If racist behavior is immoral, why shouldn't it be illegal?

Jordan:

"For example, if a white racist employer were considering hiring one of two applicants -- one a very well-qualified black person, the other a poorly qualified white person."

Who is to make the judgment? The government? If so, What's to stop them from making other business decisions on behalf of the owner? Would they force a white employer to set up a branch operation in a black area when a black employer also knows that it would be a bad decision for him to do so? But I think you assume there are no black employers.

Sam

Post 61

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 7:45pm

Sam,

I addressed most of your comments in my posts to Bill. Not this one though:

What's to stop them from making other business decisions on behalf of the owner?

Sounds like the slippery slope fallacy to me. I'd still want the government to be principled in choosing what it protects and forbids. I'm just arguing that the government's principle should not be to forbid only that unethical behavior relating to force initiation. There's other unethical behavior out there worth curbing.

And your nasty "assumption" that I think there aren't any black employers is unwarranted. Why do Objectivists act be such jerks? I'm about finished.

Jordan

Post 62

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 8:03pm

Jordan:

We are going in circles. I've explained how I think the target of racism suffers. Without being rented a room, he suffers the elements. Without being let to drink at a water fountain, he goes thirsty. Without being allowed a job, he runs poor. Are you really saying that exposure, thirst, and poverty don't amount to suffering? This isn't just getting feelings hurt. Do you acknowledge this? Try answering some of my questions for a change.

I have answered this Jordan several times.

"So now the concern for man's rights is the maximization of his quality of life?" (Post 20)

"Your argument is for a maximization of quality of life i.e. for the greater good. I really can't see the difference between how you're arguing for what the role of government ought to be, and what Vladimir Lenin argued what the role of government ought to be. " (Post 31)

"People do not have a right to a "quality of life". "Once we say man has rights to a "quality of life" we are now discussing a Marxist ideology of material freedom." "One cannot be entitled to a quality of life, one is only entitled to be free to pursue a quality of life" (Post 31)

"Man does not have the right to demand others dispense with their property so that they can maximize their welfare." (Post 41)

"Your rational is the same for proponents of socialist welfare programs or eminent domain." (Post 52)

".. if it's not peoples feelings we are concerned about but their material needs and desires that the government is responsible for, why not redistribute wealth from the exorbitantly rich and give it to the downtrodden and the impoverished?" (Post 52)

Your argument is that man has a right to his material needs and desires yes? Or no? And that the proper role of government ought to be to insure man's rights to his material existence be protected yes? Or no? If yes explain how this is any different from Marxism?

Try paying attention to my responses for a change.

I originally wrote:

Why? Are we now picking and choosing how we apply our principles?

To which you responded:

No. I'm focusing the discussion. I'd rather not have to determine, in this discussion, whether the principle applies to every scenario under the sun.

Or perhaps you mean to say you'd rather avoid scenarios that shows your principle is contradictory?

In the very least, if you want to venture away from business transactions, at least conjure scenarios dealing with clearly unethical, irrational, and harmful (to others) behaviors that are reasonaby preventable by others.

Mocking someone who's had a recent death in the family is unethical, irrational, and inflicts psychological harm on others and can no more be as unreasonably prevented as preventing a business owner from discriminating someone on the basis of race. Unless you have invented the latest mind-reading device that I wasn't aware of?

Uh...where's the seriously injured victim, and how do you plan to enforce non-mockery here? That's why this is not a scenario worth entertaining here.

Ever heard of Saddam Hussein? Anyone caught mocking him was executed. But I didn't realize we are now saying whether man's rights are worth protecting only if one can reasonably enforce laws to protect them? Either man has rights or not regardless of the difficulty of law enforcement.

If you're in the middle of a circle of people who lock hands, thereby preventing your escape, are they exerting power over you? I say yes. They have power in the sense that they shape your world; they determine it in some meaningful sense. What one does with one's own property can have an effect on me, a powerful one.

1) This is the same argument for anti-trust laws. The argument that business monopolies are preventing some people from gaining access to goods and services they need.

2) I can't see the difference between what you said and saying "Bill Gates and other computer entrepreneurs' property (their intellectual property, their company, their products) has power in the sense it has shaped your world (invented computers that you use), they determine it in some meaningful sense (having and using a computer has changed your life). What Bill Gates et al does with their property does have a powerful effect on you (if they didn't invent their products it would not have improved your life)

So what? The fact remains you are advocating man has a right to his material needs and desires and not necessarily he has the right to pursue his material needs and desires.

