Ethical standards

I'd like to suggest a quickie thought experiment, if I may.

Imagine that, via whatever force enforces these abstract discussions, you are offered a choice. You can implement a plan that will eliminate all taxation from your country; and the only downside is that 99% of your countrymen, who would otherwise have lived, will die.

Does that sound like a good plan to you?

Assuming it's not, then let's go through a few variations of the initial problem. Is 50% a better number? Is eliminating taxes worth half the lives of your country? How about 10%? 1%?

How about a single life? Just imagine all the good that can come from eliminating taxes... and all it will cost is the death of one person. (No, not yourself. Just some random citizen. The person at the next table over from the last time you ate at a restaurant, maybe.)

Do you consider /any/ of these deals a bargain worth taking? If so, where /do/ you draw the line - that is, how many lives do you consider to have equivalent value to getting rid of taxation?

If not... then do you finally understand my point that saving lives, via whatever plan, can be reasonably considered to be a higher priority than eliminating taxation?

Post 41

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 3:13pm

Daniel,

Do you have a reference handy describing these '4 main reasons' [for attempted counter-arguments to fail]?

Yeah. Here it is. The description is the last four of: "The Five Fallacy Categories" bullets.

... and then you could describe some of what you think is necessarily part of utilitarianism ...

I don't think we need all of that kind of dialectic, tit-for-tat, give-and-take. Utilitarianism is really, really simple -- on paper**. In fact, it is one of the simplest moral concepts out there. It can be completely outlined by a single, 7-word sentence:

"The greatest good for the greatest number."

Now, if you disagree with this, then you're not a utilitarian. Do you disagree with it, Daniel?

Ed

**While utilitarianism is one of the simplist ethics to outline, it is one the most difficult ethics (i.e., it is actually metaphysically impossible) to practice.

Post 42

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 3:39pm

Daniel,

First, I'm going to make the argument that everyone thinks is a cop-out: You just don't get it.

Your post #40 - The argument is absurd in that it posits unrealistic, really unrelated scenarios and results. It is not germane.

Your post #39 - This makes some leaps, not logical assumptions equating fallibility of the philosopher with fallibility of the philosophy. Most posting here have discussed and brought their various interpretations to the philosophy over the years, but none altering or disputing the core epistemology and values Rand established when formulating Objectivism.

What you try to assume is that "preserving life" is the ultimate measure of Objectivism. It would be more accurate to say 'preserving one's own life' is the primary goal, and from that arises - within the context of adding value to one's life - valuing the preservation of others. It does not mean elevating the value of other lives to such extent as to accord them any control over one's own life.

Going back to your #40, and speaking in realistic terms, the problem IS in abandoning philosophical values. You seem to be suggesting that philosophical values are less important, but abandoning those values will do more harm. There have been specific exceptions that have been discussed over the years (e.g. stealing food for one's starving family), but special cases don't contradict or excuse abandonment of the principles.

jt

Post 43

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 3:46pm

Re Post #41:

>> Do you have a reference handy describing these '4
>> main reasons' [for attempted counter-arguments to fail]?
>
> Yeah. Here it is. The description is the last four of:
> "The Five Fallacy Categories" bullets.

An interesting-looking book. I've been learning a lot about skepticism and logical fallacies in the last couple of years, and that certainly looks like a handy reference.

> Utilitarianism is really, really simple -- on paper**.
> In fact, it is one of the simplest moral concepts out
> there. It can be completely outlined by a single, 7-word
> sentence:
>
> "The greatest good for the greatest number."
>
> Now, if you disagree with this, then you're not a
> utilitarian. Do you disagree with it, Daniel?

I've had some discussion about that phrase before. When I tentatively agreed to it, for certain carefully-limited definitions of 'good', those who were promulgating it then immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was agreeing with it for an entirely /different/ definition of good, in a sort of strawman conclusion.

