Evaluating Initiation of Force in Emergency Situations

Hi Jon,

I read Bill the same way you did. I just want to make sure that that is Bill's view before I dig into it.

Jordan

Post 101

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 7:10pm

Jon, if you aren't going to provide an alternative, you can't exactly complain about our answers. I've answered your questions in the past, and my answers never satisfied you. But without you offering your own moral standard, you can't even explain why they don't satisfy you.

Morality is about choosing between alternatives. These scenarios you make up are ridiculous, but they all aim at a single purpose. To try to show that self-interest leads to undesirable results. The problem is, the results are undesirable because of the horrible situations you create, not because of self-interest. You're asking us to pick between two terrible choices (which a proper morality would have us avoid in the first place!), and when the choice turns out terrible (surprise!), you act as if that's a flaw. It's not. Being forced to choose between two bad choices means the outcome is going to be bad regardless.

The only thing you can possibly argue is that the other alternative is better. And there's only two ways of doing that. Showing that our logic is flawed in terms of what is actually in the self-interest of the person involved, or showing evaluating the outcomes by an alternative moral standard. You've never done the first. It's always the second. But you never tell us what this alternative moral standard is, and why it's better than self-interest. You never explain why morality, a tool for living, should ever demand self-sacrifice. You never explain why we should throw our lives away in order to achieve the status of "moral".

Obviously you don't have to try to explain. I can fully understand why you wouldn't want to. But don't think for a minute that emotional reactions count as an argument. I don't accept for a minute that the ability to construct unbelievable scenarios reflects poorly on a moral standard.

Post 102

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 7:35pm

Previously, you have described the baby lab as �insane.� Now also, �ridiculous,� and �unbelievable.�

What is insane, ridiculous or unbelievable about medical testing on unwanted babies? Laws are made by men, and they can be changed before the month is out. If a lot of people took your approach to rights, what exactly would be so insane about them modifying the law accordingly? You keep saying insane, but you never explain why. Tell, me, please, why would an egoist of your conception be insane to pursue medical knowledge in the manner I describe?

Really, Joe, let�s have it. Please. Explain it to me.

Unless you mean, �yes, of course the baby lab is moral according to my approach.� Then tell me that. Or tell me it isn�t, and why. You haven�t done either, and it really is not any big request.

Post 103

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 7:42pm

Jon, why must you constantly evade? Why not answer my questions? I've answered plenty of yours. Why pretend that if I answer one more, it'll satisfy you? We both know you can never be satisfied you don't accept the same moral standard. So let's hear your alternative?

Honestly, I don't know how you can sit there and criticize Bill for not engaging genuinely when you pull this.

Post 104

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 7:43pm

Hey Bill,

While your at it, would you mind providing definitions for "moral right" and "individual right." Hitherto, I have not seen Objectivists discern these terms as it appears you did in Post 82. I wonder if perhaps better terms are available? -Jordan

Post 105

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 7:52pm

One could ask why this sort of topic keeps coming up? If these are emergency situations, why talk about them so much? Sure there are times where you might violate the rights of others in order to survive, but who cares?

One reason it comes up is in the process of dealing with the concept of rights. Obviously there are several related ideas. There are the "conditions of existence" that we all need. There is the question of why we respect them in the first place. Are rights intrinsic? If we shoot at a terrorist who has a human shield, are we violating the innocent person's rights? Are we therefore immoral? These are all interesting topics especially in the context of war. We've had (and still have!) far to many people who think that we should all willingly die if defending ourselves might hurt an innocent.

For me, the topic is interesting because it highlights the nature of morality. It shows how some think that morality is a set of rules that you must obey, and that you should even sacrifice your life for them if need be. The focus on moral status, which is probably derived from religion's focus on proving worthiness to get into heaven, inverts the function of morality. Instead of a method of choosing the actions that best further your life, it becomes an end in itself. And these examples always highlight it. You see immediately how many people believe that when the choice is between morality and your own life, morality trumps life.

A related aspect of the topic I find interesting is the notion often used that morality is some kind of social method of judgment, instead of an individual's method of judgment. In one of the previous threads, the scenario that was presented was a rapist who's victim tries to kill him. Everyone accepts that he was horribly immoral from the get-go. But at the point where the victim tries to kill him, does his self-interest inform him to try to kill her first, or to die gracefully. If he suddenly decided that he wanted to pursue his own self-interest, wouldn't he kill her? The part that upset most people was the thought that if he did kill her, that he'd be acting "morally". Using that term seems to be offensive because in traditional morality, moral status is everything, and moral status is measured by the group's judgment. Saying someone is "moral" means that they're a good person. Saying that they acted "morally" means they did something good, like helped a little old lady across the street. Good by what standard? Good by society's standards. Value to whom? Value to society.

