| | Jordan wrote, Also -- and this is to Bill, too -- just because you can't do something for yourself doesn't mean you can't do it for others. For instance, I can't fix my own, say, keyboard, because it's too complicated for me and I'll screw it up, but I can fix my neighbor's keyboard, which is simple and easy for me to fix (note: my neighbor has zero tech skills.) I still don't think that's an important point. This is far from the main issue. Your missing the point. By "control" I meant the right to determine one's actions. In other words, if I don't have the right to determine my own behavior, then I cannot have the right to determine the behavior of others? -- since my right to determine their behavior depends on my right to determine my own behavior.
You cite the passage that I quoted from Rand in VOS:". . . . the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action -- which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. . . ." (emphasis added). You then state, It does not say the freedom to take any actions anyone chooses, which is what I think you're incorrectly claiming as the Objectivist viewpoint on ethics. It doesn't say it explicitly, but it implies it, because without the right to determine one's own behavior, which includes the right to take whatever action one chooses, one will not have the freedom to engage in an action that is self-sustaining, should the government decide that it's not self-sustaining.
For example, suppose I conclude that drinking red wine is beneficial to my health, but the government decides otherwise and bans the consumption of alcoholic beverages, as it did during Prohibition. In that case, my freedom to engage in an action that is self-sustaining is interfered with, because I don't have the right to take an action that the government decides is not self-sustaining. If I don't have the freedom to take whatever action I choose, then the government has the right to prevent me from acting on my judgment, whenever it disagrees with me. To be sure, Objectivism holds that rights entail such freedom. Exactly! So, why are you saying that my statement that the right to life means the right to do whatever a person judges to be pro-life is "a misstatement of Objectivism," when it clearly is not? But I think this is a disconnect, for "rights" that do not further life but threaten it run contrary to life, Objectivism's highest value. You may think that it's a "disconnect," but Rand certainly didn't think so, as the passage I quoted clearly indicates.
I wrote, "But in order to engage in self-sustaining, self-generated action, one must be free to act on one's own judgment, even when others view it as irrational or mistaken." This is just wrong. If one's judgment is objectively (not just because someone else says so) serious crapola, then it will not be conducive to self-sustaining and self-generated action. I didn't say that if one is free to act on one's judgment, one's actions will necessarily be self-sustaining. I said that unless one is free to act on one's judgement, one cannot act in a manner that is self-sustaining (if whoever has veto power over one's action disagrees with it.) In other words, what I said is that the freedom to act on one's judgment is a necessary condition for self-sustaining action, not a sufficient condition. Now I'm not sure if someone else gets or should get the right to boss you around in some instance just because in that instance you don't have the right to boss yourself around. First of all, it makes no sense to refer to autonomous behavior as "bossing yourself around." What could it possibly mean to "boss yourself around," when you're the one making the decisions?! Secondly, if you don't have the right to make your own decisions, then it's only because someone else does. It makes no sense to say that no one, not even yourself, has the right to decide your behavior. You'd think if someone else had that right, then he could do whatever he wanted to you in that situation, not necessarily something beneficial for you. I don't think that's justificable. Again, "beneficial" by whose judgment? If someone else has the right to control your behavior for the sake of what is "beneficial," then he can claim that anything he forces you to do is beneficial. The fact that you may disagree that it's beneficial is irrelevant. You have no say in the matter, since in the event of a disagreement, his judgment trumps yours. I'd suggest interference, if at all, for the benefit of the dangerously irrational fellow. Assuming that you mean "dangerous" to himself and not to others, who has the right to decide whether or not your behavior is dangerous to yourself? You or the government? If the government, then the government is free to declare any behavior that it doesn't like as "dangerously irrational" and to prohibit it. In the Soviet Union, people who opposed communism were declared "dangerously irrational" and confined to state mental institutions. But assuming that someone else were entitled to some degree of freedom to boss you around in lieu of your poor ability to do so in some situation . . . "Poor ability" is far too loose a standard to warrant interference in your choice of action. People's abilities vary. How "poor" does your ability have to be in order for you to lose the right to make your own decisions? Should