However, /for/ certain definitions of what 'good' means, I /am/ willing to agree with that statement... however, it would be more /accurate/ to say that I agree with a statement like this: "The greatest good for /me/, which necessarily requires a very great amount of good for a very great number of others."

Post 44

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 4:00pm

Re Post #42:

> First, I'm going to make the argument that everyone
> thinks is a cop-out: You just don't get it.

Always a strong possibility. Despite having spent years pondering various philosophies, I know for a fact that there is a great deal that I still don't 'get'. (For example, right now, I simply cannot comprehend the mental processes of someone who prizes 'faith' above 'reason and evidence'.)

> Your post #40 - The argument is absurd in that it posits
> unrealistic, really unrelated scenarios and results. It
> is not germane.

I would disagree. (Well, of course I would, since I posted it in the first place...) What I had in mind for the undescribed choice, between one plan and another, was related to the earlier discussion on government-funded health care, and whether using government monies to save lives was more important than eliminating taxes. In the philosophical realm, it is at least /possible/ to consider a choice between having both taxes and a form of government-paid health care that saves lives, and having neither taxes nor those lives. Thus, whatever answer to the hypothetical scenario a reader comes up with, is directly relevant to how they would deal with the previous debate on health care.

> Your post #39 - This makes some leaps, not logical
> assumptions equating fallibility of the philosopher with
> fallibility of the philosophy. Most posting here have
> discussed and brought their various interpretations to
> the philosophy over the years, but none altering or
> disputing the core epistemology and values Rand
> established when formulating Objectivism.

Going by the construction at the IOP site, I have no real dispute with Objectivism's metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics; what I am questioning is whether the political position described therein /necessarily/ follows from Objectivism's ethics, and the evidence of the world-at-large.

> What you try to assume is that "preserving life" is the
> ultimate measure of Objectivism. It would be more
> accurate to say 'preserving one's own life' is the
> primary goal, and from that arises - within the context
> of adding value to one's life - valuing the preservation
> of others. It does not mean elevating the value of other
> lives to such extent as to accord them any control over
> one's own life.

Here is where what I've seen of how the world works in fact, the 'is', comes into conflict with how the described principles of Objectivism say how the world /should/ work, the 'ought'. In present-day society, I do not believe that there is any individual who is not controlled, at least in part, by others and society as a whole. (If it were, in fact, the case that people /did/ have control over their own lives, then, to pick a deliberately extreme example, public bestiality would not only be legal, but practicioners would not be socially ostracized.)

> Going back to your #40, and speaking in realistic terms,
> the problem IS in abandoning philosophical values. You
> seem to be suggesting that philosophical values are less
> important, but abandoning those values will do more harm.
> There have been specific exceptions that have been
> discussed over the years (e.g. stealing food for one's
> starving family), but special cases don't contradict or
> excuse abandonment of the principles.

I'm not trying to argue special cases (at least, not deliberately) - I'm trying to find out what your answer to the proposed problem /are/. How much harm /are/ you willing to have others endure in order for your philosophical principles to be applied to their fullest?

Post 45

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 4:24pm

Mr. Boese says, "...those of you who /were/ arguing that the numbers demonstrate that American-style health care funding has better results than Canadian-style, and /therefor/ non-government-funded health care is better than government-funded health care, have accepted my larger point - that saving lives is a higher priority than castrating government power."

Wrong! It is perfectly logical to refute your statistics without even beginning to accept that government has a right to confiscate money, or order people how to manage their health care, because of anyone's claim that more lives would be saved.
-------------

Mr. Boese's phrase: "...lives are more important than politics..." indicates that he needed to pay more attention to Ed who was explaining agent morality. Important to who? By what standard?
--------------

Mr. Boese says, "Health care is a rather direct way of saving lives, and thus seems to be, at least potentially, an area where the larger goal of saving lives could be able to override the smaller sub-goal of eliminating involuntary taxation."

