Irrational principle of non-violence?

CaptainMurphy:

gplauche:

Morality doesn't enter into their relationship. Morality is for rational beings like humans. 

 

Foxes and rabbits are both rational beings.  They take actions to maximize their chances of survival and procreation.

 

No, in fact, they aren't. They aren't capable of abstract, conceptual thought, or self-reflexive thought, or comprehending right and wrong in conceptual terms, and they don't choose in the human sense. The (human) action axiom of Austrian economics is not strictly applicable to them. 

gplauche:

No, in fact, they aren't. They aren't capable of abstract, conceptual thought, or self-reflexive thought, or comprehending right and wrong in conceptual terms, and they don't choose in the human sense. The (human) action axiom of Austrian economics is not strictly applicable to them. 

 

We have two different definitions of rational. 

JCFolsom:

CaptainMurphy:

But if morality is objective, then the action of the fox killing the rabbit is either moral or immoral;  You can't have it both ways.  If you believe, as I do, that both are morally justified in their actions, then you must admit that morality is subjective.

I need do no such thing. It is possible for both of us to act morally, even though our purposes are at odds. They are both acting as they ought in the situation, according to a single objective moral rule. It is not the outcome, but the actions themselves that bear the morality.

 

Fair enough. 

 

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with us surviving, and you know it. Try again.

Reread what you said: your statement excluded any moral considerations whatsoever. You said that you will kill, because you can kill. All living creatures, starting with the earliest primordial bacteria, did the same. You've placed yourself on a plan with all the rest of the creatures that predate intellect and the ability to question one's biological imperatives.

Judgement must, of course, be used, as it must in all things. If you want a rule where you don't have to think or be just, a set of three nice I, Robot rules, you will be disappointed.

I want to be clear on this: if you aggress against me, you will be repelled. If you persist, such that I am in fear of grave harm, you will be killed. If you manage to kill me first, you'll be a lowly murderer. Rationalizations about your grave need won't change a thing.

I believe that it has already been established, that most people follow an ethic closer to the one I propose anyway.

Yes--and so do rats, and wolves, and AIDS viruses. Doing whatever it takes to survive is not interesting: it's the default behavior of every organism that has DNA. It's an ancient, mindless protocol. If you subscribe to it, then your intellect is irrelevant: you're an animal with internet access. What makes humans interestingly different is that we can question our genetic programming. You revel in your refusal to question it. OK, but (1) you're adding nothing of interest to the discussion, and (2) if your choice results in threats against me or mine, I will treat you as I would a coyote.

If you expect the vast majority of people, ever, to think that your right to keep holding it matters more than their survival or that of their families, particularly in situations where you actually have more than enough but still refuse to share or trade, you are naive indeed.

Are you a libertarian playing devil's advocate, or a Republican in search of entertainment? We already live in a society in which people will coerce, steal and kill whenever they feel that their interests demand it. So what's to discuss? Your idea of discussing ethics is to declare, "People do crap to people. Deal with it," in a knowing tone of voice. Um, the point of discussing ethics is to develop criteria for judging bad behavior. It's already a given that, once we've identified it, we'll notice that some people do it. So your observation tells us nothing we don't already know.

--Len. 

Judgement must, of course, be used, as it must in all things. If you want a rule where you don't have to think or be just, a set of three nice I, Robot rules, you will be disappointed.

I want to be clear on this: if you aggress against me, you will be repelled. If you persist, such that I am in fear of grave harm, you will be killed. If you manage to kill me first, you'll be a lowly murderer. Rationalizations about your grave need won't change a thing.

I don't see what the Hell that has to do with anything. It has already been stated that there would be conflict. Don't get all paranoid and threaty.

Reread what you said: your statement excluded any moral considerations whatsoever. You said that you will kill, because you can kill. All living creatures, starting with the earliest primordial bacteria, did the same. You've placed yourself on a plan with all the rest of the creatures that predate intellect and the ability to question one's biological imperatives.

That particular statement, yeah. However, the overall context certainly implied a certain circumstance, and that was what was meant. Your failure to be thorough in your reading of prior statements or connect the dots is what brought about your misunderstanding. Statements shouldn't be taken in isolation from each other in an extended conversation like this.

Which brings us back to Hobbesian war, since "survival" is hopelessly subjective. Victim disarmers honestly think their survival depends on confiscating my firearms.

