Ask An Objectivist

[tsig]

Remember this is philosophy.

You and I are walking down a road - in a ditch lies a new-born baby and a dead woman. I take out my gun and kill the baby. No family can be found. Now what?

You BBQ it.

 

[MG1962]

Pollution becomes a problem when it damages life and property. Under capitalism, the solution is property rights and their enforcement under objective law in the courts.

Yes because who needs prevention. You have to wait till there is physical effects on the land, observable illness caused by whatever carcinogenic agent might be involved. Then you can sue

Great job at closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

 

[MG1962]

You cannot change human nature by changing an economic system.

Which is exactly why communism failed as badly as it did

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Well the mother died before the baby, so the baby is probably heir to mom. If mom didn't have anything, just get a knife and recover the bullet yourself.

ETA: And I have no idea what this has to do with Objectivism.

Follow the quotes backwards

 

[theprestige]

Dinwar, thanks for this thread. I hope you return to it, even if only to pick up where you left off on page 1, regardless of how far ahead or aside the rest of the discussion runs.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Two questions for Dinwar:

1) Is Objectivism different than Libertarianism and, if so, how?
2) What do you think are the main problems with Objectivism?

 

[Bikewer]

I'm not a student of political philosophy (though we got plenty of anti-Communist stuff when I was a young lad in Catholic school...) But I am a student of evolutionary biology....
Seems to me that any politcal system or utopian scheme that does not address the essential features of human nature is doomed to fail.
We are heirarchichal creatures. We like to follow strong leaders. We are communal creatures. We like to think of ourselves as part of a group. A rather small group... Extended family, village, something of the sort.
We have natural tendencies towards cooperative behavior, while at the same time we have tendencies to fear and distrust the "other". These things all stem from millions of years of living in small, inter-related groups or bands of roving hunter-gatherers.
Despite 10,000-ish years of civilization, we still have brains set up for that earlier mode of existence, and those tendencies still form our behaviors, our politics, and our responses to problems.

 

[Myriad]

And what about those pesky, pervasive externalities?

 

[MG1962]

I'm not a student of political philosophy (though we got plenty of anti-Communist stuff when I was a young lad in Catholic school...) But I am a student of evolutionary biology....
Seems to me that any politcal system or utopian scheme that does not address the essential features of human nature is doomed to fail.
We are heirarchichal creatures. We like to follow strong leaders. We are communal creatures. We like to think of ourselves as part of a group. A rather small group... Extended family, village, something of the sort.
We have natural tendencies towards cooperative behavior, while at the same time we have tendencies to fear and distrust the "other". These things all stem from millions of years of living in small, inter-related groups or bands of roving hunter-gatherers.
Despite 10,000-ish years of civilization, we still have brains set up for that earlier mode of existence, and those tendencies still form our behaviors, our politics, and our responses to problems.

Thats a very good point - And I would like to add that any system has to accommodate the vast range of things that make each human different. We need to be able to allow the freedom of the captains of industry to power the economy and create things to be consumed, while at the other extreme the artists and dreamsers need the freedom to emotionally enrich our lives.

 

[Meed]

Dinwar, thanks for this thread. I hope you return to it, even if only to pick up where you left off on page 1, regardless of how far ahead or aside the rest of the discussion runs.

agreed

 

[Dinwar]

It looks like I could be a rational egotist and still vote for a left leaning party that wants to increase taxes on high incomes within a capitalist system. After all, it's about my individual preference. Do you agree?

No. It's not merely about individual preferences--it's about individual preferences AND individual rights. Your preferences no longer matter once they extend beyond your property or interfere with someone else's rights.

Is there a principle or some type of heuristic specific to Objectivism that you find relevant or inspiring, regarding reason and logic?

Well, there's my sig. After that, there are the Wizard's Rules from the Sword of Truth series (written by an Objectivist, though he wasn't when he wrote the first few). But for the most part I don't really look for inspiring heuristics or the like in philosophy; I look toward philosophy for explanation, not inspiration. For inspiration, I look to art.

1) Can you explain why selling snake oil is or is not ethical?

It's not, if you know it doesn't actually work. It dishonestly presents the product as something it's not; there's no way for that to be moral. Note that this is different from UNknowingly selling something as something. What I mean is, folks who sold asbestos insulation before we knew what it could do to lungs weren't guilty of fraud; they acted on the data available, which is all we can ever do.

2) How about exploiting addicts?