Morality is viewed as some kind of universal measure. And rights are an excellent example of this. Violating rights is viewed as bad in and of itself, without reference to the costs or benefits of the action by the individual involved. Instead of measuring the morality by the effect it has on the individual, some kind of abstract measurement is used. And that has a problem because there's no clear way to measure the abstraction. So instead, rights become a kind of intrinsic value, or moral rule, that anyone who violates them is deemed immoral. It's all or nothing. You're either moral, or immoral. The measurement goes away. Instead of asking value to whom, and how valuable, we simply get "It's the rules. Do it or else you're a bad person".

So I think these topics can be useful, even though outsiders would just think that it's a bunch of pointless and repulsive debates. But they're only useful if the different approaches are highlighted. Simply resorting to emotional appeals or trying to win semantic arguments over the definitions of terms doesn't do anything. For these debates to be useful, we need to compare the methodologies in use by each side.

Post 106

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 8:03pm

�Why pretend that if I answer one more, it'll satisfy you?�

I am not pretending when I say that it would satisfy me very much to see you in print owning up to the implications of your ideas. Bill owned up to twenty lives for a finger, so why can�t you admit that baby labs are moral?

Post 107

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 8:37pm

Jon wrote,

It is you who is failing to grasp my argument. The rights status of unwanted and purchased babies is precisely what is at issue. You cannot introduce their having rights into the argument.

My contention is that your approach, applied consistently, leads to the conclusion that the lab subjects do not have rights. I am not saying that your approach allows for violating the lab subjects� rights, but that your approach implies they don�t have any rights from the start.

Then I don't understand your argument. Why does my view that rights do not apply in an emergency imply that in a non-emergency, babies don't have any rights and that your baby lab is therefore a legitimate business? What am I missing?

- Bill

Post 108

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 8:53pm

�Why does my view that rights do not apply in an emergency imply that in a non-emergency, babies don't have any rights and that your baby lab is therefore a legitimate business? What am I missing?�

Oh, Bill.

I haven�t said that your view that rights do not apply in an emergency implies that in a non-emergency, babies don't have any rights and that my baby lab is therefore a legitimate business.

It is your total approach to rights that implies that babies don't have any rights and that my baby lab is therefore a legitimate business.

Look, you and Joe take all the time you want. When you are ready to demonstrate that the unwanted and purchased test subjects have rights, according to the criteria you have been insisting upon all along, I am all ears.

The cost of respecting those subjects will be lost income, medical devices and cures, organs, etc. The benefits will be, well, I�m sure you�ll tell me. Then you will prove that the benefits outweigh the costs and you will be out of the woods.

If that isn�t forthcoming, (and take all the time you want,) could I bother either of you for a �Sorry, couldn�t do it. I guess the baby labs really are moral according to my approach�?

Post 109

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 9:20pm

Joe,

I appreciate the time you have taken to provide a valuable perspective.

In post 81, you addressed my comments, saying, "You point out that there are conditions of existence required for man, and these are metaphysical. I note that you don't say rights are these conditions of existence. I assume that was intentional."

Yes, that is correct. I see rights as based upon the conditions of existence, but not the same as the conditions of existence.
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You continued, saying, "You then describe rights as: Our rights, then are the moral statement that no one has the right to interfere with these conditions of existence. It's a little poorly worded, because you refer to a right to interfere while you're defining rights. But presumably if we change the words to something like 'no one can have a moral justification to interfere', it might mean the same? Is that fair enough?"

Yes, that corrects my poor wording and preserves my intended meaning.

The conditions of existence are not moral statements, and to use them in a moral statement or as the basis of a moral
statement, we need to establish the their moral justification. You appear to be attempting that when you stated, "Since Objectivist morality is based on self-interest..." but "...based on..." lacks the needed precision for this discussion. Rand says, "The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics�the standard by which one judges what is good or evil�is man�s life, or: that which is required for man�s survival qua man." When we grasp that she is talking about a universal - of the life of all those animals we call man - this makes the standard objective whereas self-interest, with no further qualifications, could be subjective. After all, my self-interest and yours are going to conflict in day to day instances, but there should be no conflict at the level of universal rights (leaving aside the emergency situations for now).

We need a 'bridging' statement that will get from 'conditions of existence' (metaphysical) to self-interest or to individual rights (ethics). Something like, "Man's life is an end in itself and the life proper to man is the standard of moral values." At that point we could say it is in all men's interest to value the conditions of existence.

Stating that man's life is an end in itself is an assertion. It may be that it must be treated axiomatically, and any claims to the contrary would need to withstand scrutiny that examines them for being universal and being logically consistent. I don't see any opposing claims meeting that scrutiny! You asked what is the justification of the moral principle of rights. It is that if man has no rights to those conditions of existence, then there are no rights and one lands in a state of moral anarchy. References to self-interest can't get one out of there.

