must trade be to mutual benefit

Under Objectivism, all exchanges must be voluntary, but must they also be mutually beneficial? What if one party benefits while another is (objectively) harmed. Examples might include a party who sells himself into slavery, or enters into a duel that he'll lose, or buys drugs that will ruin his life, or buys a gun to kill himself with. Should the other party refrain from entering that trade? I have two more questions after this one, depending on the answers I get.

Jordan

Post 1

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 4:31pm

Yes, it must be mutually beneficial, but that isn't to say one or both parties need to be mind readers.

Post 2

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 4:53pm

Are you speaking legally or morally?

Legally, you can do what you like so long as there is no violation of consent. You have no responsibility to look out for the other.

Morally you should be acting for your own good, and should expect the other to be doing so as well. You have no duty to act in the other person's interest, except that a happy rational repeat customer is in your own interest.

I bought some used books today at the library. One table held bother hardcover and paperback books for a dollar. The other held paperbacks, three for a dollar. The lady at the register tried to charge me a dollar for three books I had taken from the dollar a book table. I told her she was mistaken and paid the full price. Not because I cared about her, but because I cared about me. That is what is called being magnanimous - big souled.

Jordan, I suggest you supply us with some clear cut examples on both sides and then a bordeline case. That way it will be much clearer as to what is being discussed.

Post 3

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 5:07pm

Hi Ted,

Morally, not legally.

I supplied what I thought were some clear-cut examples. I'm not concerned with borderline cases here. I want to know about ethics when it's *clearly* the case that one party will benefit while the other is harmed.

Aside, paying the wrong price (i.e., that price not agreed upon) would destroy the *voluntary* aspect of the exchange, right?

Jordan

Post 4

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 5:36pm

I meant a detailed case study as an example, not just "buys drugs that will ruin his life," but maybe you could specify who, the doctor, the pharmacist, what each person knows and how he represents the transaction. For example, the drug dealer's responsibility is to sell you pure drugs at an honest amount, to deliver when you call and not to get you in trouble with the authorities. The doctor's responsibility is different.
(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/02, 5:38pm)

Post 5

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 6:29pm

For example, the drug dealer's responsibility is to sell you pure drugs at an honest amount, to deliver when you call and not to get you in trouble with the authorities. The doctor's responsibility is different.

(*snort!*)

Post 6

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 4:44pm

Ted,

I'd rather not get distracted with extensive examples at this point. I don't think they are needed to determine whether trades ought to always be mutually beneficial.

I was thinking some might say that mutual benefit isn't necessary because we needn't be our brother's keeper, but that others might argue *for* mutual benefit because we ought not play such a controlling role in our brother's destruction either.

I'm fine if you or others would like to identify particular circumstances in voluntary trades where these views would(n't) apply.

Jordan

Post 7

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 5:50pm

But that's the thing, Jordan, the Objectivist epistemological theory requires us to be able to reduce our abstracts to concretes. It's not a distraction, it's a precondition. Otherwise you're dealing with floating abstractions. (Peikoff would call this rationalism if you emailed him this thread.) What do you mean "benefit?" Unless we know that it's actually inappropriate to try to answer. The most I could say at this point is yes and no, depending. I'm not against the question if you or anyone else wants to provide a borderline case.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/04, 6:36pm)

Post 8

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 6:30pm

How about a misrepresentation by a buyer that has nothing to do with the quid of the quid pro quo�only with the �story� as to the �whats and whys�?

A friend has bought several very valuable cars over the years, for a song, from perfectly uninformed owners. He drives a lot (sales.) Typically, he will see a bumper through a barn door, stop and knock on the house door. Little old lady all alone. She can�t believe her luck that a scrap metal hound saw that old junker while driving by�she�s delighted that he will take it away and she will get $200. Now he goes and looks. He says most times it IS junk, so he makes some excuse and leaves. But he has bought mustangs, VW bugs from the fifties and a Porsche from the sixties this way. Apparently the individuals with ambitious restoration plans have moved on, died, whatever, and forgot to tell her that the junk in the barn will be very valuable in time.

He lies about who and what he is, and about his plans for the quo�but not about the quid; the $200 she will get.

Post 9

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 6:47pm

Well, Gran didn't lie, but this the same with her getting her antique furniture... what wrong with it? [is also like 'insider trading']

Post 10

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 7:05pm

Didn�t someone post recently wondering about�was it a railroad?�acquiring property by sending out buyers to act like something/someone else to acquire most of it before any sellers would catch on that it was a railroad buying, (which catching-on would clue them in to hold-out for more $?)

Am I crazy, in the last month or two?

Post 11

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 7:21pm

Ted,

Too often when I provide examples, discussers get bogged down in their details and definitions at the expense of distilling principles. I'm trying to avoid that. Principles are best identified and established with *clear* examples, which I provided. Principles are usually tested and refined with borderline cases, which are premature at this point.

If you think there are conditions in a clear example that a principle ought to account for, then please do share them. If you think there's an issue with the meaning of "benefit" or any other term, by all means define the term. I'd rather work at it that way.

