Compromise


Guyau

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This book will not be released until December. The subject is very important, and this treatment of the subject looks head-on serious.

On Compromise and Rotten Compromises

Avishai Margalit

(Princeton 2009)

Excerpts from Rand’s writings addressing compromise are shown here.

Other remarks on the subject of compromise from Objectivist writers are in Peikoff’s OPAR, pages 262–67, and in Smith’s ARNE, pages 188–92.

If anyone knows of other moral analyses of compromise, please add notice of them to this thread.

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Are you writing a paper?

In Alan Greenspan's memoir (page 52) he writes about his relationship with Rand and then his career, and states:

"Compromise on public issues is the price of civilization, not an abrogation of principle"

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Thanks, Dennis, for the Greenspan note. I am not writing a paper on this at present. Threads on these websites can serve as great files for anyone wanting to dig into an issue, if we keep filling the file with good references as they come to our attention.

Concerning compromise in the public arena, one of my own private slogans for many years, has been “Government is the ceasefire.” (Obviously that is not the case for a government gone into civil war.) One thought behind the slogan is that where there is not an effective government with effective law, in most every such situation that is going to come up, there will be war over establishment of the next government, the next ceasefire.

Another thought behind my hard slogan is the way people usually refrain from violence to correct laws they regard as enormously unjust. Many think it is a crime, a violation of individual rights, for the US government to be coercing people who smoke pot. Yet they settle for trying to peacefully change the law, rather than shooting the police. I mean people will usually settle for the general civil ceasefire, even though justice is compromised to some extent.

Looking forward to seeing Margalit’s book.

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This book will not be released until December. The subject is very important, and this treatment of the subject looks head-on serious.

On Compromise and Rotten Compromises

Avishai Margalit

(Princeton 2009)

Excerpts from Rand’s writings addressing compromise are shown here.

Other remarks on the subject of compromise from Objectivist writers are in Peikoff’s OPAR, pages 262–67, and in Smith’s ARNE, pages 188–92.

If anyone knows of other moral analyses of compromise, please add notice of them to this thread.

Amazon has it due out the 26th of October... $17.99

Edited by anonrobt
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Those Rand quotes you linked to are all very powerful, quotes that I personally recall from reading Rand because of their uniqueness. Here was one that I particularly admired:

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property.

If I recall from other writings, it is generally for the sake of security that one compromises on issues of human rights. Isn't that, after all, why a property owner would give a teaspoon to a burglar? Of course, under the threat of immediate violence, giving up property is not considered a compromise - it is considered common sense. Don't argue with a man pointing a gun at your head. The problem is that while this is true at the individual level, this is disastrous at the governmental level (for various reasons, mostly because government is a center of force).

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Christopher,

Compromise is a complicated concept because it is used with many loaded agendas that flipflop between interchanging meanings at the whim of the agenda pusher.

But clear meanings do exist. The meaning Rand used was essentially sacrifice. Another meaning in common usage is trade.

If you are judging a principle, you cannot compromise it without destroying its universal nature, in other words, without destroying it as a principle.

If you are judging peaceful trade agreements between nations and there are conflicting trade interests, compromises can be made on each side in relation to what they want in order to get something else they want. I can't call that anything else but a negotiated trade, although it is often referred to as a compromise.

Notice that the phrase "in relation to" refers to a standard. This is something that should always be mentioned when the word "compromise" is bandied about. Partisans of hamhanded agendas don't like to do that, though. They like to keep these meanings blurred so they can ramp up the rhetoric.

Here is one compromise that galls me. When politics is mixed with trade in international agreements and certain moral principles are traded for money or raw materials, this puts a monetary value on morality and that compromises the moral principles involved. This is why I am not in favor of the USA government doing trade agreements with bloody dictators, tinpot or otherwise, and I strongly disagree with those who overlook what the USA has done in this respect over history. This even puts me at odds with many Objectivists, but I consider this to be a sellout. Intellectual issues aside, I have seen the results with my own eyes.

