About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unreadBack one pagePage 0Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Forward one pageLast Page


Sanction: 7, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 7, No Sanction: 0
Post 60

Monday, April 11, 2005 - 8:10amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Alec wrote:

"...as only anti-Americans and severely deluded fools think *we* were the agressors."

I love America. But in the context of the Iraq War, the U.S. government (not "we") clearly was the aggressor. Did Saddam Hussein attack America, or even threaten to do so? No. He's an evil guy (as all dictators are), but detesting America isn't force. Thus, the Iraq War was an offensive war perpetrated by U.S. politicians. Since when did Objectivists start equating American politicians (whose powerlust the U.S. Constitution was created to restrain) with the noble concept of America itself?

And before any so-called Objectivist replies that we were attacked on 9/11, I say, "Yes, but not by Iraqis." That region is a haven for mysticism and gross  irrationality, but it isn't rational to view all Middle Easterners as though they're responsible for 9/11, either. Those who uncritically swallow propaganda that paints all Arabs as violent, anti-American crusaders are the truly "deluded".


Sanction: 8, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 8, No Sanction: 0
Post 61

Monday, April 11, 2005 - 8:23pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Sigh.

I haven't the patience nor the desire to continue the "initiation" argument with people who are too deluded to remember the most pedestrian rudiments of the concept (by their logic, if a policeman arrests a man who killed his wife, the policeman is the initiator because after all the man didn't attack him [!!!]). But I want to describe a scenario that directly illustrates what's going on here.

A man living in your neighborhood has murdered several of his close neighbors, including his own family, and he has announced that he wants you dead, too. Once in the past he hijacked the neighborhood's entire power supply. Now there is conclusive evidence that he either has or is acquiring the means by which to fulfill his wishes to murder you and your family. Also, several hitmen have been seen visiting his house. You decide to take him out first.

There are some humans in this world -- who call themselves Objectivists, no less -- who would think that *you* initiated the force in that situation.

What to do, but cry?

Alec


Post 62

Monday, April 11, 2005 - 8:29pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

It is impossible to aggress against Saddam.

 

Saddam was the quintessential aggressor. He aggressed against neighboring nations again and again. He aggressed against his own countrymen in unspeakable ways. Anyone – victim or not – who takes down Saddam is not an aggressor. Whether it is prudent is another matter but whether it is morally permissible and praiseworthy is beyond respectable debate.

 


Post 63

Monday, April 11, 2005 - 8:31pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
You beat me to the post Alec! And well said, my man.

Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 64

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 12:07amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I haven't the patience nor the desire to continue the "initiation" argument with people who are too deluded to remember the most pedestrian rudiments of the concept (by their logic, if a policeman arrests a man who killed his wife, the policeman is the initiator because after all the man didn't attack him [!!!]).


What if the policeman wipes out a neighborhood in the process? Did he not initiate force against the innocent? Or is a police officer in pursuit of a bad guy allowed to inflict any damage on innocents, even if it is an inevitable result of his actions, so long as he is not specifically trying to?

But I want to describe a scenario that directly illustrates what's going on here.

A man living in your neighborhood has murdered several of his close neighbors, including his own family, and he has announced that he wants you dead, too. Once in the past he hijacked the neighborhood's entire power supply. Now there is conclusive evidence that he either has or is acquiring the means by which to fulfill his wishes to murder you and your family. Also, several hitmen have been seen visiting his house. You decide to take him out first.


Of course, this does not "directly illustrate what's going on" with the war.

*You are not analogous to the U.S. government. The government is not the same as an individual. It funds all its operations coercively. If you were going after someone threatening you, you wouldn't have the right to steal from others to conduct your preemptive attack.

*There was no "conclusive evidence" that Saddam had any capability, nor any potential for acquiring the capability, to attack America. Nor does it make a lick of sense to assume he would have even if he could have, given that it would have been diplomatic and actual suicide.

*Even if there were "conclusive evidence" that this hypothetical murderer had the means and motive to attack you—and even if, for the sake of argument, we momentarily accept the collectivist notion that the U.S. government is the same as "America"—neither you in your hypothetical, nor America or its government in our real-life scenario, has the right to bomb cities, censor people, enact curfews, establish roadblocks, torture people, or kill innocents to pursue a potential threat.

