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Post 60

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 5:51amSanction this postReply
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Christopher,

Look at this issue as it occurs and re-occurs in human life-stages:

****************************
--A toddler sees a toy he wants and forcibly takes it from another toddler
(the perpetrator is operating under a transient conflict of interest and sees force-initiation as a solution)

--A teenager sees a girl he wants and forcibly tries to take her
(the perpetrator is operating under a perceived conflict of interest and sees force-initiation as a solution)

--An adult sees a car he wants and forcibly tries to hijack it
(the perpetrator is operating under an imagined conflict of interest and sees force-initiation as a solution)

--A mature adult sees a car he wants and works to get the cash he needs to buy the thing from its owner
(the guy is operating under a mature view of human interaction, not under a childish view of human interaction)
****************************

In these four life-stages there is a changing view of conflict of interest and therefore a changing view of force-initiation.

Notice how -- as you get older -- more and more evasion is required on your part in order to keep believing that there's a conflict of interest. To the point that, while toddlers are in temporary conflict (and only toddlers are in actual conflict) there are teenagers who might mis-perceive that a conflict exists, but there are adults who have to outright evade and just merely imagine that their interest's conflict. They don't yet even know their own long-range interests!

What's required is for folks to be mature and realize those times and areas where there's no conflict of interest and how force-initiation doesn't fit where there's no conflict of interest. In order to justify force-initiation, you have got to justify a conflict of interest. You can't have one without first having the other. That relationship holds, regardless. This makes the issue clearer.

This makes all this talk about how it can never be good to initiate force -- never even in our own colorful imaginations of various emergency conflicts -- a colorful side-step to the real issue (the relation of interest-conflict to force-initiation).

Do you see that now? Do you see how there's an answer to your original question -- that there are times where interests conflict and where force "should" be initiated (emergencies, toddler morality, etc) -- but how your question, itself, misses the key point about successfully defining human interests (because force-initiation requires that) in order to get the right social system of capitalism?

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/27, 6:27am)


Post 61

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 6:24amSanction this postReply
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The someone Christopher Parker refers to in post 58 was probably me, in post 3. Thanks, Bill, for giving the broader context of Peikoff's sentence and your explanation.

Post 62

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 10:12amSanction this postReply
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In his initial post to this thread (Post #0), Christopher mentioned Tara Smith's book Moral Rights and Political Freedom as endorsing the initiation of force in emergencies. Thanks, Christopher, for that reference. Fortunately, I have her book, so I looked up the discussion on rights and emergencies, and here's what she says:

Rights are recognized in order to enable individuals to achieve practical purposes, but they cannot do so under all conceivable circumstances. We sometimes encounter extraordinary situations in which respect for freedom could not promote life.

The contextuality thesis means that a person is not obligated to abide by rights in genuine emergencies. An emergency is a temporary condition distinguished by a sudden, unexpected event that demands immediate action. Action is necessary because life is threatened, and without some response, a person will lose her life or suffer serious, irreparable damage.
[She adds in a footnote: "Life" should be construed no more narrowly here than elsewhere in my discussion. Just as the telos of rights is a good life, the threat to life encompasses threats to major dimensions of a person's life, such as her eyesight or limbs.]

Natural disasters such as tidal waves or avalanches, and manmade crises such as automobile accidents or shooting sprees usually would qualify.

Rights are designed to govern individuals' freedom in the normal course of events. Most of life is lived in the normal course of events. Occasionally, however, the out of the ordinary strikes. Sometimes, a person is confronted with a totally unexpected, unforeseeable situation in which the usual relationship between freedom and life does not hold. Under such a scenario, it would e counterproductive to continue to use instruments whose propriety is based upon radically different conditions. It would be illogical to expect adherence to rights to advance their objective in situations unlike those from which they were derived and for which they were not intended. Correspondingly, it would be illogical to demand fidelity to rights in those circumstances. The rational response to such anomalous conditions is to adjust one's methods of choosing behavior. For example, though the principle of respecting property is normally obligatory (and adherence to it is normally necessary for life), when a person is stranded in the mountains in a ferocious blizzard and occupying a vacant cabin is the only wedge between life and death, she is not required to respect the normally applicable rights. She should decide what to do not by appeal to the moral principles designed for ordinary circumstances, but on the basis of what will protect her from the storm's imminent danger.

