Morality - Heinz Dilemma [Archive]

blueback

05-28-2008, 03:02 PM

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

No, not only is it against the law but it is wrong to use force against another person. People should deal with each other to mutual advantage, noth through violence or deception. He apparently never tried to offer the pharmacist more than just money, or to appeal to more people for money or support, or to bring his dying wife to the pharmacist in the hopes it would make him more sympathetic, etc. It is wrong to steal, therefore he shouldn't do it.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?
Why is it good or bad?

It is bad because not only is he taking something that doesn't belong to him he is encouraging the breakdown of the sense of trust that allows civilization to exist and advance. His act of theft might save the life of his wife, one life, but it contributes to lawlessness which degrades everyone's life. Anything which degrades life is bad.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

That would be difficult to justify. To steal something you have to not only use force/deception against another person but you have to philosophically put your own individual good over the good of the whole society. If it's okay for you to steal from someone then it is okay for someone to steal from you. You lose the protection of the rules. In this case, by stealing from someone who found a cure for a cancer, you are inhibiting other people from finding cures for cancers because they will become the target of theft, which degrades the entire society.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

Nope, her death has nothing to do with him. He didn't give her cancer so it's not his fault. He just happened to be around when she died. You could argue that the pharmacist is sort of responsible for her death, but it's not a very strong argument.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not?

No. No person is required to live for another person. It is important to do your best to fulfill your end of a mutually beneficial agreement, so if someone traded something of value to you in exchange for your help in saving a life then you should do it. It is also important not to actively degrade or take life, that would be using force against another person.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine?
Why or why not?

Uh, duh? The question calls it "stealing" so yeah, it is against the law. . .unless the law allows stealing and no one told me before.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law?
Why or why not?

As long as the law encourages and enforces rules which support people interacting to mutual benefit without using force against each other, yes. If the law requires us to break that rule then the law is wrong and needs to be changed. You can act against an unjust law as long as you accept the consequences of your actions.

blueback added to this post, 3 minutes and 27 seconds later...

I think the answers sort of come down to whether or not you are okay being wrong. There is no possible way that stealing can be the definition of "right" so either it is flat-out "wrong" or it is somewhere in between.

To me stealing is always wrong, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't do it. Each individual is responsible for their own actions and sometimes they decide to do things that are wrong. They can never make what they did right, but they can try to make amends.

If the guy stole the medicine, treated his wife, and then turned himself into the police he would sort of be making amends for being wrong. He could serve his sentence and that would clear him to continue with his life. As long as he accepts the consequences of being wrong he sort of makes up for being wrong.

thod

05-28-2008, 03:23 PM

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

Yes. Because he can.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?
Why is it good or bad?

Its good. He gets the medicine for free.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

Nope no duty to. But he can make a profit by doing so.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

Nope he wouldn't be. He didn't cause the disease.

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine?
Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife?

Yes, he can sell it to someone else.

6. Imagine that the person who is dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the medicine for a stranger?
Why or why not?

Yes, if the stranger cant pay he finds another stranger.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal?
Why or why not?
What if it was his loving dog?

Yes, but animals don't pay, so let the dog die and find a buyer.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not?

Nope, it depends on the effort.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine?
Why or why not?

Probably is, but then laws don't matter if you don't get caught.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law?
Why or why not?

No. Self interest is the whole of the law.

blueback

05-28-2008, 03:29 PM

I read an article in popular mechanics a while ago that was takling about the CSI shows and the real technology the cops have for solving crimes. They asked a bunch of cops if they thought the CSI shows were helping criminals get away with more crimes. The cops said that they weren't worried about them because, as a rule, people don't turn to crime because they are successful at other things.

Basically, criminals are dumber (or at least less competent) then the average person. An example from the article was how the cops tracked down a guy who stole a safe because they got DNA from skin cells he left on his crow bar, just from touching it. However, they found the crowbar because the guy threw his tool bag off a bridge above a lake. . .but the lake was frozen solid. So, the cops aren't worried because people don't generally turn to crime if they can make a living legitimately.

So, Thod's idea is cute, but short-sighted. If someone is competent enough to make that philosophy work then they are unlikely to feel like dealing with the hassle of being a criminal. If they are incompetent enough to have to turn to crime then they will be caught.

TheLastMohican

05-28-2008, 03:30 PM

Blueback took the words out of my mouth (a first?).

The pharmacist was being a jerk. But that does not affect his right to the medicine. Trying to justify the theft of the medicine, especially in legal terms, undermines the logical sense of the system.

Brutananadilewski

05-28-2008, 04:58 PM

This is an example of applied moral dilemma. It was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg and its extended questions were formed by other psychologists. I have found it very interesting.

In Europe, a woman was about to die of a very special type of cancer. There was a medicine that, according to the doctors, could save her life. It was a type of medicine that had been recently discovered by the city’s pharmacist. The medicine was expensive to make but the pharmacist charged ten times more than his cost to produce it. Production cost was 200 dollars but the pharmacist charged 2,000 dollars for a small dose. Heinz, the patient’s husband, asked everyone he knew to lend him money and tried all possible legal means, but he got only 1,000 dollars. He told the pharmacist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell the medicine to him at a low cost or to allow him to pay later. However, the pharmacist answered him "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." Heinz became desperate and he went into the drugstore and stole the medicine for his wife.

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

He shouldn't do anything. No person ever has to do anything out of obligation. If he wants to try and steal it and can get away absolutely scott-free then so be it. If he gets caught, then he'll be punished by the judicial system. Either way, he'll decide, and I applaud him for making a decision on his own.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?
Why is it good or bad?

It's neither, it just is. His choice is his own to make, and I won't be judging it. Stealing may be against the law, but the act isn't either bad or good.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

See above: No person has an obligation to do anything other than that they chose to do. It would be nice to think that people would act out of kindness, but they're under no obligation.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

How can a person be responsible for inaction? Everyone dies; why must we attach so much responsibility to life?

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine?
Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife?

No, why would it?

6. Imagine that the person who is dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the medicine for a stranger?
Why or why not?

It doesn't matter whether it's a loved one or not, a person has no obligation. What he choses to do in either situation is his own choice, and just is.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal?
Why or why not?
What if it was his loving dog?

Who cares?

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not?

I just don't see the point in trying to save anyone's life if you weren't going to try your best. Everyone has a different idea of what their "best" is however, so if you're trying to apply a standard of "best" to anyone else, it's entirely irrelevant to anyone but yourself.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine?
Why or why not?

Yes, to be obvious, the law says not to steal. But then again, the law is merely an artifical and arbitrary human construct, and what it actually means if anything at all is up for debate.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law?
Why or why not?

No, because it's an arbitrary human construct. How can something that is arbitrary be applied to everyone? It makes no sense, since something that is arbitrary has no objective grounds for universal application. However, if you don't follow the law, just be prepared to deal with the reprecussions. You may not have to like any of it, but the reality is that you still have to deal with it. I chose to follow the law insofar that I don't have to deal with any of it, but that's it.

I quite enjoyed this little exercise, especially since I'm a medical student myself. Would I steal the medicine as a physician? Probably not, as it would make life really shitty for me if I got caught. Sure it may be frustrating to deal with the pharmacist, but then again who am I to judge his actions?
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Elfrun

05-28-2008, 05:55 PM

Financial gain should never be considered more valuable than a life, if no alternative is available he should do what it takes to get the meds he needs to try to save his wife and leave $200 - $1000 whatever his conscience depicts.

If his wife dies it would not be his fault but try telling him that if he did nothing, once she’s gone it’s too late. If civil/criminal action arises as a result, hire OJ’s lawyer.

Tsuru

05-28-2008, 11:18 PM

Financial gain should never be considered more valuable than a life.

By that logic, none of us should be posting on this message board, because the yearly cost of internet and PC bills and electricity (all luxuries of excess) could have saved the lives of several starving people in Africa if we had donated the money to charity instead.

Antares

05-29-2008, 02:38 AM

1. Yes, because it's the only rational thing to do.

2. It's good because his wife will be cured. Screw the $2000 the manufacturer is losing. A life's more important.

3. No. You don't have to do this for anyone.

4. No, he's not responsible. It's the law and you can't fault anyone for following the law.

5. That ultimately depends on him.

6. No. The stranger can do it himself, or not do it at all.

7. If he wants to. I've noticed that some people said that if the animal is intelligent. So if you'd save based on intelligence? An IQ 150 against a Downs Syndrome?

8. If you value that person's life. I wouldn't risk myself for anyone, but that depends.

9. Yes he is. The law is the law. It's as clear as the computer screen before me. Now is that necessarily bad? That's open for debate.

10. No. Laws are fallible.

Ool

05-29-2008, 04:00 AM

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

Of course he should. If he really loves his wife he won’t mind the jail sentence if it means she’ll live.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?
Why is it good or bad?