*To the extent that your analogy can be stretched so as to pertain to the U.S. government and Saddam, it's quite hypocritical for someone to go after a murderer, killing innocents in the process, when he helped fund that murderer during his worst acts of murder.

There are some humans in this world -- who call themselves Objectivists, no less -- who would think that *you* initiated the force in that situation.


Dropping a bomb on a city and hitting innocent people who are no threat to you, your property, or anyone else, is initiating force. It is force, and the entity dropping the bomb is initiating it, far more than the people being killed by the bomb.

Post 65

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 12:29amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
All yours now, Jason. I got my fill of dealing with mentalities like this when I volunteered to play with the kids in Special Ed back in the 3rd grade.

(Edited by Alec Mouhibian on 4/12, 12:30am)


Post 66

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 12:54amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
George:

--------------
I said: "A nameless, faceless global war on scary technology."
--------------
To which you replied: "Ed, that was bullshit. Unless you are blind the enemy has both a face and a name.

The face is that of primitive Islamo-Fascism and its bastard child; Terrorism."
--------------

George, I believe that your final conclusion above is correct (primitive Islamo-Fascism and Terrorism are the "face of the devil" on this planet today)--and so I will not bother asking you to marshal any premises for that conclusion. I hope that you will integrate my expressed confirmation of this, also (because then you will better know how to intellectually respond to me).

In fact, I'd like a Global War on Mysticism; followed by a Global War on Subjectivism (something that would SHARPLY increase, after largely eradicating mysticism off the face of this earth).

It's just that I believe that a justifiable war on "primitive Islamo-Fascism and Terrorism" would look different than the current one. I freely admit of imperfect knowledge regarding this doubt of mine--and I've outlined some reasons for this still-doubting-without-all-the-facts-in perspective, in previous posts in this thread.


--------------
The name to the face belongs to the parents that gave birth to him and continue to support him: they go by many names; Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran or North Korea. Of course, today his options in last names has been *reduced* just a tad!
--------------

George, I agree (that we beat the dickens out of a real bully)--and that that is NOT, in principle, any kind of an immoral thing to do.


--------------
Ed, you are above this nonsense.
--------------

That's debatable.


--------------
Argue until you are blue in the face with me about fighting our enemies in reference to the method, order, planning or whatever - and I will grant you that you may have legitimate concerns ...
--------------

Eh? I thought that that was WHAT I WAS ARGUING about (I'll have to go back to previous posts and "check my premises"). And yes, I'm a little blue in the face by now.


--------------
You are forced to damn an America as a half-honest and half-crooked policeman that has taken a bribe, and then declare that on that basis he has lost all his moral authority to stop a rapist and murderer.
--------------

God-damn well said, George! Damn you are a good debator! But I don't want to damn America--I love America.

Do you know what my definition of love is George? I discovered it while reading M. Scott Peck. Love is the will to extend yourself for the growth of the subject (of your love). If you are loving yourself, then you cultivate, in yourself, the habits of virtue that lead to your own personal growth. If you are loving others, then you help direct, challenge, appreciate, and reward them for their growth attempts.

I want the US to grow (because it is lovable)--but I don't want the US to grow in ways that make it less lovable; and I'm still not sure that it is (or isn't, for that matter). And that disturbs me immensely.

Picture a father with a daughter he loves immensely. Picture his delight at watching her growing up. Now picture her growing up too fast, George. Picture her staying out much later than children her age, with kids much older than herself ... do you see where this picture is leading? You can get wrong "growth" in both rate and direction. Wrong growth can undermine good like nothing else can.

George, you've used colorful words to express your view, and I am about to return the favor.

