The Virtue of Selfishness And Children

George, I suppose the game is now back to slandering the other side instead of actually dealing with arguments. You're confidence in your arguments is apparent. Well then, I don't really want to debate with you since your against a woman's right to an abortion, you reject Objectivist ethics, assert positive rights, hide behind altruism, and claim the moral right to kill parents who don't read bed-time stories to their children. I also dislike how you enjoy raping nuns and eating babies. You're truly sick.

Wow...that was a lot easier than actually making a point. I can see why it appeals to you so much.

Robert said: "Let me add that I am relieved that in our current governmental system, so vilified by the intellectual giants who concoct such arguments, the police haven't been so philosophically corrupted that they don't arrest the bastards who would neglect their kids."

Shall I also assume that you're happy that the state comes in and takes children from their parents because they think they know better? If you're happy that they do something based on a bad philosophical premise, you must be happy with the rest of the results. After all, it would be a waste of time to discuss this kind of issue.

Also, I've heard your last explanation before. We could probably find something near the quote of "Responsibility is the application of causality to human action". Only it was in the abortion debate. In both instances, positive rights were asserted based on "responsibility".

And the only thing that strikes me as bizarre is that reasonable questions and comments are dismissed by gross distortions, emotional appeals, and slander. Not exactly a high point for Objectivism.

Post 241

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 9:34pm

Joe: I don't understand. Rick appeared to have said that leaving a baby on the porch to starve to death should not be punishable by the government. He didn't outright say it, but he didn't deny it when the implication of his words was pointed out to him.

Now I think that's murder. I think 99% of human beings would consider it murder. If you agree that it is, then it seems like there's been a big misunderstanding here. If you don't think it's murder (something that would shock me, as George is shocked), I think you're the one who has some explaining to do.

Post 242

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 9:43pm

Adam,

Your civility is appreciated. I understood your point. Let me provide a different example, to show that I'm with you. BTW, I gave this example privately to someone a couple days ago.

If I were to offer you a trip to the mountains, drive you up there, and then abandon you without the means to survive, I would be initiating force. It's not that you have some positive rights to food, and out of altruistic necessity I owe it to you to provide you the food. Instead, I put you in a situation where you aren't able to acquire the food, and unless I bring you back I will have initiated force. The fact that you agreed to go to the mountains does not relieve me of responsibility because it was conditioned on the return trip.

Fair enough description of what you're talking about? Simply not acting can be a right violation if there was a requirement to act. By not giving a ride back, I made the ride up a case of kidnapping. Something like that?

Let's take the case of children now. By removing them from a place where others would be willing to help them live, and then starving them, it is the same as killing them. I've already said this in my previous post. In a society where there are volunteers willing to take the child, you could make the case that allowing the baby to die without allowing one of them to take it is a violation of its (negative) rights. I'm in agreement to here.

So far, we're dealing with these negative rights, which is the only real rights as far as I'm concerned. Do you have any disagreements up to this point?

Now what if nobody wants the child? The positive rights position is that the parent is enslaved to the child, and even if nobody else is willing to support the child, the parent would be criminal for not doing it. What if the parent can't? Then society is enslaved. It doesn't really matter...like all of these bogus rights, whoever is able to provide is required to provide. And like all positive rights, there's no end to it. You can always demand more and more.

You tell me, then. Are we in agreement? You seem to be dismissing the "responsibility" argument that makes parents an automatic slave to their child, and instead offer that the responsibility is limited to not violating the child's (negative) rights. One strange thing is that I don't consider that your position is the same as the other's I've been arguing with. They haven't come close to asserting anything like what you've said. Why do you assume they're agreeing with you?

Post 243

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 9:54pm

The bottom line is, I never slandered you.

What I said was, " I wish you and Pasotto the best in your quest to figure out why it should be immoral to murder a child, and why it should also be illegal. "

That's not a slander, you have made it clear that you believe the question of a parent leaving a child to die is open to debate or rational discourse. You would like people to entertain this 'concept' on some abstracted philosophical basis. It has been addressed on that level, and applied to the real world on a non-abstracted level. Once removed from that abstract level and applied to reality, the implications are obvious. Now you are trying to confuse the issue by throwing in the non-analogous issue of abortion. Added to this you have tried to conflate the issue by adding the element of the state coming to take the children away because they know better.