What would you have said if a computer store discriminated against someone based on race from purchasing a computer? Would you say he has a right to purchase a computer? Do you not see the absurdity in that as there was once a time when there was no such thing as a computer? Or that the computer owner had no obligation to even enter into business selling computers? Or that the discriminated themselves are not barred from owning and operating their own computer stores? Do the impoverished have a right to their material needs and desires and can force other business owners to sell them a product at a lower price than what the business owner is listing the price of his product originally for? If not then you are discriminating against the poor and simply picking and choosing which oppressed (by your convoluted definition of oppress) to protect.

If you're in the middle of a circle of people (you being poor with little access to wealth) who lock hands (business owners who sell products you can't afford) thereby preventing your escape (not able to buy the things you need and desire) are they exerting power of you?

Again, I disagree with your view of oppression. Limiting what one can do with one's property does not automatically amount to oppression. If a law prevents me from turning my household products in dirty bombs, then am I being oppressed? Answer.

Gladly. Building household products to produce a dirty bomb is a direct physical threat to someone's life and property. Just the same as someone entering into a restaurant and wildly flailing around a gun pointing it at customers. It is an initiation of force or at the very least a reasonable assessment that the dirty bomb or gun will become a weapon for the purpose to physically harm others either intentionally or through accidental explosion or discharge.

Post 63

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 8:13pm

Jordan:

I'd still want the government to be principled in choosing what it protects and forbids. I'm just arguing that the government's principle should not be to forbid only that unethical behavior relating to force initiation. There's other unethical behavior out there worth curbing.

Then why are you picking and choosing what kinds of unethical behavior to curb? In discussing this with you it seems you clearly do NOT want the government to be principled in choosing what it protects and forbids and you clearly do not have any principle regarding man's right to own property. Only that they can own their property based on your whims.

And you also seem to have no problem with the Italian-American club preventing me from becoming a member? Answer.

Post 64

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 8:22pm

My head may be in the clouds, but my feet are firmly grounded - in reality........ and as an integrated being, there's no conflict of interest....

so where does that leave you - who cry 'principle' 'principle' yet have little understanding of what one is..

(Edited by robert malcom on 7/21, 8:25pm)

Post 65

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 9:27pm

John,

Your argument is that man has a right to his material needs and desires yes? Or no? And that the proper role of government ought to be to insure man's rights to his material existence be protected yes? Or no? If yes explain how this is any different from Marxism?

No. You fail to understand. I believe we are finished trying to explain our views to each other. Shall we part civilly, or will you insult me before walking away, as is the usual on RoR threads with strong differences of opinion? (See Robert's posts.) While I'm not much of a Rousseau fan, I am amused by his quip: "Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong."

It time for me to dedicate more time to the offline world.

Goodbye,

Jordan

Post 66

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 10:03pm

Jordan wrote,

I am disputing that your judgment is always needed for your life's benefit.

I replied, "So, how do you decide when it is needed and when it isn't? And who has the right to make that decision -- you or the government?" He responded,

How should we determine when to protect nonforceful behavior and forbid forceful behavior?

Activities that do not involve the initiation of force should always be protected, and the initiation of force always forbidden.

Is it my right or the government's to determine which to protect and which to forbid?

It is the government's, because it is the government that makes the laws and enforces them. But the purpose of government legislation is the protection of individual rights, so the government ought to decide which activities to protect and which to forbid based on the principle of individual rights. Otherwise, it is initiating force against its citizens and operating on the opposite principle -- the principle of dictatorship. Observe that dictatorship isn't evil because the actions that it's dictating are evil. It's evil because it IS a dictatorship -- because it is dictating people's actions, period! It is the dictating itself that makes it evil, not what it's dictating.

Don't make the mistake of confusing initiatory and retaliatory force. Retaliatory force is not itself dictatorial; it is a protection against dictatorial actions. Insofar as a proper government is limited to retaliatory force, it does not usurp individual autonomy, but defends it against the dictatorial actions of others. Obviously, someone -- some moral agent -- must decide if an action interferes with a person's autonomy, and if necessary defend the victim's rights by force. The agency assigned to this task is a government. It is when a government transcends that role and becomes the very dictator -- the very thug and criminal aggressor -- that it is designed to protect us from that it betrays its role as our defender and is no longer a proper government.