Here are some quotes that speak to my point about "wrong growth" (I expect some SOLO-ists to become absolutely enraged by them; and I make no apologies for that which is in their control). This is my last weapon. I honestly did not think that I would have to use it, but with George's strong, intimidating post; I feel like a cat backed into a corner ... Attack of the Quotes:

--------------
"The chief beginning of evil, is goodness in excess" -Menander

"Never let man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means. Any other issue is doubtful; the evil effect on himself is certain" -Robert Southey

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -H. L. Mencken

"A radical error of the modern democratic gospel is that it promises, not the good life of this world, but the perfect life of heaven." -Walter Lippmann

"Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil." -Robert A. Heinlein

"The very act of sacrifice magnifies the one who sacrifices himself to the point where his sacrifice is much more costly to humanity than would have been the loss of those for whom he is sacrificing himself." -Andre' Gide

"It is the irony of democracy that the responsibility for the survival of liberal democratic values depends on elites, not masses." -Thomas R. Dye and Harmon Ziegler

"[Communism represents] a necessity of sacrificing the idea of what is excellent for the individual to the ideal of what is excellent for the whole." -Thomas DeQuincy

"Politicians are not people who seek power in order to implement policies they think necessary. They are people who seek policies in order to attain power." -Evelyn Waugh

"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power." -John Steinbeck

"Politics is always a struggle for power, disguised and modified by prudence, reason, and moral pretext." -William Hurrell Mallock

"He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft." -James Russell Lowell

"The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of a people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy." -Adolf Hitler

"The history of the totalitarian regimes is reflected in the evolution and perfection of the instruments of terror and more especially the police." -Carl J. Friedrich

"Any doctrine that ... weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action ... helps create attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state." -John Dewey

"Integration of government agencies and coordination of authority may be called the keystone principle of fascist administration." -Lawrence Dennis

"All executive power--from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators--has the outward appearance of efficiency." -William O. Douglas

"It is not power itself, but the legitimization of the lust for power, which corrupts absolutely." -R. H. S. Crossman
--------------


Now, I'll be the first to admit that these quotes don't prove anything. Some of these can even be interpreted to support our current war efforts. And there are certainly many other quotes that would rationally be interpreted as supporting the current war.

The point of the quotes was to provide counter-intuitive instances of "wrong growth"--and that is all.

To some of you: Please do not be upset by the leaps of logic that you took (without my express consent) while reading these quotes. For instance, some of you may note a hideous messenger or two, from above. I searched for quotes first, not names (I did not seek out hideous messengers to cast that stale, irrational inference of "guilt by association"--and if I did not, then I expect you to exercise the sufficient rationality to refrain from the same thought error).


--------------
But Ed, there is no equivalency between the flawed West, and the primitive tyrannies, its not close, it’s not even in the same fucking ballpark.
--------------

Agreed.


--------------
Stop providing the moral sanction that the low life cowards and anti-Americans of LewRockwell and others use.
--------------

At this point, George, I don't care whose saying what--I just care that what's said is right. And I'm the one who decides, with my sovereign, rational mind; whether something can be known to be right, or not (though I often seek out the discoveries of others, before I find myself in a position to know what can be known to be right).

To be honest George, I haven't yet browsed through the LewRockwell site. And, by merely approximately trusting your comments on them--I don't feel a great need or urge to go and browse that site now, anyway.

Yeah sure, if I was solely looking for confirmation bias and a comfortable social metaphysics--then I'd be (from what you've said of them) looking through that site, in order to "confirm" any "biases" of mine.

George, I'm sorry if anything I've said here confirms some of their articles or reasoning or whatever-the-hell, but that was not my intention. My exposure to them is second-hand through this website, which I STILL believe (and believe that I can logically PROVE) is the most important website in the world.

I'm tired now George, you've drained me--thanks for that.

Ed










Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 14, No Sanction: 0
Post 67

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 2:11amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Alec,

If I may, I would like to make some comments.

You will never have a decent conversation with one of these pseudo-libertarians so long as you use their own arguments.

Pseudo-libertarians have erected a new almighty God called non-initiation of force and extol it to the four winds as proof of their moral superiority, regardless of context. They crave this posturing (it feels good to be a kickass patriot without having to do anything but bitch) and have become quite adept at hair-splitting at the initiation/non-initiation of force game. (Sometimes they pepper it with individual rights to make it sound better.)

They refuse to see the difference between

(a) an invasion of conquest to annex and sack a country, and

(b) an invasion to dismantle and destroy the military infrastructure of a very dangerous regime and then hand the country back over to the invaded population.

They would have you believe that both fall into the same morally inferior category (force was initiated) and no argument on earth will sway them to look at any reality but their own party line.