Joe, back peddling and obfuscation are not your strong suit. Of course, it's a lot easier than actually making a point. I can see why it appeals to you so much.

George

Post 244

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 9:58pm

Joe,

We are obviously going to disagree big-time on several issues (which is OK among rational people I suppose). I do want to leave my thinking very clear about children and rights. You have misrepresented it in a surprisingly distorted manner in your posts.

You ask:

Because a child has needs, someone is obligated to provide for them. Who says? Altruism does. Duty-based ethics does. But not rational self-interest.

I don't agree with any of the answers. Nature says that someone must provide for children. If not, they die. They cannot care for themselves. That's fact. Not a philosophical position or opinion. Fact.

The last time I looked, I did not find any writings in the Objectivist canon that proclaim that Objectivism or rational self-interest must be above the laws of nature.

Fact is fact. Nature is nature. Philosophy is man-made. The man-made must observe the natural to be effective. ("Nature to be commanded must be obeyed.")

Objectivism is a philosophy for human beings - not Martians - and must include human maturity cycles to be complete. An infant has just as much right to life as an adult. An infant cannot choose its philosophy - an adult can. Treating an infant as an altruistic "other" presumes it has other choices - and the result will be to sacrifice it to the good of the adult.

This seems so incredibly self-evident to me.

As individual human beings (belonging to the Homo sapiens species), it is in our rational self-interest to accept the natural laws of our species. To not accept them invites extinction. We cannot choose whether infants need care for survival - nature has already decreed.

We can choose who provides that care, though. No morality that excludes or ignores nature will ever be a complete system for living on this earth.

I hate to say something like this to someone I so respect, Joe, but I put your thinking in this matter in the category of a classic case of confusing the natural with the man-made. Communist theory also did that and a huge mess was made out whole societies because of it - and it lasted for decades.

Michael

Post 245

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 10:28pm

Joe,

In order to argue your point, you just about have to posit something like your "Now what if nobody wants the child?"

Is that something that can happen in reality? And in a free society at that?

No. For obvious evolutionary reasons (inclusive fitness and all that) most humans have a very strong, built-in urge to bring up children. Many are not able to have healthy biological children of their own, and will seek children to adopt. Every free society is a net importer of children for adoption. That is just an unavoidable fact of human sociobiology.

So you have an argument that depends on positing a context that cannot happen in reality. How can such an argument demonstrate a factual conclusion?

Post 246

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 10:30pm

Shayne, I think my last post should help you see my position.

George, do you really think intimidation is a form of argument? It's obvious from your posts that you can't argue in any other way, but really! Do you honestly think it'll work?

Well, let me try it on you again. You have made it quite clear that you think the question of slavery is open to debate and rational discourse. You would like people to entertain this "concept" on some abstracted terms. Blah, blah, blah. Convinced yet?

If you insist on trying to distort my position to escape the need to deal with it, why do you think I'll play along? Do you really think you can convince everyone here on SOLO that I am pro-baby killing?

Michael, when asked who would take care of the needy, Ayn Rand said the question was flawed. It assumed that somebody had to take care of them. If you had answered that nature requires it, you'd be incorrect. Nature only says that if nobody does, then they die. It's ethics that tells you should act to prevent that death. You've tried to shorten the logic to say that nature commands people to help others in need. Nature doesn't do anything...it just make the consequences occur. Ethics is the only thing that can say what a person should do. And so again, the question is, what ethics tells a man he is obligated to live for another? Altruism.

You later say: "As individual human beings (belonging to the Homo sapiens species), it is in our rational self-interest to accept the natural laws of our species. To not accept them invites extinction. We cannot choose whether infants need care for survival - nature has already decreed."

Objectivism, and rational self-interest, does not ignore natural laws. It is quite evident that an infant will die without care. But you take that as a moral obligation. The correct thing to do is say "yes, these are the possible results...now, what should I do?". And that question is an ethical question.