Good for the pharmacist. He can always make more medicine (one assumes) and the publicity of the success of his medicine will boost his business. Bad for Heinz because he’ll go to jail. But also good for him because his wife gets to live. Also there’s always the hope that the courts will be lenient…

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

No, he doesn’t. But the idea is that he loves his wife so much that he has an overriding desire to steal it. You’re not obligated to do anything, of course. You’re not even obligated to keep eating or living. You just do these things because you want to do them, not because you have to.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

Yes, he would be. But then, we have to make decisions every day that kill people or let them live in a roundabout way. Every second that we’re not working on miracle drugs ourselves that might save thousands of lives we’re potentially responsible for those lives lost.

Responsibility doesn’t come into it. The question is simply, what do you want, can you get it, and is the price you are likely to pay acceptable to you?

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine?
Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife?

It makes all the difference in the world. Wanting someone to continue to exist is loving them. That’s what love is. If you didn’t love someone then you wouldn’t steal the medicine for them. It isn’t even anything to do with “shouldn’t.”

Actually I assumed that within the context of this thought experiment “wife” was code for “person he loves like no other.” But I do realize that in real life that need not be the case…

6. Imagine that the person who is dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the medicine for a stranger?
Why or why not?

Depends on whether he loves that stranger enough to want them to live more than he wants to not go to jail. Or whether there is something that stranger has that the stranger needs to live for.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal?
Why or why not?
What if it was his loving dog?

See “stranger” answer.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not?

Depends on how much you love the other person. It’s always a matter of whether you deem the benefit you expect to gain from saving that life to be offsetting the sacrifice it forces you to make.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine?
Why or why not?

That depends on how much the lawmakers love Heinz’s wife’s life as opposed to the pharmacist’s prosperity.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law?
Why or why not?

No, we shouldn’t do anything. Rules exist so you think before you break them…

Personally I can’t see where the moral quandary is in all of this. It’s simply a matter of, “are you happier in jail or being a widower?” And that is a question Heinz has to answer for himself. I don’t know his priorities in that matter.

Ool added to this post, 7 minutes and 3 seconds later...

Oh, BTW, what’s with the “in Europe” introduction?

athenian200

05-29-2008, 04:32 AM

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

No. Because it's against the law for one thing, and disrupts the very flow of cash that can be used by the pharmaceutical companies to create more cures. Also, if people like him are allowed to get away with such things, inventors will have less financial incentive to create such cures. He would be acting selfishly, to save the life of one person rather than doing what was best for society.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?
Why is it good or bad?

Bad. He has now done all the negatives I listed above.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine?
Why or why not?

No. He has an obligation not to steal it... the social contract we live under as part of being in a society.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

No. The disease was mostly responsible for that. Secondarily, the pharmacist was responsible for not taking pity on Heinz and allowing him to pay on installment. If he were decent, he would have. It isn't Heinz's fault the pharmacist was insensitive.

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine?
Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife?

It makes no difference whether he loves her or not. Stealing from the pharmacist is wrong.

6. Imagine that the person who is dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the medicine for a stranger?
Why or why not?
It doesn't matter who it is, stealing is still wrong.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal?
Why or why not?
What if it was his loving dog?
Definitely not. This is even less justifiable than if it were a human being, and even that fails to justify the action of theft.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not?

It is important to do your best to save someone's life, as long as you can do so without breaking the law.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine?
Why or why not?
Yes, he is. For two reasons... first, it is theft. Second, he harms the pharmacist and his company financially, inhibits innovation in medicine, and possibly even drives the costs of the medicine up for everyone else.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law?
Why or why not?

It depends on whether the law is just, and whether breaking it would help more people than it would harm. In this case, the law is just, because breaking it would harm more people than it would help, even though it doesn't seem like it at first.

vaguely dissatisfied

05-29-2008, 04:52 AM

It's the should's, right and wrong, good and bad, moral obligation, type of questions that get me. All of this is very individual. We know that laws can be at odds with our individual morality. We know that one individual's moral beliefs may be very different from our own. The bottom line here is do we act on our own moral beliefs or do we follow the law of the land (if they are at odds), but there really is no should, or right, or obligation outside of the individual's own personal, subjective feelings about these things.

Noehelia

05-29-2008, 04:58 AM

Oh, BTW, what’s with the “in Europe” introduction?

Kohlberg had placed the story in Europe, I assume because he had interviewed Americans in his research but I found it funny to keep it in as all texts I found about the dilemma mention that.

SShack

05-29-2008, 01:40 PM

Well, reasoning it all out, if truly the only way to save the woman was by stealing the medicine (which I doubt), Heinz should do it and face the consequences, which in all likelihood would be having to pay the rest of the cost plus a fine. Essentially it's a calculus of consequences. What is more important to Heinz, saving his wife or his future earnings, and maybe a brief bit of his freedom (though I doubt he would get jail time)?

The rest of the questions are largely irrelevant.

Hmmm ... I'm beginning to see the source of the stereotype of ENTPs as amoral.

TheLastMohican

05-29-2008, 04:03 PM

2. It's good because his wife will be cured. Screw the $2000 the manufacturer is losing. A life's more important.

In reference to your stance on abortion, shouldn't this man (and by extension his wife) be equated with parasites? Why should the pharmacist's rights be compromised for the wife's sake? What sense does that make?

Here's a new question for the list, to those who think that the man is justified in stealing the medicine:

If the man breaks into the drugstore and attempts to steal the medicine using a weapon, would it be wrong for the pharmacist (knowing why the man is attempting the theft) to pull a shotgun out from behind the counter and kill him?

thod

05-29-2008, 05:06 PM

If the man breaks into the drugstore and attempts to steal the medicine using a weapon, would it be wrong for the pharmacist (knowing why the man is attempting the theft) to pull a shotgun out from behind the counter and kill him?

What the pharmacist is actually doing is forcing his beliefs on others. He believes he has the right to dictate access to the drug. He justifies this on the basis of he invented it and he acquired the raw materials to make it.

Now the man may have a different set of beliefs, he may belief that all property is communal, or he may believe that human life transcends property rights, or he may simply believe that might is right. Under these beliefs the pharmacist does not have any right to the drug at all and is simply being aggressive.

As an example of this I proclaim that I own all the air. You may not breath without paying me a fee. Simply because I assert this right does not mean you have to accept it, even when I show up with a gun.

If the pharmacist had shot the man, would it be wrong for his brother to shoot the pharmacist? I would say that the brothers would see his real loss as being greater than the pharmacists potential loss and would seek revenge.

SShack

05-29-2008, 05:18 PM

What the pharmacist is actually doing is forcing his beliefs on others. He believes he has the right to dictate access to the drug. He justifies this on the basis of he invented it and he acquired the raw materials to make it.

Now the man may have a different set of beliefs, he may belief that all property is communal, or he may believe that human life transcends property rights, or he may simply believe that might is right. Under these beliefs the pharmacist does not have any right to the drug at all and is simply being aggressive.

As an example of this I proclaim that I own all the air. You may not breath without paying me a fee. Simply because I assert this right does not mean you have to accept it, even when I show up with a gun.

If the pharmacist had shot the man, would it be wrong for his brother to shoot the pharmacist? I would say that the brothers would see his real loss as being greater than the pharmacists potential loss and would seek revenge.

The pharmacist is forcing his beliefs on Heinz by refusing to capitulate to Heinz's beliefs? If nothing else, you've just explained religion-based homophobia.

thod

05-29-2008, 05:32 PM

The pharmacist is forcing his beliefs on Heinz by refusing to capitulate to Heinz's beliefs? If nothing else, you've just explained religion-based homophobia.

I understand what you are saying. However you haven't considered the symmetry of the situation. From Heinze's perspective it is he that is being asked to capitulate to the pharmacists beliefs. What you have is a standoff which is going to be resolved by action. Be that Heinz taking the drug in the night, or the pharmacist shooting Heinz.

Noehelia

05-29-2008, 07:05 PM

Antares

05-29-2008, 08:34 PM

In reference to your stance on abortion, shouldn't this man (and by extension his wife) be equated with parasites? Why should the pharmacist's rights be compromised for the wife's sake? What sense does that make?

Here's a new question for the list, to those who think that the man is justified in stealing the medicine:

If the man breaks into the drugstore and attempts to steal the medicine using a weapon, would it be wrong for the pharmacist (knowing why the man is attempting the theft) to pull a shotgun out from behind the counter and kill him?

The pharmacist has the right to price it whatever he likes. Why should the man and the woman be a parasite? They are not physically dependent on the pharmacist. All the pharmacist loses is $2000 he doesn't deserve; it's quite amusing that $2000 should be equated with what the woman is putting herself through for the fetus. Unlike the fetus, the couple doesn't put the pharmacist's life in danger, nor do they steal nutrients from them. See, if I were the man, I can compromise my moral principles (not stealing etc) for what is more important or rational, but of course, that depends on how much the wife means to the man.

I'm actually for gun control, so I won't say it's right, but if caught, the pharmacist has it in his full rights to persecute the man, and I dare say he'd be convicted. I won't try to overturn that sentence if I have the ability to decide.