What marks an emergency is not that the stakes are high. (That is often the case.) It is that the ordinary conditions in which we act are dramatically altered. More precisely, the usual requirement of freedom is displaced. When a gunman opens fire on a residential street, for instance, a pedestrian may seek cover by running into a stranger's garage. Normally, such an intrusion would violate the homeowner's rights. Once the gunman starts shooting, however, rights do not obtain because we are no longer in the kind of situation they were designed to rule. Most of the time, life depends on long-term planning and reasoned action, which in turn depends on freedom. This eruption of bullets, however, annihilates the setting in which free and reasoned action is the fuel that life requires. Correspondingly, it suspends the obligation to respect individuals' freedom.

In such cases, we have no reason to believe that rights are applicable. Since the only sanction behind rights is their practicality, when life cannot be served through the usual means of respecting rights, we have no other basis for thinking that we should abide by them.

Remember that teleological rights are not semideontological. Once recognized, rights should not be reified as intrinsically valuable, to be honored for their own sake. Rights' authority is at all times completely dependent upon the service that respect for rights renders to life. Because rights are not arbitrary mandates of mysterious authority, they are not to be followed blindly, indifferent to the circumstances of their application. Interpreting "absolute" to mean that rights are to be obeyed regardless of their service to life would grant rights a deference independent of their work as instruments. But such deontological pull is exactly what my teleological conception rejects. If rights are adopted in order to enable individuals to achieve practical ends, they must be capable of promoting those ends in order for individuals to be bound to abide by rights. Respect for rights can do so in most, but not all, contexts.
(Pages 112-114)

I have quoted extensively from Smith's discussion of emergencies, but there is more to it that is worth reading. Anyone who is interested in this topic should get her book. She has also written a more recent book entitled The Virtuous Egoist, which is a defense and elucidation of Rand's ethics.

- Bill




Post 63

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 11:15amSanction this postReply
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 " ...[S]ituation in which the usual relation between freedom and life does not hold." that's in the fourth paragraph of the quote, above.
This is a statement of huge import. If it is correct, then the rest follows. But what justification for it is offered? If it lacks a complete proof and justification itself, the argument begs the question.
Unfortunately for me, I haven't read the book. I'm working only from the quotes supplied. I'm assuming, though, knowing the caliber of Bill's mind, that he didn't truncate the quote in any logically significant way.
I dispute that statement. While emergencies are not the usual thing, and they are not the situations from which the principles of ethics are derived, they are not exempt from our applying those exact same standards. The standards of right and wrong do not come from the situation a man is in, but from his nature, and that is constant.
As Rand says, while our conduct and immediate goals in an emergency change from production and enjoyment to fire-fighting or bailing the boat, etc. the same fundamentals apply to emergencies that apply in the rest of life. (See Rand's "The Ethics of Emergencies," VOS, 53; ppb 47. Quoted in the Lexicon under "Emergencies.")
How could they not?
Added:
The usual relation between freedom and life is that life--the life appropriate to man--requires freedom. Can anyone suppose that, due to hurricane winds or flood waters, man's life no longer requires his freedom? That is certainly preposterous on the face of it. What I fear this is taken to mean is that in an emergency other individual's freedom may be forfeited to one's survival. I have yet to encounter anyone who proposes that it is their own freedom that should be forfeited in an emergency.


Post 64

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 11:18amSanction this postReply
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I don't seek, nor relish the role of nursery-maid, nonetheless I seem to occupy it:
Christopher, do not regard the distinctions suggested above between so-called "transient," "perceived," and "imagined," etc. conflicts. They are not logically sound.

(Everybody seems to feel comfortable instructing you in what you should do, Christopher! ;-))

(Edited by Mindy Newton on 3/27, 11:20am)


Post 65

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 12:11pmSanction this postReply
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again - the examples that are quoted seem reasonable, because the rights violated are extremely minor compared to the potential (right to life) threatened.  This does not mean the right to, for example, use a child as a human shield in such a situation (their life for your life) because there will be consequences when the emergency passes that cannot be rectified (such as by paying for any damages or even just an apology for using someone's property, which if reasonably justified few would complain about).

