RoR: Forum

Jon,

In response to your claim that the threat to the rapist's life was not an emergency, because it resulted from his own choices, I posed the following counter-example, "Let's say that a sailor embarks on a risky journey because he's an adventurous kind of guy and gets shipwrecked near a desert island, swims to shore, and realizes that he's in a real pickle -- a pickle created by his own choice to embark on the risky journey. And suppose he finds a house with some food in it. Would Rand then say that he should starve to death rather than steal the food, because after all, it was his own choice that created the pickle?"

You replied, "No."

So, if the threat to the sailor's life is a legitimate emergency DESPITE the fact that it was created by his own choice, then how can you say that the threat to the rapist's life is not an emergency BECAUSE it was created by his own choice? Do you now wish to retract you earlier statement?

You ask, "Do you see any difference between the choice to engage in risky sailing that leads to the need to steal and the choice to rape that leads to the need to murder?"

Of course, I do, but that wasn't the issue we were discussing. We were discussing the criteria of an emergency, not the difference in choices leading up to an emergency. Again, you seem incapable of following the logic of an argument or staying on point in a discussion, preferring instead to introduce irrelevancies and indulge in name-calling and insults.

I understand that you have a strong emotional aversion to the rapist's actions; so do I. But in discussions of this sort, it's important to try to remain dispassionate and to focus only on the logic of the argument.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/28, 10:06am)

Post 221

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 11:31am

For the record, I have no problem with the examples of emergency exceptions that Rand gave. Break into the pharmacy and steal the medicine or my wife dies—fine. Break into a house and feed myself following a shipwreck—fine. Open fire on a shooter taking shots at me even though bodies are scattering through my line of fire and some of them will be hit by me—fine. And, as I wrote earlier, these examples are too easy. Simple, easy, no-brainers.

I would disagree that these are no-brainers, as they are one step down a very slippery slope. "Break into the pharmacy and steal the medicine or my wife dies" is quite similar to "Give me socialized medicine, since otherwise I can't afford medicine or surgery and my wife dies". "Break into a house and feed myself following a shipwreck" sounds pretty similar to "Give me food stamps or I will starve to death." "Open fire on a shooter taking shots at me" can morph into the DC gun laws.

How exactly do you specify which levels of immediate need justify taking someone's else's assets, while denying all other levels just the barest step below them? Do you limit it to cases where you have the intention and means to repay the "justified" theft? Do you say that shipwreck survivors can only seize the food if they have the financial wherewithal to repay? What if the owner of the assets refuses to turn them over -- is it moral to seize the assets by force because you "need" them? Do you see how modern liberals would jump all over that as a rationalization for everything they do?

Still think these are no-brainers?

Post 222

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 12:07pm

Jim,

The answer that I think Rand would give is that when it involves a threat to your own life or the life of your spouse or significant other whose life is essential to your own, you would be justified in initiating force in order to remove the threat. Outside of that, I don't think she'd sanction such conduct.

It's also important to recognize that the legal system could not properly tolerate the initiation of force, even if it were in your own interest, for it would be a crime against an innocent party, whom the state is empowered to protect. In other words, the police would be justified in arresting you even if you were justified in initiating force in order to save your own life. So, if you broke into someone's house to steal food that you needed to survive, you would be violating the law and could properly be arrested for it. What the law should consider, of course, is the extenuating circumstances, so your penalty should not be as severe as someone who committed the act in a non-emergency situation.

In short, while it might be in your interest and therefore morally justified for you to steal the food in order to survive, the government itself would have no right to initiate force on behalf of others in similar circumstances, because its sole raison d'être is the protection and defense of its citizens against the initiation of force.

- Bill

Post 223

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 12:20pm

Bill,

From my end it is you who has a handicap following the logic of an argument.

You write, “We were discussing the criteria of an emergency, not the difference in choices leading up to an emergency.”

Right, the criteria of an emergency, specifically, it’s requirement to be “unchosen.”

And you say “not the difference in choices”? YES, the differences in choices!

I am disputing that choosing to go sailing is comparable to choosing to rape. And the consequences of each action are not comparable in their degree of having been chosen. Risky sailing entails a good chance at drowning, but being placed in a situation of having to steal is hardly foreseeable. The risky sailor is not amiss for failing to consider that his sailing would lead to violating another’s rights—he can hardly be held responsible for “choosing” to steal by engaging in risky sailing! While in the rape, the sequence BEGINS with a choice to violate another’s rights and the consequent defensive behavior of the victim is quite foreseeable. The rapist CHOSE to create that defensive behavior—and I find your earlier assertion that he didn’t expect it to be bizarre.