Next attention needs to be paid to the phrase, "Life proper to man." There are degrees of being biologically alive that are not desireable - like a life of constant, blindingly intense pain with no chance of that ever changing. So we know that while there may forms of being alive that are not of value, that there is also a range of states that are universally acceptable and tend towards an ideal. Below that universally acceptable level is 'life,' but not desired and certainly not usable as an ideal (purpose, goal) or as a standard. We don't know exactly where to draw whatever lines are needed to separate not acceptable from acceptable - yet.

The determination of what is required to have a 'life proper to man' arises out of man's nature and the conditions of existence. The most basic question is "What is man?" That answer will tell us what is proper to man - i.e., all men, because it is the universal, the statment of what holds for all who are human.

Our conversion of the "is" to a "should" requires only the assumption that all men's lives are an end in themselves. By attaching this 'purpose' we can make a rational bridge between what man is and what his rights are. What is critical is to stay at the universal level - at the level of all men. The difficulties will arise when we attempt to bridge from what is true for all men, to what is true for a particular man in a particular circumstance and not lose our logical integrity for the concept of individual rights.

Actions are not moral or immoral except in refererence to a moral principle. The moral principle is abstract and universal - it applies to all men. The action is the act of a man - the principle applies to all men. Self-interest is a measure of each act in the context of that specific man and that specific act, but having said that, it is not divorced from the fact that moral principles will also apply to that act even though they are from 'outside' (all men). Then is it possible to have an act that is in a person's self-interest AND immoral? I think the answer is yes under emergency situations (because choice is so constrained) and no under normal situations. But having said that, because of the subjective nature of self-interest, a person could value a moral principle higher than the immediate personal loss and see their self-interest as demanding that they suffer the physical loss. (In a snow storm a person refuses to break into a vacant cabin even through they risk frost-bite and possible loss of some toes or fingers -and the person does so because they value property rights and their integrity too highly to trade them for the risk. And they may have constructed their identity and character such that they are right as to which would damage them the most.)

Let me finish up these thoughts by returning to the idea of Objectivism's relation to self-interest. Well, the conditions of existence are my primary self-interest, for me. And because I'm a member of the human race I can adopt the position that my life is an end in itself. Using the standards that derive from what life is proper to man, I can make decisions as to what is or is not in my self-interest. Because those conditions of existence apply to all men, then the rights derived from them are universal and they would be constraints on my behavior if I ever believe self-interest and rights to conflict. And I should keep in mind that self-interest is determined rationally by applying a standard of value - the standard of value comes before and is used to create self-interest judgments.
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In your last few paragraphs you mentioned that you view rights as a principle of understanding... I'd like to reply to that in another post - in a day or so.

Steve

Post 110

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 9:55pm

Bill, you stated in post 82, If I have a right against your interfering with my freedom, then you are not morally justified in interfering with it. Correct? But if so, then if you are morally justified in interfering with it, which you would be if your survival requires it, then I do not have a right against your interference."

And here is the heart of the argument we are having: "...which you would be if your survival requires it..." This is making your survial the standard of value (and postulating an emergency situation so we have a context where this might arise).

If your individual survival is not the standard of value, then your argument fails. I maintain that it is man's life qua man that is the standard of value. This doesn't mean that person who has no choice but die or intiate an action that kills another won't or can't act on self-interest. And they may see their self-interest that way. And that might be the logical way to see it in that context. But there is no moral justification, because that depends upon a standard that is universal to all human lives and can only justify initiating violence against those that have abandoned morality through an initiation of violence.

When you use the word "justified" to explain an act that constitues an initiation of force, it should be changed so as to not be mistaken for "moral justification" - the individual acted as if they had no choice even though the act could not be morally justified. If you read the post I left for Joe, you will see my separation of standard of value and self-interest. Justification can refer to the logic of a unique situation, or it can refer to the judgment of the moral fitness of an action. In an emergency sitution there might be a claim to an action be logically justifiable even through it is not morally justified.

Criminals, in our normal, non-lifeboat world are always coming up with logical justifications - mostly full of illogical conclusions based upon unfounded premises and riddled with contradictions, but those acts will always fail to meet the measure of moral justification because that standard is universal and not dependent upon the situation or their self-interest, or their idea of their self-interest.

Nearly all of the time that which is moral and that which is in our self-interest are not in conflict - but not always. And in those rare occasions we have a hard choice because a rational morality based upon mans life is of great value to us as an individual, as a prerequisite for integrity, as part of our identity, as our guide in all those areas that don't conflict.

Post 111

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 10:27pm

Joe,

In post 105 you are discussing the 'rapist defends himself against a counter attack by his victim' situation, you say, "Using that term [morally justified] seems to be offensive because in traditional morality, moral status is everything, and moral status is measured by the group's judgment. Saying someone is "moral" means that they're a good person. Saying that they acted "morally" means they did something good, like helped a little old lady across the street. Good by what standard? Good by society's standards. Value to whom? Value to society."