Immoral, but not necessarily illegal. It's pandering to the worst aspects of a person, and feeding off their destruction--inherently vicious. I will say that this concerns the PRACTICE, not the PRODUCT. One can sell tabacco perfectly morally--sure, it's dangerous, but there's nothing wrong with sharing a cigar at the birth of a child, or the return of a combat veteran.

3) How does objectivism deal with tragedy of the commons situations?

Simple: we eliminate the commons. For areas where this is not possible (say, the atmosphere) we would rely on the courts to determine if someone has violated our rights. For example, someone living downwind of a factory that discharges toxic materials into the groundwater would have a moral and legal obligation to clean those discharges up, and pay any damagess involved. Same with air polution.

4) Does Objectivism require free will?

Yes. Objectivism includes ethics, which requires choice.

If so, how does it deal with the inconsistency of free will and modern science?

I've yet to see science address this question, so my impression is that the question starts with a false premise.

Rand did a "bad" job of understanding how ethical values come about in reality, because she overlooked the effect of biological evolution.

Not in my opinion. The statement "There are no individuals in evolution as individuals..." is, in my professional opinion, a complete misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution is an emergent property of populations, but selection acts upon individuals. Rand's ethics logically follow from that.

Also: what happens when rights conflict?

I would have to see an example to understand what you're talking about.

Person A's right to freedom of speech may conflict with person B's right not to live in fear.

There isn't a "right not to live in fear". There IS a right to life and liberty, and threats against those are therefore not allowed. However, if Person B believes that Person A issued a credible threat, Person B can take Person A to court, or arbitration, or the like.

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.

Again, these rights are mere fabricataions. That said, again, Person B could take Person A to court over their losses.

Person A's right to maximise their wealth may conflict with person B's right to a fair wage.

There is no right to a fair wage, or to maximise one's wealth. There is a right to property and free association, however. Person A can do whatever they wish with their property, including employ others to work for them. Person B can choose to work under the terms offered by Person A, to attempt to re-negotiate their salary, or to work somewhere else. And please don't fabricate purely fictional situations where one company owns ALL the businesses in an area; the only times this happens are when companies are allowed to issue scrip in place of actualy payment, and I believe scrip is an anti-concept (a concept that is both logically indefensible and designed to destroy some valid concept, in this case "employment"). I see no way, without massive special pleeding, for there to be only one employer in the area and no potential to even try to make your own business.

Secondly, rights are related to actions, not inanimate mater. They are things you can do. One can own things, or persue ownership of things, but one has no right to any thing outside their own body. What I mean is, once you have something you have the absolute right to keep it, or use it as you see fit (provided it doesn't violate the rights of others); however, there is not a single thing in the universe outside of your own body that you have an inherent right to. One obtains property by traid, or by work--either you exchange something you own for something someone else owns, or you go out and get it from the wilderness, or you grow it. If a right to a wage was real, every human on Earth would be getting a wage--regardless of whether they work or not. The only way to enact such a program is to take money from those who have it, which is a violation of their property rights (they can give the money away as they see fit, but no one has the right to take it). Wages don't grow on trees, and they aren't mined--one must trade for them. And there's no right--there cannot be a right--to someone else's property.

This is what I mean by lookign at things from the other perspective. A right to a living wage is a perfectly sound right under a socialist ethical theory; however, you cannot take a socialist ethical theory and ask an Objectivist to defend it. It's akin to demanding a Christian defend an atheistic interpretation of the clergy; the premise contradicts the question.

Is there any, seemingly reasonable, right which doesn't potentially conflict with another equally reasonable one?

Depends on what you consider reasonable. Many of the "rights" you listed are not rights according to the Objectivist definition. A "right to a fair wage" isn't a right under any rational definition, in my opinion. If you ask whether ther are rights under the Objectivist use of the term that conflict with other rights, the answer is no. Interactions may be complex, but they are not conflicting. Rand pointed out that this is why property rights are so important--property rights are necessary to determine who's got the final say in a situation. If I own a company, I get final say in how much my workers get paid (I may deligate this to others, such as VPs or managers, but it's still my authority). If a worker doesn't like it, they have the right to leave--I cannot enslave them--but they DO NOT have a right to my money. That's why it's my money. Property rights can be used similarly: if something you do impacts my property (not my property VALUE; loss on an investment is the risk one takes fo rmaking an investment), you either have to gain my consent or you have violated my rights.

If all force is verboten under and and all circumstances, then how could the police arrest someone who doesn't want to be arrested?