You’re driving me crazy. Could you and I just let this go? Respond as you wish, I may not reply. Thanks.

Post 224

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 2:06pm

The answer that I think Rand would give is that when it involves a threat to your own life or the life of your spouse or significant other whose life is essential to your own, you would be justified in initiating force in order to remove the threat. Outside of that, I don't think she'd sanction such conduct.

It's also important to recognize that the legal system could not properly tolerate the initiation of force, even if it were in your own interest, for it would be a crime against an innocent party, whom the state is empowered to protect.

Bill, thanks for the clarifying post. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, and argue from the POV of a modern liberal to try and get you to relent and admit that state initiation of force against innocents is sometimes justified (not saying that that is MY POV) --

What if the only initiation of force that would remove the threat WAS via the ballot box? You have a wife with a chronic, ongoing medical condition that needs really expensive daily treatments, or she dies soon after the treatment stops. If you broke into the store once, you'd prolong her life for a little while, but then the police would arrest you, throw you in jail, and confiscate the life-giving medicine. So, unless you use political force to confiscate these drugs, your wife dies because you will be in jail and unable to continue these thefts.

And now, switching gears and playing Devil's Advocate for anarcho-capitalists:

And, unless you are one of those rare Objectivists who is an anarcho-capitalist, how do you justify taxation for national defense and police and judiciary services, taken from someone who has private security forces sufficient to protect them from outside threats without resorting to the government? Doesn't your argument, carried to its logical conclusion, forbid the government from initiating force to collect taxes, and compel them to rely on people voluntarily paying for those services they feel are worth it, and allowing people to use competing providers of those services -- which is functionally anarcho-capitalism?

Post 225

Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 1:51am

I wrote (to Jon), “We were discussing the criteria of an emergency, not the difference in choices leading up to an emergency.”

He replied,

Right, the criteria of an emergency, specifically, it’s requirement to be "unchosen.”

And you say “not the difference in choices”? YES, the differences in choices!

I am disputing that choosing to go sailing is comparable to choosing to rape.

I would agree that there is certainly a sense in which it is not comparable, but I would argue that it is comparable in the relevant sense.

And the consequences of each action are not comparable in their degree of having been chosen.

But this is not an issue of the degree of having been chosen; it's an issue of whether or not the situation was chosen at all. You were saying that an emergency is defined by the fact that it "unchosen." That is what you said. I'm just taking you at your word.

Risky sailing entails a good chance at drowning, but being placed in a situation of having to steal is hardly foreseeable.

True, it's very unlikely to occur, but it is an an outside possibility. If it weren't, we wouldn't be discussing it. In any case, what you are debating here is a matter of degree, not a matter of principle.

The risky sailor is not amiss for failing to consider that his sailing would lead to violating another’s rights . . .

I agree.

. . . —he can hardly be held responsible for “choosing” to steal by engaging in risky sailing!

Well, he didn't choose to steal by engaging in risky behavior. He chose to steal by choosing to steal.

While in the rape, the sequence BEGINS with a choice to violate another’s rights and the consequent defensive behavior of the victim is quite foreseeable.

True, it begins with the choice to violate another's rights, but the defensive behavior is not necessarily forseeable. The rapist could think, with good reason, that the victim isn't armed and will be sufficiently terrorized by his behavior that she wouldn't dare risk her life by trying to defend herself.

The rapist CHOSE to create that defensive behavior—and I find your earlier assertion that he didn’t expect it to be bizarre.

But he DIDN'T choose to create it; he chose an action which he scarcely expected to have that result, thinking that his victim would be intimidated enough not to respond with life-threatening force. If he thought that she would, he wouldn't have attempted to rape her in the first place. He's going to pick someone he thinks is a defenseless victim.

You’re driving me crazy. Could you and I just let this go? Respond as you wish, I may not reply.