the government ban smoking, on the grounds that smokers exhibit a "poor ability" to care for their health? Should it confiscate people's earnings on the grounds that they exhibit a poor ability to spend their money? And if your answer is "yes," who decides whether or not my ability to care for my health or spend my money is sufficiently poor to warrant government intervention and confiscation? Why the government, of course! -- like if I have the right to disarm my irrationally distraught suicidal friend -- it's a stretch to call you my slave and I your master. That's just hyperbole. He's a beneficiary of my actions. Objectively so. I'm helping him achieve his highest value -- life -- even though he doesn't recognize that it's is highest value at that time. On what grounds do you assume that life is his highest value, if he no longer chooses to live? You have no basis on which to make that assumption, if his actions indicate the opposite. Besides, you're ignoring my qualification that disarming the distraught friend could be justified if it were established that he is not in his right mind (i.e., if he were delusional or psychotic), but if he were clearly of sound mind and simply didn't value living any more, then you would have no right to force him to stay alive. He has the right to act on his judgment, even if you disagree that he is acting in his best interest. Otherwise, you do indeed become his master; and he, your slave. Based on your theory, why wouldn't you also have a right to to prevent him from drinking wine or smoking cigarettes, if you thought that these things weren't good for him? And this isn't just a question of whose judgment should govern. It isn't?? Then please tell me whose judgment should govern in the event of a disagreement? The moral agent's or someone else's (e.g., the state's)? If we objectively know what's right or wrong, and if the wrong is horrendously and dangerously wrong, there's little point in letting the wrong person suffer the consequences for it. Of course, if his action were dangerous to others, you'd have a right to prevent it, but I take it that you mean dangerous to himself. But why "horrendously and dangerously wrong"? Why not just wrong or anti-life, since that seems to be your main thesis anyway? Furthermore, if, as you say, there's "little point" in your letting others do what you think is bad for them, then there's little point in the government's letting you do what it think's it's bad for you. Is that the kind of power you'd like to invest in your government -- the authority to control your behavior whenever the government views it as undesirable? Is that the kind of political system you favor? It won't just be a learning experience. And it certainly won't sustain and generate his life. Sure, someone has discovered what's objectively right, but that doesn't make it any less objectively right. Who said it did? Again, you're missing the point. The point is simply that in the event of a disagreement over how one should act, someone's judgment must prevail -- either yours or some other agent's, such as the government's. If the government has the right to make the decision, then you don't, and vice-versa. This has nothing to with whether yours or the government's decision is objectively right or wrong. The fact that racism is wrong does not depend on one's ability to judge it so. Just because the racist guy disagrees doesn't mean the truth of the matter is unclear. Well, it's not clear to the racist! As others have already noted, the same argument that you give for banning racist behavior could be given for banning religious behavior, viz, that religion is irrational and harmful to the people practicing it. So, would you favor a ban on religion as well? Good and bad aren't just a matter of personal judgment. They're not just a matter of personal judgment, but if they're in dispute with respect to the propriety of a given action, then someone's judgment (rather than someone else's) must authorize the action -- either the actor himself, or someone other than the actor. That's the point, and it does not imply subjectivism in ethics. Next, the value of life is not always preserved by the right to kill yourself. The right to kill yourself is implied by the right to freedom of action, which, in turn, is implied by the right to sustain your life. Without the right to act on your judgment, which implies the right to end your life, you have no right to sustain your life, if the government disagrees that your action is self-sustaining and can prevent you from taking it. Suppose, for example, that a life-saving drug is kept off the market, because the government won't allow people to take it, unless it undergoes an extensive period of testing, lasting several years. If people whose lives could otherwise be saved by the drug die before it is allowed on the market, their right to self-sustaining action has been violated, because they have not been allowed to decide for themselves whether or not the drug is beneficial or harmful and to avail themselves of it. This is the sort of thing that is happening now, Jordan, and would happen under the paternalistic system that you are advocating.
There can be no right to self-sustaining action without the right to freedom of action!
- Bill
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