Then it would be okay to have a reverse lotto where we randomly select names - like his name - and take away all of his money, and all of his organs, because the results would be saving many, many lives in Africa and parts of Asia. Sure, it would kill him, but we could save far more lives then if we just taxed him - and he has said lives trump politics. It is the most benefits for the most people, right?

Post 46

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 4:45pm

> Mr. Boese's phrase: "...lives are more important than
> politics..." indicates that he needed to pay more attention
> to Ed who was explaining agent morality. Important to who?
> By what standard?

By the Objectivist standard at the IOP website, where politics are described as being based on ethics (which are based on epistemology, which are based on metaphysics). The standard of value given, 'man's life', is at the ethical level, while politics is the level subsidiary to ethics.

> Mr. Boese says, "Health care is a rather direct way of
> saving lives, and thus seems to be, at least potentially,
> an area where the larger goal of saving lives could be
> able to override the smaller sub-goal of eliminating
> involuntary taxation."
>
> Then it would be okay to have a reverse lotto where we
> randomly select names - like his name - and take away all
> of his money, and all of his organs, because the results
> would be saving many, many lives in Africa and parts of
> Asia. Sure, it would kill him, but we could save far more
> lives then if we just taxed him - and he has said lives
> trump politics. It is the most benefits for the most
> people, right?

Perhaps you should reread what I posted - I said, and I quote, that lives are more important than /politics/, not that lives are more important than /lives/, which is an obvious absurdity.

Post 47

Monday, December 14, 2009 - 8:03pm

Daniel Eliot Boese wrote (post 39):

Re the health care numbers discussion. You have numbers; I have numbers. You say your numbers are more important; I could say mine are. But, to be honest, I don't think either of our numbers are going to change each others' minds (which I'll expand more on in a moment)... and, those of you who /were/ arguing that the numbers demonstrate that American-style health care funding has better results than Canadian-style, and /therefor/ non-government-funded health care is better than government-funded health care, have accepted my larger point - that saving lives is a higher priority than castrating government power.

1. The health care systems in Canada and the U.S. are both mixed. This source says funding is about 70% public and 30% private in Canada, with most services delivered by private (both for-profit and not-for-profit) providers. I believe the mix in the U.S. is about 50% / 50%. I don't know about Canada, but at least in the U.S. so-called private health insurance is quite affected by government policy. Government policies have encouraged employer-funded health care or insurance. "Some 59% of U.S. residents have access to health care insurance through employers" (ibid.). So we don't have totally private and totally government systems to compare.

2. "Saving lives" the way you say it seems to be from a perspective of one person or a small group of people in a position to make system-wide decisions that apply to everybody. Those who aren't in that decision-making role face the consequences. This is a collectivist or utilitarian (the "the greatest good for the greatest number" kind) perspective, not an individualist one. Suppose it were possible to save 2*N lives at the expense of N other lives. That would save lives in the aggregate, but is that the sort of system you endorse? It isn't simply a matter of saving lives; the manner is also important.

3. How do you know that an individualist system can't save more lives? Naturally nearly everybody desires to save their own lives and some other lives. Health care workers desire to save the lives they encounter at work. Why not let those desires achieve their effects w/o government bureaucrats, many of whom are not health providers, meddling in practices for all?

4. One of the reasons other countries save money on drugs is that Americans bear more of the drug R&D cost via the drug company's pricing policy. So Americans financially support saving lives in other countries.

5. If we could castrate the power of governments -- I don't just mean only in one's own country -- and limit them to protecting individual rights, then wouldn't that limit the ability of governments to wage wars? If the ability of governments to wage wars were far more limited, then wouldn't that save lives? In other words, castrating governments and saving lives in some sense go together. In contrast, you have presented castrating government and saving lives as mutually exclusive alternatives.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 12/15, 4:34am)

Post 48

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 4:39am

Daniel,

> "The greatest good for the greatest number."
>
> Now, if you disagree with this, then you're not a
> utilitarian. Do you disagree with it, Daniel?

