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Thursday
June 19, 2008

Liberty and Hard Cases by Tibor R. Machan

One book I edited has the same title as this column and focuses mainly on how a free society would cope with disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. When the nature of a just society is discussed, those who defend big government solutions to problems tend to start with orphaned children and catastrophes, claiming that only by means of massive government intervention can a society cope. But then, of course, it becomes evident that big government advocates—actually, advocates of governments with extensive scope, way beyond the task of securing the rights of the citizenry—don’t stop with the dire cases. Instead they move on to advocate government intervention into every nook and cranny of people’s lives. The tendency is toward totalitarianism, with just a few exceptions such as freedom for the press and for people religious choices. Everything else, however, seems to require government meddling, just as was believed in the thousands of years when monarchies ruled virtually everywhere because the king was thought to be God’s representative on earth. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (25 messages)

Tuesday, June 24 - 11:01am

Ethics and politics aren't identical. The ethics of emergencies would have little bearing on politics wherein the point is to provide a long range, on going set of functioning guidelines for human interaction. Ethics has some of these features but it also addresses exceptional, "life boat," cases and those are not relevant to politics or law (except in the rare instance where judicial discretion kicks in--as in pardoning someone convicted of murder in the Donner Party episode).

Tuesday, June 24 - 11:42am

Bill, thanks for your comments. I guess I'm trying to reconcile what I just read in "The Virtue of Selfishness", in particular in the chapter "The Ethics of Emergencies", with my experience working at the legislature where "victims" with huge personal difficulties would be wheeled into a hearing room to gain sympathy for some "emergency" appropriation, even though the vast majority of the recipients of the proposed largesse were not in the dire straits of the poster child "victim".

Basically, once you admit that it is moral to steal in an emergency if your need is sufficiently great, then the collectivists will seize upon that exception and start chipping away bit by bit at every aspect of your admirably restrained limitations on the practice, and by insensible degrees you wind up with the free-for-all theft I observed at close range at our state legislature.

For example, when I said this: "Pay it back how? By the value you place on the food? Or by the value the person you stole it from values it at?"

And you said: "By what it would cost him to replace it, plus a reasonable amount of interest. The principle here is the same one that would govern any other theft. The thief should compensate the victim for the market value of what he stole plus an additional amount to cover his period of loss. Certainly, the victim cannot demand whatever he wants, and no court would be justified in giving it to him."

Then you've admitted that, in very limited circumstances, it can be morally justified to force someone to sacrifice a greater value for a lesser value if your need is sufficiently great. As the Kelo decision showed, a court-determined "market value" of something may not be the actual value the person in question places on the item in question. My follow-up comments were intended to illustrate that principle.

As Ayn Rand points out, we do not have a moral duty to help all others in an emergency, that we must weigh the value of each person by our standards of virtue versus the risks or costs involved in helping them. She gives an example of saying it would be immoral to save the lives of ten random strangers at the expense of failing to save the life of a beloved spouse, because the one spouse is worth more to your happiness than that of the many strangers.

And so, when you admit that it would be moral of you to take something in an emergency, as you have defined that emergency, if the benefit was sufficiently great to you and you intended to repay it at the "market price" plus interest -- the person you're taking it from may need that for a higher value, such as saving their own spouse, and regard your theft as forcing them to sacrifice a higher value for a lesser. You are, in short, advocating altruism in very limited circumstances.

I don't know the answer to this conundrum -- I know if my life was in play I'd be inclined to do whatever it took to preserve it -- but once you've abandoned the high moral ground, the collectivists will be poised to pounce.

Wednesday, June 25 - 12:26am

Jim, you wrote,

Basically, once you admit that it is moral to steal in an emergency if your need is sufficiently great, then the collectivists will seize upon that exception and start chipping away bit by bit at every aspect of your admirably restrained limitations on the practice, and by insensible degrees you wind up with the free-for-all theft I observed at close range at our state legislature.

But don't you see, I'm not saying that the government should have a right to do this on behalf of others, any more than you should have the right to do it on behalf of others. So how would the collectivists be able to chip away at our freedoms? They wouldn't, because I would never allow the government that prerogative in the first place.

You asked: "Pay it back how? By the value you place on the food? Or by the value the person you stole it from values it at?"

I replied: "By what it would cost him to replace it, plus a reasonable amount of interest. The principle here is the same one that would govern any other theft. The thief should compensate the victim for the market value of what he stole plus an additional amount to cover his period of loss. Certainly, the victim cannot demand whatever he wants, and no court would be justified in giving it to him."