This blind servitude to non-initiation of force reminds me a lot of how Altruism works. The principle is taken so deeply into every corner of thought that it becomes more important than reality itself.

Here's the catch. Reality is the absolute. Not a principle of human conduct. 

This last needs to be based on a context (i.e. reality), including a bunch of people, to be valid.

But checking the non-initiation of force premise against reality on that kind of philosophical level if far beyond the analytical desires of a pseudo-libertarian. This creature loves his moral-superiority-without-effort candy and will say most anything to keep it.

You, Alec, are quick to call people names. Please yourself. We all have our own particular rhetorical style. But in the case of pseudo-libertarians, you play right into their hands like that. They dismiss you and hold up the bad manners to whomever they are trying to convince as proof that the "other side" is impotent - it has no arguments but name-calling.

I have not yet completely arrived at the "beneath contempt" stance for all those against the Iraq invasion. (At this rate, though, I might be there soon - my patience is really wearing thin.) I still believe in the power of persuasion among rational people. However, I won't play the pseudo-libertarian game anymore.

We have to keep madmen from blowing up the world. That is the real job to get done with these wars. Let pseudo-libertarians bitch and swat them out of the way of they get underfoot.

I haven't seen one yet able to argue convincingly against someone saying that dangerous madmen will not be tolerated. Period. Such madmen will be disarmed whether they like it or not.

When faced with a statement like that, pseudo-libertarians will not argue on the same level. Instead, they always run back to their new God, The Non-Initiation of Force Principle, and try to draw you into talking about it.

Once the world is a bit safer, maybe we will be able to pay a little more attention to these misguided souls. But not now. Just swat 'em out of the way. Bombs don't wait for anything at exploding time.

There's real work to be done and the people who are doing it for us need our intellectual support.

Michael


Post 68

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 2:49amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Alec—very well done. I'm sorry I left you & GWC to battle alone (not that you needed help), but I long since arrived at your conviction that battling the Saddamites is futile. The vast bulk are scum. The remainder are useful idiots.

Then there are those who get more indignant about my calling Saddamites "Saddamites" than about Saddamy. Galt preserve us!

Altogether, an unedifying spectacle.

Thank *you* Alec for your passionate decency.

Linz

Post 69

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 3:30amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

It's far too tedious to rehash these old arguments. Whenever you make one point - you get spammed with fifty more. I made a statement that you can’t aggress against Saddam. I assume Mr. Gregory concedes this by bringing in other considerations of what is part and parcel of a war but avoided at all costs in a civil disturbance. Let me ask you Mr. Gregory the following simple question: do you think we aggressed against Hitler and Nazi Germany?

 

(Edited by Jason Pappas on 4/12, 3:31am)


Sanction: 6, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 6, No Sanction: 0
Post 70

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 6:03amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
To the extent that your analogy can be stretched so as to pertain to the U.S. government and Saddam, it's quite hypocritical for someone to go after a murderer, killing innocents in the process, when he helped fund that murderer during his worst acts of murder.


I try and stay out of debates on this topic, but I just have to ask about this one.

You remind us quite correctly above that it is an error to think of “America,” the U.S. government, and the individuals who live in America as a single entity. But isn't it just as much of an error to think of all the administrations of the U.S. government, present and past, as a single entity?

Bush and his administration are not the same entity as any of the past administrations who supported Hussein's government in the past. They are different entities, with different political agendas. So you can't treat them as a unit and say that Bush bears the responsibility for his predecessors' decisions, and that for him to act contrary to those decisions is “hypocritical.”

Post 71

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 7:11amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"Bush and his administration are not the same entity as any of the past administrations who supported Hussein's government in the past. They are different entities, with different political agendas. So you can't treat them as a unit and say that Bush bears the responsibility for his predecessors' decisions, and that for him to act contrary to those decisions is “hypocritical.”"

Damned good point, Nature, thanks for joining in.


Post 72

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 7:15amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"All yours now, Jason. I got my fill of dealing with mentalities like this when I volunteered to play with the kids in Special Ed back in the 3rd grade."

That was very kind of your parents. If you ever wish to explain how theft isn't theft or murder isn't murder when the government does it, though, please join back in.


Post 73

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 7:42amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Good grief, Alec. That policeman analogy was terrible. I'd respond, but Anthony already demolished it thoroughly. I appreciate the attempt though. Don't cry.