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Post 66

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 4:36pmSanction this postReply
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After quoting Smith --" ...[S]ituation in which the usual relation between freedom and life does not hold." -- Mindy replied,
This is a statement of huge import. If it is correct, then the rest follows. But what justification for it is offered? If it lacks a complete proof and justification itself, the argument begs the question. Unfortunately for me, I haven't read the book. I'm working only from the quotes supplied. I'm assuming, though, knowing the caliber of Bill's mind, that he didn't truncate the quote in any logically significant way.
I didn't truncate it, but I'm sure Smith deals with the more fundamental issue of ethical premises earlier in the book. Since she is an Objectivist and therefore an ethical egoist, what she means by that statement is "the usual relation between the freedom and life of the moral agent."
I dispute that statement. While emergencies are not the usual thing, and they are not the situations from which the principles of ethics are derived, they are not exempt from our applying those exact same standards. The standards of right and wrong do not come from the situation a man is in, but from his nature, and that is constant.
Well, they certainly come from his nature, but his nature in relation to his values and, in this case, his highest values, which are his life and happiness. The actions required for his life and happiness vary with the circumstances. If someone is shooting at him, and his only escape is to trespass on someone else's property, then it is appropriate for him to do so, rather than respect the owner's property rights and die in the process.
As Rand says, while our conduct and immediate goals in an emergency change from production and enjoyment to fire-fighting or bailing the boat, etc. the same fundamentals apply to emergencies that apply in the rest of life. (See Rand's "The Ethics of Emergencies," VOS, 53; ppb 47. Quoted in the Lexicon under "Emergencies.")
This is not a quote; it is a paraphrase. Here is the exact quotation to which Mindy is presumably referring:

"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 definitions."

What Rand evidently means when she says that the rules of conduct in an emergency differ from those in a normal situation while the standard and basic principles remain the same is that even though the rule against initiating force may be appropriate in a normal situation but not in an emergency, the standard is still that which is appropriate to man's life, and the basic principles are still self-preservation and the achievement of one's own happiness.
Added:
The usual relation between freedom and life is that life--the life appropriate to man--requires freedom. Can anyone suppose that, due to hurricane winds or flood waters, man's life no longer requires his freedom?
Of course, it requires his freedom; the point here is (a) that respect for the freedom of others may not be sufficient to sustain one's life in an emergency, and (b) that a morality of egoism requires that the moral agent give his own life priority over the lives of others when there is a conflict of interest.
That is certainly preposterous on the face of it. What I fear this is taken to mean is that in an emergency other individual's freedom may be forfeited to one's survival.
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
I have yet to encounter anyone who proposes that it is their own freedom that should be forfeited in an emergency.
Well, encounter one, Mindy, because I would be the first to say that if your life depends on your forfeiting my freedom in an emergency, then you should forfeit my freedom; you should interfere with it in order save your own life, because your life is your highest value. If you are an egoist, then you certainly shouldn't abstain from interfering with my life at the expense of your own.

- Bill

Post 67

Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 1:17pmSanction this postReply
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William,
I want you to know first of all that I see what you are telling Mindy.  I see how, for Smith, the issue of whether freedom is neccessary in emergenencies is the issue of whether the individual agent's freedom is neccessary.  I also see what I think you meant in interpreting one of Rand's statment as meaning that the ruling value stays the same in emergencies while the actions taken to achieve that value may be very different from normal.  I would interpret that statement as meaning the same thing that you did.
I was wondering what you think about whether an individual would consider lassez-faire to be to his interest if he had commited a serious crime under emergency conditions in order to survive.  Do you think that the individual should be willing to pay the price for what he did?  Given that his ultimate value is his own life (that he is a rational egoist), I would think that the answer to that question would have to be "no".  And yet, how else could it be that lassez-faire could be judged as completely ideal from his perspective.  Even though he must--if he is not to contradict himself--judge others actions in objectively prosecuting him as being wrong, still it seems to me that he should not view lassez-faire as a system which will protect his interests.  Lassez-faire, therefore, would seem to me not to be ideal for him.  (And, as anything can only be "ideal" in relation to human beings interests, it seems that, under such a scenario, lassez-faire ceases to be ideal in general; it would seem to me that it would be ideal only for some people.
I suppose that this example could even be extended to anyone who commits any kind of crime.  (In that anyone who commits a crime--whether he was right or wrong in doing it--would not want to be punished if they valued their life.)  However the above example I see as possibly being especially problematic for advocates of lassez-faire because, in it, the moral agent actually did what he was supposed to do.  He was supposed, in other words, to sacrifice others' freedom given the emergency type of situation he found himself in.
Looking forward to hearing from you again, as usual William.  You usually seem to me to have a special degree of insight concerning areas of Objectivism about which I have questions.


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Post 68

Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 2:01pmSanction this postReply
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With respect to the quote of Rand's I paraphrased above, and which Bill, then, Christopher responded to:

Bill gave us his interpretation of what Rand meant, an interpretation defending the killing of innocent others, and, if I read him right, Christopher affirms it.

Entry in AR Lexicon: Emergencies.