Rand rejected the loaded question. But you say "We can choose who provides that care, though." You have to acknowledge that there is another possibility entirely....do nothing. And then start with your ethical standard and figure out what you should do. But if you've already accepted this much before thinking about morality, you've already concede the entire debate to the altruists.

You go on to suggest that since a child can't live on it's own, it has to rely on the adult. And you follow it with "Treating an infant as an altruistic "other" presumes it has other choices - and the result will be to sacrifice it to the good of the adult." You claim that to be obvious to you.

But doesn't that hinge on a necessary conflict of interested between the child and the adult? What happens if there is no such conflict? What happens if the parents actually love the child and want to raise it. The argument breaks down. In fact, we don't have to choose between slavery of one over the other, just picking who gets to be the slave.

And let's look at real life, please. Most parents are not forced at the point of the gun to fend for their children. Most parents love their children and want to take care of them. That should be ample evidence to reject the necessary conflict idea.

Post 247

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 10:42pm

Joe says: George, do you really think intimidation is a form of argument?

No, and neither is evasion.

Joe says: Do you really think you can convince everyone here on SOLO that I am pro-baby killing?

No, because I believe you could not be in favor something so ridiculous and monstrous. However, you do seem to be in favor of having tiresome abstracted debates on the obvious, in spite of telling us that you are not particularly interested in continued argument on this topic.

Its late, see ya tomorrow.

George

Post 248

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 10:44pm

Adam, I'm not sure what you think my argument is. I posited the exception to show exactly what context we're relying on. This is to show exactly why it would be a rights-violation now. You seem to think I'm trying to argue that it isn't a rights violation now?

It's pretty simple. If you're going to contrast two very different theories, you explain where the two diverge. There are two points of divergence that I've mentioned. One is that positive rights are a limitless obligation that is impossible to keep small, with the results that parents now have their children taken away for not taking Ritalin. The other point of divergence is where the context I explained would make the negative rights-violation not applicable. It doesn't matter how frequent it happens. It matters that in that context, there would be a world of difference between the two. The positive rights asserters would still claim it as murder, and hunt you down and kill you (or whatever punishment they deem 'just').

I uphold the position of negative rights. I assert that there is indeed a limited obligation by the parents, not due to positive rights, but to avoid violating the negative rights, as your post asserted and mine confirmed. By the way, you didn't say whether we were in agreement on that point?

Post 249

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 11:10pm

Adam: " Joe, I understood your posts, but I think that you (and Pasotto) have made a rather fundamental error - and while the error is not obvious enough to deserve invective...But what if a woman becomes pregnant knowing, that in the future, when the result of that pregnancy becomes a child, she will lack the means with which to provide that child with conditions of existence necessary for life-qua-man? Her action in becoming pregnant will lead to a violation of rights, unless she takes corrective action...This is a subtle idea, and civilized discourse is not helped by epithets against someone who fails to grasp it."

Thank you!!!

It is crucial to grasp BOTH POINTS Adam is making i) the philosophical answer (Rand already gave it in essence) to why abandoning a baby is an initiation of force, ii) why one should either have patience to start with in explaining/debating/teaching thins point, or don't start the debate...and above all DO NOT RESORT TO INSULTS!!

You have to be able to hold -both contexts-.

DAMMIT.

Post 250

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 11:23pm

Joseph,

Whew! We're starting to get somewhere, but I won't let you off that easy. Here are a couple of quotes from you:

You've tried to shorten the logic to say that nature commands people to help others in need.

Objectivism, and rational self-interest, does not ignore natural laws. It is quite evident that an infant will die without care. But you take that as a moral obligation.

Whazzat? I did? Where?

For the record, I did not make those claims anywhere in either of your quotes. Nor did I imply them. This last time I made damn sure I was clear. And those are not the only two examples of misrepresenting my words either, Joe.

We can disagree, but you are much, much better than that. I want to discuss actual ideas, not talk in circles. Seems to be the curse of this thread...