I wrote, "Now, if you're saying that the government ought to decide when your judgment is needed for your life's benefit and when it isn't, then on what principle should it make that decision?"

Well, the government doesn't protect every nonforceful act, nor does it prohibit every forceful act, I'm afraid.

Yes, but we're saying that, as far as it is able to do so, it should.

And individuals are not at liberty to protect all nonforceful behavior and inhibit all forceful behavior.

Right, but that's because the use of retaliatory force must conform to certain guidelines laid down by the government. If an individual is not aware of those guidelines, he cannot be entrusted to enforce the law.

Under my scenario, the government would not prohibit every UNB [unethical, nonforceful behavior] nor would it protect them all. What principle should govern their decisions as to which acts to protect? I imagine the principle wouldn't be very different from when to protect nonforceful acts and forbid forceful acts. It'd be something I hinted at earlier: The injury for not legislating should be serious;
I don't know what this means -- "The injury for not legislating should be serious." Did you mean to say that the injury itself should be serious? And if so, how would one determine what level of seriousness is sufficient to meet that criterion?
it should be reasonably feasible to enforce such legislation; and shouldn't deal with situations of mere self-harm. And for purposes of this discussion, the injury should be clear-cut.

What exactly to you mean by the term "injury"? You seem to be suggesting that if a white employer refuses to hire a black worker on the grounds of race, he has somehow "injured" the applicant, but that if he refuses to hire him on some other grounds, like personality, then he has not injured him. First of all, I don't understand how the applicant has been injured simply by being rejected. Secondly, I don't understand the distinction between rejecting him on the grounds of race and rejecting him for some other reason. If he's injured in the one case, how is it that he's not injured in the other?

I wrote, "My point is that if you allow the government to determine your actions, then you are giving it the right it to forbid actions that are beneficial. It is in that respect that you are surrendering your right to self-sustaining action."

Ok, but that's not what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that the government has a right to forbid beneficial actions. I'm arguing that it has the right to forbid various harmful actions, and that drawing the line strictly at those actions that initiate force is not ethically justifiable.

Why not? How are non-coercive actions, like the refusal to hire someone harmful? Would you say that if a woman refuses to date a man, then he is being harmed by her rejection?

When the government prevents me from being racist, it does not destroy my ability to sustain myself. Do you agree?

Not necessarily. It could destroy my ability to sustain myself, as in the case of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' requiring pizza deliveries in dangerous black neighborhoods, or anti-discrimination laws requiring cabbies to pick up young black men who tend to be dangerous customers. Also, laws forbidding discrimination in housing could interfere with a landlord's ability to sustain himself, if he is forced to rent to black tenants who are less likely to pay the rent on time and more likely to damage apartments. If he cannot meet his expenses, because of irresponsible tenants, then he could be jeopardizing his livelihood. Anti-discrimination laws, as they exist now, would absolutely forbid a landlord from discriminating against black applicants, even if the landlord thought he would be better off not renting to them. What kind of anti-discrimination laws would you propose, if you don't support the ones that presently exist?

Of course, it isn't always the case that if the government prevents me from practicing racial discrimination, it will destroy or impair my ability to sustain myself. But that wasn't my argument, to begin with. I wasn't saying that governmental intervention is wrong, because it always prevents a person from sustaining his life. I was saying that there is a fundamental alternative that exists vis-a-vis other human beings. In the event of a disagreement with another person over how you should behave, either you have a right to determine your own behavior (consistent with the equal rights of others to do the same) or the other person has a right to determine it. If you have the right to determine it, then you are a free agent. If the other person has the right to determine it, then he owns you and you are his slave. There is no third alternative. If he has the right to determine your behavior, then he has the right to force you to act against your life. That doesn't mean that he will; it just means that he has a right to, in which case, you have no right to sustain your life. In short, the issue here is not which decisions should be made -- pro-life or anti-life -- but in whom does the decision-making power lie? Does it lie with the moral agent or with someone other than the moral agent (e.g., the government)? Objectivists hold that it lies with the moral agent; statists hold that it lies with the government.

From your further cabbie scenarios, are you truly suggesting that there's no clear-cut instance of irrational, harmful, dangerous racism? Why are you playing around the borderline cases?