Oh, brother! If I was driving you crazy and you truly wanted this dialogue to end, you wouldn't have responded to my last post. You would simply have let it go yourself, instead of calling my view "bizarre," claiming that I'm driving you crazy, and demanding in so many words that I shut up.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/29, 8:28am)

Post 226

Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 9:28am

Jim wrote,

Bill, thanks for the clarifying post. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, and argue from the POV of a modern liberal to try and get you to relent and admit that state initiation of force against innocents is sometimes justified (not saying that that is MY POV) --

What if the only initiation of force that would remove the threat WAS via the ballot box? You have a wife with a chronic, ongoing medical condition that needs really expensive daily treatments, or she dies soon after the treatment stops. If you broke into the store once, you'd prolong her life for a little while, but then the police would arrest you, throw you in jail, and confiscate the life-giving medicine. So, unless you use political force to confiscate these drugs, your wife dies because you will be in jail and unable to continue these thefts.

First of all, under laissez-faire capitalism, a measure like that would never be allowed on the ballot, because the raison d'être of a government is the protection and defense of individual rights, not their violation.

Secondly, even if it were allowed on the ballot, there is no reason people should vote for it. They would be voting to have their own money confiscated by the government. They would giving the government the power to rob them, which is not in their self-interest. A much better alternative would be to join a collective in which people donate money voluntarily to be used for just such an emergency, like an insurance fund. But this is precisely the function of private insurance, isn't it? So we already have such an alternative.

Besides, the emergency we were discussing is one that would have existed even if the drugs were already capable of being purchased by the husband, if only the pharmacy were open. It was strictly temporary, so it would have existed even under government mandated drug coverage, and the husband would have been arrested for breaking into the pharmacy just the same.

And now, switching gears and playing Devil's Advocate for anarcho-capitalists:

And, unless you are one of those rare Objectivists who is an anarcho-capitalist, how do you justify taxation for national defense and police and judiciary services, taken from someone who has private security forces sufficient to protect them from outside threats without resorting to the government? Doesn't your argument, carried to its logical conclusion, forbid the government from initiating force to collect taxes, and compel them to rely on people voluntarily paying for those services they feel are worth it, and allowing people to use competing providers of those services -- which is functionally anarcho-capitalism?

Jim, I gather that you're not familiar with the Objectivist theory of government. I would suggest reading Rand's essays in The Virtue of Selfishness entitled "The Nature of Government" and "Government Financing in a Free Society." But briefly, Objectivists do not support compulsory government financing, viewing it as a violation of individual rights. Does that make them anarcho-capitalists? No, because a government does not require compulsory financing in order to exist. A government is an institution that holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force, which means that it does not permit other institutions to enforce a different set of laws within the same geographical domain. To do so would be to tolerate what it regards as the initiation of force by the other institutions. But that does not mean that the government cannot be financed voluntarily. There is nothing to prevent people from paying for the government's services voluntarily, and there a number of methods by which this could be accomplished.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer on 5/29, 9:34am)

Post 227

Friday, May 30, 2008 - 4:59am

This will have to be short as I'm short on time. More of a prelude to further, deeper discussion. I've only skimmed Joe R.'s first post and something caught my attention. It was the quote "morality is a tool for living."

I hope to expand on this later, but I would say that rationality (or reason) is a tool for living -- and that morality is something more than that. While rationality is automatically "human" rationality, simply due to metaphysical limitations on existing entities (non-human things aren't ever rational) -- or due to a 'negative', per se -- morality is automatically "human" morality due to a 'positive.' The positive is the nature of man, and what it is that it takes in order to achieve a happy human life.

In short, I disagree with David Kelley that 'survivalism' is required in order to justify rational morality. I would hope that Bill would take up the task of integrating -- or refuting -- points I have about how humanly-specific morality is. Rand said that you don't defeat evil by adopting its standard or procedures. The question of whether the rapist is evil is salient. I wish I had more time now to expand on this. A fleshing-out of this idea is available at:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Thompson/Human_Happiness_The_only_kind_there_is.shtml

and at:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Thompson/Human_Evil_The_Only_Kind_There_Is.shtml

Ed

Post 228

Friday, May 30, 2008 - 4:06pm

In the post above I said:

Rand said that you don't defeat evil by adopting its standard or procedures.

I should have added that this appears to be a case where the Evil is adopting a procedure or standard of the Good. This is not surprising. It is in the very nature of Evil to imitate the Good.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/30, 8:20pm)

Post 229

Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 4:21pm

Ed,

The word "evil" should always be spelled "EEVILL" and be accompanied by sinister background music. Like "Who knows what EEVILL lurks in the hearts of men? The SHADOW knows!" ;-)

Post 230

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - 12:03pm

Okay, here's a second effort to convey the same message.

