opposing yours, this is particularly amoral. It is skeptical of ~any~ standard, whatsoever, which is the core of your disagreements here. It indicates a pragmatic and subjective "self-interest" which varies with any situation as you please. But if you can't accept "man's life as the standard of value", it logically follows.

Your question was, "Does the 'knowledge' of the existence (e.g.) of brute killers rampaging through countries enter one's mind and force an alteration in one's 'patterns of behavior' to the extent of enlisting with them?"

The question was in reference to "one's" mind, not Francisco Ferrer's mind. I answered the question in the most general terms because it was not specifically about me.

If your posts are going to consist mostly of a series of questions, perhaps you spend time phrasing them more precisely.

[Francisco Ferrer]

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

Good, I will remind Hougen of that the next time he declares, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible."

[Brant Gaede]

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

Good, I will remind Hougen of that the next time he declares, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible."

It's not what you can get away with, it's you can't get away from yourself. It's what kind of man or woman you are. The rapist who gets away with rape is a rapist. The robber who gets away with stealing is a thief. Who does arson? An arsonist. Who says that's not the point? A utilitarian. Who isn't a utilitarian but would agree with this if it's a think to him, which I doubt, and isn't here? A sociopath.

--Brant

[Darrell Hougen]

Assume that a wealthy man came along and told you that he would guarantee you a life without want for as long as you lived as long as you agreed to be his prisoner.

Gee, the government made that same offer,

and hundreds of millions of suckers took it.

Greg

Indeed. As Benjamin Franklin once said:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's not what you can get away with, it's you can't get away from yourself. It's what kind of man or woman you are. The rapist who gets away with rape is a rapist. The robber who gets away with stealing is a thief. Who does arson? An arsonist. Who says that's not the point? A utilitarian. Who isn't a utilitarian but would agree with this if it's a think to him, which I doubt, and isn't here? A sociopath.

Brant,

Just wait. The moral goodness of the prudent sociopath is next.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

I don't know what you mean by saying the kapos "briefly" extended their lives. Unlike other inmates, they were fed adequately and not subject to debilitating labor. Their survival rate was many times that of the regular prisoners. Yes, Jews could have refused in unison to serve as kapos, and by remote chance the war might have been shortened--or just as likely the SS might have accelerated the extermination of unwanted ethnic groups to get fighting men back on the front.

But we don't have to speculate about what-ifs. The historical fact is that there were sell-outs among the Jews, and those sell-outs today serve as demonstration of the unfortunate fact that some people can survive by by preying on others. Life does not always deliver happy endings, even when one follows the Golden Rule.

Actually, it is necessary, to some extent, to engage in "what-ifs". The outcome of any particular case doesn't matter as much as the odds of getting away with it.

To this point, I have only examined the possible consequences for the kapos after the war, but I realized that that approach isn't really complete. We should be looking at what happened before the war as well.

The German guards tended to choose criminals to be kapos because they knew that criminals were more likely to be unprincipled brutes. But, as a person living before the war, what were the odds that living as an unprincipled brute would get a person a job as a kapo during the war? Well, you said that there were several thousand kapos, so let's use the figure 10,000. I'm not sure what the population was in 1940, but it was more than 2 billion, so let's use that figure. Let's also assume that 10% of the population were criminals. Then, the probability of any criminal ending up as a kapo during the war would have been 0.005%.

If we postulate, for a moment, that kapos came out ahead during the war by an amount X, then the expected payoff before the war would have been 0.00005 * X. However, that would have to be offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute.

You say, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible." If caregiver A takes jewels from senile patient B's dresser while she is sleeping, there may be 100 to 1 odds against of getting away with it, 50-50, or 100 to 1 odds on. It depends entirely on the circumstances, which the predator must evaluate with cold logic. If there is no other one with knowledge of the jewels to look out for them and there are no witnesses to the theft, A could safely take the the goods and rest assured that they would not soon if ever be reported missing.

But risk is not limited to the violators of individual risks. As I said in an earlier posts, there are numerous occupations fraught with danger. The jewel thief may be taking a risk far smaller than that of a logging worker or coal miner, occupations I've never heard Objectivists criticize as not being in one's rational self-interest.

Let's assume that one's probability of being caught were 1%. I don't know what the average jewelry heist nets, but the typical bank robbery nets less than $1,000, so let's use that figure. Now, if a person earns the median income of $50,000, a $1,000 heist won't make much difference to one's life. In order for a thief to generate an income comparable to the typical worker, he would have to commit 50 thefts per year. In two years, that would add up 100 robberies. But, if he correctly calculated that the probability of being caught was only 1% each time, then his probability of getting away with 100 robberies would only be 36.6%. Or, his probability of being caught would be 63.4% in two years. Moreover, during those two years he would live no better than the average person and would have to live in constant fear of being caught in his web of lies and deceit.