I've had some discussion about that phrase before. When I tentatively agreed to it, for certain carefully-limited definitions of 'good', those who were promulgating it then immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was agreeing with it for an entirely /different/ definition of good, in a sort of strawman conclusion.

Now, before leaving at that -- before just assuming that your past experience arguing utilitarianism was a mere exception or just the singular product of someone else's rhetorical skill -- imagine the possibility that the strawman conclusion isn't a strawman conclusion at all, but more of an everyman conclusion.

Imagine that difficulty that you had had during those few times debating utilitarian as something completely the opposite of being singular or exceptional. Imagine that very difficulty (in defining and then imposing onto others "the good"), imagine it as being intractable.

... I agree with a statement like this: "The greatest good for /me/, which necessarily requires a very great amount of good for a very great number of others."

That's true of me, too (and it's true of nearly everyone I know) -- but that does not imply utilitarianism, it implies the complete freedom of capitalism.

Ed

Post 49

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 4:25pm

Daniel:

Re the health care numbers discussion. You have numbers; I have numbers. You say your numbers are more important; I could say mine are. But, to be honest, I don't think either of our numbers are going to change each others' minds (which I'll expand more on in a moment)...

This sounds like evasion to me. The numbers I give are more indicative of a quality comparison of health care, yours is more indicative of a quality comparison of lifestyle. A doctor can't prevent you from getting cancer, he can't force you to adopt a better lifestyle, he can only screen you for cancer then give you treatment should you get it. The prevention comes from the individual's own chosen lifestyle, where that individual can take actions to mitigate his chances of getting cancer, like not drinking alcohol or smoking, eating healthy food and getting plenty of exercise, etc.

Let's try something... imagine, just for a moment, that I were to present some numbers that, by any reasonable standard, demonstrated that Canadian health care is definitively better than American in some major respect. Now, ask yourself, given such numbers, would you change your mind, and accept that government-funded health care is a good idea? If so, then you have already accepted my more important point, that lives are more important than politics, and there's no real need for me to debate the particular numbers.

I don't accept your utilitarian standards, only pointing out that by your own standards, you would have to accept American health care as being better than Canadian health care. That you don't, means you are not holding yourself accountable to your own standards. This doesn't mean I accept your standards.

Any civilized debate requires certain rules and standards; one of these is a certain degree of reciprocality, being as willing to accept that you, yourself, might be wrong, as your debating opponent is willing to make a similar admission.

I don't have to accept that I might be wrong because I don't believe that I am. You're basically appealing to some epistemological standard that no certainty is possible and this standard being the basis for civilized debate. I could just as easily make the same appeal that you might be wrong, and that you are not engaging in civilized debate by not admitting such uncertainty. But I don't believe that certainty is an impossibility, nor that such a plead for ignorance is necessary for civilized debate, and is actually an appeal to anti-intellectualism. In fact it's a stolen concept, you can't be certain that there is no certainty since the premise contradicts the conclusion.

> In 1775 there were no constitutional republics. So at
> that time you could just as easily have argued only
> governments run by monarchies are successful at
> defending itself from invaders. If we used your
> rationale, we'd still be ruled by kings. Ancient Greece
> would have never developed ideas of democracy and and of
> republics, since before then there was no precedence for
> such a thing. You're basically arguing from tradition
> rather than from morality.

Your argument is rather a strawman. There /have been/ societies on Earth that did not include involuntary taxation - I'm sure you can think of at least a few, if you tried. They simply didn't last when facing those societies which did.

Actually I'm not aware of the existence of any government that was funded through voluntary means. Could you provide an example? As far as I know, all governments have/had involuntary funding.

> That you are willing to sacrifice liberty for some vague
> or unspecified standard doesn't make you a libertarian at
> all.