TheLastMohican

05-29-2008, 08:50 PM

The pharmacist has the right to price it whatever he likes. Why should the man and the woman be a parasite? They are not physically dependent on the pharmacist. All the pharmacist loses is $2000 he doesn't deserve; it's quite amusing that $2000 should be equated with what the woman is putting herself through for the fetus. Unlike the fetus, the couple doesn't put the pharmacist's life in danger, nor do they steal nutrients from them. See, if I were the man, I can compromise my moral principles (not stealing etc) for what is more important or rational, but of course, that depends on how much the wife means to the man.

The man and wife are leeches. They are trying to live off of the pharmacist's work.

Why doesn't the pharmacist deserve the $2000? He worked for it. He formulated the medicine, and named his price. Why is he not entitled to his own property?

Does your idea of what he "deserves" have some subjective "moral" basis?

I'm actually for gun control, so I won't say it's right, but if caught, the pharmacist has it in his full rights to persecute the man, and I dare say he'd be convicted. I won't try to overturn that sentence if I have the ability to decide.

Gun control is for another thread. At least you agree that the man is not immune to punishment for his crime.

blueback

05-29-2008, 11:46 PM

Elfrun

05-30-2008, 12:42 AM

By that logic, none of us should be posting on this message board, because the yearly cost of internet and PC bills and electricity (all luxuries of excess) could have saved the lives of several starving people in Africa if we had donated the money to charity instead.

Eep, don't confuse my comments.

I’m speaking from the husbands perspective and ideally the pharmacists one. I believe in the right to run a business and make a profit just like any other Capitalist. I suggest that money should never be more important than a life when it comes down to making decisions like this. I like money, I like nice things, I like that I live in a society where I have the right to make a profit, charity is part of my life but not at the detrimental expense of my lifestyle.

I don’t condemn the pharmacist for refusing to sell but if I were the husband and this was the only possible way of saving a loved one, short of taking another life, I would do whatever was necessary.

If the man breaks into the drugstore and attempts to steal the medicine using a weapon, would it be wrong for the pharmacist (knowing why the man is attempting the theft) to pull a shotgun out from behind the counter and kill him?
If he feels his life is in danger he has the right to defend himself.

thod

05-30-2008, 01:56 AM

What a bunch of sheep following little rules. Rules are fine, but the skill is knowing when to break the rules. When it comes to survival there are no rules, only dead moralists and live realists.

You lack the courage to do what must be done. If it were you that needed the drug then you would just roll over and die. I would fight him for it since I have nothing to lose. Its a him or me situation, and I intend it to be him.

If you want to judge which morality is right by an objective test then you have it. The morality of the one that is still alive is right. They have been tested in the fire of objective reality. War is not about who is right, but who is left.

Antares

05-30-2008, 03:13 AM

The man and wife are leeches. They are trying to live off of the pharmacist's work.

Why doesn't the pharmacist deserve the $2000? He worked for it. He formulated the medicine, and named his price. Why is he not entitled to his own property?

Does your idea of what he "deserves" have some subjective "moral" basis?

He doesn't deserve $2000 because it only costed him $200, but it doesn't matter now. He has power over it; he created it and is perfectly within his rights to price it whatever pleases him. Just like a student who works very hard for an exam and a student who guessed it. I think the student who gave more deserve more than the latter, but alas, the other student is perfectly within his rights to have the points that are not very deserved.

And now you're comparing them to leeches, which sucks the blood out of the host and bodily harms it. $200 is not bodily harm, whereas using the mothers body is. That's why children, as social parasites, cannot be killed just for that, but being physical parasites and harming the host, yes, it's perfectly within reason to drive them out. The comparison is not valid with abortion; and by the way, why are you bringing abortion into this topic?

If he feels his life is in danger he has the right to defend himself.

Um. Right. Now it's up to him. What if he has a gun, and he sees someone else drawing a gun but without the intention to harm him? Would he be justified to shoot and kill the other person just because he feels that his life is in danger? This is very broad; and if that statement gets him off, then consistently, he could justify a lot of things.

Ool

05-30-2008, 05:20 AM

It is always wrong to initiate the use of force against another person because force is the only thing that can interfere with a person living their life as they choose. Additionally, just because you legitimately need something doesn't mean you have earned it. People must only trade to mutual benefit, they must never steal from each other. If you really, truly, need something but you have nothing to trade for it then you are screwed. There's nothing wrong with that, it's not a judgement on you, sometimes people just get screwed.

This is the idea that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” There is just one tiny little thing wrong with that idea: Where did the Universe come from? Why does everything there is exist in the first place, including all the lunches we might be able to get within it?

I’ve often pointed out that everything there is cannot have a reason outside itself because there is nothing other than everything there is that could have caused it.

But that means that the Universe itself is basically a free lunch. Nothing was paid for it; nothing was invested in its creation. It just is.

(As a nod to the mythology-worshipers: Even assuming that it was God-given then he apparently got it for free. Or at least the skills to make it.)

Now you may argue that while the Universe may be free that the lunches in the particular corner of the Universe that we inhabit are not. But ultimately whatever it is we pay for them, at some point in life we must have gotten that for free. Whatever we acquire in order to pay for more lunches, ultimately they must cost less than what we get out of it.

So what is the appropriate price for your next lunch? Well, it depends on where you are, who you are, what the physical and the market conditions in your environment are like. Sometimes the lunches are free. Sometimes they’re really cheap. Sometimes they’re nearly or quite unaffordable. There is no objective price for your next lunch; it’s all relative.

This whole Objectivism meme is bullcrap.

If you follow this philosophy you find yourself preparing for everything. You work really hard to always have things of value to trade for the things you need and want. If you don't follow this philosophy you find yourself not preparing for anything. You rely on other people to bail you out of the jams that you could have prepared for. You become a parasite who lives off of the work of others.

That thinking would have impressed me more if the Rand followers had predicted the coming oil crash and invested lots of money and hard work into less easily available and yet abundant energy sources in time.

But instead they created Reaganomics and funny money and a dollar tied to foreign oil reserves. Not very impressive.

I can explain the supporting philosophy behind these conclusions if you need me too. The bottom line is that stealing is always wrong because you are saying that your need for something is more important then the rights of the person who created that thing. If the pharmacist hadn't created that medicine then it wouldn't be available for you to steal. If you steal every invention then people will stop inventing things. If people stop inventing things then the human race will succumb to entropy and go extinct.

Tell that to the Native Americans…!

It’s easy to declare property rights sacrosanct after you’ve just declared eminent domain on a huge continent and have a lot of unclaimed property and resources lying around. Or if relatively few ideas are protected by patents yet. But with every claim of property it gets a bit harder to figure out what belongs to whom or whether there is anything left to claim or how to get to that which is left through the maze of already claimed property.

The people who own the roads, for instance, might make the price for traveling on them so high that eventually you’ll have to sell your property to them piece by piece so you can still afford to get to what’s left. How’s that for entropy?

And it can go the same way for intellectual property, too. Just think of the success of Microsoft and how they leveraged their dominant market position to swallow up whatever other software rights they could get!

It’s not that easy because, as I said, the price for your next lunch is not objective. And in the absense of pragmatically regulating, redistributing agencies it is that subjective imbalance in the market that you’re in denial about that can cause the most consolidated private monopolies that are every bit as oppressive as a government monopoly can be…

Elfrun

05-30-2008, 06:35 AM

um, Antares I said he has the right to defend himself if he believes he is in danger not that he had the right to kill someone, I believe noone has that right although there are regretfully times when there is no alternative. I do not think it is acceptable to use excessively more force then the your attacker, of course that is very subjective as it all depends on what kind of threat someone believes they are being confronted with. I hope I never find out the answer first hand.

TheLastMohican

05-30-2008, 09:59 AM

He doesn't deserve $2000 because it only costed him $200, but it doesn't matter now. He has power over it; he created it and is perfectly within his rights to price it whatever pleases him. Just like a student who works very hard for an exam and a student who guessed it. I think the student who gave more deserve more than the latter, but alas, the other student is perfectly within his rights to have the points that are not very deserved.

I won't try to convince you that the pharmacist deserves the medicine; but at least no one else deserves it more than he does.

And now you're comparing them to leeches, which sucks the blood out of the host and bodily harms it. $200 is not bodily harm, whereas using the mothers body is. That's why children, as social parasites, cannot be killed just for that, but being physical parasites and harming the host, yes, it's perfectly within reason to drive them out. The comparison is not valid with abortion; and by the way, why are you bringing abortion into this topic?

I was not trying to compare it to bodily harm, or bring abortion into it. It's just that the underlying principle is the same, and I wanted to know why you thought there was a difference.

azelismia

05-30-2008, 10:27 AM

By that logic, none of us should be posting on this message board, because the yearly cost of internet and PC bills and electricity (all luxuries of excess) could have saved the lives of several starving people in Africa if we had donated the money to charity instead.