"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 definitions.
An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible--such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck. In an emergency situation, men's primary goal is to combat the disaster, escape the danger and restore normal conditions (to reach dry land, to put out the fire, etc.)
{...omitted paragraph}
It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one's power. For instance, a man who values human life and is caught in a shipwreck, should help to save his fellow passengers (though not at the expense of his own life). " {This paragraph, and the Lexicon entry continues.}

Bill writes: "What Rand evidently means when she says that the rules of conduct in an emergency differ from those in a normal situation while the standard and basic principles remain the same is that even though the rule against initiating force may be appropriate in a normal situation but not in an emergency, the standard is still that which is appropriate to man's life, and the basic principles are still self-preservation and the achievement of one's own happiness." (post 66)

I challenge the legitimacy of Bill's claim as to what "Rand evidently means" because the whole quote actually lays out what Rand meant. Included in that quote is her recommendation, not that people be prepared to kill innocent others in order to survive, but that people help save others, as long as it doesn't threaten their own lives! The differences Rand intends us to understand when she says different "rules of conduct" apply in an emergency is, again, not something she leaves up to our imaginations or purposes to interpret. She gives us examples of what she means: in an emergency, man's primary goal is to reach dry land, put out the fire, etc.

She says the differences an emergency requires do not alter the standard of morality or its basic principles. Is the non-initiation of force not a basic principle of Objectivist ethics? If she intended such a thing, would she not have made it explicit? Unquestionably.

Logically, when someone says there are certain differences, then gives examples of differences, there is no room for readers to come up with their own interpretation of what the speaker "evidently" means. This discurssive move on Bill's part was unwarranted and the conclusions flowing from it should be dismissed.

(Edited by Mindy Newton on 3/28, 2:17pm)


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Post 69

Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 3:31pmSanction this postReply
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I haven't read Tara Smith's books (but I'm looking forward to doing so). In Bill's post, her quote talks of a person "...confronted with a totally unexpected, unforeseeable situation in which the usual relationship between freedom and life does not hold."

She is wrong because the relationship between freedom and life does NOT change because one person is threatened by an emergency. That person's range of possible actions might be diminished by the emergency, but they are still 'free' to take those actions that are available. They only lose freedom, as an individual, when someone violates their rights. (People's ranges of financial freedom were severely diminished by the economic emergency, but it didn't confer upon them a right to engage in armed robbery, for example.)

If my range of actions is being diminished by a thug, for example, then I have the right to act against the thug because he doesn't have the right to violate my rights and therefore has stepped out of the moral protection of rights. Note, that this doesn't apply with snowstorms or most lifeboat situations.

I suspect that Smith is being ambiguous in her use of the word freedom (a measure of the range of actions reality allows versus political freedom which deals only with the threat to a loss of action due to human intervention with violence, threats, theft or fraud). But that isn't the important error I want to address!

She is wrong because we don't define man's life or rights on a person by person basis. That is either concretism taken to an extreme that would mean rights meant different things for different people and different circumstances and we would be in a world of ethical babble, or it is a kind of epistemological bait and switch where you define univeral concepts but then switch the genus from all men in all times to this person at this instance. It is human nature that defines the conditions of life - not jane doe's encounter with a snowstorm. We don't ask what are the conditions that make life possible for jane doe in a snowstorm, we ask what are the conditions that make if possible for man, as such, to live, as a man ought to. The freedom to act on what his mind tells him is what we grasp when we ask the question properly - note that it isn't constrained by snowstorms, but by the range open to man without becoming contradictory. We have the freedom to all that is possible at any time - without violating the rights of others. This is why Rand says there are no conflicts of interest - they are logically ruled out because they would not allow for a univeral answer to a univeral question. It can't be a universal right if it allows, under any circumstance, to violate another's right.

My rights are the same... when I'm being subjected to an emergency, or someone next to me is... and the same for that person. His emergency doesn't take away my rights. My emergency doesn't take away his. The rights aren't defined by our changing circumstances or by being different people - they are defined by our being human beings.
----------

I agree with what Kurt said above. He pointed out that those who argue infavor of ducking into a vacant cabin during a snowstorm are taking the easy road in creating their examples. Why don't they try his example of picking up a nearby child to hold in front of them as a shield against bullets being fired? Do they think that the circumstances of flying bullets gives them a right to use her as a shield? If so, can someone anyone make an argument that their right to live isn't in conflict with that child's right to live? And given that, how can they say they aren't claiming the existence of a right to violate a right - a logical contradiction that invalidates their claim?
----------

