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Ask An Objectivist

Dinwar said:
From a broad perspective, it means that a person's life is their primary concern. I am not obliged to make anyone else's life better; my main concern is MY life. That said, this is not blind predation--the "rational" part comes in to play via the recognition that I cannot advance my life by the violation of the rights of others. And further, I usually can't advance my life from harming others (the rare cases where I can actually amount to me removing threats to myself).

Boild down, it means I'm under no obligation to give anything I earn to anyone, but I need to decide if it's in my best interest to do so or not.
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My first question is: Why is it "rational" to recognize that you cannot advance your life by the violation of the rights of others? Do you mean that can't advance your life this way, or that you shouldn't? Because it seems apparent that people can do this.

Second question: Suppose one's actions are motivated by compassion and/or out of pleasure derived from helping people, but not by any other benefit. They do not consider themselves obligated to help, but they do consider themselves motivated. Is this consistent with "rational egoism"?

Third question: You walk past a drowning person in a river calling for help (suppose they can't swim and fell in). Are you obligated to help?

Fourth question: Are people obligated to help their children at no benefit to themselves? If so how does this jive with rational egoism?
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Could you stop taking your own computation/cognition for granted and for once get out of your comfort zone? Inherent rights are as true/right as the concept of God. There are no inherent rights, that is bad philosophy.
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Wrong. A right is something that is inherent. If it's not inherent, it's not a right.

Freedom of speech? Freedom of association? Freedom of religion? You have all of those unless someone stops you. They are inherent. That's why the US Constitution doesn't claim to grant rights, it prohibits the government from infringing upon them.

You do not have a right to a fair wage. You do not have a right to medical care. You do not have a right to food, shelter, or clean water. These are things society may choose to strive to provide to everyone - dressing it up as practicality or progressivism - but they are not rights.
 
cornsail said:
My first question is: Why is it "rational" to recognize that you cannot advance your life by the violation of the rights of others? Do you mean that can't advance your life this way, or that you shouldn't?
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It means that other people, acting in their own self-interest, will stop you.

Fourth question: Are people obligated to help their children at no benefit to themselves? If so how does this jive with rational egoism?
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Genetics.

ETA: Also, jibe.
 
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Craig24 said:
Force is not verboten. The initiation of force is. Self defense and regulated retaliatory force is justified. A criminal's actions are wrong but the actions of the police and courts to identify, pursue, apprehend and prosecute are proper.
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But if the person resisting arrest isn't doing so with force, then the police will still have to initiate force.
 
Pixel42 said:
Also: what happens when rights conflict?

Person A's right to freedom of speech may conflict with person B's right not to live in fear. Person A's right to buy the cheapest products available may conflict with person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream that runs through it. Person A's right to burn fossil fuel to enhance their lifestyle may conflict with person B's right to farm their land without it disappearing beneath the waves. Person A's right to maximise their wealth may conflict with person B's right to a fair wage.

Is there any, seemingly reasonable, right which doesn't potentially conflict with another equally reasonable one?
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I think a better question to ask is: When there is a conflict, how does one determine who is right and who is wrong?
Objectivism defines rights in such a way that there would be no conflict between rights. I'll tackle the following example of a conflict:
Person A's right to buy the cheapest product -- vs --
Person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream running through it.

That has to be recast as:
Person A wants to buy the cheapest product he can but doing so facilitates poisoning Person B's property because that dirty old factory that makes the product is dumping pollution into the stream that runs through it.

My response: Person A has no right to set the price of any good or service. He only has the right to decide whether or not to buy it at whatever price it happens to be. The dirty old factory has a right to manufacture and sell the product as cheaply as it can but if it pollutes a stream and poison's someone's property (as you would put it) the factory can be sued and would be liable for damage to Person B's property. If that eventually increases the cost of doing business then that's tough luck for both the factory and person A.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
But if the person resisting arrest isn't doing so with force, then the police will still have to initiate force.
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Technically, the police didn't initiate force, the criminal did by committing the crime but I can see where this might go. What if the police identify the wrong suspect (i.e., they arrest an innocent man)? I still say the act of the criminal facilitates this. If the crime were not committed in the first place, no arrests of anyone would take place but I can see where this is a hard dilemma to solve.
 
Dinwar said:
Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
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That would be the philosophy of a psychopath who honored another psychopath for butchering a little girl for no other reason than his impulse to do so.

That's some "philosophy".
 
Craig24 said:
I think a better question to ask is: When there is a conflict, how does one determine who is right and who is wrong?
Objectivism defines rights in such a way that there would be no conflict between rights. I'll tackle the following example of a conflict:
Person A's right to buy the cheapest product -- vs --
Person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream running through it.

That has to be recast as:
Person A wants to buy the cheapest product he can but doing so facilitates poisoning Person B's property because that dirty old factory that makes the product is dumping pollution into the stream that runs through it.