What borderline cases? These are actual, real-life, examples involving anti-discrimination laws as they currently exist. The only irrational, harmful, dangerous examples of racism that I am aware of are those that involve the initiation of physical force. I don't see how the simple refusal to hire, rent or do business with members of a certain race is harmful or dangerous to them. An absence of help is not the presence of harm. Quite the contrary, for if I am forced to serve another against my will, then it is I who am harmed, not he. This is not to say that my refusal to serve someone on account of his race is necessarily rational; it may or may not be, depending on the circumstances; it is only to say that if I am forced to serve him against my will, then I am a victim of involuntary servitude, which is a violation of my rights. Would you say that the heroes in Atlas Shrugged had no right to quit work and go on strike, because by doing so they were "harming" the people who depended on them for their livelihood?

Suppose I have a business and decide to close my doors. In doing so, I will be laying off my workers, who will no longer have a job, and I will cease to serve my customers, who will no longer be able to buy my product. By closing my doors, am I engaging in harmful or dangerous behavior towards my employees and customers? Should I be prohibited from going out of business, and forced to work for them against my will? And if not, then how am I engaging in harmful or dangerous behavior if I refuse to hire or to serve a certain class of people?

Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

- Bill

Post 67

Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 11:36pm

Bill responding to Jordan:

An absence of help is not the presence of harm. Quite the contrary, for if I am forced to serve another against my will, then it is I who am harmed, not he. This is not to say that my refusal to serve someone on account of his race is necessarily rational; it may or may not be, depending on the circumstances; it is only to say that if I am forced to serve him against my will, then I am a victim of involuntary servitude, which is a violation of my rights. ....

Suppose I have a business and decide to close my doors. In doing so, I will be laying off my workers, who will no longer have a job, and I will cease to serve my customers, who will no longer be able to buy my product. By closing my doors, am I engaging in harmful or dangerous behavior towards my employees and customers? Should I be prohibited from going out of business, and forced to work for them against my will? And if not, then how am I engaging in harmful or dangerous behavior if I refuse to hire or to serve a certain class of people?

Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

Me too. I've been asking Jordan the exact same thing several times and he has only responded that I don't understand and expects an insult from me.

Jordan said:

No. You fail to understand.

If you could just entertain me with just one more question to help me understand.

I am not Italian. What would you say if I was turned down by the Italian-American club and forbidden from attending their dinners? Should that be illegal?

(Edited by John Armaos on 7/21, 11:40pm)

Post 68

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 12:26am

Onlookers,

I think Jordan's main issue (problem?) is an insufficient respect for personal liberty (coupled with a rationally-indefensible reverence for the power of positive law). View the following quotes against this thread's title, and the arguments Jordan has presented herein ...

"Be not intimidated ... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."--John Adams, 1765

"Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness."--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

"Without bigots, eccentrics, cranks and heretics the world would not progress."--Frank Gelett Burgess (1866-1951)

"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."--Edmund Burke, 1784

"Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty."--Calvin Coolidge, U.S. President, 1924

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition that he may abuse it."--Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

"But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression ... confess a doctrine that is alien to America."--Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. President, 1953

"A society that puts equality ... ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom."--Milton & Rose Friedman, 1979

"The revolt against freedom ... is associated with a revolt against reason that [gives] sentiment primacy, to evaluate actions and experiences according to the subjective emotions with which they are associated."--Louis J. Halle, 1972

"We hold that the greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong ..."--William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951)

"Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security."--Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965

"The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop."--Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, 1849

"The sooner we all learn to make a decision between disapproval and censorship, the better off society will be. ... Censorship cannot get at the real evil, and it is an evil in itself."--Granville Hicks

"There can be no freedom without freedom to fail."--Eric Hoffer, 1964

"Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had been we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, "the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed."--Charles Evans Hughes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1957

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."--Thomas Jefferson, 1791

"At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man ... is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society."--Robert F. Kennedy, 1966

"The only real security for social well-being is the free exercise of men's minds."--Harold J. Laski, 1919

"Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark."--Walter Lippmann, 1937

"In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs."--Walter Lippmann, 1937

"The classic liberal understanding of freedom is this: every individual should care for his own interests and mind his own business. No one should deem himself his brother's keeper unless his brother unequivocally asks him to. Every individual is a world unto himself, is a being in himself and is presupposed to be the best judge of his own affairs ..."--Mieszyslaw Maneli, 1984

"Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise."--Alexander Meiklejohn, 1955

"The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society."--H. L. Mencken, 1964

"Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest."--John Stuart Mill, 1859

"The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."--John Stuart Mill, 1859

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."--John Stuart Mill, 1859

"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called."--John Stuart Mill, 1859

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates his duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."--Thomas Paine, 1795

"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."--William Pitt, 1783

"The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of "human rights" versus "property rights," as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body. Only a ghost can exist without material property: only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort."--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

"Individuality is to be preserved and respected everywhere, as the root of everything good."--Jean Paul Richter, 1803

"One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily. ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it--and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty."--John Ruskin, 1870

"Freedom can't be kept for nothing. If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else."--Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 65 A.D.