I suspect that we will find the answer to life-boat situations lies in the range of actions being so narrowed, so suddenly, and in a way that could not be foreseen, as to leave no choices except those that violate another's rights. I think that our answer at this point is that we choose to live at the price of being immoral or that we die rather than be that immoral. I would duck into the vacant cabin to escape death in a snowstorm, despite having no right to do so. I would not pick up the child to use as a shield against bullets because I would not want to live as the kind of person that would do that.
-----------

And I agree with Mindy's take on Rand's explanation of emergencies not warranting Bill's perspective - he'll have to justify his position in some other way. I can see Rand joining with others to fight the common enemy (some emergency). she had such a such a high value of the heroic that it wouldn't occur to her to try to live in a way that dishonored that value.



Post 70

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 10:24amSanction this postReply
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Christopher wrote,
I want you to know first of all that I see what you are telling Mindy. I see how, for Smith, the issue of whether freedom is neccessary in emergenencies is the issue of whether the individual agent's freedom is neccessary.
I didn't say "freedom is necessary in emergencies," as if it it were necessary in emergencies to respect other people's freedom. In fact, precisely the opposite may be "necessary." I.e., it may be necessary in an emergency for the moral agent to interfere with the freedom of others in order to ensure his own survival. This is not a contradiction, as Steve was suggesting. I am not saying that the moral agent has "a right" to violate rights. There can be no right to violate rights. A right is something which by definition deserves to be respected. The point here is that if I am justified in violating your freedom in an emergency, then in that situation you have no right against my violating it, for if you did, then I would be obligated not to violate it. And since I am not so obligated, it follows that you have no right against my violation. That does not mean, however, that you have no right to resist my violation -- no right to defend yourself against it; you certainly do, because in that case, we have a genuine conflict of interest. It simply means that I am not obligated to abstain from the violation. But this is an abnormal situation. Under normal conditions, people do have rights against others' violating their freedom.
I also see what I think you meant in interpreting one of Rand's statment as meaning that the ruling value stays the same in emergencies while the actions taken to achieve that value may be very different from normal. I would interpret that statement as meaning the same thing that you did.
I was wondering what you think about whether an individual would consider lassez-faire to be to his interest if he had commited a serious crime under emergency conditions in order to survive. Do you think that the individual should be willing to pay the price for what he did? Given that his ultimate value is his own life (that he is a rational egoist), I would think that the answer to that question would have to be "no". And yet, how else could it be that lassez-faire could be judged as completely ideal from his perspective. Even though he must--if he is not to contradict himself--judge others actions in objectively prosecuting him as being wrong, still it seems to me that he should not view lassez-faire as a system which will protect his interests.
This is incorrect. He cannot judge the actions of others in prosecuting him as being wrong; he must judge those actions as being right, even though they may be against his interest in that situation, because the purpose of a legal system is to defend its citizens against the initiation of force. A rational legal system must be established on the basis of the normal conditions of social existence, not on the basis of aberrant emergency conditions. An act of aggression against another person, however justified by an individual's own exigent survival needs, must be prosecuted, because it involves a unwilling victim and is, therefore, against the law. What exists in such a case is a conflict of interest between the perpetrator and the victim. The law is there to protect the victim, not the perpetrator, even if it was in the perpetrator's self-interest in that emergency to commit the crime.
Lassez-faire, therefore, would seem to me not to be ideal for him. (And, as anything can only be "ideal" in relation to human beings interests, it seems that, under such a scenario, lassez-faire ceases to be ideal in general; it would seem to me that it would be ideal only for some people.
No, laissez-faire is ideal for him, because it is not rational to establish the rules of a social system on the basis of emergencies -- of the exceptional or abnormal. It is in his interest to favor a system in which individual rights are defended and enforced, even though in an emergency, it may be in his interest to violate its rules and to avoid paying the penalty. The reason is that he stands to gain far more from such a system under normal social conditions than he stands to lose from it in the unlikely event of a a life-threatening emergency.

- Bill



Post 71

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 10:27amSanction this postReply
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Wow Bill, Really good explanation.

Post 72

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 11:53amSanction this postReply
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Mindy cites the following passage from Rand's essay, "The Ethics of Emergencies, part of which I quoted in my previous reply to her:

"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 definitions.
An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible--such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck. In an emergency situation, men's primary goal is to combat the disaster, escape the danger and restore normal conditions (to reach dry land, to put out the fire, etc.)

{...omitted paragraph}
It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one's power. For instance, a man who values human life and is caught in a shipwreck, should help to save his fellow passengers (though not at the expense of his own life)."

