Murder as Pre-Emptive Self Defense

"Any threat to man's ego -- anything which he experiences as a danger to his mind's efficacy and control -- is a potential source of pathological anxiety. The pain of this anxiety is the most terrible that man can know -- because the value at stake is, necessarily, the most crucial of all his values." -- Nathaniel Branden.

So, if you have a right to your own life, then you have a duty to defend yourself. If you can defend yourself, then you can take pre-emptive action against someone who intends to harm you. Harm includes damage to your ego. Therefore, you have a right -- and a duty to yourself -- to kill anyone who might accurately insult you.

I reject that argument. I state it here explicity because it is a stark assertion to illuminate the fallacious arguments on SOLO that "we" Americans have the right to kill anyone physically close to "enemies" who "threaten" the group called "us." That threat might be physical, but it need only be psychological. Taken to its logical conclusion, the theory of Objectivist Nationalism holds that it would have been morally justified -- morally required -- for the United States of America to bomb Paris because Jean-Paul Sartre lived there, to bomb London for harbouring Bertrand Russell, to bomb New York for giving sanction to Allen Ginsberg. That Ayn Rand was living in New York City at the same time as Allen Ginsberg should not have been a deterrent. In fact, she would have pushed the button herself. Or would she?

Post 1

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - 9:00am

This is nonsense.

Damage to one's pseudo-self-esteem is NOT the same as "damage to one's ego." The removal of a pretense is not the same as the destruction of true self-esteem.

Moreover, in a free society one can always simply avoid such an ego "threat" by refusing to associate with those who pose it.

The true destruction of "ego" could only occur by some use of force or coercion -- in which case self-defense would be proper, but even then, only in proportion to the degree of the threat. I could imagine very few contexts (and those might be domestic situations of extreme cruelty and violence) in which someone would have to kill someone in order to keep his authentic ego intact.

Post 2

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - 9:07am

Well, if we could have killed Karl Marx by bombing London maybe we should have! :-)

--Brant
Blood for breakfast

Post 3

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - 9:28am

Michael M,

I appreciated recently your "anarcho-anarcho-capitalist" formulation. But this argument that you reject is most certainly a straw man. Nathaniel Branden did not mean what you suggest he meant in your bold face interpretation. The pain NB is describing is a result of a false world view and a resulting lack of self esteem. NB provides philosophical insights and therapeutic methods for correcting false world views and improving ones self esteem. Never did he suggest, nor has any other objectivist suggested, that one's psychic pain justifies the murder of others. Quite the opposite. The emergency situations that have been described to justify killing of innocents in defense of one's own life [hostage situations] deal with the eminent demise of our physical bodies and the necessity to act to stay alive. The moral censure is placed on the persons who put you in that situation in the first place. No one said anything about "threats to one's ego" in this regard.

I do agree with you that some objectivists go overboard with their rhetoric about who they are willing to "wipe out", "nuke", etc., when talking about the possible hiding places of our enemies. Wiping out a whole city necessarily means killing possibly thousands of people who except for the accident of their birth may think and act in a more exemplary manner than most of people we personally have known in our own lives. To contemplate doing this because of a threat to "our country", which actually in a very low probability threat to our personal selves, is unacceptable to me personally. Should we nuke one of our own cities because a few crowds of people in that city stood up and cheered the events of 911? I think some of the professors in our own universities are more of a long term threat to our capitalist system than the terrorists in the middle east. Shall we bomb one of our own universities?

Post 4

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - 2:55pm

Robert Bidinotto wrote: "Moreover, in a free society one can always simply avoid such an ego "threat" by refusing to associate with those who pose it. "

(ONE) Well, that indicates the distinction between praxeology and Objectivism. Praxeology describes the world as it is and Objectivism proscribes for the world as it ought to be. In other words, you can usually avoid a conflict. This has been discussed in the "Walking Cheeseburger" topic about personal weaponry. In short, "we" i.e., the government of the United States of America could have avoided the 9/11 tragedy by not becoming involved in the huge domestic squabble and donnybrook of the Middle East. Just ignore them.

We do live in a "free society" in that the world is a large place with many different kinds of people in it. Not all of them share your opinions. Objectivism holds that we cannot have a free society until and unless "most" people (or "most" intellectuals) agree with most of what Ayn Rand wrote. I think that freedom starts with you inside yourself.

In the 6th century BC, when the Persians moved in on the Ionian cities -- and in 408 BC when Carthage moved on Akragas -- the Greeks, being rationalists and traders simply packed up and got out.

I recommend Harry Browne's fantasy about Rheingold, a mythical country near western Germany. When the Nazis rolled in, they stole some cheese and moved on. Then the Americans rolled in, stole some cheese and moved on. In neither case did the individuals of Rheingold feel a compelling need to confront the attacker. This fantasy actually says something about America and Americans. Our nation was populated largely by people from Europe who wanted no part of the old battles and hatreds. They got out. They went someplace to be left alone. They were not "tolerant." They just did not buy into the predefined conflicts of their times.

The year 1848 was a high point. The potato famine brought Irish and the collapse of the liberal revolutions brought others including many Jews. They became Americans. It was not "perfect" by Objectivist standards, but it does demonstrate that someone who values their own freedom is not required to "defend" themself against everyone who does not, or might not, or may not, or perhaps could not, or whatever. You just leave.

Leaving is very American. Some English colonists even left their villages to become Indians.

Robert Bidinotto wrote: "Damage to one's pseudo-self-esteem is NOT the same as "damage to one's ego." The removal of a pretense is not the same as the destruction of true self-esteem."

(TWO) In collecting, we say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." You know the difference inside you between real self-esteem and pseudo-self-esteem. I am not sure that it is externally demonstrable. I believe that any such distinction is irrelevant. If I am driving around town in my 1990 Camry and I pull up next to a balding guy in a Corvette and I yell, "Hey! Are you afraid that your pecker is too small?" And he shoots me, I have only myself to blame -- his pseudo-self-esteem to the contrary notwithstanding.

The other side of the coin is that if he first yells at me to get a better paying job so that I don't have to drive around a 15 year old car, I do not have the right to shoot him for attacking my rationally formulated financial plan.

Bottom line: you cannot destroy true self-esteem.

Post 5

Sunday, May 8, 2005 - 3:04pm