"The liberty the citizen enjoys is to be measured not by the governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the paucity of restraints it imposes on him."--Herbert Spencer, 1884

"A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefitted."--Herbert Spencer, 1850

"The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights. ... In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property."--Potter Stewart, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 1972

"History teaches us that there have been but few infringements of personal liberty by the state which have not been justified ... in the name of righteousness and the public good, and few which have not been directed, as they are now, at politically helpless minorities."--Harlan F. Stone, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 1940

"Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare."--William Graham Sumner, 1919

"There will never be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats them accordingly."--Henry David Thoreau, 1849

"To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. This is exactly what the state is doing."--Benjamin Tucker, 1893

"Whenever we take away the liberties of those whom we hate we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love."--Wendell L. Wilkie (1892-1944)

"I have always in my own thought summed up individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty, in the phrase that is common in the sporting world, "A free field and no favor."--Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President, 1915

Common theme:
There seems to be no benevolent way to (legally) infringe "individual liberty, and business liberty, and every other kind of liberty."

Yet Jordan -- in, arguably, a fit of legal positivism -- has been attempting to defend just that.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/22, 12:43am)

Post 69

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 10:00am

It is enlightening to reverse the situation for discrimination for hiring. What if a white person had a job interview with a company and was interviewed by a white personnel manager. During the interview he found out that the company was owned by blacks and that if he were hired he would be working mostly with blacks. Because of that he refused the job. He is definitely discriminating on the basis of race.

Has the black owner suffered damage? I think not. Neither is a black man being refused employment by a white owner.

Post 70

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 11:25am

Well Sam according to Jordan's logic, the government ought to force the applicant to work against his will for the black owned business because it is irrational behavior on the part of the racist applicant we want to correct.

Post 71

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 1:51pm

"Rand had written, �If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.� from Man's Rights

Positive Rights and Negative Rights discussed in TNI

"Unlike libertarians, however, liberals generally think the coercive authority of the state should be deployed to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. . . . Liberals believe in a certain notion of human liberation from entrenched dogma, prejudice, and tradition, but this isn�t the same as hostility to state action, even in the sex-and-gender sphere.�

"�The classical rights of liberty protect one�s freedom from coercive interference by others; [positive] rights protect freedom to possess and enjoy certain goods. . . . The core rationale for rights to goods is the concept of positive freedom. Without the enjoyment of certain goods, it is argued, individuals cannot achieve the ends that freedom is for.� David Kelley, in A Life of One's Own, quoted ibid

Post 72

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 2:48pm

At the risk of being unduly repetitive, I'd like to return to the original question, as expressed in the title of this thread. Recall that Jordan asked,

If racist behavior is objectively irrational and immoral, how can outlawing racist behavior (and I'm talking about racist behavior here, not racist thought) be irrational and immoral?

This question makes sense only if it is assumed that the only reason for not outlawing someone's behavior is that it is rational and moral -- that it if it were irrational and immoral, it ought to be illegal. Such a premise is not only contrary to Objectivism; it is contrary to the views of most non-Objectivists, for it implies that if I fail to see a dentist when I should, neglect to visit my doctor on a regular basis, practice unsafe sex, or refuse to shop at a black-owned store, I should pay a fine or go to jail.

Jordan can certainly push this line of reasoning, if he wants, but it is so contrary to common sense that he is unlikely to convince anyone, let alone Objectivists that he is correct. Most people would say that despite the fact that it may be irrational or immoral to practice unsafe sex, or refuse to shop at a black-owned store, such behavior should not be against the law -- that to make it illegal is itself irrational and immoral. This is scarcely a position on which Objectivists have a monopoly!

I would say, therefore, that the burden of proof is on Jordan to show why, if a particular practice is irrational and immoral, it should therefore be illegal.