Then you've admitted that, in very limited circumstances, it can be morally justified to force someone to sacrifice a greater value for a lesser value if your need is sufficiently great.

Your first obligation is to yourself. If the choice is between sacrificing someone else and giving up your own life, then your best option is to sacrifice the other person. (Fortunately, this is not a choice that one has to make under normal circumstances.) When Rand talks about sacrificing a greater value for a lesser one, she is speaking of someone's voluntary choice. Obviously, a person should never voluntarily sacrifice a greater value for a lesser one. But the greater value in a life-threatening emergency is the moral agent's self-preservation; the lesser value, respect for another person's property.

As the Kelo decision showed, a court-determined "market value" of something may not be the actual value the person in question places on the item in question. My follow-up comments were intended to illustrate that principle.

Right, but the victim could place an exorbitantly high value on his property as a way of extracting as much money as possible from the thief. You can't hold the thief hostage to the victim's own subjective valuation. A court must decide on what it considers "reasonable" compensation. There is no other alternative. I'm not saying that the government is justified in taking someone's property via the law of eminent domain and then giving him "fair" market value for it, because fair market value is not just compensation. But the solution there is to deny to the government the right of eminent domain in the first place. Unfortunately, that solution is not available in the case of a theft that is based on a life-threatening emergency.

As Ayn Rand points out, we do not have a moral duty to help all others in an emergency . . ."

I agree. I'm not saying that we do. All I'm saying is that, in a life-threatening emergency, you're justified in acting to preserve your own life, even if that involves stealing from others. That does not mean that the person from whom you're stealing has a moral duty to give you his property. He doesn't, and he would be justified in resisting your attempts to take it. What you have here is a genuine conflict of interest. You have nothing to gain by not taking his property, and he has nothing to gain by letting you take it.

And so, when you admit that it would be moral of you to take something in an emergency, as you have defined that emergency, if the benefit was sufficiently great to you and you intended to repay it at the "market price" plus interest -- the person you're taking it from may need that for a higher value, such as saving their own spouse, and regard your theft as forcing them to sacrifice a higher value for a lesser. You are, in short, advocating altruism in very limited circumstances.

No, I'm not. I am not saying that the victim has a moral obligation to give you his property. He doesn't. But, by the same token, you have nothing to gain by not taking it, if you can. There is no altruism here. There is only a rare, emergency generated conflict of interest, in which each party to the conflict is striving to preserve his own values.

- Bill

Wednesday, June 25 - 11:50am

Bill said: "But don't you see, I'm not saying that the government should have a right to do this on behalf of others, any more than you should have the right to do it on behalf of others. So how would the collectivists be able to chip away at our freedoms? They wouldn't, because I would never allow the government that prerogative in the first place."

We agree on what is moral behavior. We would never allow the government that prerogative in the first place. The problem I am pointing out is that we are not "The Deciders".

The collectivists can and will seize on this exception, as any reader of Reason.com Hit and Run threads has observed ad nauseam, to say something like this: "You believe it is moral to take property from others without their consent and without trading for the item in question if your need is sufficiently great. Hey, I believe that too. You are hypocritically saying that, as a reasonably well-to-do white male who is quite self-sufficient, and whose need to take from others is limited to rare situations, that everyone else must also limit themselves to taking from others in those rare situations, even though that means most people would be prohibited from meeting their urgent needs, because they would have far more occasions where their self-preservation would require taking from you. You are, in effect, applying a double standard, saying that the majesty of the law fairly prohibits the rich and poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges. So I accept your moral code, but reject your hypocrisy, and will use our superior numbers to institute a government that adopts this moral code and takes from you what we need for emergencies -- as we define "need", and as we define "emergencies".

And then you wind up with the bold theft I observed at our state legislature, under the cover of the Achilles heel of Objectivism, the exception for emergencies. I don't agree with the argument above, but it sure seems to resonate with the vast majority of voters who (shortsightedly and inaccurately) think they are the beneficiaries of this wholesale piracy.

Thursday, June 26 - 5:37am

When it is acknowledged that certain circumstances are exceptional, such as the famous "life boat" or Donner Party cases, an aspect of reality is being properly identified, so it cannot be "the Achilles heel of Objectivism, the exception for emergencies," quite the contrary. Without acknowledging them Objectivist ethics would be unrealistic, rationalistic, idealistic instead of, well, objective.