| | If I may, (puts on Knight's armor), I'd like to take up Mike Kelly's subject.
I got kids (well, g'kids) I'm raising; I can...empathize with his conundrum. Mereallythinks too many that clearly don't empathize...clearly don't-have-kids (or maybe even pets.) Too many have been just too ready to judge MSK as practically anti-Randian (regardless views about association to the Brandens) merely because of his sticky questions, and rather than deal directly with his (granted, occasionally unclear) concerns are more, instead, ready to evade them by ad homining him (which, of course, he has little prob doing also.)
Yes, I know, he seemed to 'meander' from legalities to ethics to personal attitudes, and (as did too many of his respondents), took some strong emotive positions as well as used a dubious, though implied, sorite (withold-food=starving=murdering) about morality.
But, 'sfarsIcansee, he was searching for what IS a kind of prob (apparent 'gap') in O'ist morality (and maybe 'objective' law, as explicated so far,) re the bottom line scenario he's concerned with, and he thence had a prob with all that all too many did re doing a 'Randroid-quoting' as evidence that he's clearly an altruist-in-O'ist-clothing. Such he-may-well-be (though, if so, I'd suspect unknowingly), but, such is irrelevent to actually 'answering' his scenario-concern, is it not?
Let me see if I can re-phrase his scenario-playout, and it's consequences re morality and legality implications (raises arm-block, ducks).
1) Adult #1 (male? female? you pick!) meets 'lost-4yr-old-girl-in-woods'.
2) The 'lost-babe' asks for help/food/compass/whatever.
3) A#1 says 'Get lost, kid; I got my own life. Good luck in life.' and turns around and leaves.
4) 2 days later, A#2 discovers dead kid mauled and chewed, at bottom of cliff.
5) Investigation shows kid's footprints at top of cliff with cougar/wolf (pick one) tracks.
6) Investigation further shows kid's footprints leading back a couple miles to a separate location with A#1's tracks there also and A#1's leading to cave 1-mile away.
7) Forensics show kid had nothing to eat for days, but for a few berries. --- Undetermined as to whether kid died from fall, or killed by animal and fell over ledge.
8) A#1's cave contained enough MREs to last A#1 for a month.
9) A#1 admits having met the kid.
(One can quibble/nit-pick how I set this up, but, let's not get lost in tangentials here, you CSI watchers, you, ok? You get my drift, or you don't; if not, leave it all be.)
Now, the questions:
1) Did A#1 have any moral obligation to the kid before A#1 left the kid? --- If not, then there's no proper O'ist place for them to feel 'guilt' about anything, correct? In which case, should s/he run into the same situation again, it'd be perfectly proper to change nothing about their behaviour, correct?
2) If (okay, I'm stretching the scenario here, but bear with me) the kid had been kidnapped, and just dropped off into the woods when the kidnapper got cold feet about carrying through, ERGO, the parents, somewhere, were still alive, then would A#1 'owe' anything to them? (Yes, I know that the kidnapper would; irrelevent.)
3) Would a proper 'objective Law' require any kind of penalty from A#1?
Now, the biggee:
4) If *you*, A#2 (non-police), adept hunter-enthusiast/TRACKER that you are, discovered the kid at the top of the cliff, half-mauled but clearly dead, and tracked tracks back to A#1's cave...what are the proper MORAL LIMITS of how much force (if any!) for you to use on A#1 to...make them do...what? --- If one regards 'no force' as proper here, does that not mean that A#1 should properly be considered as IRRELEVENT to the kid's death as...*you* are...or not? If not, then...what should be done here, other than say "Hi; wazzup?"
I do believe that this 'problem-set' in legality and morality is what MSK has been trying to pin down amidst the chronic vituperative antagonism he's received (and fer sure, given)...and got sidetracked to returning the latter rather than sufficiently identifing the former.
If I'm incorrect on all this, MSK, you certainly may correct where I'm off.
Needless to say, heh, comments welcome.
LLAP
J:D
P.S: MSK: I must say, that given your established view on one's running into a personal experience re a 'lost-babe-in-the-woods', that your response to Bill Dwyer's argument re helping other babes elsewhere that one hasn't personally run into...is...well...lacking. I have to agree with him that if one's a monster for letting a personally met 'babe' fend for themself without offering help, one has the same moral status for doing the same to all that exist elsewhere...especially those whom one's aware of via TV (news, charity-infomercials, UNICEF, etc.) His argument's solid on that: ignoring one is no different than ignoring all, regardless that one 'personally met' one, and hadn't 'personally met' the others...A-L-L the others. Having 'personally met' or not really doesn't seem relevent...MORALLY speaking.
(Edited by John Dailey on 3/10, 4:56am)
(Edited by John Dailey on 3/10, 5:04am)
(Edited by John Dailey on 3/10, 5:16am)
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