Why? We're talking specifically about someone within our monkeysphere, not a bunch of people outside of it. It's not reasonable to take on the worlds problems. It is reasonable to take on the problems of your S/O. after all if you're married that's one of the vows you took. To look after them. Realistically though, a single pharmacist isn't going to have that medication it's going to be a giant corporation adn that's what insurance is for.

azelismia added to this post, 1 minutes and 4 seconds later...

What a bunch of sheep following little rules. Rules are fine, but the skill is knowing when to break the rules. When it comes to survival there are no rules, only dead moralists and live realists.

You lack the courage to do what must be done. If it were you that needed the drug then you would just roll over and die. I would fight him for it since I have nothing to lose. Its a him or me situation, and I intend it to be him.

If you want to judge which morality is right by an objective test then you have it. The morality of the one that is still alive is right. They have been tested in the fire of objective reality. War is not about who is right, but who is left.

There's no need to fight and bring assault into it too. Cat burglary would do quite fine.

Mozzes

05-30-2008, 10:34 AM

I can't believe all the people who have said that he shouldn't steal because it's against the law. I don't know where you guys live, but laws aren't always just and sometimes civil disobedience is necessary. It's a question of values and you've just as well as said that the pharmacists right to sell his medicine is more valuable than a human life.

azelismia

05-30-2008, 10:34 AM

This is why I like objectivism so much. To an objectivist this situation is quite clear.

It is always wrong to initiate the use of force against another person because force is the only thing that can interfere with a person living their life as they choose. Additionally, just because you legitimately need something doesn't mean you have earned it. People must only trade to mutual benefit, they must never steal from each other. If you really, truly, need something but you have nothing to trade for it then you are screwed. There's nothing wrong with that, it's not a judgement on you, sometimes people just get screwed.

If you follow this philosophy you find yourself preparing for everything. You work really hard to always have things of value to trade for the things you need and want. If you don't follow this philosophy you find yourself not preparing for anything. You rely on other people to bail you out of the jams that you could have prepared for. You become a parasite who lives off of the work of others.

I can explain the supporting philosophy behind these conclusions if you need me too. The bottom line is that stealing is always wrong because you are saying that your need for something is more important then the rights of the person who created that thing. If the pharmacist hadn't created that medicine then it wouldn't be available for you to steal. If you steal every invention then people will stop inventing things. If people stop inventing things then the human race will succumb to entropy and go extinct.

People won't stop inventing things. ideas have been stolen since time began and it hasnt' stopped the invention process. Someone steals the drug for use once and he says dammit.. I can't do it this way and sells it to a corp for wide distribution. Each individual can say whatever they want. you will always have someone saying their need is greater than the others potential for profit. If they price the product above the price range of the people that need the drug they won't make money anyway because no one can afford it. Neither party is wrong in this place. The husband is entirely right in doing absolutely anything he can to save his wives life and the pharmacist is right in wanting to make a profit. The husband has a lot more to lose than the pharmacist does though. The husband has an emotional devastating loss potential which depending on the strength of their bonds could mean his own life as well. the apothacary has a potential for net loss 200 and maybe profit of 800 if the guy leaves money behind. Even if the guy breaks in cat burglar style and deposits 500 and steals the medication both parties are still winning.

blueback

05-30-2008, 11:39 AM

It's called "objectivism" partly because it applies the same rules equally to everyone all the time. What you guys are proposing is relativism where sometimes it's okay to do this one thing and sometimes it's not okay and there's no way to decide who is right. You guys are postulating that it's not only acceptable but admirable for the husband to steal from the pharmacist to save his wife. . .in this situation. But what if the wife just has a bad cold and the husband is contemplating stealing from the pharmacist to help his wife stop her sniffles, would it still be okay for him to steal when a life isn't in danger? What if the pharmacist developed that cure because HIS wife is dying of cancer and he needs that treatment to save her life but the husband wants to steal it to save his wife's life? What if the pharmacist went deeply into debt trying to develop that cure and he needs to make a lot of money off of it quick to pay off Guido or he'll end up at the bottom of a lake?

This is the idea that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

No, it's not. That is called a strawman and I'm disappointed that you would stoop that low. If it's not a stawman, and you can somehow explain who you arrived at that conclusion, then do so BEFORE you knock the strawman down.

The "free lunch" idea is more complicated then you have let-on, even to the point where it is totally possible to have a "free lunch" if you can use resources more efficiently then your competators To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. What I described was a set of rules which can apply equally to all people all the time and, if followed, will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. However, the rules have to be followed. If people start breaking the rules then the pact breaks down and much of the benefit is lost.

There is just one tiny little thing wrong with that idea: Where did the Universe come from?

Yeah. . .now you're definitely off on a tangent. I'm not interested in talking about the origins of the universe. Go start a different thread for that.

But ultimately whatever it is we pay for them, at some point in life we must have gotten that for free. Whatever we acquire in order to pay for more lunches, ultimately they must cost less than what we get out of it.

Congratulations, you just described objectivism. See? I told you it works.

Objectivism states that people have to generate a profit off of their actions. People need a minimum amount of resources to survive, but they need an indeterminant amount above and beyond the survival level to at least prepare for the unexpected. However, that is just to tread water. If they want to advance their lives they have to generate an actual profit. For example, inventing the wheel was a profitable activity, as was money-lending, animal husbandry, etc.

I think you are lumping in investment activities with your "the universe is a free lunch" rant. Often an activity needs an injection of capital before it can even get started. That capital is an investment which is expected to be repaid with interest later, it's not a "free lunch." And no, I'm not talking about the origin of the universe, just about things that humans do.

This whole Objectivism meme is bullcrap.

Feel free to explain why by actually addressing one of my points. You know, instead of wandering off into your own tangents.

That thinking would have impressed me more if the Rand followers had predicted the coming oil crash and invested lots of money and hard work into less easily available and yet abundant energy sources in time.

Ummm. . .okay. Again with the weird tangents. Who are Rand's followers exactly and how do you know so much about their investment activities? Besides, the current price of oil was predicted by the Peak Oil theorists back in the 1970's.

But instead they created Reaganomics and funny money and a dollar tied to foreign oil reserves. Not very impressive.

It's my impression that very few people, especially politicians, will openly admit to being objectivists. So, how do you know so much about what they've been up to?

Tell that to the Native Americans…!

Wait, is this another unrelated tangent that you can pretend is related to what I was talking about and then shoot it down? What's that called again?

It’s easy to declare property rights sacrosanct after you’ve just declared eminent domain on a huge continent and have a lot of unclaimed property and resources lying around.

I don't remember ever saying that the original European settlers of North America were objectivists or that what they did to the Native Americans was right. Therefore, your use of this topic to discredit my ideas is not only sad but kind of pathetic. Just stick to the topic.

And in the absense of pragmatically regulating, redistributing agencies it is that subjective imbalance in the market that you’re in denial about that can cause the most consolidated private monopolies that are every bit as oppressive as a government monopoly can be

"pragmatically regulated redistributing agencies". . .care to define that a bit more specifically?

There is nothing wrong with a "subjective imbalance in the market" because the market will adjust to accomidate it. That is what the market does best is balance one value against another.

I never said anything about monopolies, so you are once again grasping at anything you can to keep your argument above water. I've said in other threads that monopolies are generally bad, that the most benefit is acheived when there is competition and that monopolies stifle that. Objectivism is ultimately about what is best for life, not what is best for the market. If the market produces something that harms life then it should be dealt with accordingly.

blueback added to this post, 10 minutes and 48 seconds later...

People won't stop inventing things. ideas have been stolen since time began and it hasnt' stopped the invention process.

Does that make stealing right? Or does it make stealing a wrong that can be delt with?

Take a look at the Soviet Union to see why stealing is bad. They tried to implement a system in which everyone received the exact same thing no matter how hard they worked. The natural result was that people stopped working hard and the system ground to a halt. Everyone became a parasite and their collective weight killed their host.

you will always have someone saying their need is greater than the others potential for profit.

And they would be wrong every time. Profit is what pulled the human race up out of the stone age. It is good. People who steal from others just because they need something are wrong.

Neither party is wrong in this place.

That is why I like objectivism and not relativism. Objectivism has a single standard against which everything can be judged but the standard is rooted in objective reality rather than a gnostic interpretation of the scriptures or something equally esoteric.

Lets say you were a judge who had to decide what to do with this case. The husband stole the cure from the pharmacist and now they are both standing in front of you. What do you do? Who are you going to punish? If you don't punish anyone how are you going to punish people for stealing in the future when you've established the precidence that stealing is okay?

The husband is entirely right in doing absolutely anything he can to save his wives life and the pharmacist is right in wanting to make a profit.

I disagree. It is always wrong to initiate the use of force against another person. He can go crazy trying to talk people into helping him or making some sort of deal, but once he steps over the line of using actual force he is categorically wrong.