Mindy then quotes me as follows: "What Rand evidently means when she says that the rules of conduct in an emergency differ from those in a normal situation while the standard and basic principles remain the same is that even though the rule against initiating force may be appropriate in a normal situation but not in an emergency, the standard is still that which is appropriate to man's life, and the basic principles are still self-preservation and the achievement of one's own happiness." (post 66) And adds:
I challenge the legitimacy of Bill's claim as to what "Rand evidently means" because the whole quote actually lays out what Rand meant. Included in that quote is her recommendation, not that people be prepared to kill innocent others in order to survive, but that people help save others, as long as it doesn't threaten their own lives!
Yes, in that example, she is talking about helping others, but that doesn't mean that she opposes initiating force in an emergency if doing is necessary for one's own survival. In that essay, she doesn't explicitly address the issue, but she does address it elsewhere in her 1961 interview with Normal Fox and Gerald Goodman:

Gerald Goodman:
Miss Rand, then you would say that a person who was starving, and the only way he could acquire food was to take the food of a second party, then he would have no right, even though it meant his own life, to take the food.

Ayn Rand:
Not in normal circumstances, but that question sometimes is asked about emergency situations. For instance, supposing you are washed ashore after a shipwreck, and there is a locked house which is not yours, but you're starving and you might die the next moment, and there is food in this house, what is your moral behavior? I would say again, this is an emergency situation, and please consult my article "The Ethics Of Emergencies" in The Virtue Of Selfishness for a fuller discussion of this subject. But to state the issue in brief, I would say that you would have the right to break in and eat the food that you need, and then when you reach the nearest policeman, admit what you have done, and undertake to repay the man when you are able to work.


Mindy then writes,
The differences Rand intends us to understand when she says different "rules of conduct" apply in an emergency is, again, not something she leaves up to our imaginations or purposes to interpret. She gives us examples of what she means: in an emergency, man's primary goal is to reach dry land, put out the fire, etc.
Yes, and if in order to reach dry land, one must initiate force against another person, then why isn't that included as an appropriate course of action? After all, in her 1961 interview, she does give us an example of not abiding by the non-initiation of force in an emergency. So, why isn't it reasonable to infer that by different rules of conduct, she was including the non-aggression principle as well?
She says the differences an emergency requires do not alter the standard of morality or its basic principles. Is the non-initiation of force not a basic principle of Objectivist ethics? If she intended such a thing, would she not have made it explicit? Unquestionably.
The reason she didn't make it explicit in that that essay is that she wasn't directly addressing the issue of initiating force in order to save one's own life. She was addressing the issue of helping others in an emergency, but that doesn't mean that she didn't address it elsewhere, which she did in her 1961 interview.

- Bill



Post 73

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 12:31pmSanction this postReply
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No, laissez-faire is ideal for him, because it is not rational to establish the rules of a social system on the basis of emergencies -- of the exceptional or abnormal. It is in his interest to favor a system in which individual rights are defended and enforced, even though in an emergency, it may be in his interest to violate its rules and to avoid paying the penalty. The reason is that he stands to gain far more from such a system under normal social conditions than he stands to lose from it in the unlikely event of a a life-threatening emergency.
...................

And that is the evil of altruism - its premise IS that the emergency is the 'way of life', so sacrifices are needed and desired...

And that as such is why those who hold to it keep pushing out emergency situations as a means of establishing ethical considerations, and damning any other systems, claiming that if it not hold consistently in emergencies, hypocrisy avails...
(Edited by robert malcom on 3/29, 12:35pm)


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Post 74

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 1:07pmSanction this postReply
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A reply to just one part of Bill's last post:

"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics--the standard by which one judges what is good or evil--is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man." --Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," in Virtue of Selfishness, 2; pb 13.

As I see it, the debate turns, ultimately, on whether you hold man's survival, or man's survival qua man as your touchstone. My argument, essentially, is that it is only the latter that Objectivism contemplates.
 
The part of this whole debate, this thread, that I am interested in is the question of whether or not Objectivism approves of a person's killing another, innocent person assuming it is reasonably judged essential by the killer to do so in order to survive. Is it right to shove someone else into the jaws of an attacking shark? Is it right to drown a succession of fellow swimmers to keep oneself afloat? Is it right to harvest the liver of a hated cousin if that represents your last chance to live? I say no to these, and, as I happen to know, Bill says yes to them.

I agree that, in an emergency, making use of someone else's property is reasonable, with certain caveats. I'm not addressing, therefore, the larger question of whether the technical violation of another's rights is conscionable under Objectivism. I am not addressing, to the best of my knowledge, the general question of whether or not emergencies permit the initiation of force.