Jon,

The friend is "taking advantage of" (preying on?) Gran's ignorance, but does that count as harmful to Gran? She's still getting paid. She's just not benefiting *as much as* she would've had she known what the friend knows about the value of the car. (We might need to get sidetracked on appropriate theories of harm.)

I'd prefer to work with clear cases of harm, but if discussers find this case suffices as such an example, then so be it.

Jordan

Post 12

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 8:45pm

Jordan,

Going from your examples, I think that the guy who is a bad shot but doesn�t know it, and agrees to a duel, deserves to die.

And the slave-to-be who �sells� himself �negotiates the price at which he will become property�has he considered that the take goes back to the buyer?

Post 13

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - 10:39pm

Jordan,

More seriously now, Ted is right to ask that you fill-in an example more fully. Maybe I can help. Let�s do your �party who [�] buys a gun to kill himself with. Should the other party refrain from entering that trade?�

You must appreciate that this is incomplete? Does he have an excruciatingly painful disease, no hope for recovery, no kids, no unfinished business, no reason to value another day of screaming in agony? The seller may be an angel. I am guessing you don�t mean that.

I�ll fill it in for you, and you can let us know if it works for you, if it�s �what you meant��

Let�s stipulate that�
The buyer is merely going through a rut, he feels bad right now, bad enough to �do it� � but there is no real need to do it and the gun seller knows all this. He knows perfectly well what the buyer intends to do with the gun and knows perfectly well that providing a gun to this person is NOT �helping� them, as would be the case for the objectively pained and doomed person. He knows all this, but he wants the $400 anyway.

Is that what you meant? Can we use this, Jordan? Ted?

Post 14

Thursday, November 5, 2009 - 5:14am

Jon,

What a terribly improbable (barely even possible) scenario.

Ed

p.s. Sounds good, though.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/05, 5:15am)

Post 15

Thursday, November 5, 2009 - 8:49am

Jon, your car buying friend could be called a speculator rather than a businessman. He's not opening up a business with a set location and developing the reputaion and repeat customers who can come with that. He's engaging in one time trades with the hope of a nice return.

Legally, of course, there is nothing wrong with what the car buyer is doing so long as he skirts outright fraud. The issue is this. He is making a nice profit. The people who buy the cars from him arre quite happy with their acquisition. And even the seller is happy for the cash on hand. But it is dubious whether you can say that the seller truly benefited. In cases like this the seller is taking an actual loss, and is happy for the below market cash payment only due to his ignorance.

Now, the seller is presumably an adult. It would be hard in our culture not to know that if you wish to sell an item you find out it's value and sell it to a reputable dealer. The mere fact that someone comes knocking on your door asking to acquire something should be a hint to you that it has value. The seller in these cases is morally negligent.

There is a case to be made that if the seller represents himself as a junk dealer that he is committing fraud. Is he telling the buyer that his estimate is based on the value of the metal alone, and does not represent an analysis of the value of the vehicle as a vehicle? I myself would say caveat venditor.

As for the speculator, money isn't everything. There is also self respect. A businessman who makes a quality product and earns repeat business with educated customers is proud because of the value he creates. The speculator is depending on not having repeat customers. He is depending upon the ignorance of the people he trades with. Is he supposed to take joy in how stupid that old lady who sold her car was? You'd have to have a callous nature to engage in this sort of thing, a job for predatory young men high on testosterone, for hustlers and sociopaths. It's a much better occupation than violent robbery, so in that sense it's a way for anti-social people to sublimate their natures in the way that Dexter sublimates his violent sexuality into vigilantism and crime investigation rather than simple serial killing.

The biggest question is for the buyer. He has to examine his own nature. Is the activity below him? Should he be investing in an actual establishment with repeat customers? Or is it above him, a way for him to be happy granted his predatory nature?

Post 16

Thursday, November 5, 2009 - 8:41pm

Jon,

Your fill-in is fine. Do whatever it takes to paint a picture of a voluntary trade that harms one of the parties, then tell me if Objectivism is cool with it, or if you need to add brush strokes to answer that question, then have at it. The canvas is yours. I don't want to guess at what people will take as objectively harmful or beneficial, nor what additional factors are required for effectively evaluating the ethics of the trade.

Jordan

Post 17

Friday, November 13, 2009 - 8:57am

I think Jordan has posed a perfectly valid question, and the answer is that trade doesn't necessarily benefit both parties objectively. People can make voluntary choices, including buying and selling, that are against their objective self-interest. Objectivism would certainly agree with that (e.g., the alcoholic with a bad liver who continues to buy and consume alcohol).

But what is normally meant by saying that both parties "benefit" from a voluntary trade is that they get what they value more than what they give up. If they didn't, they wouldn't engage in the trade. Of course, any form of fraud or deception regarding what either party is receiving would negate the voluntariness of the transaction. A truly "voluntary" trade is one in which there is no force or fraud.

- Bill

Post 18

Friday, November 13, 2009 - 2:29pm

Given that statement, Bill, I am curious of your position on the comments in the defamation/intellectual property poll thread.

Post 19

Friday, November 13, 2009 - 4:57pm