The highlighted premise is wrong. The initiation of force is forbidden. Self-defense is manditory. And the police operate via the population deligating their right to self-defense under specific conditions (we retain it when we must defend ourselves violently in order to survive, for example). Nothing in Objectivism suggests pacifism, and I'm of the opinion that pacifism, like anarchism, cannot actually exist in the real world.

Sorry if I misseed anything important. Like I said, I'm doing this on my lunch hour. Hopefully I didn't mangle anything too much! And I'm gong to have to think more on the issue of rights conflicting.

Also, to clarify the quesiton of what Objectivism means to me: If someone says they are an Objectivist, you can assume they agree with what Rand said. The burden is on them to demonstrate that they do not accept something. For example, I disagree with Rand's views on sexuality--but it's perfectly reasonable for someone to assume I don't until they hear otherwise. I've also said that I agree with most of what Dr. Hsieh said (her blog/podcast is "Noodlefood" if you're interested), and the same assumption can be made there.

That said, I limit this to Rand. It is not reasonable to assume I agree with what Piekoff said, or what Greg Biddle says, or the like. (An exception is "Ominous Parallels", a book which Rand endoursed, but if you know that much it's safe to assume you know enough that this statement is unnecessary.) There are a lot of stupid people that use Objectivism to mask behaviors that directly contradict Objectivism, and it's those people that I don't have any interest in defending.

 

[Dinwar]

Dinwar, thanks for this thread. I hope you return to it, even if only to pick up where you left off on page 1, regardless of how far ahead or aside the rest of the discussion runs.

I didn't mean to abandon it. The offspring is not reacting well to the weather changes the US is experiencing.

 

[Spindrift]

There is a right to property? How is that inherent? Most are not born owning property.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

One can sell tabacco perfectly morally--sure, it's dangerous, but there's nothing wrong with sharing a cigar at the birth of a child, or the return of a combat veteran.

How about sharing a cigar with a child?

This may seem like a flippant question, but I mean it sincerely. How is the protection of children seen, when what the child is being protected from is something that the child may want to do and the parents may not have a worry about the children doing? I've met people who have let their very young children smoke. The children have learnt the behaviour from their parents. This is obviously illegal under the current system, but would the adults and children both have the right to smoke and to allow the child to smoke under Objectivism?

And this need not specifically be about smoking, but any behaviour which is currently legal for adults (or even not - I presume that drugs of all kinds would be legal under Objectivism, for example), but which is harmful.

For example, someone living downwind of a factory that discharges toxic materials into the groundwater would have a moral and legal obligation to clean those discharges up, and pay any damagess involved.

I'm assuming that this is a typo and you mean that the owner of the factory would have the obligation to clean up the environmental damage the factory causes, not that the people affected by the environmental damage would have the obligation to clean it up.

The highlighted premise is wrong. The initiation of force is forbidden. Self-defense is manditory. And the police operate via the population deligating their right to self-defense under specific conditions (we retain it when we must defend ourselves violently in order to survive, for example).

Then I have to ask the same question that I asked earlier - what if the criminal in question didn't initiate force, and hasn't done anything which requires self-defence, but still resists arrest? Don't the police then have to initiate force?

 

[tsig]

There is a right to property? How is that inherent? Most are not born owning property.

You find someone that isn't using the property productively (the Indians) and you (the Pilgrims) kill them all and take it.

I came along later and exchanged the money equivalent of two years of my life for what I have.

 

[Dinwar]

How about sharing a cigar with a child?

I would question the logic of it, and be offended if someone did so with my child. But it's not something I'd get overly worked up about. I intend to teach my kid to sword fight; care to estimate which is riskier?

How is the protection of children seen, when what the child is being protected from is something that the child may want to do and the parents may not have a worry about the children doing?

As long as it's not obviously abuse, there's really not much to be done. You can try to convince the parents it's wrong, but in the end if it's not abusive and you're not the parent, your opinion does not matter.

Let's be clear hear: EVERY act has risks. The act of getting out of bed kills people. It's a question of how one evaluates the risks vs. rewards. And there is no justification for imposing your assessment on other people.

I'm assuming that this is a typo and you mean that the owner of the factory would have the obligation to clean up the environmental damage the factory causes, not that the people affected by the environmental damage would have the obligation to clean it up.

Woops. You're right--I intended to say the factory owner(s) would have the obligation.

Then I have to ask the same question that I asked earlier - what if the criminal in question didn't initiate force, and hasn't done anything which requires self-defence, but still resists arrest?