Objectivism argues that law is or should be derived from morality, but which parts of morality? Answer: apparently, not the morality dealing with racism.

Yes, law should be derived from morality, but all that means is that if an action is illegal, it should therefore be immoral. It doesn't mean that if an action is immoral, it should therefore be illegal. Jordan is guilty of a non-sequitur. The fact that P implies Q does not mean that Q implies P.

To anticipate one answer, racist behavior does have a deleterious effect on those targeted by such behavior, as well as on society at large (basically because it inefficiently restrains trade).

No, it doesn't! The refusal to deal with someone does not restrain trade. Otherwise, I'd be restraining trade whenever I refused to buy a merchant's products or to avail myself of someone's services -- as would the owner of a company whenever he closed shop and ceased doing business -- as would a cabbie whenever he refused to pick up dangerous looking customers -- as would a pizza parlor whenever it refused to deliver to a bad neighborhood. The only way that one can restrain voluntary trade is by coercion -- by the initiation of physical force.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 7/22, 2:51pm)

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 7/22, 2:53pm)

Post 73

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 2:51pm

The issue of racism and possible harm to the victim are red herrings.

The question is very simple and it's fundamentally this:

Who owns my life and property?

There are four and only four logical possibilities, that I can see:

1. No one
2. Someone other than me
3. Me and someone other than me
4. Only me

I trust we can discard the first without argument. The third is applicable in joint ownership contexts and should be dealt with separately since it's irrelevant to Jordan's position.

Jordan argues, in essence and implicitly (and probably unintentionally), for (2), but (4) is the correct answer.

I have no positive obligation to engage in any exchange of values with another, whether it involves the trade of money for prepared food, exchange of money for a place to sleep, or simply offering them a smile and a friendly word.

There is no fundamental moral difference for the purposes of this discussion between running a business and acting in life in general.

My reasons for refusal to exchange or offer the value are completely irrelevant. It might be because I am a racist, or because I'm saving it for people whose character I prefer, or simply on whim. It doesn't matter. I own the value, which confers on me the right to do with it as I wish provided I don't violate the rights of others in doing what I wish with it, including doing nothing at all with it. Otherwise, I don't own it.

But am I violating any right of that person by refusing to exchange the value? No, they have no right to it, since they don't own it. I do.

That I should be rational and just in the name of my own self-interest does not imply a positive obligation to others that I behave rationally and justly, in general.

If I behave unjustly toward others, my self-interest will be injured and that includes instances in which I'm being racist, homophobic, or even just speaking harshly to a good person who has done me no harm. But there is no duty to be self-interested, and a fortiori no duty to be just.

There is no duty to be good or to do good.

But the theory of positive rights argues that I have an obligation, a duty, to provide others with values. On what grounds, if not the implicit assumption that others have a right to the products of my thought and effort? I.e. It implies that they own my life and property, not me.

The issue is far deeper than simply a matter of what the law ought to be.

Post 74

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 3:16pm

Well thought out, concise and well expressed.

Sam

(Edited by Sam Erica on 7/22, 3:31pm)

Post 75

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 3:23pm

Jordan -- in, arguably, humanitarian reformist zeal -- said this:

I'm just arguing that the government's principle should not be to forbid only that unethical behavior relating to force initiation. There's other unethical behavior out there worth curbing.

And your nasty "assumption" that I think there aren't any black employers is unwarranted. Why do Objectivists [have to] be such jerks?

A notion about which wise others have spoken otherwise:

"But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you--the social reformers--see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them."--Sir Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958

"The sin and sorrow of despotism is not that it does not love men, but that it loves them too much and trusts them too little."--Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1914

"For the worst tyrant is not the man who rules by fear; the worst tyrant is he who rules by love and plays on it as a harp."--Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1914

"Humanitarians of a material and dogmatic type, the philanthropists and the professional reformers go to look for humanity in remote places and in huge statistics. But humanitarians of the highest type, the great poets and philosophers, do not go to look for humanity at all. For them alone among all men the nearest drawing room is full of humanity, and even their own families are human."--Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1914

"No people do so much harm as those who go around doing good."--Mandell Creighton (1843-1901)

"The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror."--Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards, 1982

"The harder they try to make earth into heaven, the more they make it into hell."--Walter Lippmann, The Public Philosophy, 1955

"The radical error of the modern democratic gospel is that it promises, not the good life of this world, but the perfect life of heaven."--Walter Lippmann, The Public Philosophy, 1955

"The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess."--Menander (342-291 B.C.)