Besides, did you just say that the husband's actions are as equally right as the pharmacists want? There's no such thing as a right want. Wants don't exist.

The husband has a lot more to lose than the pharmacist does though.

So? That just means that the husband has a lot more to lose. It doesn't mean that the husband is suddenly above the rules.

The husband has an emotional devastating loss potential which depending on the strength of their bonds could mean his own life as well. the apothacary has a potential for net loss 200 and maybe profit of 800 if the guy leaves money behind. Even if the guy breaks in cat burglar style and deposits 500 and steals the medication both parties are still winning.

We aren't talking about what the husband would actually do in real life we are talking about the theoretical definition of whether or not his actions are right or wrong. You can slice it any way you want and the husband is still stealing, which is wrong.

azelismia

05-30-2008, 11:47 AM

It's called "objectivism" partly because it applies the same rules equally to everyone all the time. What you guys are proposing is relativism where sometimes it's okay to do this one thing and sometimes it's not okay and there's no way to decide who is right. You guys are postulating that it's not only acceptable but admirable for the husband to steal from the pharmacist to save his wife. . .in this situation. But what if the wife just has a bad cold and the husband is contemplating stealing from the pharmacist to help his wife stop her sniffles, would it still be okay for him to steal when a life isn't in danger? What if the pharmacist developed that cure because HIS wife is dying of cancer and he needs that treatment to save her life but the husband wants to steal it to save his wife's life? What if the pharmacist went deeply into debt trying to develop that cure and he needs to make a lot of money off of it quick to pay off Guido or he'll end up at the bottom of a lake?

No, it's not. That is called a strawman and I'm disappointed that you would stoop that low. If it's not a stawman, and you can somehow explain who you arrived at that conclusion, then do so BEFORE you knock the strawman down.

The "free lunch" idea is more complicated then you have let-on, even to the point where it is totally possible to have a "free lunch" if you can use resources more efficiently then your competators To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. What I described was a set of rules which can apply equally to all people all the time and, if followed, will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. However, the rules have to be followed. If people start breaking the rules then the pact breaks down and much of the benefit is lost.

Yeah. . .now you're definitely off on a tangent. I'm not interested in talking about the origins of the universe. Go start a different thread for that.

Congratulations, you just described objectivism. See? I told you it works.

Objectivism states that people have to generate a profit off of their actions. People need a minimum amount of resources to survive, but they need an indeterminant amount above and beyond the survival level to at least prepare for the unexpected. However, that is just to tread water. If they want to advance their lives they have to generate an actual profit. For example, inventing the wheel was a profitable activity, as was money-lending, animal husbandry, etc.

I think you are lumping in investment activities with your "the universe is a free lunch" rant. Often an activity needs an injection of capital before it can even get started. That capital is an investment which is expected to be repaid with interest later, it's not a "free lunch." And no, I'm not talking about the origin of the universe, just about things that humans do.

Feel free to explain why by actually addressing one of my points. You know, instead of wandering off into your own tangents.

Ummm. . .okay. Again with the weird tangents. Who are Rand's followers exactly and how do you know so much about their investment activities? Besides, the current price of oil was predicted by the Peak Oil theorists back in the 1970's.

It's my impression that very few people, especially politicians, will openly admit to being objectivists. So, how do you know so much about what they've been up to?

Wait, is this another unrelated tangent that you can pretend is related to what I was talking about and then shoot it down? What's that called again?

I don't remember ever saying that the original European settlers of North America were objectivists or that what they did to the Native Americans was right. Therefore, your use of this topic to discredit my ideas is not only sad but kind of pathetic. Just stick to the topic.

"pragmatically regulated redistributing agencies". . .care to define that a bit more specifically?

There is nothing wrong with a "subjective imbalance in the market" because the market will adjust to accomidate it. That is what the market does best is balance one value against another.

I never said anything about monopolies, so you are once again grasping at anything you can to keep your argument above water. I've said in other threads that monopolies are generally bad, that the most benefit is acheived when there is competition and that monopolies stifle that. Objectivism is ultimately about what is best for life, not what is best for the market. If the market produces something that harms life then it should be dealt with accordingly.

blueback added to this post, 10 minutes and 48 seconds later...

Does that make stealing right? Or does it make stealing a wrong that can be delt with?

Take a look at the Soviet Union to see why stealing is bad. They tried to implement a system in which everyone received the exact same thing no matter how hard they worked. The natural result was that people stopped working hard and the system ground to a halt. Everyone became a parasite and their collective weight killed their host.

And they would be wrong every time. Profit is what pulled the human race up out of the stone age. It is good. People who steal from others just because they need something are wrong.

That is why I like objectivism and not relativism. Objectivism has a single standard against which everything can be judged but the standard is rooted in objective reality rather than a gnostic interpretation of the scriptures or something equally esoteric.

Lets say you were a judge who had to decide what to do with this case. The husband stole the cure from the pharmacist and now they are both standing in front of you. What do you do? Who are you going to punish? If you don't punish anyone how are you going to punish people for stealing in the future when you've established the precidence that stealing is okay?

I disagree. It is always wrong to initiate the use of force against another person. He can go crazy trying to talk people into helping him or making some sort of deal, but once he steps over the line of using actual force he is categorically wrong.

Besides, did you just say that the husband's actions are as equally right as the pharmacists want? There's no such thing as a right want. Wants don't exist.

So? That just means that the husband has a lot more to lose. It doesn't mean that the husband is suddenly above the rules.

We aren't talking about what the husband would actually do in real life we are talking about the theoretical definition of whether or not his actions are right or wrong. You can slice it any way you want and the husband is still stealing, which is wrong.

he'd be in the wrong but he'd still have to do it. you can't always do the right thing by EVERYONE's standards. the judge would of course be in the right to prosecute the husband. that doesn't mean the husband wasn't ultimately right in stealing to save his wives life. Stealing isn't necessarily using force against someone else directly. there's a such thing as stealth that doesn't involve any bodily force.

Wrong or Right for something like this is too simplistic imho. Nothing is wrong or right by everyone's standards or morals. you do what you need to do to survive. Survival of your family is what is generally thought of as right at the core. There's another thread about maslow's higharchy of needs. if your survival is in question things like morals aren't considered. Philosophy is a luxury for those who can afford it.

blueback

05-30-2008, 12:00 PM

Could you maybe not include the entire text of my post in your post like that?

Well, you just said "he would be wrong." So doesn't that settle the debate? The debate wasn't about what he would actually chose to do it was about whether or not he was wrong to steal.

Yeah, that is why I've been saying that objectivism is an objective standard. It doesn't matter what a million different individuals think, objectivism is a standard outside of their individual standards. For morality to matter the standard has to be equally applied to everyone all the time. That means one standard. Just because someone has reached a conclusion doesn't mean they are correct, so just because they think they know what is right and wrong doesn't mean they are correct.

I never said "bodily force." You had to add the modifier on there to make it fit your argument. It is force when the husband does something that physically violates the rights of the pharmacist. He has to physically break into his house and physically take the medicine.

That's true. People often revert to their most savage instincts when they are threatened. However, which would you rather encourage? Their savage instincts or their rational self-interest?

Think about it this way. Whatever decision you make in this case, try thinking about applying it to everyone in the world instead of just these two guys. Imagine if everyone in the world stole something they needed tongiht.

TheLastMohican

05-30-2008, 12:01 PM

Could you maybe not include the entire text of my post in your post like that?

I saw this coming a mile away...;)

azelismia

05-30-2008, 12:07 PM

blueback

05-30-2008, 12:19 PM

azelismia

05-30-2008, 12:34 PM

Oh it is? You skipped that part where I suggested you imagine what the world would be like if you applied that standard to everyone equally didn't you?

If your definition of "in the case of life or death it is right to steal for the person stealing" was applied to everyone in the world right now, what do you think would happen? Is it right for a sick person to break into a hospital and steal medication? Is it right for a son to go into the street and steal medicine for his dying father from another old man? Is it right for a father to kidnap a doctor to heal his son at gunpoint? Is it right for your neighbor to steal your money to buy a life-saving medicine? Is it right for someone to steal an ambulance to run away from someone trying to kill them?

uh, in most situations there is another solution. everyone in the world isn't going to need to steal to survive. Emergency rooms have to take anyone who comes in with dire need. but to those people on the verge of life or death, doing what it takes to save their life is what is right for them. you have to do what you have to do. If everyone on the street did take to stealing to save their life then I suspect there would be solutions put into place rather quickly to see that the unmet needs were taken care of. people will take care of those in their monkeysphere. Most people could not live with themselves if they didn't do everything in their power to save the life of a loved one. it isn't a matter of wrong vs right. it's a matter of survival.

Mozzes

05-30-2008, 12:35 PM

blueback

05-30-2008, 12:44 PM

You can't have it both ways. You can't say that it is okay for everyone to steal to save a life and say that not enough people will resort to theft for it to change the way we live.