The use of the term "criminal" implies that they did.

The police have the authority--derived from the deligated right to self-defense--to arrest those they have reasonable justification to consider guilty of a crime. If the police acted on reasonable evidence and were wrong, they may have to pay for damages and the like, but they were still justified in the use of force. It is nothing short of a corruption of the term "justice" to claim someone is guilty of something if they act in good faith and on the best available data; to claim such a person is guilty of something is to demand omniscience, or at minimum that they act on data they DON'T have. If it can be proven that the police DIDN'T act in good faith, or ignored data, then they would be guilty of corruption and should be punished for such.

There is a right to property? How is that inherent? Most are not born owning property.

You have the right to that which you have. A newborn can't buy property, or farm it, but any sane parent will deligate a portionof their property to its use--its food, its clothing, its toys, etc.

Use degrades most property, and destroys some of it. There has to be some way to determine what you can degrade and destroy vs. what I can--otherwise the simple act of eating becomes intollerably complex. The right to property is that way. Remember, on an island all by yourself rights are irrelevnat; they're only a factor in social situations. If no one is around to take your stuff, you don't need a rule for when they are allowed to do so. It's only when there ARE people that can do so that you need to have some way to decide who gets to do what with what. Property rights are that way. If you own you, YOU get to decide. If I own it, I do.

Note that it's a right to property IN GENERAL. This does not translate to a right to any specific property. What I mean is, no one can say "I have a right to that item", unless they happen to own that item. "I have a right to a living wage" isn't a declaration of a right; it's a declaration that you believe someone else has an obligation to provide for your livelihood. This sounds a lot more abtuse than it is; basically, all I'm saying is that there cannot be a right to someone else's property; the concept contradicts itself.

 

[Earthborn]

What I mean is, folks who sold asbestos insulation before we knew what it could do to lungs weren't guilty of fraud; they acted on the data available, which is all we can ever do.

The dangers of asbestos have been known since antiquity, and for asbestos manufacturers hard to miss; if they didn't know, it was only because they looked away when their workers were dying.

For areas where this is not possible (say, the atmosphere) we would rely on the courts to determine if someone has violated our rights.

It is not always possible to determine who produced a particular plume of pollution -- there may be many people who contributed to it, even including the people who suffer from its consequences -- so which Objectivist criteria should a court use to determine whether anyone's rights have been violated?

Again, these rights are mere fabricataions.

What are the criteria by which Objectivists determine which rights are fabrications and which are not?

This is what I mean by lookign at things from the other perspective. A right to a living wage is a perfectly sound right under a socialist ethical theory; however, you cannot take a socialist ethical theory and ask an Objectivist to defend it.

You claim that a person has an inherent right to whatever is inside his/her body. Does that not also imply that a person has an inherent right to be able to maintain his/her body in a working condition?

The highlighted premise is wrong. The initiation of force is forbidden.

Pretty much everytime someone uses force, they will claim "it was only self-defense" and say "but he started it!". Who the initiator of force is, is always a controversial issue because everything that happens in the universe has a cause preceding it. What criteria does Objectivism use to determine what is and what is not an "initiation of force" ?

 

[Spindrift]

This sounds a lot more abtuse than it is;

No it doesn't, it sounds just as obtuse as it is.

I was told by PixyMesa that rights were inherent. Is that wrong? There's nothing inherent about owning property especially something like land.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Sorry if I misseed anything important. Like I said, I'm doing this on my lunch hour. Hopefully I didn't mangle anything too much! And I'm gong to have to think more on the issue of rights conflicting.

I would like it if you could address my earlier question, when you have time. "This is a flawed and incomplete philosophy, but one which has value in some circumstances that are being overlooked today" is a far more understandable and defensible position than "this is a complete and workable philosophy which would cure all the world's ills, if only we all could agree to follow it." It would provide a good bit of context to know which argument you were pursuing.

 

[Darat]

No it doesn't, it sounds just as obtuse as it is.

I was told by PixyMesa that rights were inherent. Is that wrong? There's nothing inherent about owning property especially something like land.

Indeed the concept of ownership doesn't even exist if there is just you, ownership is something that only has meaning in a society of people.

What I've seen happen for this and many other ideologies is that the asserted premises and stated principles are often argued for using the ideology itself, to someone outside that looks like (because it is) circular reasoning. It would appear for objectivism that one of its premises is this "right to own property" - I wouldn't really bother to argue why that itself is not supported by objectivism, just accept it is a chosen starting point that objectivism then uses.