Evil exists via compartmentalization. Don't look long-range or wide-scale, look at it with a limited perspective and a partial view. On the limited, partial views and perspectives, just about any act can be seen as the Good (which is the goal of Evil). One of the things that needs to be held in the perspective -- when examining moral decisions -- is moral character. Acts don't take place in a vacuum, and moral actors are never blank-slates. Some folks decry this as some sort of idolization of some sort of mystical thing which folks have come to refer to as the Good Life, but I think that that's a limited and partial understanding.

Another thing that needs to be in the perspective of evaluation of a moral choice is reality. It seems like a bromide to say that. Everybody seems to be able to get away with saying it, and then try to get away with just arbitrarily implanting their limited, partial perspective in -- about what is "the reality" of the situation. Joe mentioned this arbitrary implantation tactic disparagingly and rightly so. However, I'd use that same sword to cut through his (and Bill's) defense of "survivalism" as foundational or justifying -- for moral evaluations. This was the tricky, prickly thing Alasdair MacIntyre handled when he wrote about when he wrote "Who's Justice? Which Rationality?"

Let me get personal, as that has worked -- albeit in a limited fashion -- for Jeff, in reaching at least some common ground. If I were a rapist who had had a moral awakening -- so that I could more clearly see a path to happiness for myself -- I'd understand the importance of justice in that happiness. I'd turn myself in (rather than evade). Rand talked at length about this. David Kelley did, too. MacIntyre wrote a book about it, and Philippa Foot championed it.

What is "it"? It's an integrated being (existence). Aristotle was the first to attempt to shed light on the fact that moral virtue is an integration rather than separate, limited, partial parts. You either have them all in some degree, or none in any degree. This is the part where Bill (or Joe) can step in with the following charge:

"Virtues are valuable only when they are in service to your life!"

And there is no arguing about that. It's true. The crucial next step is to define "your life" -- and that's where moral philosophy makes ground (or where moral philosophy ought to make ground -- if you can excuse the double entendre`).

Here are some quotes showing that integration is the only way to go, when you have got it into your mind to be moral and enjoy your life:

Foot (1958):

Is it true, however, to say that justice is not something a man needs in his dealings with his fellows, supposing only that he be strong? Those who think that he can get on perfectly well without being just should be asked to say exactly how such a man is supposed to live ....

The reason why it seems to some people so impossibly difficult to show that justice is more profitable than injustice is that they consider in isolation particular just acts.

David Kelley (1996):

To achieve our values, we have to take account of certain basic facts about the human condition. That is why we need virtues in the first place: we cannot achieve our ends by magic, whim, or random action; we must take account of facts about human nature, the world in which we act, and the causal relationships between actions and results. A virtue involves the recognition of such facts and the commitment to acting in accordance with them. ...

Honesty, for example, is a commitment to maintain an unbreached cognitive contact with reality in all of one's actions; to act on the basis of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and not to seek any value through deluding oneself or others. This commitment is based on the fact that cognition is man's primary means of pursuing any value, and that knowledge is the identification of what exists. These are fundamental facts about the human condition, and honesty is accordingly a major virtue. ...

The appropriate method of attaining these values is through trade. "The principle of trade," Ayn Rand observed,

"is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material. It is the principle of justice. ..." ...

... Humanity. If we expect to trade with other people, we must first of all recognize and treat them as people ... capable of self-awareness. In virture of this self-awareness, we all have a need for visibility, a harmony between what we know about ourselves from the inside and the way in which others treat us. ... . Of course human viciousness does occur, ... and when it does it must be dealth with.

The common thread is that you can't be happy without internal and external justice -- that it's not an "optional" virtue for only special occasions (or for only general occasions). And that's because of the (human) kind of creatures that we are.

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/01, 12:17pm)

Post 231

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - 12:37pm

I should add the following premise:

That even life itself -- for beings capable of being happy or not -- is not valuable where and whenever happiness has been made impossible.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/01, 12:38pm)

Post 232

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - 1:12pm

Here's an outlandish example of using "brute survival" as the standard to evaluate a morality or a moral choice, an outlandish example of merely checking to see if something's moral -- simply by taking a head-count of who's still alive:

At a certain time under the Nazi regime in Germany, there were folks who had morally bought-into "Aryan Jihad" and there were folks who despised it out of loyalty to something better. If we took a head count, then it's likely that more of those who sold-out to Hitler were alive than those who despised him/it. "Survivalists" say that you do what you must -- including things you may have previously thought to be inhuman -- in order to keep breathing (i.e. to attain the "ultimate value" of something generically called "life").