Lets use your emergency room example. If two people come in with life-threatening injuries at the same time, lets say they're bleeding to death and if they don't get their blood replenished they will die. So if one of them is worse than the other and the doctors give him the blood IV first can the other guy take the IV away and stick it in his own arm? If someone comes in with an injury that is life-threatening, but they won't die as quickly as some of the other people in the emergency room and the doctors tell them to wait for treatment, is it right for them to pull a gun and force one of the doctors to treat them?

If you think it's right for a person to do anything to save the life of one of their family members, where do you draw the line? How closely related do they have to be for it to be right? How long do they have to have known them? Does that make it wrong for them to not do absolutely anything to save the life of a family member?

blueback added to this post, 1 minutes and 30 seconds later...

I would answer yes to all except for the one in bold text - that one is different from the rest because it implies intent to cause physical harm if the doctor refuses.

Well, once you open the door to stealing being okay how do you stop people from classifying murder as theft of life?

Mozzes

05-30-2008, 12:49 PM

Well, once you open the door to stealing being okay how do you stop people from classifying murder as theft of life?

Because in order for that to be valid all "things" capable of being stolen would have to be of equal value. They are not. At least not to me. A human life is more valuable than a car, or medicine, or a little bit of money. I agree with the idea that "taking" a human life deserves a more severe penalty than petty theft. You know there was a time when assisting slaves to freedom was considered theft under the law, but in modern times to think of it as being wrong would be considered rather stupid.

I'm not saying there aren't nor that there shouldn't be legal consequences for our actions. I'm just saying that there are times when morality and law do not coincide. The result is conflict. Sometimes laws are changed because of it. Sometimes not.

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 12:55 PM

That is why I like objectivism and not relativism. Objectivism has a single standard against which everything can be judged but the standard is rooted in objective reality rather than a gnostic interpretation of the scriptures or something equally esoteric.

There is no such thign as objective reality, which is where Ool was leading to, and I can see that his point was so very valid in terms of the bigger picutre beyond what we as humans do to maintain an artificially constructed and arbitrary society. There is something that we perceive, outside of our own minds, but this perception can hardly be labelled as objective, as when you get down to it, it's a perception (ie. it's inherently subjective). Objective reality is only objective insofar that we can understand our perception of things, but it's hardly objective, since the standard itself is a human creation for human interactions.

azelismia

05-30-2008, 12:56 PM

You can't have it both ways. You can't say that it is okay for everyone to steal to save a life and say that not enough people will resort to theft for it to change the way we live.

Lets use your emergency room example. If two people come in with life-threatening injuries at the same time, lets say they're bleeding to death and if they don't get their blood replenished they will die. So if one of them is worse than the other and the doctors give him the blood IV first can the other guy take the IV away and stick it in his own arm? If someone comes in with an injury that is life-threatening, but they won't die as quickly as some of the other people in the emergency room and the doctors tell them to wait for treatment, is it right for them to pull a gun and force one of the doctors to treat them?

If you think it's right for a person to do anything to save the life of one of their family members, where do you draw the line? How closely related do they have to be for it to be right? How long do they have to have known them? Does that make it wrong for them to not do absolutely anything to save the life of a family member?

blueback added to this post, 1 minutes and 30 seconds later...

Well, once you open the door to stealing being okay how do you stop people from classifying murder as theft of life?

you can have it both ways because life is not black and white. black and white examples like you keep bringing up don't happen very often. Generally there are other solutions that make desperate measures unnecessary. I am not drawing any lines. that's your deal not mine. I am saying if someone feels the need to save someone else's life then that's their priority. It's survival.

thod

05-30-2008, 01:15 PM

I often wonder if the Randians have so in love with their idea that they have lost touch with the objective world they purport to understand.

They would make great slaves. If I own all the land, then I could trade with them offering them starvation wages in exchange for their labor. After all if they dont want to accept the trade they can starve, nothing is forcing them. Whereas a normal set of people would rise up and displace the feudal lord with arms, the Randians would never think of it.

Lets have more them off them I say. I am lion amongst such men and that scares them. I do what needs to be done trampling on their limitations and self perceived rights. I kill the pharmacist for the drug and KNOW it is both an immoral and necessary act for my survival. The need is outweighs the risks, if it was a common cold it would not.

What do I care about how a society should work or the needs of others. I know nothing of these things, all I know is my own world and its interaction with the outside. I dont want the world to be a better place, I want my world to be a better place.

blueback

05-30-2008, 01:17 PM

Generally there are other solutions that make desperate measures unnecessary.
You are saying that stealing to save a life is right. Once you establish that as a rule you can't control how it gets applied. You can't tell people that stealing to save a life is right but that they still shouldn't do it. It's right, how can you tell them it is right and also tell them not to do it?

blueback added to this post, 1 minutes and 15 seconds later...

Because in order for that to be valid all "things" capable of being stolen would have to be of equal value. They are not. At least not to me.
I don't see how you got to that conclusion. You started arguing from it, but how did you arrive at it?

azelismia

05-30-2008, 01:22 PM

[quote=blueback;111958]You are saying that stealing to save a life is right. Once you establish that as a rule you can't control how it gets applied. You can't tell people that stealing to save a life is right but that they still shouldn't do it. It's right, how can you tell them it is right and also tell them not to do it?
quote]

you're the one drawing lines adn establishing rules not me. I am talking about extenuating circumstances. it isn't establishing anything at all. I never said there weren't consequences for actions taken. taking one life or death emergency and expanding it to anarchy doesn't seem like a very flowing path to me.

blueback

05-30-2008, 01:27 PM

There is no such thign as objective reality,

Yay, this again. I've addressed this idea before but I don't remember where so I'll just do it again.

It is theoretically possible that I am the only thing that exists and all of you are in my imagination. It is theoretically possible that I don't exist and I only think I do because you are the one that exists and you are imagining me imagining that I exist. However, that is not the case. It is simple to prove, just try to make something happen by wishing for it. You can do that in your imagination but you can't do it in reality. If things start to happen just because you wish for them then it is in your imagination and if nothing happens no matter how hard you wish then it is in reality.

I just tried to wish Marisa Miller into my lap. . .and it didn't happen. Therefore I must be in reality. Either that or I am imagining a world in which even I have to obey the rules despite the fact that it's all in my head, in which case the distinction doesn't matter.

There is something that we perceive, outside of our own minds, but this perception can hardly be labelled as objective, as when you get down to it, it's a perception (ie. it's inherently subjective).

Yes, one single perception is subjective. If you only take one measurement there is no telling whether or not it is accurate. That is why you take lots of measurements and compare them to each other. When they start to cluster around a single value it is safe to assume that value is the true one. For example, you can put a glass of water on the table in front of you and stare at it until you are sure that you know how far away it is. Then you can test your understanding by reaching for it. If you pick it up successfully then you managed to figure out the true distance despite the fact that your mental model of the glass was subjective.

Objective reality is only objective insofar that we can understand our perception of things, but it's hardly objective, since the standard itself is a human creation for human interactions.

You just called it "objective reality" and then you said that it wasn't objective. Why should anyone listen to you if you aren't even listening to yourself?

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 01:29 PM

You just called it "objective reality" and then you said that it wasn't objective. Why should anyone listen to you if you aren't even listening to yourself?

Do I have to put quotation marks around "objective reality" to make sure that you get my point, or can you not read between the lines?

Mozzes

05-30-2008, 01:31 PM

blueback added to this post, 1 minutes and 15 seconds later...
I don't see how you got to that conclusion. You started arguing from it, but how did you arrive at it?

In response to: "Well, once you open the door to stealing being okay how do you stop people from classifying murder as theft of life?"

Generally, humans create value. Humans make tools and other items and implement the laws and economic systems which create value. As a result I see humans as the ultimate "object" of value because of our ability to create, organize, etc. It's simply how my hierarchy is structured. I think to assign an object the value of a human life in such a way as to legitimize the taking of human life as "theft" instead of the much more severe categories like murder or manslaughter would be a poor choice in terms of opportunity cost.

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 01:33 PM

Yay, this again. I've addressed this idea before but I don't remember where so I'll just do it again.

It is theoretically possible that I am the only thing that exists and all of you are in my imagination. It is theoretically possible that I don't exist and I only think I do because you are the one that exists and you are imagining me imagining that I exist. However, that is not the case. It is simple to prove, just try to make something happen by wishing for it. You can do that in your imagination but you can't do it in reality. If things start to happen just because you wish for them then it is in your imagination and if nothing happens no matter how hard you wish then it is in reality.

It could be that we're bound by certian limitations that we cannot comprehend. We are humans, and as much as we try to explore possibilites, we're still limited as such by what we can perceive. The bottom-line is: you can't really know for sure. You can delude yourself all you want into thinking this is reality, but you can never ever know. It's impossible to. Besides, a measurement taken by 100 people that all points to the same result is a measurement that was still taken by a human mind; how can that be objective? Objective insofar as humans can understand objectivity, but it's certainly not the be all, end all.

blueback

05-30-2008, 01:44 PM

They would make great slaves. If I own all the land, then I could trade with them offering them starvation wages in exchange for their labor. After all if they dont want to accept the trade they can starve, nothing is forcing them. Whereas a normal set of people would rise up and displace the feudal lord with arms, the Randians would never think of it.