I would not advise someone to be a coal miner. I'm not sure about the dangers of logging. Objectivists don't usually harp on such things because they aren't destructive to the lives of other people, but that doesn't mean that such occupations are a good choice. Of course, they might be a good choice at a sufficiently high wage, but that's another issue.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I would not advise someone to be a coal miner.

Darrell,

I come from coal miners (a little town called Coeburn, Va., in Wise County). My grandfather on back, and God know who else among my antecedent family, were coal miners. Back when it was dangerous for real.

There is nothing shameful about that profession. Honest work. Good people. Good product.

There was nothing wrong with the profession back then, either. It sure beat the dickens out of starving in the backwoods. That was a real reality at the time.

If Howard Roark could work in a rock quarry, what's so anti-Objectivist about working in a coal mine?

Michael

[Francisco Ferrer]

Gee, it's as if for Francisco no one has any psychology.

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

Good, I will remind Hougen of that the next time he declares, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible."

It's not what you can get away with, it's you can't get away from yourself. It's what kind of man or woman you are. The rapist who gets away with rape is a rapist. The robber who gets away with stealing is a thief. Who does arson? An arsonist. Who says that's not the point? A utilitarian. Who isn't a utilitarian but would agree with this if it's a think to him, which I doubt, and isn't here? A sociopath.

--Brant

Very well, let's address the matter of psychology. If I go to the park and leave my cell phone on a bench to play softball, I can rest assured that 95% of passersby will not touch it. It's the 5% I have to worry about. I know from unhappy experience that a small but troublesome part of the population would grab that phone. They would do so without remorse and perhaps sleep better that night for having gotten away with it.

Are the 5% who would steal cursed with sick minds? Should we consider them defective outliers who do not qualify as Man qua Man?

Phone thieves are a minority. But what about the tens of millions of people who voted for politicians who kept the progressive income tax and welfare state in place? Are those who regularly take from the "haves" just because they're affluent and give the the "have nots" just because they're less affluent morally any different from a phone thief?

And yet they may constitute a majority or a close majority of the population.

I haven't heard reports of widespread insomnia among Democrats.

[Francisco Ferrer]

I don't know what you mean by saying the kapos "briefly" extended their lives. Unlike other inmates, they were fed adequately and not subject to debilitating labor. Their survival rate was many times that of the regular prisoners. Yes, Jews could have refused in unison to serve as kapos, and by remote chance the war might have been shortened--or just as likely the SS might have accelerated the extermination of unwanted ethnic groups to get fighting men back on the front.

But we don't have to speculate about what-ifs. The historical fact is that there were sell-outs among the Jews, and those sell-outs today serve as demonstration of the unfortunate fact that some people can survive by by preying on others. Life does not always deliver happy endings, even when one follows the Golden Rule.

Actually, it is necessary, to some extent, to engage in "what-ifs". The outcome of any particular case doesn't matter as much as the odds of getting away with it.

To this point, I have only examined the possible consequences for the kapos after the war, but I realized that that approach isn't really complete. We should be looking at what happened before the war as well.

The German guards tended to choose criminals to be kapos because they knew that criminals were more likely to be unprincipled brutes. But, as a person living before the war, what were the odds that living as an unprincipled brute would get a person a job as a kapo during the war? Well, you said that there were several thousand kapos, so let's use the figure 10,000. I'm not sure what the population was in 1940, but it was more than 2 billion, so let's use that figure. Let's also assume that 10% of the population were criminals. Then, the probability of any criminal ending up as a kapo during the war would have been 0.005%.

If we postulate, for a moment, that kapos came out ahead during the war by an amount X, then the expected payoff before the war would have been 0.00005 * X. However, that would have to be offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute.

Not all of the kapos were criminals before the war. I do not know that even a majority were. Furthermore, given the economic collapse and widespread street violence that characterized German life after World War I, it is hardly a certainty that joining a criminal gang would not have been in one's self-interest, particularly for one of the millions of unemployed workers.

You say, being a kapo would be "offset by the loss that one would expect to suffer both before and after the war by living one's entire life as an unprincipled brute." If by loss you mean regret or guilt, there is no reason to suppose that the men and women who served as prison functionaries instead of fodder for the crematoria suffered from any self-doubts. For a significant part of the population, empathy is an unfamiliar, even unknown emotion.