Would it be desirable to have two threads? One discussing the issue in terms of the initiation of force, and one discussing specifically whether or not killing an innocent person as a means to surviving an emergency is conscionable?

Mindy


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Post 75

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 3:49pmSanction this postReply
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In post #70, Bill says, "Under normal conditions, people do have rights against others' violating their freedom." But, he doesn't think this is so in some emergency situations. So, in essence, Bill is saying that an emergency can somehow deprive an innocent victim of their rights. He says that the moral agent does NOT have a right to violate a right, but that an emergency gives his moral agent a right to kill someone else. And the only way to keep this from being a contradiction is to magically whisk away that victim's right to their life. Yet, somehow, with some further logical contortion, that victim still has the right to resist having their life taken even though they have no right to the life the threat is against. (I'm not making this up, read post 70).

This is equivalent to saying that under certain conditions, rights no longer exist. They are banished by the emergency. Yet the people in that situation are still humans, still capable of making choices, still required by reality to grasp what exists, judge it's value, and decide what action to take. Unless one rejects those simple statements of fact, then they are admitting that morality, including rights, are still in play.

If we understand that rights are derived from human nature and NOT the concrete of a specific moral agent in a specific moment of time and circumstances, then we don't fall into that trap of one person's emergency becoming the rationale for another losing their rights. If I'm swimming along having no problems, but another person is drowning and they get close enough to grab me and take my life in a futile effort to stay afloat, they can only call that a moral action if they think that rights are concretes intrinsic to a person and change with circumstances the person is in. If people understand that these rights are univerals that stay the same, being born of human nature, then that attacker's survival does NOT negate my right to my life.

So long as there is choice, there is morality. I can choose to take another's life when they have not attacked me, but I can't do so and then justly claim to have been right.

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Post 76

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 4:18pmSanction this postReply
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I sanctioned Mindy's post because it is both elegantly written AND goes to the spiritual heart of this issue.

In my post above, I believe I have addressed the logical error in the formulation of rights that makes it appear as if an emergency changes rights. It is an error of epistemological genealogy. About "rights" being universals that arise out of the concept of human nature as opposed to be made out of the life of the specific individual under discussion. They are his rights in the discussion, and it is his life, and the circumstances are concrete and specific, but the concept of rights is born of human nature and answers to it. Just as a man who quits being rational for a moment does not cease to be a man.

But Mindy's post goes to the spiritual as well as logical side of this issue. Rational man, man qua man with all that promises versus surviving animal with all that that threatens.

She says, "As I see it, the debate turns, ultimately, on whether you hold man's survival, or man's survival qua man as your touchstone. My argument, essentially, is that it is only the latter that Objectivism contemplates." I could not agree more. It is man qua man that can conceive of the spiritual made rational and create out of ideas the legal structures to support our lives and provide for our flourishing - people like that would not choose "man" over man qua man.

To lose your life (man) fighting for man qua man is no sacrifice. To throw away man qua man to keep your life bereft of any honor is an ugly betrayal.



Post 77

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 4:58pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks for the praise, Steve.
You're not so bad yourself.
Your last statement gave me goosebumps.

Mindy


Post 78

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 6:26pmSanction this postReply
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Steve wrote,
In post #70, Bill wrote, "Under normal conditions, people do have rights against others' violating their freedom." But, he doesn't think this is so in some emergency situations. So, in essence, Bill is saying that an emergency can somehow deprive an innocent victim of their rights. He says that the moral agent does NOT have a right to violate a right, but that an emergency gives his moral agent a right to kill someone else. And the only way to keep this from being a contradiction is to magically whisk away that victim's right to their life. Yet, somehow, with some further logical contortion, that victim still has the right to resist having their life taken even though they have no right to the life the threat is against. (I'm not making this up, read post 70).
What I meant by saying that the victim has "a right" to resist the violation is that he is justified in resisting it. My apologies for not being clearer. I would certainly agree that the victim does not have an individual right to resist the violation, for that would imply that the violation is itself unjustified. If I have an individual right to an action, then others are obligated to permit me to take that action. The point here is that in a conflict of interest, both parties are justified in attempting to prevail at the expense of the other party.
This is equivalent to saying that under certain conditions, rights no longer exist. They are banished by the emergency. Yet the people in that situation are still humans, still capable of making choices, still required by reality to grasp what exists, judge it's value, and decide what action to take. Unless one rejects those simple statements of fact, then they are admitting that morality, including rights, are still in play.
In a genuine conflict of interest in which the moral agents' lives are at stake, it is in the self-interest of each party to try to survive at the expense of the other. Even here, morality would still obtain, in the sense that each party "should" still choose whatever course of action best promotes his own interest, even if that action is against the interest or freedom of the other party. If someone is interfering with one's freedom, certain choices can still obtain, such as the choice of whether or not to resist and/or of how to resist. In that case, morality would prescribe the best action to take under the circumstances.

