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Ask An Objectivist

cornsail said:
Are you an objectivist? Either way, your post didn't answer my questions so I would still like to hear from Dinwar.
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No, just a small-L libertarian. Certainly I'd like to hear Dinwar's answer, but I don't think it will differ that much from mine.
 
Spindrift said:
So I have a right to crap in the street? Unless someone stops me, I can inherently crap everywhere.
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Rights are inherent; it doesn't mean that everything that is inherent is a right.

But yes: You have an inherent right to crap everywhere. But that's one of the very first things we gave up in our social contracts.

As I noted, the US Constitution doesn't claim grant or create rights, it just specifies what its authors considered the most important and forbids the government to infringe upon them. (Not that this has been entirely effective, but many other countries have done significantly worse.)
 
PixyMisa said:
Yes, sink mold has freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. We don't give a damn and scrub it off anyway.
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It seems odd that I should support rights for me and, while recognizing them in other beings, simultaneously trample on them.

Does Objectivism rely on virtue as primary, or, think it derives from some other principle, or, perhaps reject virtue as necessary at all?

In other words, if it is in my self-interest to scrub away the mold or scrub away my neighbor, is my virtuous nature supposed to stop me, or something else?
 
Craig24 said:
No, Tommy, Rand understood that this is how reality works. What you did is attack a straw man. Ethics as a system of correct values is formulated precisely because of the very phenomenon you identify. Men act irrationally (in other words they pursue a course of self destruction) all the time and, therefore, are said to need guidance concerning what values to pursue. What you just described is covered by Rand's definition of a value:
“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible.
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The definition given above covers the actions of living entities in general but since ethics wouldn't apply to the non human (such as birds or cows) or to automated functions (that of the heart and lungs for example), then we need not concern ourselves with what biology in general deals with. My cat wouldn't have a clue what to do with philosophy and doesn't need it to function so in the end we are dealing only with humans and their choices.
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Yes, only if the individual organism is the primary purpose of biological evolution. That is not the case. You have made a positive claim, which amounts to that the purpose of biological evolution is the survival of the individual organism. Now go and ask a biologist and she/he will tell that this is not the case. There is no purpose in biological evolution, rather there is the replication of the fittest genome. That is not a purpose, that is a process.
As to whether we humans are a special case(special pleading) just because you say so, you have to explain what a choice is. You can if you want to start claiming metaphysical Free Will, but then this exchange stops here.

With regards
 
PixyMisa said:
Rights are inherent; it doesn't mean that everything that is inherent is a right.

But yes: You have an inherent right to crap everywhere. But that's one of the very first things we gave up in our social contracts.

As I noted, the US Constitution doesn't claim grant or create rights, it just specifies what its authors considered the most important and forbids the government to infringe upon them. (Not that this has been entirely effective, but many other countries have done significantly worse.)
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Who gets to pick and choose what is a right? Society? Societies often deny that a lot of things one might say are rights.

Actually, not crapping everywhere is a relatively recent addition to societal norms.
 
Dinwar said:
So, I open the floor to any questions. What can I clarify? What issues would you like me to address?
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The last Objectivism thread we had, I recall you mentioning that Objectivism (your Objectivism, anyway) wasn't a workable philosophy. While it had value as a foil to current political and philosophical thinking, it wasn't meant and shouldn't be interpreted as a discrete system of ethics which could stand on its own. In short, that any attempt at a Galt's Gulch-style of large, self-contained Objectivist community would be doomed to failure the moment it hit reality.

Would you still take that stance? If so, what do you think the principal failure points are? What is lacking in current Objectivist philosophy that would be necessary to prevent a slide from Galt's Gulch to Lord of the Flies?

Craig24 said:
I'll take a stab at it without trying to speak for Dinwar. I think what you are doing here is applying a double standard. You wish to exercise your preference (that's what a rational egoist would do) while denying to certain others (in this case the rich) the freedom to do the same with whatever income they might prefer to keep. How do you justify that?
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I'll take a stab at justifying it for Dani. A dollar buys a poor man a lot more freedom than a rich man. Taxes are a burden to be shared by all, in as equitable a manner as possible. Normalizing the costs to freedom, this means rich men should be paying a substantially higher share of the burden in raw $ amounts, precisely because they can afford to.

PixyMisa said:
Same thing. Person A has that right - if they have the fossil fuel, they can burn it. But sometimes land disappears beneath the waves, and there is no right for that not to happen.