Much of what you said is true. I agree with part of what you are saying... in two ways - that this is part of the social control that society gets from using of traditional morality, and that low self-esteem often makes the opinons of others take a higher value in the hierarchy and often moral statements hit this kind of person like they do most children when coming from a parent.

But there are other aspects to this... good reasons that moral status SHOULD be important - to an individual who is judging himself, to an individual who is judging another, and to an individual who is being judged by others. (It should go without saying that I also agree that reason must answer the questions of value to whom and by what standard)

Moral value judgments are the heart of what drives us - values are what we act to gain and keep, and moral principles determine our fit with others in an important dimension. Unless one yearns to live alone on a desert island it is reasonable to desire to be morally acceptable in reasonable company. We contest what rules, what laws, what actions are good, bad, right, wrong and our moral worth enpowers us and our moral judgments guide us. Half of self-esteem is a sense of self-worth - and that requires that we maintain a healthy relation to our code of moral values. To be oblivious to the moral judgments of those around us would not be healthy (any more than a craven desire to be liked would be). And the principle of psychological visibility also comes into play. The benefits of living in society are almost beyond calculation, and a universal moral code that is actively in play, judging and being judged, is required if the society is to work. A few examples: Pride is a form of judgment on ones own achievements, respect and admiration are of the achievements of others, friendship and opposition are both products of moral judgments. None of these have an objective base or a place in a rational ethical system if the standard of value isn't univeral - to the degree that it is, is the degree that society works well for the individual and the rewards grow greater and greater.

I would not want to live in a society based upon the moral anarchy of a 'code' that was not universal, any more than I'd want to live in a society with a universal morality that was not rational. I'm getting along okay in this society of mixed moralities, but I can sure imagine better!

Post 112

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 10:43pm

Jon wrote, "Bill�s approach doesn�t require making any distinction between exists and should be respected." Jordan asked, "Is that true?" Jon replied,

There is plenty of textual support for what I say of Bill�s approach, just read a few of his posts here and on the rapist-turned-moral-murderer thread, as well. Bill states over and over that IF one should respect another, then the other has a right, a right exists�while IF one should not respect another, then the other has no right.

Not exactly, Jon. The last part is true, but not the first. What I said is that if you have a right against my interfering with your freedom, then I am not justified in interfering with it, which implies that if I am justified in interfering with it, then you have no right against my interference. That doesn't mean, however, that if I am not justified in interfering with your freedom, then you do have a right against my interfering with it. That would be the fallacy of denying the antecedent. Logically, it doesn't follow from J implies not-R that not-J implies R. ~[(J --> ~R) --> (~J --> R)] While it is true that to deny the consequent is to deny the antecedent, it is not true that to deny the antecedent is to deny the consequent. I may not be justified in interfering with your freedom, because it would be too dangerous for me to do so, not because it is against the principle of individual rights for me to do so.

(And the standard of �should� is: One should respect if the benefits of respecting are greater than the costs, one should NOT respect if the benefits of respecting are less than the costs.

Yes, but in a normal social context, the benefits of respecting other people's freedom are greater than not respecting it, because one is better off living in a society in which the principle of freedom is respected than living in a society in which it is not respected. And the only way that principle can be respected is if each person, including oneself, chooses to respect it. In other words, in a normal social context, it's to one's benefit to have a principle of individual rights, and having a principle of individual rights implies the need to respect it.

Oh, and Jordan, what I meant by "moral right" versus "individual right" is the following: To say that I have a moral right to choose an action simply means that I am justified in choosing it. To say that I have an individual right to an action means that I must be allowed to take the action -- that others must not try to prevent me from taking it. I can have a moral right to an action without having an individual right to it if someone else has a moral right to try to prevent me from taking it. This would occur if I had a conflict of interest with the other person. In such a case, it would be in my interest to try to prevent him from acting in his interest, and it would be in his interest to try to prevent me from acting in mine. In other words, we would have a moral right to interfere with each other's freedom, but not an individual right to do so.

- Bill

Post 113

Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 11:14pm

Jon,

Your argument seems to be that the baby lab is justified, according to my ethical criterion, because the lab would be in my self-interest. But my argument is that, despite its presumed benefits to the rest of society, the lab isn't in my self-interest, because it is in my self-interest to live in a society that respects individual rights, and a baby lab would violate these rights. The reason it's in my self-interest to live in a society that respects individual rights is that in such a society my life and freedom would be respected.

As I said in a previous post, there's no difference in principle between sacrificing rights-bearing babies and sacrificing rights-bearing adults. If you can legitimately sacrifice the one, you can sacrifice the other. A society that disrespects the rights of some invalidates the rights of all.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/02, 11:25pm)

Post 114

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 12:52am

Steve wrote,

Bill, you stated in post 82, If I have a right against your interfering with my freedom, then you are not morally justified in interfering with it. Correct? But if so, then if you are morally justified in interfering with it, which you would be if your survival requires it, then I do not have a right against your interference."