In the concentration camps, Nazi's really messed with the prisoners something fierce, often making them hurt each other -- a fact best popularized by the story of Sophie's Choice (the mother who was forced to choose which of her 2 children would "live"). Survivalists have to retreat to the premise that you always do what you have to -- including killing your own children -- in order to keep breathing. It's because morality has no meaning without life -- they say -- that you have got to always do whatever it is that it takes in order to keep yourself breathing.

Detractors to this theory of "survivalism" are often met with disdain -- rather than with truly dialectic debate -- and they are charged with emotionalism (please excuse the double entendre`). Reading the Romanic Manifesto, I'm particularly caught by phrases saying something like:

THIS makes life worth living.

I wonder, do 'survivalists' react that way to those kinds of things? Are they morally or rationally justified in reacting that way (without contradicting the theory of survivalism)? As David Kelley probably wouldn't answer if I asked him (just as Peikoff didn't answer when I asked him something), how about you survivalists here? Do you have the 2 answers I seek?

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/01, 8:22pm)

Post 233

Monday, June 2, 2008 - 11:49pm

Ed,

I don't know whom you're addressing, but I'm not a "survivalist" in the sense in which you are characterizing it. Obviously, life is not worth living without the values that make it worth living. I am not saying that one has a moral obligation to remain alive at all cost. I don't know where you got that idea, because I have denied it in previous posts.

Question: Do you disagree with Rand's statement that if someone were forced to murder another person in order to survive, what he does is up to him? She says that "if he refuses to obey, and dies, that is his moral privilege. If he prefers to obey, you could not blame him for the murder." (Her words)

- Bill

Post 234

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 1:01am

Bill writes:

> Question: Do you disagree with Rand's statement that if someone were forced to murder another person
> in order to survive, what he does is up to him? She says that "if he refuses to obey, and dies, that
> is his moral privilege. If he prefers to obey, you could not blame him for the murder." (Her words)

More importantly Bill, do you think that Rand would be non-committal about personally judging the actions an individual would take in this situation? Do you think that she would shrug off all of the scenarios discussed during this thread as being amoral and therefore not worthy of thought or consideration? Do you think that she would make a distinction between "not blaming" a person for acting as they did under this circumstance and "approving" of the act of killing an innocent person? Or let's make it more personal. Do you think that if Frank O'Connor were dying and in need of medicine, that there is any conceivable situation where Ayn Rand would murder an innocent pharmacist in order to obtain the medicine for him?

I've told you where I personally stand on this issue and the choices I would make. I'm curious if, rather than discussing an anonymous third party, you are willing to state that you have thought about it and know what choice you would personally make in a difficult situation such as these. For example, if you were to find out that you wife and children had been kidnapped by terrorists and were to be killed unless you agreed to immediately dump a vial of lethal toxin into the San Francisco water supply, potentially killing thousands of residents, would you do so to save the lives of your family? Is there any difference between this scenario and that of the pharmacist?

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 235

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 6:35am

I think this argument gets to one of my key objections to ALL of the lifeboat scenarios I have ever seen. That is, that reality, while knowable, is not ever knowable 100% by YOU. In other words, a situation that seems like it only has two choices, often has hundreds of options. Reality NEVER offers these types of explicit scenarios. Examples:

1) The captors offering you various ultimatums - first, how likely are they to honor their promise to "let you go" if you commit the crime they want you to? Why would you subordinate your own actions to theirs, even under force, when you truly are likely to gain nothing?

2) The save X or Y - again, there is never any way to know for certain.

3) Historical examples abound in military history where one side surrendered or did not fight based on very false information. The Graf Spee in WW II, many instances in the Civil War, come to mind. Don't let others distort the reality and trick you, take the chance!

The same applies to these pre-made determinations that you know x and y - well, do you really?

Post 236

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 8:30am

Jeff wrote,

More importantly Bill, do you think that Rand would be non-committal about personally judging the actions an individual would take in this situation?

I don't understand the question. She said she wouldn't. So, yes.

Do you think that she would shrug off all of the scenarios discussed during this thread as being amoral and therefore not worthy of thought or consideration?

I don't know, but the fact that she might regard them as amoral doesn't mean that she would view them as unworthy of thought or consideration.

Do you think that she would make a distinction between "not blaming" a person for acting as they did under this circumstance and "approving" of the act of killing an innocent person?