Right, cuz all people who agree that they fall under a certain label automatically think exactly the same way. You can see examples of that all around you, all the Christians think the same way, all the Mormons agree on everything, all the capitalists have exactly the same answers. Hell, even all the INTJs can't find a single difference of opinion amongst themselves. <-sarcasm

Lets have more them off them I say. I am lion amongst such men and that scares them.

Why wouldn't a normal person be scared of a person who publicly claims to follow no laws or rules? Such a person is a danger to everyone around them no matter what their philosophy.

I do what needs to be done trampling on their limitations and self perceived rights. I kill the pharmacist for the drug and KNOW it is both an immoral and necessary act for my survival.

And you will be isolated and imprisoned (at least) when all the "lambs" gang up on you for mutual protection. Even the other lions won't trust you. Are you really planning on living as a completely independant entity?

What do I care about how a society should work or the needs of others. I know nothing of these things, all I know is my own world and its interaction with the outside. I dont want the world to be a better place, I want my world to be a better place.

Of course you know about those things you're just having fun playing the Devil's Advocate. Your argument is weak, though. You can live that way for a short period of time but relatively quickly everyone else will gang up on you.

blueback added to this post, 5 minutes and 32 seconds later...

It could be that we're bound by certian limitations that we cannot comprehend. We are humans, and as much as we try to explore possibilites, we're still limited as such by what we can perceive. The bottom-line is: you can't really know for sure. You can delude yourself all you want into thinking this is reality, but you can never ever know. It's impossible to. Besides, a measurement taken by 100 people that all points to the same result is a measurement that was still taken by a human mind; how can that be objective? Objective insofar as humans can understand objectivity, but it's certainly not the be all, end all.
You're starting to ramble. You raised a point (uncomprehended limitations) and then dropped it. You then jumped to the conclusion that we can't "know" for sure, I think you meant know whether or not something exists. Then you moved on to claiming that a lack of proof was a proof of lack, which isn't even a legitimate argument. Then you took my example and adjusted it to be more easily dismissed. Then you jumped to some idea about "be all, end all."

How about you just address the ideas in my post one at a time, that might help you stay on track.

blueback added to this post, 3 minutes and 41 seconds later...

In response to: "Well, once you open the door to stealing being okay how do you stop people from classifying murder as theft of life?"

Generally, humans create value. Humans make tools and other items and implement the laws and economic systems which create value. As a result I see humans as the ultimate "object" of value because of our ability to create, organize, etc. It's simply how my hierarchy is structured. I think to assign an object the value of a human life in such a way as to legitimize the taking of human life as "theft" instead of the much more severe categories like murder or manslaughter would be a poor choice in terms of opportunity cost.
Okay, I think I see your reasoning. You are saying that anything which involves human life is murder (etc) and anything which involves the things created by humans is theft (etc). I think I can get behind that.

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 01:49 PM

You're starting to ramble. You raised a point (uncomprehended limitations) and then dropped it. You then jumped to the conclusion that we can't "know" for sure, I think you meant know whether or not something exists. Then you moved on to claiming that a lack of proof was a proof of lack, which isn't even a legitimate argument. Then you took my example and adjusted it to be more easily dismissed. Then you jumped to some idea about "be all, end all."

How about you just address the ideas in my post one at a time, that might help you stay on track.

Yes, I was referring to the fact that we can never know for sure if something exists. You brought up a point with teh glass example, that in using multiple sources of measurement, you can "objectively" determine "reality." My point in relation is that no matter how many different measurements you may take, they all pass through a human lens, a person with a mind, and in the sense that they must still be intrepreted by people, it's still subjective, regardless of the fact that they may still arrive at teh same conlcusion. As I pointed out earlier, objectivity is only objective in a human sense; it's limited by our own perceptions and cognitive constructs to what we think we know. Thus is it still subjective to humans, and not truly objective.

My whole point to begin with in relation to objectivism, is that the standard objectivists apply is still subjective in the sense that it's a human standard created for human purposes. That is to say, it's not truly objective, because it's based on our subjective interpretation of "reality." Yes, it may be a species-wide interpretation (ie. a standard perception among all members), but the fact remains that in passing through a human mind, it becomes subjective.

If an objective standard isn't truly objective at all, I'd ask what the point of it all was, and why it would matter at all.

blueback

05-30-2008, 01:54 PM

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 01:59 PM

Well at least you're starting to back off of that idea a bit. At the end there you changed your claim to "truly objective."

Yeah, sure, whatever. If you want to call our individual mental model of reality "subjective" that's fine. I don't even care why you call it that. In fact, subjective is defined as: relating to or of the nature of an object as it is known in the mind as distinct from a thing in itself.

However, that mental model can still be an accurate representation of objective reality. If it accurately predicts cause and effect relationships in the real world then it doesn't matter how flawed your senses were. That is what multiple measurements are for, to weed out the mistakes.

The whole point is that objective reality may not at all be objective, and we have no way of knowing whether it is or not. This has nothing to do with the senses themselves, but it's a broad-scope philosophical question concerning the nature of "reality" and "existence."

I'm just trying to point out that in adopting a stance of objectivism, that in consideration of a larger philosophical view, the stance itself isn't objective at all. It may work for human beings themselves, but it's certainly nothing more than our subjective and arbitrary creation.

blueback

05-30-2008, 02:15 PM

If it works, what's wrong with it?

Brutananadilewski

05-30-2008, 04:15 PM

If it works, what's wrong with it?

It's just not enough for me - if something is arbitrary (ie. limited to a human's perspective) it might as well be meaningless, to me anyway. I guess I just don't care about any of this kind of stuff because I want to find answers to the questions that are impossible to answer.

blueback

05-30-2008, 07:51 PM

I guess I just don't care about any of this kind of stuff because I want to find answers to the questions that are impossible to answer.
LOL. . .let us know how that works out for you.

Antares

05-30-2008, 09:14 PM

I was not trying to compare it to bodily harm, or bring abortion into it. It's just that the underlying principle is the same, and I wanted to know why you thought there was a difference.

No, it's not the same. The fetus has no power to defend itself; the man at least has the ability to steal. It's already different there, and the differences will grow as we analyze this more. Fetus is a physical parasite that can already live off the mother. There is no telling whether the man can really become a parasite to the pharmacist; because that ultimately depends if he was able to steal the medicine. Physical parasitism is different from social parasitism.

TheLastMohican

05-30-2008, 10:11 PM

No, it's not the same. The fetus has no power to defend itself; the man at least has the ability to steal. It's already different there, and the differences will grow as we analyze this more. Fetus is a physical parasite that can already live off the mother. There is no telling whether the man can really become a parasite to the pharmacist; because that ultimately depends if he was able to steal the medicine. Physical parasitism is different from social parasitism.

I said the underlying principle is the same. The underlying principle is that the pharmacist (or mother, host, etc.) is under no obligation to allow the man (or fetus, parasite, etc.) to benefit from him (or his labor) without reciprocation.
I do not think that this underlying principle is correct to apply to all circumstances, abortion being one of the exceptions. But logically I thought that was the basis for your views on abortion, and therefore it should carry over to this situation. Apparently you do not see it that way, so I won't bother pressing it, since I was theorizing about your logic, not mine.

Antares

05-30-2008, 10:48 PM

I said the underlying principle is the same. The underlying principle is that the pharmacist (or mother, host, etc.) is under no obligation to allow the man (or fetus, parasite, etc.) to benefit from him (or his labor) without reciprocation.
I do not think that this underlying principle is correct to apply to all circumstances, abortion being one of the exceptions. But logically I thought that was the basis for your views on abortion, and therefore it should carry over to this situation. Apparently you do not see it that way, so I won't bother pressing it, since I was theorizing about your logic, not mine.

It's not the question of allowing. I didn't say the pharmacist have to be happy about being stolen from, or do nothing about it. The pharmacist really has no choice; I think he has to right to lock his door every night, have anti-robber equipment and all that, just like the woman has the rights to take measures against the fetus, but countermeasures does not guarantee that he won't be robbed if the man finds a way. I did say the pharmacist can do whatever that is within the laws to punish the man and stop his parasitism. Carrying over the consistency, I would allow the fetus to try and defend itself; but it can't, now can it? The woman uses a countermeasure that works, while for the pharmacist it's hard to be fool-proof. Both the parasite and the host has the aformentioned rights to take measures to protect itself. Naturally, if the pharmacist was successful, then like the fetus, the man's screwed (his wife anyway). Both of them can't take it to the court and demand the right to violate another's right. The man in question cannot beseech the authorities to allow him to have it for a lower price; if you believe in capitalism, you usually believd in a free market. The question is who succeeds, and who doesn't.

blueback

05-30-2008, 10:58 PM

It's not the question of allowing. . .The question is who succeeds, and who doesn't.
So might makes right? Posession is 9/10ths of the law? If I'm holding it at the moment it belongs to me? If I succeed in doing something wrong it's no longer wrong because I succeeded?