And I apologize for stating facts, but right now President Bush and Congress are aiding brutal dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria, just to name a few. How does that square with the government's righteous anti-terror crusade? Blank out.

As for WWII, I think Ayn Rand said it best in The Roots of War: "Germany and Russia needed war; the United States did not and gained nothing." Incidentally, I recommend that all Objectivists read that article. It might clarify some things.


Post 74

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 7:51amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
"They crave this posturing (it feels good to be a kickass patriot without having to do anything but bitch) and have become quite adept at hair-splitting at the initiation/non-initiation of force game."

Those silly anti-war Objectivists especially, treating ethics as principled!

[ examples of country invading country for different motives ]
"They would have you believe that both fall into the same morally inferior category (force was initiated) and no argument on earth will sway them to look at any reality but their own party line."

An individualist will see beyond a collective claim of 'US aggressed against Iraq' or 'Iraq aggressed against US'. Individuals use force against individuals, and initiation/retaliation become meaningless concepts when trying to treat a collective as the primary unit.

"You, Alec, are quick to call people names. Please yourself. We all have our own particular rhetorical style. But in the case of pseudo-libertarians, you play right into their hands like that."

In the case of aruing against anyone, really.

"I haven't seen one yet able to argue convincingly against someone saying that dangerous madmen will not be tolerated."

That strong of a requirement doesn't even hold for the non-libertarian, non-Objectivist US govt. Kim and Castro are still in power, and much worse dictators were tolerated in decades past. Eliminating a madman comes at a cost, and even the current very imperfect government won't really stand behind 'dangerous madmen will not be tolerated' as more than rhetoric in many situations.

As for eliminating particular madmen when worth it, I for one would have voluntarily contributed to a more Mossad-like agency towards the direct liquidation of Hussein (or Castro or Kim), and I believe enough citizens willing to do likewise that it would be viable. Unlike the current war, such means would be ethical in funding, ethical in ends (targets are those who forfeited their rights when they killed), and ethical in means. Culprits would be targetted rather than the sledgehammer military approach, and if 'collateral damage' occurred it would be those guarding a murderous dictator (or paid to convince people they are him). Unfortunately in the US, open warfare and its substantial aggressions at home and abroad is glorified as patriotic and noble, while the ethical route of assassinating foreign tyrants has been condemned and officially abandoned since the 70s.


Post 75

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 7:53amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
MSK that was a stellar post!


Sanction: 32, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 32, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 32, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 32, No Sanction: 0
Post 76

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 8:01amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Mr. Gregory writes (post #64):

 *Even if there were "conclusive evidence" that this hypothetical murderer had the means and motive to attack you—and even if, for the sake of argument, we momentarily accept the collectivist notion that the U.S. government is the same as "America"—neither you in your hypothetical, nor America or its government in our real-life scenario, has the right to bomb cities, censor people, enact curfews, establish roadblocks, torture people, or kill innocents to pursue a potential threat.

Let's leave government out of the equation for the moment. A murderer has the means and motive to attack you. According to this, you have no right to "kill innocents to pursue a potential threat." In fact, you don't even have the right to do a lot less than kill: you don't even have the right to interfere with communication or travel in order to prevent the killer from escaping or doing you harm.

This is "the hostage argument." A murderer hides himself behind the shield of innocents, constitutes an ongoing threat to you; he has the means and motive to attack you; but so long as he remains shielded by hostages (or a hostage population), you can do nothing to protect yourself that involves interfering with (let alone possibly harming) the hostages, in any manner whatsoever.

This is all based on the notion of rights as "intrinsic" -- as an inherent essence of human nature -- rather than as a moral principle of social conduct: a moral principle that arises from the more fundamental ethics of rational self-interest, and applies contextually. This requires some elaboration.

By the intrinsicist conception of individual rights, rights exist as facts or essences or aspects of human nature, independent of any ethics of self-interest. They aren't moral principles; they just are. So to use force against another person, regardless of context, is to "violate his inherent rights." For example, one cannot use force that in any way harms the "inherent rights" of an innocent hostage -- regardless of whether that will allow the hostage-taker to use force against you or others. If your own self-defense (even survival) require a use of force that might harm innocent people, you must forego that use of force. In short, the "inherent rights" of innocent Others trump your own right to defend yourself.
 
