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Nathan Hawking:
"I am SELLING my life, exchanging one value for another. It's not a sacrifice, and it's not motivated by a sense of moral obligation.
My willingness to give my life for a billion people is motivated by the fact that I would VALUE the lives of a billion people more highly than my own. Those are my values, and that is my CHOICE."
RCR:
Well then, I fail to see how your opinion on the slightly absurd, arbitrary, and "lifeboatish" question of, "just how many [presumably "saved"] lives does it take to rationally justify self-abnegation" can hold much philosophical/moral/ethical consequence, or make any claim to objectivity. NH:
Would you care to rephrase that in English? It is in English. Are you having trouble reading? Or is this just a meaningless ad hominem quip? If it is the former, I don't have time for a "Hooked on Phonics" lesson, sorry.
RCR:
Rand's (and most philosophers' that I know of) system of morality/ethics is based upon the question of what real-life actions *are* and *aren't* man's "moral obligation"--objectively speaking. NH:
So, you are saying, if humans are moral beings, then nothing is a matter of choice? No, I am certainly not saying anything of the kind.
RCR:
I.e. The pursuit of "self-interest" IS a "moral obligation".
Nathan:
So, are you arguing that you would let a billion people die, or a townfull, rather than give your life in exchange? And this, to you, would be the "moral" choice?
Without a proper context, this question is meaningless. What specific actions are you talking about? What does "let" mean?
I'm not an altruist, Nathan. The degree to which I would risk my own life to "save" unknown others (regardless of number) depends deeply on context, risk assessment, and on my actual ability--in reality--to avert what ever imaginary disaster you have in your mind.
NH:
"If other human beings have zero value, on what basis do we construct the principle that others should not be objects of sacrifice to US?" RCR:
Within the Objectivist framework (as laid out by Rand), this is a false dichotomy, and a straw man (one of many in this thread).
NH:
You're free to demonstrate that claim.
I am adequately aware of my own freedom, thanks tho. Btw, I already did (please see Rand quotes).
RCR:
Perhaps this quote from Rand will help clarify the Objectivist position...
AR: "Observe [...] that the advocates of altruism are unable to base their ethics on any facts of men's normal existence and that they always offer "lifeboat" situations as examples from which to derive the rules of moral conduct. ("What should you do if you and another man are in a lifeboat that can carry only one?" etc.)"
NH:
Ah, yes, the old "lifeboat" wave of the hand.
Ad Hominem. Irrelevant assertion.
NH:
Unfortunately, sometimes life does in fact offer us lifeboat-like choices. Sometimes, in real life, we are forced to choose between our own lives and defending the lives of others. A scoffing wave of the hand does not change that.
Ad Hominem. Irrelevant assertion sans any REAL context.
RAND:
"The moral purpose of a man's life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency."
NH:
So, happiness is our moral purpose and other human lives have value? I agree. Yippie!
NH:
What are the logical consequences of those two premises?
1. That we might reasonably value the lives of a great number of others more than our own life;
This is just your opinion, sans necessitating "logic", argument, or context. As I see it (and in the Objectivist framework), morality can't be a relative matter of opinion, if it has any hope of being rooted in reality. That's why the choice between "chocolate" and "vanilla' isn't a moral choice. If your dilemma doesn't frame moral obligations (objective morality), and you've said that it doesn't, then it is just "chocolate" vs. "vanilla". And then, who cares? Either you are making a moral claim with this dilemma, or you aren't, you can't have it both ways.
NH:
2. That we might not be happy in the future knowing that we had allowed 100, or 1,000, or 1,000,000 lives to be lost in order to save our own or avoid risk.
What does "allow" mean, in what specific context?
I want to say, clearly, to the wider audience, that I do believe that there is a grain of truth to what NH is drawing out, but I would put the problem/question this way: is it a moral choice to choose to take as one's personal responsibility
the protection (involving obvious personal risk) of the great mass of unknown others, in say, a firefighter's capacity. This is a clear, unambiguous everyday example of human beings seemingly placing the lives of strangers above the value of their own. However, and I think this is important, these people are well trained to avoid many of the risks that go with the task, they do not "blindly" run into burning buildings with the hope that they just might save someone. They are very well prepared to exist in the dangerous environment, and efforts are continuously made to make the job less-risky. To this degree, the question of whether or not is moral for Joe Firefighter to run into a burning building, is not the same moral question for me--an unprotected, untrained passer-by.....this is why the issue/question/problem as posed by NH has thus far been largely incomprehensible. Context matters. As Rand puts it:
"It is on the ground of that generalized good will and respect for the value of human life that one helps strangers in an emergency--*and only in an emergency* [emphasis orig].
It is important to differentiate between the rules of conduct in an emergency situation and the rules of conduct in the normal conditions of human existence. This does not mean a double standard of morality; the standard and the basic principles remain the same, but their application to either case requires precise definition"
RAND:
"But it *does* mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an *exception*, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental--as disasters are *marginal* and *incidental* in the course of human existence--and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life". [emphasis original] NH:
But acting in harmony with 1) and 2) would be a CHOICE, not a moral obligation or the fulfillment of a rule.