I understand what Rand means when she says that "Morality ends where a gun begins." She is saying that when you are forced to take an action, you are not morally responsible for it, which is true, but you can still be morally responsible for how you deal with a threat of force. You still have a choice as to how you respond to it. For example, I am forced to pay taxes, but I still have the choice either to pay them or to refuse to pay them and risk being fined or jailed. Here, morality might tell me that it is better (more in my self-interest) to pay them.
If we understand that rights are derived from human nature and NOT the concrete of a specific moral agent in a specific moment of time and circumstances, then we don't fall into that trap of one person's emergency becoming the rationale for another losing their rights. If I'm swimming along having no problems, but another person is drowning and they get close enough to grab me and take my life in a futile effort to stay afloat, they can only call that a moral action if they think that rights are concretes intrinsic to a person and change with circumstances the person is in. If people understand that these rights are universals that stay the same, being born of human nature, then that attacker's survival does NOT negate my right to my life.
You are viewing the principle of rights as an intrinsic absolute that exists irrespective of its value to the moral agent, when in fact it is simply a moral principle that applies within a certain context (i.e., one in which survival by production and trade is possible). The principle of individual rights is not a moral primary; it is a means to an end -- the moral agent's self-interest. When it no longer serves that end, the moral obligation to respect it no longer obtains. It makes no sense to say that one should abstain from the initiation of force even if doing so results in the loss of one's highest values. That would defeat the very purpose of such a principle.

- Bill


(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/29, 7:19pm)


Post 79

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 7:16pmSanction this postReply
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In Post 74, Mindy wrote,
"The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics--the standard by which one judges what is good or evil--is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man." --Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," in Virtue of Selfishness, 2; pb 13.

As I see it, the debate turns, ultimately, on whether you hold man's survival, or man's survival qua man as your touchstone. My argument, essentially, is that it is only the latter that Objectivism contemplates.
The qualification "qua man" simply refers to the fact that man cannot survive on the perceptual level like an animal, but must do so by the use of his mind, and under normal social conditions, by means of production and trade. But it does not mean that he must never initiate the use of force even in an emergency where doing so is necessary to save his own life.
The part of this whole debate, this thread, that I am interested in is the question of whether or not Objectivism approves of a person's killing another, innocent person assuming it is reasonably judged essential by the killer to do so in order to survive. Is it right to shove someone else into the jaws of an attacking shark? Is it right to drown a succession of fellow swimmers to keep oneself afloat? Is it right to harvest the liver of a hated cousin if that represents your last chance to live? I say no to these, and, as I happen to know, Bill says yes to them.
If it were indeed necessary to shove a stranger into the jaws of a shark in order to survive, then what is your argument against doing so? What you seem to be making is an emotional argument to the effect that these actions are so horrible they must be viewed as immoral on their face. But that's not a good argument. You are viewing such actions as if they were self-evidently immoral -- as if their immorality were an irreducible primary. But if the moral agent's own life and happiness is his highest purpose -- which, according to the Objectivist ethics, it is -- and if that purpose can only be met by sacrificing the life of another human being, then why would such an action be immoral?

Also, some of your examples seem a bit far fetched. I'm willing to accept them for the sake of argument, but in reality murdering a hated cousin to harvest his liver is not as easy as it might seem, and it may not be the wisest choice, even if without a liver transplant, you would surely die. Killing the cousin to harvest his liver could backfire and send you to jail, especially since it would require the cooperation of doctors and others to effect the needed transplant. It might be easier to find a willing donor, something which is certainly possible in a society such as ours. So I would question this as a genuine emergency.
I agree that, in an emergency, making use of someone else's property is reasonable, with certain caveats. I'm not addressing, therefore, the larger question of whether the technical violation of another's rights is conscionable under Objectivism. I am not addressing, to the best of my knowledge, the general question of whether or not emergencies permit the initiation of force.
Why not? If you grant that some violations of rights are legitimate in cases where they're necessary for your survival, then what are your reasons for objecting to them in other cases in which they're similarly necessary?

- Bill

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