Let's assume that one's probability of being caught were 1%. I don't know what the average jewelry heist nets, but the typical bank robbery nets less than $1,000, so let's use that figure. Now, if a person earns the median income of $50,000, a $1,000 heist won't make much difference to one's life. In order for a thief to generate an income comparable to the typical worker, he would have to commit 50 thefts per year. In two years, that would add up 100 robberies. But, if he correctly calculated that the probability of being caught was only 1% each time, then his probability of getting away with 100 robberies would only be 36.6%. Or, his probability of being caught would be 63.4% in two years. Moreover, during those two years he would live no better than the average person and would have to live in constant fear of being caught in his web of lies and deceit.

You can probably put together an excellent statistical case against jewel thieves. No doubt the insurance industry has daunting figures on the percentage of thieves that go to prison.

None of that is relevant to the case I described. Even supposing that statistically 99% of jewel thieves are caught, if caregiver A finds herself in a situation where there are no witnesses and the victim is incapable of distinguishing illusion from reality and there is no family member to regularly take inventory of valuables, caregiver A may correctly conclude that her chances are not 100 to 1 against, but 100 to 1 for success. And that tiny risk could be well justified by the possession of a necklace worth several times her annual income.

I would not advise someone to be a coal miner. I'm not sure about the dangers of logging. Objectivists don't usually harp on such things because they aren't destructive to the lives of other people, but that doesn't mean that such occupations are a good choice. Of course, they might be a good choice at a sufficiently high wage, but that's another issue.

Yes, it is irrational for people to perform certain dangerous jobs. Happily, it is not irrational for us to enjoy the products and services produced by those jobs.

[anthony]

Determinism is self-refuting, for to state "I am a determinist" also states "I have a conviction". To own convictions is to say, "I have come to believe in this, not that". So: a being of volitional consciousness.

If the definition of "conviction" is "any belief that results from the exercise of free will or volitional consciousness," then an admission of a conviction by a determinist would betray him as a follower of the free will argument.

Fortunately for the determinist, dictionaries don't define "conviction" in this way and thus, in the words of Merriam-Webster, his "a strong persuasion or belief " could be the product of forces that have nothing to do with the mythical faculty of free will.

I doubt that I would have read Das Kapital at the age of 11 when I read the other two books. I also doubt that I would have been persuaded by Marx. But who knows? Better intellects than mine, Nobel laureates even, have taken a shine to him.

Even if we establish that one may have an early predilection towards individual liberty, despite environmental influences, it would hardly prove the existence of free will. Certain personality traits may be inherent.

Yes, there are determinists who believe the stars shape human destiny. They are called "astrologers," and I'm not one of them.

Your question about being happy without a belief in free will is the same approach theists have taken with me. How can you be happy, Francisco, without being able to look forward to heaven?

My answer? My happiness depends on having an unblinking recognition of reality, regardless of how cold or grim it may be.

It is a narrow view of reality and a rigid view of man's mind. Could you leave aside your dictionary for a second, and entertain the philosophical concept of 'conviction', one which very definitely "results from the exercise of free will". You have heard the explanation "A being of volitional consciousness" at least fifty times. 'Volitionally' apply your mind to this statement, and isolate it (despite whatever you believe you know of 'free will'). I think it was most precisely and concisely worded by Rand, it states her case and no more.

Otherwise, as you might accuse me on determinism, you simply are attacking some strawman idea of volition to avoid the real issue.

"Determinism is the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future". {P. van Inwagen]

If that's your position, it negates the causal agency of man.

Generally, you think before you act, yes? But can you initiate thoughts and can you change them and begin new ones? if so, you will agree that your actions can differ widely. However, if by you every thought is 'determined'... not much left to say.

So, the bridge you mention, is out. One can drive another route, go by ferry, or hire a plane, or go to a bar, just return home, etc. etc.. Each choice (volitional thought) from this array will lead to another array of possibilities -- and another. Ultimately, the range of possible outcomes is huge. In retrospect, one sees that a single or a few outcomes eventually transpired. The one common element is: one's being and consciousness, is always present.

By example.

After choosing the ferry, you could observe an attractive woman on board; you 'might' choose to strike up conversation (or you might not); you might assess her as a fine person (according to your volitional values); she might seem to like you; you might ask her phone number; and after the continuous interaction of her free will and yours, six months later you might both choose to be married.

Stop at any point and tell me that it was all pre-ordained, um, sorry - determined, with "exactly one physically possible future"!!

