RoR: Forum

Teresa,

A great quote.

Ed

Post 1

Sunday, January 10, 2010 - 3:31am

I reserve the right to judge another person as worthy or unworthy of assistance, including the calling of 911. My favorite example comes from a television interview featuring Leonard Peikoff. A panelist offered the typical "lifeboat" scenario of a bleeding pregnant woman pounding on his door in search of help. He said he would gladly help her if she understood it as a kindness and not a duty. If she demanded it as his duty, he would stand there and let her bleed before his eyes. I fully agree with his stand.

The show was called "The McQuistion Program" and was aired on PBS in the 1990s as I recall.

We went over all this years ago in the "Altruism Against Freedom" thread.

I could tell stories of numerous pesky neighbors through the years, from childhood to adulthood, who abused emergency services (and the kindness of neighbors) well beyond the bounds of reason because of their own moral shortcomings.

There are times when a person has to make judgment calls on these events (such as whether to call 911). He needs the freedom to do so without fear of legal retribution as a "state criminal." This holds true even if he chooses not to do so out of spite for the bleeding pregnant woman in question because of her altruistic demands.

I feel absolutely no "species solidarity" with outlier skanks. I certainly have no interest in becoming more intimately bound with them than needed for my own wellness. There are some people in this world who simply deserve no help. I need the freedom to make that judgment call myself. There is no basis in reality to transform this quote into legal policy.

The quote makes a psychological proposition and not a legal one.

See my new blog entry "Neighborly Nutters" for more.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/10, 5:04am)

Post 2

Sunday, January 10, 2010 - 6:25am

The question involves the matrix of law, not any concrete bound existence of such, as Curtis queried:

Does a political system that is rational, and which values species solidarity, value one person's life more than, or value it less than, the rights of another to walk away, when dangers to the second person are nonexistent or even minimal?

Post 3

Sunday, January 10, 2010 - 7:41am

Q: Does a political system that is rational, and which values species solidarity, value one person's life more than, or value it less than, the rights of another to walk away, when dangers to the second person are nonexistent or even minimal?

A: It values one person's life less than the rights of another to walk away even when dangers to the second person are nonexistent or even minimal ... because the "species solidarity" it values as "rational" allows for freedom of the individual to choose with which members of its species to form such a solidarity (or not).

Post 4

Sunday, January 10, 2010 - 7:45am