Perhaps you haven't been reading my posts very closely -

Just wanted to point out the irony here, since you twice ignored my arguments concerning life expectancy rates and cancer survivability rates. I have been reading your posts closely, I think you are just unwilling to listen to mine. But please consider reading my posts closely if you have the nerve to demand others do the same for you.

Post 50

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 4:29pm

Steve

Then it would be okay to have a reverse lotto where we randomly select names - like his name - and take away all of his money, and all of his organs, because the results would be saving many, many lives in Africa and parts of Asia. Sure, it would kill him, but we could save far more lives then if we just taxed him - and he has said lives trump politics. It is the most benefits for the most people, right?

Excellent point. On principle, utilitarianism would have to allow for this. And actually there would be no objective standard for utilitarianism since the "greatest good" is up to subjective interpretation. The standard would be based on the whims of a dictator, or a government bureaucrat.

Post 51

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 4:15am

Post 47:

> One of the reasons other countries save money on drugs is
> that Americans bear more of the drug R&D cost via the drug
> company's pricing policy. So Americans financially support
> saving lives in other countries.

This point seems to be based on the implication that American R&D companies would not end up doing the research if they knew that another country would not pay them as much as they hoped to be paid for their patents; and thus, the only way for such research to continue is to ensure that all other countries /are/ required to pay them as much as possible.

I have read various articles about several non-American countries who have "mandatory licensing" laws, such that if the holder of a patent on a medicine insists on trying to charge excessively for it, then the patent can be invalidated in that country and the medicine produced with no license fees whatsoever... and so, in order to preserve any revenue stream at all from there, the research companies have a strong incentive to lower the price they demand. This, therefore, seems to imply that the research companies do not /depend/ on maximized revenue streams from other countries, thus seeming to negate your main point.

> If we could castrate the power of governments -- I don't
> just mean only in one's own country -- and limit them to
> protecting individual rights, then wouldn't that limit
> the ability of governments to wage wars?

Hah. I'm a member of a science-fiction writing group, and it was fairly easy for me to come up with a scenario in which two polities, each as libertarian and objectivist as you please, can, without violating their principles, end up in a war with each other. All that is required is for them to have a slightly different definition of what sorts of property can be claimed - in the fiction I came up with, I called the two sides 'Volumists' and 'Objectists', the former defining property mainly by where it was (along the lines of present-day real estate law), the latter by what it was (along the lines of present-day chattel law). Cases would arise where each polity claims jurisdiction, and thus that the other side enforcing its jurisdiction there is a violation of its sovereignty, and things escalate from there.

There is also the problem of non-castrated governments. An analogy might be the immune system. Sure, one way to protect oneself from disease is to scrub away as many germs as possible, and then letting your immune system wither away. The problem being that in doing so, you leave yourself open to opportunistic infections from anywhere you haven't scrubbed, or from bumping into random strangers - allowing your own body's defenses to weaken is only a viable strategy when the worst problem you're facing is allergies, in which case it's still very important to be able to /stop/ taking antihistamines and allow your defenses to return to full strength at need.

Post #48:

You're the one who first described the standard I offered for debate as utilitarian, in post #2. While I'm interested in reading about a certain something called 'Desire Utilitarianism', and was thus willing to equate that standard with D.U., it seems that what you had in mind with that term is something completely different, and that I have no interest in even trying to defend. As a parallel, there's a big difference between a form of free-market capitalism that doesn't include limited-liability corporations, and one that does, and someone willing to argue for the former may not be willing to argue for the latter.

Post #49:

> The numbers I give are more indicative of a quality
> comparison of health care, yours is more indicative of a
> quality comparison of lifestyle.

To borrow a phrase, this seems like an evasion to me. Lifestyle and health care are inextricably linked. I'm not taking the line of the wingnuts who say that "Western", evidence-based medicine is a crock, but instead that the evidence demonstrates that the greatest impediments in modern society to living a healthy life /are/ lifestyle-based. To pick a single field as an example, even dentists tell their patients to brush regularly, and especially after chomping on sugary foods.