(Is this a little discomfiting to a nicely ordered, deterministic world view, FF?)

Writing "personality traits may be inherent" is revealing. You never speak of "character" I notice. Why, I believe, because personality is mostly not of one's making, while character is. To admit to character, integrity, etc., is to admit to a volitional consciousness, one which has to identify and judge what is 'good' for one (against the standard of what is good for man in reality) - and further, one's free will has to consciously and consistently stick by that resolve into his future.

In your world, I think, there is not much to separate the jewel thief from a man of integrity, a person who has no need of the law to curtail his actions.

Men are 'influenced' in some large or miniscule way by everything that is and that was.

Men are 'determined' by possessing physical bodies, (for instance) which are capable of certain actions and incapable of others.

Determinists don't distinguish between the two, I notice.

[Brant Gaede]

Gee, it's as if for Francisco no one has any psychology.

Contextless risk avoidance is not the purpose of rational ethics in Objectivism. Happiness is, but not contextless happiness.

Good, I will remind Hougen of that the next time he declares, "It is impossible to know with any kind of certainty when one can get away with something immoral and when that is not possible."

It's not what you can get away with, it's you can't get away from yourself. It's what kind of man or woman you are. The rapist who gets away with rape is a rapist. The robber who gets away with stealing is a thief. Who does arson? An arsonist. Who says that's not the point? A utilitarian. Who isn't a utilitarian but would agree with this if it's a think to him, which I doubt, and isn't here? A sociopath.

--Brant

Very well, let's address the matter of psychology. If I go to the park and leave my cell phone on a bench to play softball, I can rest assured that 95% of passersby will not touch it. It's the 5% I have to worry about. I know from unhappy experience that a small but troublesome part of the population would grab that phone. They would do so without remorse and perhaps sleep better that night for having gotten away with it.

Are the 5% who would steal cursed with sick minds? Should we consider them defective outliers who do not qualify as Man qua Man?

Phone thieves are a minority. But what about the tens of millions of people who voted for politicians who kept the progressive income tax and welfare state in place? Are those who regularly take from the "haves" just because they're affluent and give the the "have nots" just because they're less affluent morally any different from a phone thief?

And yet they may constitute a majority or a close majority of the population.

I haven't heard reports of widespread insomnia among Democrats.

I'm waiting for you to do what you say you're doing but aren't. The only psychology you're beginning to address is your own. It's what the sociopathic thief has and uses and you don't through sheer righteousness and will power and rigorous thinking. That's most people--those who take because they won't be caught being buffered by the law doing it for them. Not hardly so much as most people are the outright criminals. You are to be commended for your integrity, but basically you have no idea about psychology. If you were an automobile and its driver you'd know how to use and drive it while having no idea about what was under the hood and what was going on or why, only stop, go, steer and load. Oh, yes, when that red light on the fuel gauge comes on, gas up. I call this brainiacianism. Rand had a great deal of that, but not as much as you do. You are highly refined. Might be why she thought she could get away with a romantic relationship based on lies as she prudently preyed on those closest to her and got the favor returned. The biological compulsion to merge and mate is probably second only to eating and drinking. Regardless, Rand and Branden took what they wanted--and paid for it.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Yes, it is irrational for people to perform certain dangerous jobs. Happily, it is not irrational for us to enjoy the products and services produced by those jobs.

One assumes the other fellow is rational. It would be irrational for me going on 71 yo to join a logging team or become a tightrope walker. All living and working is a series of calculated risks. There is even risk in working in an office--for instance, the risk of a sedentary existence. Blue collar jobs tend to grind you down physically resulting in early retirement from necessity. Then one might take on more danger than is prudent to feed one's loved ones. Is that "irrational"? We no more need worry about the producer's rationality than the producer need worry about the consumer's. Why? It's irrational. There is, of course, a "Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" occupation to help producers calculate the odds. One danger in that is ridicule.

--Brant

[moralist]

Very well, let's address the matter of psychology. If I go to the park and leave my cell phone on a bench to play softball, I can rest assured that 95% of passersby will not touch it. It's the 5% I have to worry about. I know from unhappy experience that a small but troublesome part of the population would grab that phone.

They would do so without remorse and perhaps sleep better that night for having gotten away with it.

Is that also from your own personal experience?

Greg

[moralist]

I don't know what the average jewelry heist nets, but the typical bank robbery nets less than $1,000, so let's use that figure.

Just a side comment...