And here is the heart of the argument we are having: "...which you would be if your survival requires it..." This is making your survival the standard of value (and postulating an emergency situation so we have a context where this might arise).

If your individual survival is not the standard of value, then your argument fails. I maintain that it is man's life qua man that is the standard of value. This doesn't mean that person who has no choice but die or initiate an action that kills another won't or can't act on self-interest. And they may see their self-interest that way. And that might be the logical way to see it in that context. But there is no moral justification, because that depends upon a standard that is universal to all human lives and can only justify initiating violence against those that have abandoned morality through an initiation of violence.

One's individual survival is not the standard of morality; it is the purpose of morality. A standard of morality applies to any human being in virtue of being human (which is what "qua man" means in the phrase "man's life qua man." Since Objectivists are ethical egoists, the (ultimate) purpose to which one should apply that standard is one's own life and happiness.

Perhaps an analogy will help. A standard of morality is similar to a standard of physical health. Different standards of physical health apply to different species of animal. The standard of physical health appropriate to a human being is different from one that is appropriate to a dog or a cat. One could say that the standard of canine medicine is what is appropriate to a dog's life qua dog, or the standard of feline medicine, what is appropriate to a cat's life qua cat. These standards would apply to any dog or cat, but the purpose of applying them would be to advance the health and survival of a specific dog or cat.

So, for example, if you were to bring your dog Fido to the vet, he would treat Fido according to the standard of canine medicine (namely, dog's life qua dog, or if it were your cat, according to the standard of cat's life qua cat. But the purpose would be to advance the life of your own dog or cat according to that standard. In just the same way, the ultimate purpose to which one should apply the standard of man's life qua man is one's own survival and happiness, not the survival and happiness of others.

When you use the word "justified" to explain an act that constitutes an initiation of force, it should be changed so as to not be mistaken for "moral justification" - the individual acted as if they had no choice even though the act could not be morally justified.

They mean the same thing in this context -- "justification" and "moral justification." Choosing that alternative which best advances one's survival is morally proper. As Rand notes, morality is simply a code of values to guide one's choices and actions, it's purpose being to advance one's own self-interest. Rand is an ethical egoist, not an ethical altruist or universalist. According to her, one's own happiness is one's highest moral purpose.

If you read the post I left for Joe, you will see my separation of standard of value and self-interest. Justification can refer to the logic of a unique situation, or it can refer to the judgment of the moral fitness of an action. In an emergency situation there might be a claim to an action be logically justifiable even through it is not morally justified.

No, this is a false dichotomy. Logically justifiable is morally justifiable.

Criminals, in our normal, non-lifeboat world are always coming up with logical justifications - mostly full of illogical conclusions based upon unfounded premises and riddled with contradictions, but those acts will always fail to meet the measure of moral justification because that standard is universal and not dependent upon the situation or their self-interest, or their idea of their self-interest.

A criminal (qua criminal) is not acting in his objective self-interest. If he were, he wouldn't be a criminal. His conduct is immoral, not because he is motivated by self-interest, but because his idea of what is actually in his self-interest is mistaken.

Nearly all of the time that which is moral and that which is in our self-interest are not in conflict - but not always.

No, this is wrong. Objectivists are ethical egoists. According to Objectivism, what is moral is what best serves one's own life and happiness qua human being (not qua dog or qua cat). It is unfortunate, but sometimes in emergency situations in which there are conflicts of interest, what best serves one's own life and happiness qua man -- one's own needs and values qua human being -- involves an interference with the freedom or the lives of others. In those cases, such an interference is perfectly moral.

- Bill

Post 115

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 1:05am

Steve,

Thanks for the response, and for trying to clarify your own position. It's the kind of response that allows some genuine discussion on the topic.

Alas, I disagree with your approach pretty thoroughly. I've been thinking hard about this topic for years and I hope I can communicate at least some of my objections.

Let me start by trying to find some common ground. I'll quote Rand:

Man must choose his actions, values and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man�in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

I like this quote because it ties together the ultimate value, man's own life, with the abstract concept of "that which is proper to man". You can't achieve, maintain, fulfill, or enjoy your ultimate value, your own life, without understanding understanding the kind of life that is proper to man in general. I think we both recognize the importance of these abstract principles in allowing us to understand what kind of life, at least in the abstract, that we should live. We still need to take those abstractions and apply them to our own specific lives, but without those abstractions we would be essentially blind. Making it more concrete, take the trader principle. By understanding that there is a harmony of interests, and that we can achieve mutual value by mutual trade, we can have a clearer vision of the kind of life that is appropriate. We should look to achieve value by creation and trade. We should value others as potential trading partners. We should seek a harmonious life with others by always asking ourselves how we can offer values to others and gain values in return.