> I don't accept your utilitarian standards

And I don't accept your death-promoting ones.

So, we don't accept each other's standards, and can call those standards names that the other person doesn't think apply. Now what do we do? One possibility, we could simply keep on pointing out that this is a wall, that that is a door, that /this/ is a /wall/, but *that* is a *door*, and so forth... or we could, as someone famous whose name I can't recall offhand suggested, try examining our premises to see where they disagree with each other.

> by your own standards, you would have to accept American
> health care as being better than Canadian health care.
> That you don't, means you are not holding yourself
> accountable to your own standards.

Strawman much? In case you haven't bothered reading those Wikipedia links, there /are/ numbers to support Canadians being healthier than Americans. As I've pointed out, though, there are /also/ numbers that can be interpreted as indicating Americans receiving better health care than Canadians. We could go round and round, talking louder and louder and slower and slower to each other, as if simply repeating those numbers again and again would convince the other... or we could try doing something /productive/ with our time.

> I don't have to accept that I might be wrong because I
> don't believe that I am. You're basically appealing to
> some epistemological standard that no certainty is
> possible and this standard being the basis for civilized
> debate. I could just as easily make the same appeal that
> you might be wrong, and that you are not engaging in
> civilized debate by not admitting such uncertainty. But I
> don't believe that certainty is an impossibility, nor
> that such a plead for ignorance is necessary for
> civilized debate, and is actually an appeal to
> anti-intellectualism. In fact it's a stolen concept, you
> can't be certain that there is no certainty since the
> premise contradicts the conclusion.

You seem to be arguing the excluded middle - that the only options are for complete certainly, or complete uncertainty, and that as the latter is useless, the former is the only viable option. In counter, I would suggest that you read http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes , "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem", or, if that's too long and complicated, perhaps "The Twelve Virtues of Rationality" at http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues .

> Actually I'm not aware of the existence of any government
> that was funded through voluntary means. Could you
> provide an example? As far as I know, all governments
> have/had involuntary funding.

Perhaps you are thinking of 'government' in too narrow a sense. Have you ever read the constitution of the Iroquois confederation, or about how any other group went (or, in a few cases, still goes) about their business before European contact?

Post 52

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 5:31am

Daniel Boese wrote:

This point seems to be based on the implication that American R&D companies would not end up doing the research if they knew that another country would not pay them as much as they hoped to be paid for their patents; and thus, the only way for such research to continue is to ensure that all other countries /are/ required to pay them as much as possible.

I have read various articles about several non-American countries who have "mandatory licensing" laws, such that if the holder of a patent on a medicine insists on trying to charge excessively for it, then the patent can be invalidated in that country and the medicine produced with no license fees whatsoever... and so, in order to preserve any revenue stream at all from there, the research companies have a strong incentive to lower the price they demand. This, therefore, seems to imply that the research companies do not /depend/ on maximized revenue streams from other countries, thus seeming to negate your main point.

What you believe my point to be is way off-target, so it doesn't negate my point at all.

Post 53

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 7:11am

> What you believe my point to be is way off-target, so it
> doesn't negate my point at all.

Okay, so I've misinterpreted the thrust of your argument. Do you think you could try rephrasing it in another way, so I could have another shot at figuring out what you meant?

Post 54

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 11:57am

Daniel,

*********
While I'm interested in reading about a certain something called 'Desire Utilitarianism', and was thus willing to equate that standard with D.U., it seems that what you had in mind with that term is something completely different, and that I have no interest in even trying to defend.
*********

From what I've read, Desire Utilitarianism is just an attempt to side-step the intractable problem associated with the application of utilitarianism, which can be illustrated by the following question:

*********
How do we find and enforce the best interests of every life form on planet earth?
*********

In order to make this intractable problem seem tractable -- new, ivory-tower utilitarians simply substitute the subjective in for the objective, and then they call it a day. Their new and supposedly-improved version asks the somewhat less-impossible question?