But as a societal bargain, it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
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That doesn't follow. If I dam a river, and flood the people upstream, and gouge the people downstream, they would both argue that, yes, they DO have a right to have their land not disappear beneath the waves, or the waves not disappear from the land, as an effect of my usage. I believe Dinwar has said as much in previous threads, so whether or not it's an Objectivist position, it's a Dinwarist one.

So, property owners are responsible for the negative externalities of their usage. In the case of global warming though, as with most tragic commons, the problem is that it is simply impractical to resolve through the usually-proposed suits. A class-action lawsuit against a class action defense, with most of the participants being on both sides to various degrees, and damages (therefore, penalties) extending to centuries from now? Ridiculous!

But that doesn't mean individuals have no right not to be influenced by others' externalities. It just means Objectivism (and Libertarianism, and any other political philosophy which thinks lawsuits alone can solve everything) fails to protect that right.

PixyMisa said:
ETA: Also, jibe.
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That doesn't jive with the way English works.
 
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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Okay, this is philosophy - remember this.
I kill you. Who sues for damages and what would these damages amount to?
 
Spindrift said:
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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Objectivism is not the ruling philosophy of this or any country. At this moment, we are a mixed economy and there are plenty of environmental regulations. What you described are situations that occur now under this welfare/regulatory system, not situations that would necessarily occur under capitalism as Objectivism supports it. 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. If you damage my property or poison me, I sue you. If I win, you pay me damages. The more successful this system and the higher the damages awarded, the more it deters would be polluters. I don't claim to know how much better that would work than it does now under a regulated economy. I only know that it's what Objectivism regards as the way to do it.
 
Craig24 said:
Objectivism is not the ruling philosophy of this or any country. At this moment, we are a mixed economy and there are plenty of environmental regulations. What you described are situations that occur now under this welfare/regulatory system, not situations that would necessarily occur under capitalism as Objectivism supports it. 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. If you damage my property or poison me, I sue you. If I win, you pay me damages. The more successful this system and the higher the damages awarded, the more it deters would be polluters. I don't claim to know how much better that would work than it does now under a regulated economy. I only know that it's what Objectivism regards as the way to do it.
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Why would it not occur "under capitalism as Objectivism supports it"? What in the scenario is inherently unfeasible under Objectivism?
 
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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Why do you call it freedom?
I can speak - is that an ability or a right to freedom of speech?
 
PixyMisa said:
No, just a small-L libertarian. Certainly I'd like to hear Dinwar's answer, but I don't think it will differ that much from mine.
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I hope they differ. Your first answer was both incorrect (it is not always the case that someone will try to stop you) and insufficient (just because someone tries to stop doesn't mean they will succeed). Your second answer ("Genetics.") was either a non-sequitur or some sort of riddle.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Okay, this is philosophy - remember this.
I kill you. Who sues for damages and what would these damages amount to?
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The surviving family members can and do sue now and that doesn't change under Objectivism. I'm not sure if you thought that was difficult but it wasn't.
 
Craig24 said:
The surviving family members can and do sue now and that doesn't change under Objectivism. I'm not sure if you thought that was difficult but it wasn't.
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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?
 
Craig24 said:
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.
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So initiation of force is the only crime, but in order for that to be true the term "force" has to be redefined in order to include things that it doesn't accurately describe? I wonder why use the word "force" at all, instead of simply retaining the word "crime".
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
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?
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The baby owes you for the price of the bullet.
 
Spindrift said:
Quentin Tarrantino yells 'Cut!'.
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No :)

... Det er kongens og landets høvdingers opgave at overvåge domme og gøre ret og frelse dem, der tvinges med uret, såsom enker og værgeløse børn, pilgrimme og udlændinge og fattige - dem overgår der tiest uret - og ikke lade slette mennesker, der ikke vil forbedre sig, leve i sit land; thi idet han straffer og dræber ugerningsmænd, da er han Guds tjener og landets vogter. ...
http://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/jyske-lovs-fortale-1241/
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Google translate:
It is the king and the country's chiefs charged with overseeing judgments and do right and save those who are forced to watch, such as widows and helpless children, pilgrims and foreigners and poor - those released are most often wrong - and do not let bad people who will not improve , live in his country; For, since he punishes and kills atrocity men, he is God's servant and custodian of the country.

It is the king and the country's chiefs charged with overseeing judgments and do right and save those who are forced to endure, such as widows and helpless children, pilgrims and foreigners and poor - those people are most often wrong - and do not let bad people who will not improve , live in his country; For, since he punishes and kills atrocity men, he is God's servant and custodian of the country.
 
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