What?! All moral obligations are choices, you have the option to be moral or immoral at any given point of action within a particular set of circumstances.
NH:
It would be the CHOICE of a free moral agent who values the lives of others and could not be happy knowing he or she had chosen to allow a dozen or a thousand or a million to die instead. All moral obligations are enacted by choice in the human being. We are volitional and social creatures, that's why we have a moral code. I don't understand what you are driving at.
NH:
You may mock such scenarios as "lifeboatish," but such events do happen in real life.
Ad Hominem. I haven't mocked anything, but I'm glad I have your permission anyway. The events you vaguely describe are exceptional exceptions within normal existence. This was Rand's point when she said:
"Catastrophes are the exception, not the rule of [man's] existence....The fact is that men do not live in lifeboats--and that a lifeboat is not the place on which to base one's metaphysics"-Ayn Rand
NH:
They do not establish the validity of a moral claim on our lives by others - but that was not the original question. Mr. Davison was claiming, and you appear to be echoing his sentiments, that it is MORALLY WRONG to exchange one's life for those of others. Saying that something is "morally wrong" (or right) is a moral claim. This one depends completely on the real context, level of risk, value involved, etc, else, as I see it, it is meaningless.
NH:
This logic leads to the outrageous conclusion that it is wrong to act on one's values and for one's own happiness by saving a million people, say in the case of a terrorist's nuclear weapon - you and Davison would be on the jet leaving the city and let one million people fry, apparently. No, it doesn't. The preceding is merely your opinion. In what sense are you suggesting that I might I be able to stop a terrorist bomb by risking my own life? I don't have any skills in disarming bombs.
NH:
Which is it, RCR, flee the city in your private jet and let a million people die, or risk your own life to locate and disarm the bomb? Without a proper context, this is a meaningless proposition, and totally irrelevant.
NH:
I predict that you will not even have the courage to answer that question directly, let alone risk your ass for a mere million people. Ad Hominem. Arbitrary numbers, insults, and assertions do not arguments make.
NH:
You'll either 1) ignore the question, 2) try to bury it in verbiage, or 3) wave it off with another "lifeboat" reference. Ad Hominem. Irrelevant, though, this might get you a job with Ms. Cleo.
RCR:
If one chooses to place the value of an arbitrary number of unknown human beings ahead of the value of the singularity of one's own existence, that is his altruistically motivated choice, of course, but in the realm of objective moral obligations, I believe, the question is next to meaningless (without proper contextual qualifications, such as a state of war). NH:
Ah, that scary "A" word. LOL
Irrelevant, defensive "LOL'ism".
NH:
Read Rand again--other people have value, and my happiness is at stake. Using Rand's own premises (see LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES above), you're as wrong as a barber pole in a cabbage patch. Irrelevant assertion. Bad metaphor. Btw, have you read *Atlas Shrugged*? I'm increasingly baffled at how you manage to classify yourself as an "Objectivist"; not there is anything wrong with that, of course.
By means of expanding and clarifying the Objectivist perspective, I'd like to present the following from Nathaniel Branden to the group at large:
"If a man proclaimed that he *felt* he would best benefit others by robbing and murdering them, men would not be willing to grant that his actions were altruistic. By the same logic and for the same reasons, if a man pursues a course of blind self-destruction, his *feeling* that he has something to gain by it does not establish his actions as selfish.
If, motivated solely by a sense of charity, compassion, duty, or altruism, a person renounces a value, desire or goal in favor of the pleasure, wishes or needs of another person whom he values less than the thing he renounced--*that* is an act of self-sacrifice. The fact that a person may feel that he "wants" to do it, does not make his action selfish or establish objectively that he is its beneficiary"
[snip]
"The basic fallacy in the "everyone is selfish" argument consists of an extraordinarily crude equivocation. It is a psychological truism--a tautology--that all purposeful behavior is motivated. But to equate "*motivated* behavior" with "*selfish* behavior" is to blank out the distinction between an elementary fact of human psychology and the phenomenon of *ethical choice*. It is to evade the central *problem* of ethics, namely: by *what* is a man to be motivated?" (*The Virtue of Selfishness*, "Isn't Everyone Selfish", by Nathaniel Branden) [emphasis original].
NH:
(Presuming, of course, that one cannot be happy letting a million people fry. Your mileage may vary.) Irrelevant, without real context. What does "letting" mean, specifically? Further, do you honestly believe that all moral actions necessarily make one "happy"? Or that what ever makes one "happy" is a moral choice, by definition?
NH:
The question might be meaningless to you in your comfy armchair, but to those alive today because others valued their lives, it is far from meaningless. Irrelevant straw man.
RCR
(Edited by R. Christian Ross on 6/12, 10:29pm)
(Edited by R. Christian Ross on 6/12, 10:37pm)
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