"Survival" is not hopelessly subjective. If you survive, you're still alive. If you don't, you're dead.

You're not paying attention. You've already said that you're justified in stealing from me when you're starving--even though you would not immediately die if you refrained. You justify it by pointing out that if you don't rob me then and there, I might eat the food, leaving you nothing to steal when you really are at the point of death. But your argument is equally applicable when you're hours from death, and when you're days from death. You can live about three weeks without food; you clearly assert the right to rob me before day 21 without food. When don't you have the right? On day 10 without food? On day 1? How about when you still have one day's supply of food left? After all, if you eat that food, and then can't find anyone to rob in 21 days, you'll die. It is objectively impossible to demarcate a boundary between the moment that stealing is unjustifed, and the moment it is justified.

Your statement above is not a criterion. In fact it's laughable. If you rob me right this minute, you can say, "I'm still alive, therefore I've survived." So what? How does that help us decide whether you were justified in robbing me? We need additional, unknowable data: namely, whether you would have died had you not robbed me. You can never know what would have happened. You can say you're pretty sure you would have died. But how sure is sure enough to justify your robbery? And how are we supposed to review the reasonableness of your estimate of the probability?

We can't. Obviously. So we're stuck either accepting your statement at face value that you "would have died," or else we select a third party to confirm your statement (call him a "judge"), or a panel of people (call them a "jury"). But however we approach it, we're stuck trying to make an objective determination about a hopelessly subjective claim: the claim that you "would have died."

Morality is objective, just really difficult to figure out. It can be logically derived from the nature and purpose of the universe.

I need some cash--would you mind if I bet you $100 that you're an Objectivist? I think I've said often enough, but Objectivists are nuts. In the rigorous mathematical sense, no moral standard can be "proven." Rand's ethics, based on "life as the standard of value," is worse than unprovable--it's practically unstatable. Her pseudo-Aristotelian sophistry allows for any conclusion one desires. For example, it's particularly easy to argue that anyone with a natural talent for piano is immoral and anti-life if he doesn't become a pianist.

And oh, by the way, the universe has no purpose. It just IS. You're personifying it, which is symptomatic of Rand's pseudo-Aristotelianism. 

As per the "Victim disarmers" comment, I don't think anyone here is going to say that it's ethical to aggress against someone because it is necessary for you to survive because you are planning on aggressing against them in a way that is not for your survival. If that is what you mean. The term is a bit odd.

Victim disarmers want to take your and my guns because they're neurotically convinced that you and I are criminally insane, and will sooner or later use those guns to murder innocent people. They look at us the way neocons look at Muslims: dangerously insane subhumans who must be preemptively slaughtered. Neocons will tell you, and Bush specifically tells us all the time, that he's acting to secure our survival against implacable, relentless killers. He preemptively slaughters, claiming we face a life-or-death crisis. Victim disarmers try to ban guns preemptively, also claiming we face a life-or-death crisis.

They would agree with your survivalist sentiments, and would argue that preemptive disarmament and/or slaughter is necessary to survive. 

I know the majority (?) atheists around here are in love with their post-modernism, but really.

I am a Bible believer who rejects relativism, post-modernism and all that rot. The closest thing there is to an objective morality is the nonaggression principle. What's more, it overlaps hugely with Christian ethics, as relates to man's relationship with fellow man. It's also the closest thing there is to an objective morality. It's evolutionarily stable in the weak sense, which means among other things that it happens to be consistent with our survival as a species, and mostly consistent with our personal survival. And finally, it's one we're mostly hard-wired for: we're not above aggression for our own benefit, but we're fully convinced that aggression against ourselves is always wrong, and we're wired to back up that conviction with force.

--Len. 

CaptainMurphy:

...Foxes and rabbits are both rational beings...

Foxes and rabbits act as their genetic programming dictates. The fox can't take up vegetarianism, or even conceive of such a possibility. They're only "rational" in the sense that my car is "rational": it's a well-designed machine for a particular function. That's not a very meaningful definition of "rational." They aren't sentient; aren't capable of making moral determinations; and aren't morally accountable for their actions.

But if morality is objective, then the action of the fox killing the rabbit is either moral or immoral...

This statement is wrong on two levels. First, the implication is false. To see that, consider this: "If morality is objective, then the action of an avalanche killing a skier is either moral or immoral..." It simply doesn't follow. Rabbits do things, but in the sense of praxeology they don't act, because they don't make purposeful intellectual choices. They're machines. Cute fluffy little machines, but machines nonetheless.