These abstractions are useful, but the question is what purpose do they fulfill? From the quote above, the purpose is to "achieve, maintain, fulfill, and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life". Your life, not life in general, is your goal. Your ultimate value. The abstraction "man's life" is not the goal or the purpose. It is a cognitive tool that allows us to more clearly see what kind of life we should live. But we need to be clearer here. We're trying to choose our actions, values, and goals. We're trying to direct the course of our lives. We're not living our lives so that we can be compatible with "that which is proper to man". That's not the purpose. The purpose is to live our own lives well. Understanding the nature of man in the abstract allows us to more clearly see our full range of needs or desires, as well as capabilities. It's abstract knowledge that allows us to more readily see the entirety of our lives.

This is a tricky point, because it can easily be viewed in the reverse order. You could imagine that we start with this abstraction "that which is proper to man" or "life qua man" or whatever you want to call it, and we are simply judging whether our own lives are compatible with it. It would be like picking an arbitrary set of values, declaring them "good", and judging whether people conformed to it. The focus would be on the value-set, and your life would be supposed to follow it. This is like a moral code where your life is judged by how well it conforms to the moral code, instead of judging the moral code by how well it promotes your own life.

The alternative approach is to take your own life as the starting point, and to ask how can you promote it. Life is self-generated, self-sustaining action. What allows you more capability to self-generate your actions, and to make them more self-sustaining. Having food is good. Being able to produce food is better. Producing food is even better. Producing other life enhancing wealth is even better. Enhancing your mind, which is your primary means of survival, is even better. And it goes on and on. And it turns out, by understanding the nature of man in the abstract, we can more readily grasp our own individual needs and capabilities. "That which is proper to man" is not an arbitrary set of moral rules that we must obey, but an incredibly complex integration of facts about human needs, human interactions, human capabilities, our place in the world, and on and on. It is an integration of an incredible amount of abstract knowledge about the best methods humans have for survival.

To summarize so far, my position is that your own life is your ultimate value, and "that which is proper to man" is simply abstract principles that allow you to see more clearly how to pursue your own life by the standard of survival. This abstract information is not the goal of your life. It's a tool to better see what choices actually promote your life and which don't.

Now on to the standard of value. It's pretty clear that taking an abstraction like "man's life" allows us to formulate abstract principles. But is morality just a bunch of abstract rules that constrain our actions? It shouldn't be. The whole point of morality is that we need a method of guiding our choices. All of them. Every single one of them. Morality that just constrains our choices still leaves us with the need for a method of choosing. It's only doing a part of the job, and not very well. We need a way of making concrete choices. We need something much more specific than "that which is proper to man" or "life qua man".

"Hmmm...what should I work on today?"

"Hey! I know! You should be productive!"

"Can you be a little more specific!"

An abstract moral standard might be fine for generating abstract rules of thumb, or even moral principles, but it does nothing for your actual decisions except constrain them. To actually choose what you should do, you need to focus on your own life. You can say "I need to go to work today and try to accomplish Task X because, to my knowledge, this path leads my life in the best direction in the long term". And to do that you need to weigh your alternatives by how they actually impact your specific life, not whether they are merely compatible with life qua man. They do need to be compatible with life qua man. You can decide you're going to go on a killing spree for a few hours and hope that it won't have any long term consequence on your life! But merely being compatible with life qua man is not enough. There may be many actions that are compatible with "life qua man" and not at all compatible with your own specific life.

This whole post so far is just trying to show that your own life is the significant point, and "man's life" is simply one tool to help you choose more optimally in pursuing your own life. There's no reason to put the cart before the horse. My approach recognizes the need for the abstraction "man's life", along with all of the other abstract principles that make up the Objectivist morality. But all of these are simply tools to help you understand your choices so you can choose the one that is most optimal for your own life. You don't live in order to be moral. Your moral principles help guide your choices so you can live more optimally.

How do we know if an action is more optimal than another? Yes, we need a standard. Your own life is not technically a standard. A standard is a means of measurement. You need a way to measure the degree to which an action benefits or hurts you. Survival is that standard. We can measure whether an action increases our ability to survive, or decreases it. But it's not survival in some abstract sense. It's your own survival that matters. Does this action further your life or not, and to what extent? Does this other action benefit your life more or less than the first one?

So far, I haven't discussed any need to measure all men by the same standard. For me, moral judgment is not a primary. Choosing our own actions is the primary purpose of morality. Judging other people is simply another tool.

If judging people is primary, the purpose of morality is reversed and so is the method. If you're primarily interested in judging other men, then you need a different kind of moral standard. You need something that deals with only those needs or relationships that are true for all men. You need an abstract set of moral rules or values by which you can judge everyone. "Man's life", far from being too abstract, is now sufficiently abstract. Anything more specific would be useless.