Bank robbery is a pittance compared to the average healthcare insurance fraud which is $25,000. And those incidences are rampant because there's no need for enforcement when the insurance companies can just roll over the cost into the premiums they charge their captive customers.

Greg

[moralist]

The only psychology you're beginning to address is your own.

You hit upon the heart of the matter, Brant.

Frank is unaware that the more he talks the more he reveals his own creepy values.

Greg

[moralist]

It's not what you can get away with, it's you can't get away from yourself. It's what kind of man or woman you are.

Indeed... and the objective reality of how our life unfolds is the feedback loop that lets us know what we are.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

I know you have been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I finished it.

At first I shared your enthusiasm and Taleb provides some great insights. But the more I went through it, the more uneasy I got. Finally, he revealed himself to be a determinist of the Popper sort. He even put Popper on center stage.

Oh... these folks say they are not determinists and call themselves "indeterminists" or whatever, but they are determinists at root. They blame the human mind for not being able to know the future as well as it can know the past. They are sure the future is 100% knowable, it's just that to them humans can't know it because humans are miserable failures at knowing anything with certainty.

This normally leads them to be awfully pessimistic about life. I believe this is because reality always provides them with scenarios they can't control as well as they do their memories--it frustrates their inner control freak, so to speak, and that discourages them and/or pisses them off.

They say they are not determinists because they talk about luck, randomness, etc., but they are not talking about true chaos, especially not something like free will as a causal agent. Notice they always try to "prove" free will doesn't exist, is a flawed idea, and so on.

Luck or randomness to them refer to determined events that are outside the awareness and predictions of the observer. In other words, a typical example in their argument is an earthquake can be a random event to a person living above it, but the earthquake itself is determined by other things the person did not know.

(That's true enough, but it's not the whole shebang the way they make it.)

This leads to a view of life that is horrible. For example, Taleb's stated purpose in life, The One Big Thing he is devoted to that trumps all others, is to not be a sucker. Does that sound petty or does that sound petty? But that's his main reason for living. He says so over and over in The Black Swan. He even titled Chapter 4: "One Thousand and One Days, or How Not to be a Sucker."

Not that being a sucker is desirable. It's just that avoiding it is not on the same life purpose level as worship, trying to become one with the universe, the glory of exalted productive heroism and so on. (Agree or disagree with any of these, but they all shoot for the stars. Avoiding being a sucker stays down in the mud.)

However, there is a much more interesting quote on p. 238:

Is the world that unfair? I have spent my entire life studying randomness, practicing randomness, hating randomness. The more that times passes, the worse things seem to me, the more scared I get, the more disgusted I am with Mother Nature. The more I think about my subject, the more I see evidence that the world we have in our minds is different from the one playing outside. Every morning the world appears to me more random than it did the day before, and humans seem to be even more fooled by it than they were the previous day. It is becoming unbearable. I find writing these lines painful; I find the world revolting.

I get the same vibes from FF when he talks about How Bad Things Really Are (i.e., being a "realist"), when he snarks about Rand's "wish-fulfillment" and so on.

We have precious few too many moments on this earth. If a way of thinking is going to lead to a person living all his moments in that kind of misery, OK.

For him.

OK for him.

Not for me.

I point to a different way of looking at facts when he wants to preach this crap so he can drag others down into his misery with him. And, frankly, so did Rand.

Michael

[anthony]

Heh. Randomness. There was a "classic cult" novel around in the early 70's, The Diceman, by Luke Rhinehart (pen name). It sold millions and still gets rave attention now. About a bored psychologist who hits on the idea of throwing a die to decide everything he does, like for instance, a *one* means he must (for real) rape his neighbor. It really is the most nihilistic garbage, and not even good writing as i recall. Readers bragged of emulating him and carried around dice.

A motto of his: "This truth above all: fake it". Taleb almost sounds like a disciple

'Randomness', another small-minded, sad attempt by the disillusioned to find omniscient knowledge, I think.

[Brant Gaede]

Heh. Randomness. There was a "classic cult" novel around in the early 70's, The Diceman, by Luke Rhinehart (pen name). It sold millions and still gets rave attention now. About a bored psychologist who hits on the idea of throwing a die to decide everything he does, like for instance, whether to (for real) rape his neighbor. It really is the most nihilistic garbage, and not even good writing as i recall. Readers bragged of emulating him and carried around dice.

A motto of his: "This truth above all: fake it". Taleb almost sounds like a disciple

'Randomness' is another small-minded, sad attempt by the disillusioned to find omniscient knowledge, I think.

They used a coin toss in No Country for Old Men (movie).

--Brant