But second, morality is not objective. It isn't an empirically observable phenomenon, and it isn't deductively provable.

--Len. 

CaptainMurphy:

We have two different definitions of rational. 

 

Indeed. But I don't think yours will hold up to scrutiny, whereas mine is generally accepted in philosophy and is standard in Aristotelian philosophy, libertarianism, and Austrian economics. 

Len Budney:

Morality is objective, just really difficult to figure out. It can be logically derived from the nature and purpose of the universe.

I need some cash--would you mind if I bet you $100 that you're an Objectivist?

He may be an Objectivist. I don't know. But the belief that morality is objective is hardly limited to Objectivists.

Also, please tone down the rhetoric and try to be civil.

I don't see what the Hell that has to do with anything. It has already been stated that there would be conflict. Don't get all paranoid and threaty.

I'm addressing your point on two levels. On the intellectual level, a system that authorizes you to aggress and also authorizes me to resist you with deadly force is not recognizably "moral." A moral code must by definition choose between alternatives, declaring one of them right. In particular, it doesn't declare an action AND retaliation against that action as right simultaneously. Even Rand realized this: she stated more than once that in a life-and-death situation, morality doesn't apply. In so saying, she confessed that her system could not resolve such dilemmas, and at the same time admitted that the job of "morality" is precisely to resolve dilemmas.

On the utilitarian level, I'm suggesting that embracing non-aggression is good for your health. If I can't convince you not to aggress, I won't concede the point; I will still act accordingly, using deadly force if need be. Not to put too fine a point upon it, but rational argument is good for convincing humans not to aggress, and firearms are good for convincing animals not to aggress.

However, the overall context certainly implied a certain circumstance, and that was what was meant.

What you're missing is that I've repeatedly pointed out the ambiguity of the circumstance. You might consider yourself on the brink of death, but you might be wrong. And either way, I might disagree with your assessment. You believe you're making an unambiguous exception when you allow aggression in "life or death" situations, but you're not. To give the obvious example, right-wingers are utterly convinced that we'll all be killed in our beds if we don't slaughter Iraqis by the bushel. Utterly. Convinced. They're just plain terrified. Foaming at the mouth frenzied. When you try to clarify your loophole so it excludes mass-murdering invasions of foreign countries, you'll realize what an incredible can of worms you've opened.

--Len. 

gplauche:

He may be an Objectivist. I don't know. But the belief that morality is objective is hardly limited to Objectivists.

Yes. But that specific form of argument is a signature of Objectivist thought. It demands vigorous rebutta, because it's not only wrong: it's epistemologically corrosive. Mistaking Rand's arguments for valid logic undermines one's ability to use logic at all. Rand's "proof" that "life is the standard of value" is a major case in point. It is, for example, formally equivalent to Plato's idiotic argument that the soul is immortal.

--Len. 

Len Budney:

gplauche:

He may be an Objectivist. I don't know. But the belief that morality is objective is hardly limited to Objectivists.

Yes. But that specific form of argument is a signature of Objectivist thought. It demands vigorous rebutta, because it's not only wrong: it's epistemologically corrosive. Mistaking Rand's arguments for valid logic undermines one's ability to use logic at all. Rand's "proof" that "life is the standard of value" is a major case in point. It is, for example, formally equivalent to Plato's idiotic argument that the soul is immortal.

--Len. 

 

 Ah... And your own ethical beliefs are on so much better metaphysical and epistemological ground?

Ah... And your own ethical beliefs are on so much better metaphysical and epistemological ground?

I don't claim any metaphysical justifications in the first place. Epistemologically, my ethical belief (which is essentially synonymous with the nonaggression principle) is indeed on solid ground. On the one hand, I do not claim it can be rigorously proven, and I'm right: it can't. On the other, I do claim that it is completely free of logical contradictions, and I'm right: it is. And that's the most one can possibly hope for a statement that is not objective in nature--i.e., that is neither experimentally verifiable nor mathematically provable.

By carefully limiting the scope of my claim, I can indeed say with certainty that it's unassailable. Which is very different than claiming godlike insight (as you're possibly insinuating?). The difference is that God can speak with certainty on any subject there is. I can only speak with certainty about a couple of things--and this happens to be one of them.

--Len.