But again, I don't see this is the primary purpose of ethics. At best, it's a narrow subdivision of ethics called moral judgment. We have to differentiate that from our own individual moral choices. When we're making choices, our goal should be to further our own life, not to achieve a moral status. The moral status may be useful, as we want people to trust us and live peacefully with us. But that's only one of many possible values. But confusing these makes people think that our method for choosing values or actions is rooted in moral judgment. We pick those value or actions that others (or ourselves) would consider "moral" or allow us to achieve a moral status. Moral status would then be the standard by which we choose our actions. It would be all flipped around. Instead of choosing the actions that best promote our lives, we'd be choosing the actions that best promotes our status as moral people.

Now from your posts, it appears it's this second function of morality that you're focusing on. When you say:

Then is it possible to have an act that is in a person's self-interest AND immoral?

It appears that you are focusing on the role of moral principle to judge other people (or yourself). But I maintain that moral principles are first and foremost guides to your own life, providing you additional means of making optimal choices. In this role, morality is not about status, but about guiding your choices. And to try to combine these two features (choosing and judging) would lead to judgment being primary, and choices being selected for the sake of the judgment. This is how people can suggest that it is moral to act against your rational self-interest, and immoral to act for your rational self interest. The two functions are confused.

And as I pointed out before, there's a good reason why there is this confusion. Morality is traditionally viewed as a means of moral judgment. It is not viewed as a means of choosing your actions, except to the extent you want to achieve a moral status. Traditional morality tells you all kinds of things you shouldn't do, but when it comes to deciding among all of the rest of the possibilities, it ignores that real human need. That's only the "practical" instead of the "moral". Morality doesn't provide you guidance for how to live. That's viewed as either unimportant or too obvious to be concerned with.

I think this is why there's such confusion about the rapist being "morally justified". It's viewed as saying that he should be judged by others as being moral, when that's not the case at all. He should be condemned from the beginning! But that's the view of morality as a form of judgment. As a form of choosing, his action is that which promotes his own life. If he were to apply a morality of self-interest, we would have to say that his morality justified it. Only the confusion about the two uses of morality confuse the topic so much.

If you understand these two different roles, and accept that they are different, then you should be able to understand the arguments Bill and I have made. Our focus has always been on the method of choosing, not on judging the status. If you can see that choosing actions comes first, and is based on our capability of surviving, instead of on our "moral status", you can see why our own lives are primary, and abstract principles or methods are simply tools and not ends.

Post 116

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 1:12am

Bill, I think it might be just a semantic issue causing confusion. Your nomenclature that is the confusing part.

As I said in a previous post, there's no difference in principle between sacrificing rights-bearing babies and sacrificing rights-bearing adults. If you can legitimately sacrifice the one, you can sacrifice the other. A society that disrespects the rights of some invalidates the rights of all.

Since you have said before that a person doesn't have rights if others aren't obligated to respect them, saying these babies or adults are "rights-bearing" sounds like you're assuming from the start that people are supposed to respect them.

The argument would make sense if you referred to "conditions of existence" referring to Steve's earlier posts. If society can decide to violate the conditions of existence of one group of people, then they can just as easily violate the conditions of existence for another group. A society that picks and chooses on a case by case basis which conditions of existence they will violate is a society where nobody's conditions of existence are secure.

Post 117

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 11:51am

Bill, you said, "One's individual survival is not the standard of morality; it is the purpose of morality. A standard of morality applies to any human being in virtue of being human (which is what "qua man" means in the phrase "man's life qua man." Since Objectivists are ethical egoists, the (ultimate) purpose to which one should apply that standard is one's own life and happiness."

I agree with everything you said in those two sentences, except one point: One's individual survival is only part of the purpose of morality. Morality extends far beyond just surviving. Morality's purpose is much more like the point Joe was making in post 81 where he said, "... moral principles are primarily cognitive." Their purpose is to enable us to think, and therefore act efficiently in a realm that would otherwise be closed to us. Clearly, if we can't survive, all else is moot, but the kind of thinking that is a rational evaluation of 'for us' versus 'against us' - and being able to carry that to sophisticated levels - so that we can flourish - is a better way to see the purpose of morality. I think we agree on all of this, because you expanded the purpose far beyond 'survival' to 'life and happiness' at the end of the sentence.