Ironically, one of America's worst Presidents, Jimmy Carter, put his finger right in the middle of the problem when he centered his foreign diplomacy on human rights. Despite mixed results and efforts sometimes bordering on contradictory, he did bring the issue up and deserves credit for that. If we judge Carter's performance with respect to how he treated other countries about human rights, we see compromises all over the place. Some are not good at all. If we judge his acts in light of establishing human rights as a foreign policy consideration of the USA government, changing the course of an enormous ship so to speak (the USA government), he did not compromise. Human rights are now squarely on the table in USA foreign policy. He did that. (Whether human rights are correctly defended or not is another issue.)

This last is an example of where the meaning of compromise is extremely important. Carter partisans from both sides yell at each other using the same word with different meanings. Carter haters call him an appeaser of evil and Carter defenders say he did not compromise in his quest for improving human rights throughout the world. But they don't want to understand each other. Not really. They want to impose an agenda, so meaning is not fundamentally relevant to them.

I have chosen an epistemological method for my life that pushes me to do my best to identify correctly before judging. That includes cases when the word "compromise" is used. Not all compromises are equal. :)

Sorry for the temporary hijack. My thoughts started going in this direction...

Michael

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“people usually refrain from violence to correct laws they regard as enormously unjust”

Good thing too. Imagine if all the people who were convinced that abortion is murder decided to use violence to correct the law. Given their premises, the pro-lifers are the biggest compromisers of all.

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Thanks for the remarks, Christopher and Michael.

Yes, Dennis, and a few of the anti-abortionists have resorted to violence.

An historical situation for which “to compromise or not” proved of great consequence was in the issue of the abolition of slavery in America. Check out this study.

Edited by Stephen Boydstun
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Thanks for the remarks, Christopher and Michael.

Yes, Dennis, and a few of the anti-abortionists have resorted to violence.

An historical situation for which “to compromise or not” proved of great consequence was in the issue of the abolition of slavery in America. Check out this study.

Good, if not moving, article.

As Wright phrased it, "The action of each human body must be

controlled by a power within it -or by a power without it -by an Interior or by

an Exterior power."

...

In Wright's view, nonresistance was more than a

pacifist doctrine. He was self-conscious enough to realize that "it was a form of

restraint as well as a form of expression: it represented his own victory over

murderous feelings" which empowered him through professions of pacifism and

love "to show the blood on his brother's hand and prove his own innocence." In

contrast to some anarchists and pacifists, Wright did not view human nature as

benign. As Wright explained, "combativeness and destructiveness are essential

parts of our nature, that our guilt lies not in the possession, but in the abuse of

these propensities; and they are to be regulated and not destroyed."

...

As arrison argued to the unconvinced pacifist Adin Ballou during the Civil War,

"Although nonresistance holds human life in all cases inviolable, yet it is perfect-

ly consistent for those professing it to petition, advise and strenuously urge a pro-

war government to abolish slavery solely by the war-power."2

I laud the image of pacificm in-so-far as aggression is considered negative up until the point that it is required for self-protection (Think U.S. has Department of Defense not Dep. of War). Hence, a good "pacificist" path is regulated aggression as opposed to the absence of aggression.

What I disagree with: pacificists who later supported war to end slavery. This is not a settled conflict in my own values yet... but pacificists in the article who fully supported war to end slavery basically condone an assertion and are willing to fight and die for that assertion. However, protection of one's beliefs is a universal justification for all violence and therefore is a meaningless assertion. I believe in human rights; therefore I will kill slaveholders (even though I'm white). That can be replaced with any assertion as follows: I beleve in X; therefore I will kill Y. No no no... allow black slaves the right to use violence against slavery, and allow whites to be receptive to a change in laws... but violent whites against slavery are equally justified as violent whites for slavery. At least, that is my analysis for today. It's a tough consideration either way.

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