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than cabbage, concludes that it would make better soup."--H. L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956

"We may describe utopian thought as a belief in an unspoiled beginning and attainable perfection. ... [T]he utopian may be pessimistic about individual human nature, but optimistic about the ability of man's social nature, as embodied in society, to overcome the recalcitrance of the individual. To overcome individual resistance will mean force, but the utopian holds that, if the goal is goodness and perfection, then the use of force is justified."--Thomas Molnar, Utopia: The Perennial Heresy, 1967

"What has caused greater suffering than the follies of the compassionate?"--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"The human capacity to bend ideals into dogmas is inexhaustible. More lives have been tortured, terrorized, shot, hanged, poisoned, imprisoned, and exiled in the name of one or another of the modern political dogmas of freedom, fraternity, equality, and justice than in all other centuries combined."--Robert Nisbet, 1982

"Man is neither an angel or a brute, and the very attempt to raise him to the level of the former sinks him to that of the latter."--Blaise Pascal, 1670

"The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. The humanitarian puts himself in the place of God."--Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine, 1943

"Of all political ideals, that of making people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one. It leads invariably to the attempt to impose our scale of "higher" values upon others, in order to make them realize what seems to us of the greatest importance for their happiness; in order, as it were, to save their souls. It leads to utopianism and romanticism. ... But ... the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. It leads to intolerance. It leads to religious laws, and to the saving of souls through the inquisition."--Sir Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1966

"Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive."--Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, 1943

"Market-like arrangements ... reduce the need for compassion, patriotism, brotherly love, and cultural solidarity as motivating forces. Harnessing the "base" motive of material self-interest ... is perhaps the most important social invention mankind has achieved."--C. L. Schulte, Public Use of the Private Interest, 1977

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means--except by getting off his back."--Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

"Modern ideologists normally tend ... to define their goals in unrealistically optimistic terms ... [and they have a habit of] thinking in oversimplified terms of we and they, of friend and enemy. This is, indeed, a natural corollary and symptom of their basic utopianism. Anyone who believes that his goals are absolutely and overwhelmingly in the public interest will suspect something sinister about the motives of those who reject his conclusions."--Frederick M. Watkins, The Age of Ideology--Political Thought, 1750 to the Present, 1964

"It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done."--Oscar Wilde, Intentions, 1891

"The worst form of tyranny the world has ever known is the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts."--Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil."--Mary Wollstonecraft, 1794

Ed

Post 76

Sunday, July 22, 2007 - 3:48pm

I have done a fine job in arguing against Jordan's view in a mainly utilitarian-consequentialist fashion (by showing how his proposed "benevolence" would lead to something not too much short of hell on earth; at best).

But, and more importantly, Bill, John, Sam, and Jeff have done quite a fine job in arguing against Jordan's view in a mainly principled-foundational fashion (by highlighting inherent contradictions that arise when attempting to integrate Jordan's view with the proper, relevant concepts -- ethics, identity, politics, property, rights, etc -- obtained from objective reasoning).

Good goin' guys.

Ed

Post 77

Monday, July 23, 2007 - 9:42am

Teresa:
1) I am arguing as a devil's advocate - I want to see how strong the counter-arguments are and what people come up with.
2) I was referring to a shop hanging out a shingle on main street and not a private club. There are various definitions of how your business functions that you define when you incorporate.
3) The government enforces your safety, protects you from theft, and enforces legal contracts. In return, all it is asking as that you operate by straight forward principles. By opening a "public" business, i.e. making goods available for public sale, you are contracting with them in essence. You are saying "goods available for sale here" not "goods only for white people"

Post 78

Monday, July 23, 2007 - 9:53am

Jordan said: From your further cabbie scenarios, are you truly suggesting that there's no clear-cut instance of irrational, harmful, dangerous racism? Why are you playing around the borderline cases?

I think this is a very crucial example - in fact, people's lives are being lost because of it. It is by no means border line.

I would say if the state cannot guarantee safety in an area, it has broken its part of the contract, so it does not apply in this case. However, how often does the state admit to such a thing? Just about never. They can't keep the thugs off the street, but boy it is easy to fine some businesses.

Post 79

Monday, July 23, 2007 - 11:13am