| | Christopher,
... the individual should be willing to sacrifice others to himself if it proves necessary for his own well-being. But this statement, while true, is uninformative. What gives it its truth is the broad truth that individuals should be willing to do whatever it is that proves necessary for their own well-being. Think of the opposite. Think about individuals who were unwilling to do whatever it is that proves necessary for their own well-being. They wouldn't thrive. They'd act -- and therefore, they'd be -- immoral. Doing what proves necessary for your own well-being -- if you've made the choice to live -- becomes a moral obligation of sorts.
However, I can think of at least three other ideas--which are commonly thought of as being Objectivist--which would seem to me to be hard to reconcile with such a notion. Those ideas are:
1.)That parents are obligated to take care of/look after their children until they reach adulthood.
2.)That such needs can only arise in emergency situations.
and,
3.)That lassez-faire capitalism is the political system most geared to man's proper survival.
The reason I think it would be hard to reconcile the idea with #1 is that parents don't necessarily get something for themselves--in terms of their own flourishing--from raising their young.
But (with an assumption detailed below) the point you're making assumes that good behavior or good acts are those acts in which it is known -- in an omniscient sense of knowing -- that someone will get a benefit. You're saying that parents may get something for themselves -- in terms of their own flourishing -- from raising their young, but that they don't necessarily get something for themselves.
The point you're making "appeals" to omniscience as a standard. It calls into question all behavior involving probability (even when the odds are good). This makes your point, until strengthened, invalid or just real weak. When someone gets into the car to go to work (to make money for themselves), they don't necessarily get something for themselves. They may get in a car accident and die, for instance -- but that does not make driving to work immoral or unselfish.
It is still the right thing to do (because the odds are good), even if the outcome is not fully known in advance.
Now, you could be making an even-stronger statement, but that statement would be quite outlandish. The stronger statement that you could be making is that parenting isn't good for humans, i.e., that humans don't individually benefit from parenting -- even if they have calculated their hierarchy of values and found parenting to be a high value for them.
In this stronger way of wording it, you would be assuming that you can know not just what, in general, helps folks flourish (e.g., friends, knowledge, etc) -- but, specifically, that which cannot possibly help any folks flourish (i.e., parenting). It's a statement about human nature, no longer one about probability. I think it generous and right to assume that you meant the less-outlandish (probability) version already rebutted. Just let it be known if this is not the case.
The reason I think that #2 would be hard to reconcile with that idea is that I could, for instance, be better off if I, say, embezzled thousands of dollars from a company and got away with it than I could just relying on my own efforts alone... But this statement hinges on a view of how to become "better off" that, for it's limited scope, does not integrate with Objectivism. Objectivism takes a bigger, deeper, and broader view of how to become "better off" as a human being. Aristotle was also quite good on this subtle point.
The short answer is that you don't really become better off by getting away with a crime (though you can appear "better off" on limited rubrics, such as a bank statement). One easily-understood reason is because part of being "better off" is being able to sleep well at night. Rand had a lot to say about the price, not just material, but the psychological price you pay for trying to fake reality (trying to get the unearned).
The reason I think that idea would be hard to r[e]concile with #3 is that lassez-faire would punish an individual for breaching other's rights, even if that breach was something that was necessary for his own well-being. But this appeal to 'rights-breaching' is an appeal to the emergency situation.
Before accepting it as valid, I'd have to examine court cases involving such "life-boat" scenarios regarding self-preservation in such dire consequences (such as a sinking life-boat) via mechanisms where someone had to die or be injured (e.g., thrown overboard) in order for another to live. I'm not sure if the law has punished folks for defending their lives in such zero-sum (somebody loses) emergencies, but they would have had to have done just that (or you'd be required to explain why they didn't) in order for your point to be valid.
Even still, the life-boat scenario -- due to it's infrequency -- is an awfully limited or poor rubric to use in order to evaluate whether selfishness integrates with capitalism or not. Again, Rand had a lot to say about that. Ultimately, it is an appeal to the absolutes of imagination (such as omniscience), where one can -- within the casual arena of one's own mind -- envision a situation where something wouldn't be good; even if that something is indeed a greater good for man (qua man) than any other 'something' known!
In the same vein, I can envision the existential happenstance of an unlikely, unintended scenario of a bird crapping on -- and thereby disfiguring -- the Mona Lisa, but that is not a good way to evaluate the robustness of the merit of art for man.
:-)
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/27, 9:18am)
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