Michael

Post 251

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 11:25pm

Joe,

We are in agreement that there can be no such thing in reality as "positive rights." My point, though, are:

(1) That all negative rights must be enforceable by law, including the child's right to all parental actions without which their past action of creating that child would become, in context, an initiation of force. For example, if - and that would be a difficult "if" to prove - the child in fact needs a specific nutrient or drug in order to be able to grow and learn, then there should be a legal mechanism to compel the parent either to provide it, or to transfer the child to someone who will. And, as I noted, it is a fact of reality that such available alternative parents always outnumber available children.

(2) That many people are using the anti-concept of "positive rights" as a stub for negative rights specified above, after right but implicit reasoning leads them to mis-identify their implicit reasoning as "intuitions" about the child having those rights.

(3) That in the present political context, the legal definition of what constitutes a violation of the child's rights usually fails to meet Objectivist criteria of factuality, and often is simply an instrument of arbitrary political power - but this should not lead opponents of arbitrary state power into denial of the child's rights under (1) above.
(Edited by Adam Reed
on 3/28, 11:29pm)

Post 252

Monday, March 28, 2005 - 11:44pm

George, I consider arguments by intimidation to be a form of evasion.

Michael, in the previous post you said:

As individual human beings (belonging to the Homo sapiens species), it is in our rational self-interest to accept the natural laws of our species. To not accept them invites extinction. We cannot choose whether infants need care for survival - nature has already decreed.

We can choose who provides that care, though.

Now it's true that you didn't come out and say we must care for them. But you did say we cannot choose to ignore nature, and then you went on to explain what that implies. And the implication is that somebody must provide. By providing that as the only choice, I read it to mean that is the only choice.

And in a previous post you wrote:

If Objectivism is to be a philosophy for human beings, then the issue of how to get human beings over the hump of time and development until they can effectively exercise their individuality needs to be addressed responsibly

Again, you phrase it as if we have to get humans over the hump of time, and it's just a matter of figuring out how. Again, the missing alternative is the key to rational self-interest. It's only when we reject need as a chain on our lives that we can ask what is in our own interests. Is it a sacrifice or not? What values are gained or lost? Without the option you've repeatedly left out, there can be no rational self-interest.

If you think I'm misconstruing you, I'll take your word for it. But I hope this shows that I'm not doing it maliciously.

Adam,

I agree wholeheartedly with points 2 and 3. Point 1 I'm almost entirely on board with you, except I'm not positive it's the "giving birth" action that becomes the initiation of force. I think that's a very minor point, in that we agree with the basic mechanism of the negative rights violation, and it's only a question of saying what part specifically was wrong. In my example of driving you to the mountain, was it the ride up, the agreement beforehand that I lied about, the driving away without you, or the not coming back for you that is specifically reevaluated as the initiation of force? I don't see that it matters enough to have to specify what was the point. But if you think it does matter, I'd be interested to hear your response.

Point 2 I think is the real danger, and the source of a lot of these ugly disagreements. And with it, point 3 is inevitable.

Post 253

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:15am

Joe,

The reason I said "creating the child" rather than "deciding not to abort," "giving birth," "deciding not to auction or sell the infant to alternative parents" etc is that I meant to include every voluntary action by which the parents created the current context.

Robert, Barbara, George,

Do any of you disagree?

Post 254

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:18am

Joseph,

And the implication is that somebody must provide. By providing that as the only choice, I read it to mean that is the only choice.

I not only implied that - I stated it quite clearly several times. Maybe what I am not making clear is what should preface this position and practically all of my statements about Objectivism:

If survival is to be the basic value (standard - starting point - premise - whatever you want to call it)...

I presume that survival is one of the main values of human ethics and morality - without survival there can be no happiness. ("Of value to whom and for what?").

Try this:

So for infants, if survival (of them, and by logical extension, the species, i.e. individual adult human beings) is to be the standard, then someone must care for them as they cannot care for themselves and will otherwise die.

(That is the only choice if survival is the standard.)

In no way does that imply slavery - it implies that a moral code that purports to to deal with basic values for humans must address this issue. In other words, morality also from the newborn's standpoint.