However, by the contextualist conception of individual rights, rights are not essences of human nature. They are principles of social morality which derive from an ethics of rational self-interest. Since "rights" are social extensions of a morality of self-interest, therefore they lose their meaning and function outside of that egoist context

Like any other moral principle -- e. g., honesty -- rights have an egoistic moral purpose: to provide a framework for self-interested actions by individuals. But like all moral principles, rights presuppose a context of free choice. When someone initiates force or coercion against you, interrupting your life-serving activity, the bilateral recognition of the moral principle of rights no longer exists. Like all other moral principles, "rights" end at the point of a gun.

At that point, to unilaterally remain committed to recognizing the moral principle of "rights," when your coercive adversary does not, is to commit oneself to a course of self-sacrifice, in the name of what has now become a platonic abstraction. It means committing oneself to a conception of "rights" ripped from its purpose: to provide a framework for self-interested, life-furthering activity.
  
One of the most common differences between (many) libertarians and Objectivists is their commitments to entirely differing conceptions of "rights." Many libertarians (especially anarchists) adhere to an intrinsicist (platonic) conception of rights, as being an essential aspect of human nature. By contrast, Objectivists uphold a contextualist view of rights, as being an extension of the ethics of rational self-interest into social situations. By the intrinsicist view, rights are something you just have. By the contextualist view, rights are moral principles you recognize and apply.

These diverging views of rights and their source explain many of the political arguments we see here on SOLO. If you believe "rights" are essences of individuals, something they just have, then there are no circumstances in which they disappear. From this premise, it's a short step for anarchists to reject such vital governmental powers as arrest, subpoena, emergency curfews or roadblocks or health quarantines, and contextual limitations on weapons of self-defense (e. g., outlawing private possession and/or use of machine guns, bombs and tanks in "self-defense"). Anarchists reject even defensive wars, because innocent civilians (who are analogous to "human shields" or hostages held by aggressor nations) will likely be harmed during our defensive efforts. They even reject government itself because, being a final arbiter of force, government necessarily compels compliance and/or participation even of unwilling individuals, and thus allegedly "violates their inherent rights" to refuse participation.

By contrast, Objectivists see such governmental activities as necessary and proper extensions of the morality of rational self-interest into a social framework, which any valid theory of rights must therefore incorporate and accommodate.

It's thus easy to see why Mr. Gregory, as well as other anarchists and libertarians weighing in here, are at such odds with Objectivists on so many issues, including those he raises in his post #64. It is certainly obvious in the case of the Iraq war. Leaving all questions of motives aside -- and also leaving aside prudential questions concerning the practicality of the specific military policies employed -- the philosophical division between what Lindsay Perigo calls "Saddamites" and those of us who supported the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, is defined largely by our difference on one key premise. That premise is this:

Should the concept of "rights" be interpreted within a moral context of rational self-interest? Or is it a kind of Kantian "categorical imperative" -- a metaphysical commandment that shouts "thou shalt not impose force," without regard to any considerations of rational self-interest?

A more profitable debate, then, would not be over Iraq or any other specific policy questions. It ought to be over the more basic questions: What is your definition of "rights," and what do you believe is their ultimate source and justification?


Post 77

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 8:15amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
You’ve got my admiration, Robert Bidinotto, for the effort and clarity that's unsurpassed. You've gotten to the essential difference, of course. Even if it goes over their head, I’m sure there are many out there, like me, who just enjoy reading that exposition.

Post 78

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 8:43amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Much obliged, Jason.

I believe some here who oppose the Iraq war are not necessarily "Saddamites" in the sense of having anti-American motives (though there are plenty of those). I believe instead that they may take such positions on the basis of the philosophically confused, Kantian conception of rights as a kind of "categorical imperative." Those folks may be open to persuasion once that issue is clarified. At least one hopes...


Post 79

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 9:12amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Robert,

Spot on, sir. I join in the applause. My public reply to your post on the TOC thread will follow as time permits.

Tom


Post to this threadBack one pagePage 0Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Forward one pageLast Page


User ID Password or create a free account.