My response: Person A has no right to set the price of any good or service. He only has the right to decide whether or not to buy it at whatever price it happens to be. The dirty old factory has a right to manufacture and sell the product as cheaply as it can but if it pollutes a stream and poison's someone's property (as you would put it) the factory can be sued and would be liable for damage to Person B's property. If that eventually increases the cost of doing business then that's tough luck for both the factory and person A.
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If Person B makes so much money from producing the product that pollutes, they can stall court proceedings for a very long time and they can afford to pay whatever judgment they get against them. And they will happily repeat the process because there is no one to stop them.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
That only holds true if initiating force is the only crime.
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Under Objectivism, it is the only crime (and this includes fraud which is called indirect force). Under our current political system, many actions that are properly not considered initiations of force are crimes but that's not relevant to Objectivism.
 
PixyMisa said:
It means that other people, acting in their own self-interest, will stop you.


Genetics.

ETA: Also, jibe.
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Are you an objectivist? Either way, your post didn't answer my questions so I would still like to hear from Dinwar.
 
Spindrift said:
If Person B makes so much money from producing the product that pollutes, they can stall court proceedings for a very long time and they can afford to pay whatever judgment they get against them. And they will happily repeat the process because there is no one to stop them.
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You are very correct but that's beside the point. What I was illustrating was that Objectivism doesn't view rights as a sanction to act any way that you happen to prefer. When there's a conflict between two or more parties, you have to identify who is right and who is wrong.
 
PixyMisa said:
Wrong. A right is something that is inherent. If it's not inherent, it's not a right.
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If they are inherent, does my dog have them? How about that mold growing under the sink?

Rights are asserted claims, usually backed up by meaningful choices and force.
 
Craig24 said:
I think a better question to ask is: When there is a conflict, how does one determine who is right and who is wrong?
Objectivism defines rights in such a way that there would be no conflict between rights. I'll tackle the following example of a conflict:
Person A's right to buy the cheapest product -- vs --
Person B's right not to have their land poisoned by the stream running through it.

That has to be recast as:
Person A wants to buy the cheapest product he can but doing so facilitates poisoning Person B's property because that dirty old factory that makes the product is dumping pollution into the stream that runs through it.

My response: Person A has no right to set the price of any good or service. He only has the right to decide whether or not to buy it at whatever price it happens to be. The dirty old factory has a right to manufacture and sell the product as cheaply as it can but if it pollutes a stream and poison's someone's property (as you would put it) the factory can be sued and would be liable for damage to Person B's property. If that eventually increases the cost of doing business then that's tough luck for both the factory and person A.
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Can my right to decide be infringed upon by someone limiting my choices, or eliminating them completely? What role does compulsion play?

For example, suppose I lie to you about your options. Have I used force against you?

ETA: I see you addressed this in post #51. So I'll ask it another way: is lying a crime in Objectivism or is it only when a lie has provable negative consequences for the person lied to? Related to this would be the case where I don't lie directly, but simply fail to inform. There, it seems I would have no obligation to correct ignorance, that is, I shouldn't be compelled to do so or penalized for not doing so - and yet, the consequences can be identical to the case where I lie overtly.
 
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Craig24 said:
You are very correct but that's beside the point. What I was illustrating was that Objectivism doesn't view rights as a sanction to act any way that you happen to prefer. When there's a conflict between two or more parties, you have to identify who is right and who is wrong.
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So you can identify who is right and who is wrong? Big deal. Unless you can do something to get the party who is wrong to stop being wrong what's the point?
 
PixyMisa said:
Wrong. A right is something that is inherent. If it's not inherent, it's not a right.

Freedom of speech? Freedom of association? Freedom of religion? You have all of those unless someone stops you. They are inherent. That's why the US Constitution doesn't claim to grant rights, it prohibits the government from infringing upon them.

You do not have a right to a fair wage. You do not have a right to medical care. You do not have a right to food, shelter, or clean water. These are things society may choose to strive to provide to everyone - dressing it up as practicality or progressivism - but they are not rights.
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So I have a right to crap in the street? Unless someone stops me, I can inherently crap everywhere.
 
Spindrift said:
So you can identify who is right and who is wrong? Big deal. Unless you can do something to get the party who is wrong to stop being wrong what's the point?
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People are stopped all the time from doing the wrong thing. Look at our prisons. I'm trying to answer questions about Objectivism (That is the point of this thread right?) and you are here complaining that some people get away with doing the wrong thing. How is that relevant to the thread topic?
 
Craig24 said:
People are stopped all the time from doing the wrong thing. Look at our prisons. I'm trying to answer questions about Objectivism (That is the point of this thread right?) and you are here complaining that some people get away with doing the wrong thing. How is that relevant to the thread topic?
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This is about Objectivism. In the hypothetical I proposed, government regulations could be used to stop the polluting manufacturer, but that's not allowed under Objectivism. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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