What's the difference? She said, "In a case of that kind, you cannot morally judge the action of Man B. Since he is under the threat of death, whatever he decides to do is right . . ."

Let's make it more personal. Do you think that if Frank O'Connor were dying and in need of medicine, that there is any conceivable situation where Ayn Rand would murder an innocent pharmacist in order to obtain the medicine for him?

Probably not.

I've told you where I personally stand on this issue and the choices I would make. I'm curious if, rather than discussing an anonymous third party, you are willing to state that you have thought about it and know what choice you would personally make in a difficult situation such as these. For example, if you were to find out that you wife and children had been kidnapped by terrorists and were to be killed unless you agreed to immediately dump a vial of lethal toxin into the San Francisco water supply, potentially killing thousands of residents, would you do so to save the lives of your family? Is there any difference between this scenario and that of the pharmacist?

I doubt that I would do it, not only because it would be very difficult to make that kind of choice, but also because there would be no guarantee that the terrorists wouldn't kill my family anyway, and because once you accede to this kind of demand, you place yourself under the kidnappers' control and the situation escalates. I think the important point here, though, is that if you chose to poison the water supply, it wouldn't be a straightforward breach of the non-aggression principle, which cannot be said to apply in a situation of that kind.

- Bill

Post 237

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 11:20am

Kurt:

I agree with you about not having perfect information in these scenarios. In fact, I think that is one of the key points in this discussion. It is not unrealistic to think that at some point during the course of your life you may find yourself in a situation where you are required to make a serious decision - not just a life-or-death decision, but any difficult decision that involves a choice between important values - and may have to act quickly using imperfect knowledge. This is where having tested yourself against these extreme hypothetical situations can prove useful, if the thinking done here has helped you to get a firmer grasp on your values and character, making it clearer how you will decide and act at the moment of necessity.

Bill:

Thanks for providing the answers to my questions. I agree with you that Rand would not kill an innocent person to save Frank's life, and I don't think that this would be an arbitrary decision on her part, but a choice she made which rested upon her deepest moral convictions. I think that we both have a sense of Rand's character and that this choice is the only one that appears consistent with what else we know about her, which is why we both come to the same conclusion.

I would go further in my belief that her non-committal response about "not blaming" a person in one of these life-boat situations was really a reference to legal blame, and that she would not hesitate to consider the full context of the situation and pass a personal moral judgment on the actions of another. With everything I know about her, I would have a very difficult time reconciling the image of Rand remaining morally neutral in the face of the serious nature of the events we have been discussing here.

When you quote Rand saying:

Since he is under the threat of death, whatever he decides to do is right

I remain unconvinced that this can be be properly taken as the final word on Rand's position regarding her view of the proper way to conduct oneself in these emergency situations. While Rand was unwilling or unable to formulate a theoretical response under her ethical code, just as we were able to project how she would likely act in the above scenario regarding Frank, I have also tried to offer as evidence just how inconceivable it would be for any of her fictional heroes to act in various ways under these emergency conditions. I suggest that while we cannot ground her responses to these scenarios in theory, it is not difficult to imagine what her practical response would be. And I think that tells us a great deal about her character and morality - possibly even more than the statement you have quoted. Do you see what I am getting at here, and does it make sense to you?

Regarding the terrorist/toxin scenario I proposed, if a person were placed in this situation and they did elect to poison the water supply, killing thousands of people, if later caught, would you expect them to not be prosecuted for a crime and would you hold them morally blameless for their actions? If your family happened to be killed by the toxin, would/should that change one's response? I'm not attempting to play word-games. I actually think that there are real moral issues encapsulated here that we should think about and somehow integrate into an ethical theory. And I remain unsatisfied with Rand's simple categorical dismissal.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 238

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 5:58pm

Bill,

"if he refuses to obey, and dies, that is his moral privilege. ...

I agree with that. A "privilege" is a right or an immunity from criticism (i.e., an ascended position that is above reproach). In this case, he has the right to choose to die on these terms rather than to comply with evil for the proposed, instrumental value which may -- or may not -- go along with that.

... If he prefers to obey, you could not blame him for the murder."

I agree with that, too. Acting under compulsion/coercion, he cannot be blamed for preferring to kill, rather than to die as a non-killer. The actual morality of his choice will depend on his built character. In his life up to then, he may have become someone who could find happiness after killing the other man -- and he may have become someone who couldn't find happiness after killing the other man (even though it's a coerced killing).

Ed

Post 239

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 5:00am