| | Robert D.
I'm of two minds on this, Robert. So let me just sort things out in public.
When I call something "immoral" do I mean something more than "the willful suspension of reason?" Ayn Rand called reason or thinking "man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed." She added, "his basic vice...is...the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think." In this context, one cannot be "unintentionally immoral" and Shayne is right.
But, the act of thinking or its opposite, blanking out, is internal. We can't see it. What we see is only the overt actions of men and women. So when we make a judgment that someone is immoral we are making an assumption about the thinking process that went into their overt behaviour. We say that lying is immoral because it ignores reality and not because it breaks some rule ("thou shalt not lie"). And, because it's a principle, not a rule, we make allowance for context (it's OK to lie to a dictator or a thug who, by his/her actions, has put you in an irrational context). So the rational thing to do, when we accuse someone of lying, and call them immoral, is to make sure we are accounting for their context and, I want to claim, their history. A man's moral character (i.e. his commitment to a rational process) is not built in a day, and our judgment of it cannot be based on a handful of overt acts taken out of context. One does not, legitimately, judge the morality of a 3-year-old with the same contextual assumptions that one does a 30-year-old or a 60-year-old. One does not, legitimately, call Hank Rearden evil as quickly as one calls Lillian Rearden evil, even if they were both caught in a lie. (BTW it is the extent to which one can legitimately do this that is at the heart of the dispute between "Fact and Value" and "Truth and Toleration.") In other words, one cannot use a rule-based standard to call someone "immoral".
And I'm afraid that it is a rule-based standard that you are using, Robert, to make your claim that it is possible to be "unintentionally immoral". When one has used a rational process to come to some conclusion about how to act in a specific situation, the act is moral, even if, on further examination, one questions the facts or the conclusion. (Please keep in mind that their are certain overt actions that are, on objective grounds, beyond the pale, beyond the possibility of defense by appeal to a rational process -- the actions of a dictator, for example. I, and Peikoff -- in "Fact and Value" -- also contend that there are certain overtly stated ideas that are beyond the pale as well, when expressed by some adults in some contexts and, further, that it is immoral to treat such ideas and the people who make them as though they were capable of such a defense.)
I think then, that you are incorrect, here, Robert There is a clear-cut distinction between "errors of knowledge" (failure to know the facts or their context) and "errors of morality" (failure to consider known facts or their known context).
Thanks, Robert, for the opportunity to get a little clearer in my own thinking on this.
Tom
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