| | Dean,
I wrote:
You have the right to your life, which means you have the right to take any action, except for the initiation of force, to sustain your life. You responded:
Surely that is not an objectivist position. Otherwise, an objectivist wouldn't be able to eat meat, or kill cockroaches, or... life requires initiation of force. You just have to use reason to determine when initiating force is beneficial and when it is detrimental to your survival. It is the foundation of Objectivist ethics. The primary values derived from the standard of life (qua man) are self-interest, rationality, and independence. These are the values that a man as a moral being embraces above all others, because only by keeping all three of these values does he sustain his life in harmony with others. As I said before, Objectivism is not narcissism rationalized. Objectivism is neither the creed of the lone wolf who knows no value in the society of others nor that of the cannibal for whom others are just a means to an end.
It is the value of independence that you lose when you initiate force against another person. By force, Miss Rand meant something other than physical force. Obviously, you initiate force against a door when you open it. There is no injustice to the door, because it has no capacity for morality. The same applies to animals. Force, in the Randian sense, is an assault or a fraud against a moral being - a person. When you initiate force against another person, you are using him and therefore dependent upon him. You are no longer self-reliant in your survival. You are a parasite.
That is the consequence of initiating force against another rather than adhering to the trader principle. You live a life qua parasite instead of a life qua man. You have failed the standard of life, because you have lost the value of independence, even if you have kept the other two primary values by rationalizing that it is in your self-interest to steal and kill to survive.
So that's the foundation of Objectivist morality: The standard of life and the three-legged stool of values that supports it.
Andy
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