A newborn has just as much right to live as an adult. A sound moral system must address both the infant and the adult, and not allow one to be sacrificed for the other. Saying that conflicts mostly do not happen is not really covering it.

I am glad the boxing gloves came off - I enjoy talking to you.

Michael

Post 255

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:30am

I would like to take a stab at the question of morality in the mountain drive.

At first, the passenger was in an environment where he was able to live freely. The driver changed that situation. At first, the passenger did not know it, but that is irrelevant. Against the passenger's will, the diver changed the situation for the passenger. The passenger is now in an environment where he is helpless. Now he is unable to live freely. Changing the situation for the passenger, from freely living to helpless is the initiation of force.

In the case of my baby on oil island, the baby was indeed quite capable of living freely off of the island in another's care. The mother created the oil island situation, and hence created the situation where the baby is unable to live freely. Creating this situation for the baby, when the baby need not be in that situation, is the initiation of force.

Abortion is not like the oil island. In the case of the oil island, the baby is not specifically dependant on the mother. While the baby is in the womb, the baby is dependant on the woman, and she has the right not to provide for the baby's needs.

So in the case of abortion, an objectivist could argue that as soon as it becomes technologically viable to transfer a fetus from a mother to (another mother/something else) to develop, it should be done... As long as all of the technology and operation and such are paid for by willing individuals, and the mother is not against having such an operation done to her body.

Of course I could be wrong, but its the most selfish stab I could make. : )

Post 256

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:49am

Adam, fair enough. Sounds good to me.

Michael, survival may be the standard, but who's survival? You got it right when you said "Of value to whom and for what?". When Objectivists say life is the standard, they mean their own. Each person upholds his own life as the moral standard. If it were life in general, or survival in general, it would be altruism.

Remember that morality is a method of choosing between actions. We weigh it against a scale. In the Objectivist morality it's life. But not any old life. The life of the person in question. He chooses actions based on his own life.

Now who's standard of value is the life of the child? Well, the child's. Not that it can act or think or understand morality at that point. But the important point is that because it's the standard for the child does not make it the standard for the adult (even the parent).

This doesn't mean that our own lives are all that matter. If someone is valuable to us, their own needs become an extension of ours. If you love someone, you consider her needs, wants, desires, etc. You can measure things on how well they'd help or hurt her. But she's not the primary scale. Your own life is. She's part of the scale that's measured by your life. Hope that's clear (don't know how much of this is obvious to you, but since we're having disagreement on what seems like basic issues, I'm going to try to cover the basics).

Now, you get to this point "In no way does that imply slavery - it implies that a moral code that purports to to deal with basic values for humans must address this issue." Not exactly. Again, it's values to whom and for what? A moral code does not have to have a way of dealing with the values/needs of another person (the infant), just the needs of the moral agent in question. If that weren't the case, a moral code would have to be able to address everyone's needs. And that is back to altruism.

So the moral code is responsible for the life of the moral agent. And that's really it. It may include the lives of other people as values in that person's life, but that's not a blank check.

Dean, I think you've understood the discussion pretty well. The abortion issue has all kinds of twists and turns that I'd rather not get into. Plus it seems more like something Adam would like to talk about, right Adam?

Post 257

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 12:49am

Michael,

In objectivism, it is your own survival is the moral standard. As I understand it, if I was an objectivist:
If the only way for me to survive was for me to choose that every one else die, I would choose for everyone to die.

Fortunately this circumstance does not exist in reality. Or if it did, then I would not feel very secure. : ) In that situation, I would be forced to choose between two evils. I would seriously question whether my selfish desire to live was so strong that I would go against every one else's desire to live. If I knew this would happen to others, my long term survival would be to convince others to be altruistic for the human race's sake. I think not being a hypocrite is a virtue.

I added that since this situation does not exist in reality, selfish beings can still have a harmony of interest.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 3/29, 2:27am)

Post 258

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 7:15am

I would like to thank Rick Pasotto, Joe Rowlands, and Adam Reed for continuing to discuss this topic in a rational manner, in spite of the attacks by those who are either unwilling or unable to do likewise.

Thanks,
Glenn

Post 259

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 8:38pm