So, we agree that morality has a purpose, and it has a standard, and that the standard is universal, and that the purpose is individual (my purpose will take me to some different places than yours will take you). You are I are both humans (and we agree that a moral standard is and must be universal) so we have the same standard applied to our own lives. But the purpose I should have is my life and happiness, not yours or others. At one level I can only have my own purpose, even if I foolishly try to make it identical to someone elses, I can't - but that is just psychology. Philosophically, my purpose is my life - the fact that it is a universal standard is the ethical part of the ethical egoism.
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We derive 'rights' from (and as part of) the standard of value. They don't arise out of our self-interest ('self' as our unique singular, individual being), because they are already 'in existence' as a property of being human. In effect, I was born with them, even though I need to discover that fact to function fully. They are not intrinsic in me, they are cognitively derived from human nature (conditions of existence). I write this because you said, "Choosing that alternative which best advances one's survival is morally proper." But these lifeboat situations are vexing specifically because they cause a conflict between our purpose (self-interest) and the rights derived from the standard of morality. It wouldn't be an issue but for the fact that a situation can appear to make it immoral for a person to pursue what appears to be their self-interest. I agree with Rand that, one's own happiness is one's highest moral purpose. And I agree with her that one never has the right to initiate force and that there is no such thing as the right to violate a right. These all work flawlessly together in anything resembling normal circumstances. They all arise from a common root which is man's capacity to choose - the real base of morality. It appears that all of our questions come about when the circumstances severely constrict the choices available.
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Where you say, "Logically justifiable is morally justifiable" I'm not sure how to answer. They are two different contexts being measured - that is, in one case when a person says, "I can justify my logic", they are not saying the same thing as when they say, "I can justify the morality of my actions." I know that you know the difference between these diciplines, so I assume you are saying, they are the same because that which is a logical means of attaining THIS goal is, because of the goal involved, also moral - and in that limited sense they are the same. But, here we go back to the difference between a standard and the purpose. If morality is a cognitive pursuit, as well as a status that we can assign, a judgment we can make, then when we are faced with the choice to violate the rights of another (which we are faced with all the time - but don't consider because it isn't an emergency and we aren't criminals or thugs)... when we are faced with the choice, we choose to forego the alledged benefit of their money, or getting them out of our way, or whatever, because we recognize a greater value is achieved, personally, by staying logical and moral. But if circumstances take away a great many choices and leave only initiation of force or loss of our life, then we are in a conflict (not a false dichotomy) between standards that defined and created our moral base and that makes possible life in society, and our purpose at a fundamental level.
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We agree that a criminal is wrong in understanding what his objective self-interest is. But when you say, "His conduct is immoral, not because he is motivated by self-interest, but because his idea of what is actually in his self-interest is mistaken." Actually, we are immoral when we engage in some form of mental evasion, which is normally what criminals do. And by means of this evasion, he acts in ways that are counter to his objective self-interest, which is also immoral. But we are not immoral because we are mistaken. And more importantly, the criminal violates rights of others which is immoral. Again, there is the reference to the universal standards we derive from our common conditions of existence. It isn't altruistic to pay attention to, and treat seriously, the rights of others. A rational, ethical egoist has powerful selfish interests in a society based upon individual rights. That makes observing these rights in our self-interest. Thus, we have to prioritize them, as values of ours, as an individual, along with all of our other values. These values have a unique status in that they are tied to the standard of values, we can't throw them out, or violate them, and retain morality for ourselves.
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You said, "...what is moral is what best serves one's own life and happiness qua human being..." Yes, we agree on this. I see it as a universal standard (arising from our nature as human beings) which we apply to our purpose (our own individual life and happiness). But then you say, referring to an emergency, "...what best serves one's own life and happiness qua man -- one's own needs and values qua human being -- involves an interference with the freedom or the lives of others. In those cases, such an interference is perfectly moral. " Here we disagree. If you abandon the standard, despite holding to ones purpose, you have left the field of morality. You can't justify the value of your life without reference to the conditions of existence that your emergency act is forcing you deprive another of - you can't claim to be moral without creating an underlying contradiction. Self-interest is moral because of the standards, and it is not intrinsically moral.

Post 118

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 12:20pm

Thanks, Bill, for explaining. First, some trivialities. I see the difference between your use of moral and individual rights. I don't like your use of those terms. Too weird. You might find some legal jargon helpful here: "excuse" and "justification." Both excuse and justification indicate lack of moral culpability, but defending against excused behavior is legally okay, while defending against justified behavior is not. These terms could be easily appropriated to the moral sphere. But whatever. I get what you're saying.

Second, here's the dig in, lightly to begin with. (We might've hashed this one out way back when on the now defunct We-The-Living list-serve.) Whether one's right exists isn't predicated on whether someone else decides to respect it. That would entail a second-hand view of rights -- that I have rights only if others decide to respect them. Consider instead the first-hand view of rights -- that rights are those actions optimally conducive to furthering one's life, irrespective of whether others decide to respect them. Whether others decide to respect these rights wouldn't change the fact that they exist. It would just change the risk of whether they are violated.

***

To All, I haven't really seen my view fully espoused in this thread, so briefly, I'd say that if violating people's rights is optimally conducive to furthering your life, then you should go on and violate their rights. It might be seriously psychologically damaging, sub-human, whatever, but if that's seriously your best option for furthering your life -- and yikes if it is -- then hey have at it!

Of course, the law will help keep violating others rights from being your best option. In my view, it's incumbent on the law to design all sorts of consequences to help keep as your best option an option that entails respect for others' rights.

Jordan

Post 119

Friday, April 3, 2009 - 1:02pm