*********
How do we find and enforce the sum total and hierarchy of all desires of all life on earth?
*********

Setting aside the impossibility of anyone understanding all of the desires of all life on earth for a moment, we can step back and ask if individuals need ethics in the first place -- or if 'ethics' is just a code word for attempting to implement our wishes, regardless of reality.

That's what Rand did, and that's what makes utilitarianism moot. Switching to Desire Utilitarianism is just a blending of the emotional, non-cognitive, subjective ethics of Hume with the 'ignore-the-moral-agent's-key-role' utilitarian ethics of Mill.

In this way, the utilitarians are still in denial about whether morality is required for human life -- and what that means (by inference from its basic relation to human needs) about the discovery of an objective ethics for man on earth.

Daniel, my advice to you is to stop asking the question:

***********
"How do we best implement morality?"
***********

... and to take a step back and ask:

***********
"Do we require morality to live human lives (or is it just something that we "want")?
***********

Desire Utilitarianism's answer is that morality is just something that we want.

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/20, 11:58am)

Post 55

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 12:23pm

Daniel,

***********
... there's a big difference between a form of free-market capitalism that doesn't include limited-liability corporations, and one that does, and someone willing to argue for the former may not be willing to argue for the latter.
***********

Okay, but let's be real clear. Here is what you are saying:

***********
... there's a big difference between a form of free-market capitalism that includes "unlimited-liability" corporations, and one that only includes limited liability ones, and someone willing to argue for the former may not be willing to argue for the latter.
***********

Now, I have to say that there is a problem with "unlimited liability." It's not contractual, for one. Who in their right mind would agree to a contract wherein they lose everything -- their earning power and life-savings included -- if the deal goes south?

No one.

This kind of a Faustian bargain postulates that accidentally trading what turns out to be a fake (e.g., fake antique, fake Mona Lisa, etc.) could end you in all of your affairs. In reality, these ruined businessmen then, would become wards of the state, sent off to labor camps for the rest of their lives.

It's limited-liability or the Gulag. The right to trade on agreed-to terms, or the obligation to be completely vulnerable to a third-party overseer, the all-powerful State, which can end your life as you know it.

It's either free trade or a 'UFC-style smack-down' -- there is no "in-between" on this. We're not really free to trade if the government is free to force us into labor camps if a deal goes south.

Ed

Post 56

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 2:03pm

I would have sanctioned that last post, Ed, one of the better one's I've seen here on RoR (or any Objectivist forum) except that this thread belongs in dissent.

Post 57

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 2:23pm

Thanks, Ted (and great picture).

I wouldn't say that this thread, itself, belongs in Dissent -- though it's undeniable that Daniel, himself, either doesn't understand, or outright dissents from, Objectivism. My guess is the former.

And anyway, it's a Q & A thread, man. Folks are free to ask the questions they want. Let them peak their curiosity. Folks like you and I can handle their questions (if inclined). I'm not currently feeling overwhelmed with the debate so far. Here's a run-down:

1) Daniel says there's something called utilitarianism, and that it means that we need to accept trade-offs between saving lives and lowering taxes
2) I say that there's something called utilitarianism, and that it doesn't mean anything (except as a conceptual, castle-in-the-sky, unhinged morality -- historically utilized by brutal dictators to enact monstrous policies and to justify horrendous actions)
3) Daniel says that my arguments against the genus: Utilitarianism do not address the differentia: Desire Utilitarianism
4) I say that all effective arguments against a genus are, ipso facto, effective arguments against a differentia of that genus (and proceed to smack-down Desire Utilitarianism for what it is: an apologetic for subjective whim-worship masqueraded by an appeal to "cosmic justice")
5) and the ball is in Daniel's court now ...

Ed

Post 58

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 2:33pm

As you stand there feeding the troll you expect me to amble up and have a cage-side chat?

Post 59

Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 4:31pm