TheLastMohican

05-30-2008, 11:00 PM

It's not the question of allowing. I didn't say the pharmacist have to be happy about being stolen from, or do nothing about it. The pharmacist really has no choice; I think he has to right to lock his door every night, have anti-robber equipment and all that, just like the woman has the rights to take measures against the fetus, but countermeasures does not guarantee that he won't be robbed if the man finds a way. I did say the pharmacist can do whatever that is within the laws to punish the man and stop his parasitism. Carrying over the consistency, I would allow the fetus to try and defend itself; but it can't, now can it? The woman uses a countermeasure that works, while for the pharmacist it's hard to be fool-proof. Both the parasite and the host has the aformentioned rights to take measures to protect itself. Naturally, if the pharmacist was successful, then like the fetus, the man's screwed (his wife anyway). Both of them can't take it to the court and demand the right to violate another's right. The man in question cannot beseech the authorities to allow him to have it for a lower price; if you believe in capitalism, you usually believd in a free market. The question is who succeeds, and who doesn't.

How is the pharmacist violating anyone's right?

blueback

05-30-2008, 11:05 PM

The pharmacist is denying the criminal's right to crime, duh. He can't help it, it's just in his nature and you can't really blame a person for what's in their nature, can you? The criminal actually has more rights than the pharmacist because, unlike the pharmacist, he doesn't have his life together. He needs more help, more guidance, more slack. His needs outweight the pharmacists rights. The pharmacist, because he is too comfortable with all his resources, should be forced to give some of them to the criminal who doesn't have as many resources. . .cuz he needs them.

Did I get all that right? I've heard it often enough that I'm confident I did.

Antares

05-30-2008, 11:15 PM

How is the pharmacist violating anyone's right?

He's not. I said 'the man', as in the protagonist in this dilemma.

The pharmacist is denying the criminal's right to crime, duh. He can't help it, it's just in his nature and you can't really blame a person for what's in their nature, can you? The criminal actually has more rights than the pharmacist because, unlike the pharmacist, he doesn't have his life together. He needs more help, more guidance, more slack. His needs outweight the pharmacists rights. The pharmacist, because he is too comfortable with all his resources, should be forced to give some of them to the criminal who doesn't have as many resources. . .cuz he needs them.

Did I get all that right? I've heard it often enough that I'm confident I did.

Should be forced? That doesn't sound very individualistic.

The rich, because they are too comfortable with all their resources, should be forced to give some of them to the poor who doesn't have as many resources, cuz they need them. Sounds a bit commie to me, no offense. Charity is a choice, not an obligation. You can't force people to donate to charity.

Ool

05-31-2008, 06:22 AM

Well, you just said "he would be wrong." So doesn't that settle the debate? The debate wasn't about what he would actually chose to do it was about whether or not he was wrong to steal.

Actually she said “that doesn’t mean [he] wasn’t right.” I’m pretty sure those two negatives are meant to be resolved into a potential positive. She said it’s possible that he was right—as right as the judge convicting him for doing the right thing…

Ool added to this post, 79 minutes and 0 seconds later...

It's called "objectivism" partly because it applies the same rules equally to everyone all the time. What you guys are proposing is relativism where sometimes it's okay to do this one thing and sometimes it's not okay and there's no way to decide who is right.

Yes.

Mind you, that doesn’t mean that in the majority of cases the vote for what is right or wrong, stupid or smart, productive or counterproductive, is pretty clear-cut and unanimous, no matter where you stand. But there are always borderline cases where the distinction is blurry, vague, ambiguous, or just plain relative, depending on your perspective and your needs.

That means trying to be objective isn’t ultimately an effort in futility. It just means that there isn’t such a thing as absolute objectivity, only very high objectivity, which still isn’t all-encompassing.

You guys are postulating that it's not only acceptable but admirable for the husband to steal from the pharmacist to save his wife. . .in this situation.

Admirable only if you share the husband’s priorities, tastes, and loves, and if you deem courage and sacrifice for his objectives something to be revered.

Otherwise it’s just understandable.

But what if the wife just has a bad cold and the husband is contemplating stealing from the pharmacist to help his wife stop her sniffles, would it still be okay for him to steal when a life isn't in danger?

Only if you share the priorities of the perpetrator, which in the case of a less serious situation you’re less likely to do.

What if the pharmacist developed that cure because HIS wife is dying of cancer and he needs that treatment to save her life but the husband wants to steal it to save his wife's life? What if the pharmacist went deeply into debt trying to develop that cure and he needs to make a lot of money off of it quick to pay off Guido or he'll end up at the bottom of a lake?

Then we have a too many people on too small a lifeboat situation, in which it is understandable for anyone to try to throw the other person overboard in order to survive themselves.

Life can be a bitch sometimes. A big secret to happiness and world peace lies in avoiding the “too small of a lifeboat” situation in the first place. But once you’re in it then the “do not do unto others as you would wish to not be done unto yourself” goes out the window until such time as the world is stable again and out of danger…

No, it's not. That is called a strawman and I'm disappointed that you would stoop that low. If it's not a stawman, and you can somehow explain who you arrived at that conclusion, then do so BEFORE you knock the strawman down.

Your remark was that people should always trade and if they have nothing to trade then they’re screwed.

But sometimes there are situations in which they have nothing to trade but they can steal and get away with it, and as a result they’re not screwed any more. Or, alternatively, sometimes you might get lucky and something falls into your lap for free, even though you would have had nothing to trade for it if you had had to buy it.

That’s why I brought in the whole “no free lunch” cliché.

The "free lunch" idea is more complicated then you have let-on, even to the point where it is totally possible to have a "free lunch" if you can use resources more efficiently then your competators To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. What I described was a set of rules which can apply equally to all people all the time and, if followed, will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. However, the rules have to be followed. If people start breaking the rules then the pact breaks down and much of the benefit is lost.

Okay, let us analyze the idea of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” In most real life situations those are dependent variables, and there can be circumstances under which maximizing the one—the greatest good—leads to diminishing the other—for the greatest number—and vice versa.

In fact in the case of a linear relationship between the two, in which you have n resources and m people, the more equally you distribute the resources, the less of it anyone winds up with. What’s more, if the distribution process is leaky then the some of what everyone winds up with in the end might be less than what everyone would wind up with on average if the stuff were never distributed. So your system might actually lead to starvation if followed by the letter.

The economy is based on the fact that it is a non-zero-sum game, meaning that if you invest in distribution of certain resources to people that you get back more from them than you handed out to them. But the more something turns into a zero-sum-game because the resources run out or the productivity cannot be stimulated, the more such a Bentham-ideal can actually be perverted into something squalid and slummy…

Yeah. . .now you're definitely off on a tangent. I'm not interested in talking about the origins of the universe. Go start a different thread for that.

Ah, but the whole point is that things that are very expensive on a certain scale can become very cheap on a bigger scale or vice versa. That’s why I brought in the biggest scale of them all to point out that ultimately everything as a whole is free.

On a more practical level, we considered oil to be very cheap, trading it for less money than water, all while apparently blissfully unaware that on a higher, longer-term level it is actually very scarce and therefore ultimately expensive. On the other hand we consider sunlight to be a much more expensive form of energy, although on a larger scale its abundance will lead to its becoming dirt cheap eventually, once we have the infrastructure in place for redirecting it towards where we want it.

But on an even higher level burning stars might actually be an astrological fluke. And so on, and so on.

What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t assume that nothing is free, the same way that you shouldn’t assume that something specific that has been virtually free so far will remain so forever…

Congratulations, you just described objectivism. See? I told you it works.

No, it doesn’t. Objectivism is a broad brush, and the devil’s in the details.

Objectivism states that people have to generate a profit off of their actions. People need a minimum amount of resources to survive, but they need an indeterminant amount above and beyond the survival level to at least prepare for the unexpected. However, that is just to tread water. If they want to advance their lives they have to generate an actual profit. For example, inventing the wheel was a profitable activity, as was money-lending, animal husbandry, etc.

All of which extremistan results that don’t fit into a mediocristan model. See the Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book “The Black Swan” for details…

I think you are lumping in investment activities with your "the universe is a free lunch" rant. Often an activity needs an injection of capital before it can even get started. That capital is an investment which is expected to be repaid with interest later, it's not a "free lunch." And no, I'm not talking about the origin of the universe, just about things that humans do.

But sometimes the return is so immense that a little bit of theft doesn’t hurt anyone and the protection from theft is actually more harmful a delay than the swift rolling out of the product.

Sometimes.

And that’s why sometimes someone stealing something is doing so much more good than they are causing harm that, in retrospect, the particular act of stealing the product can be chalked up as a good deed.

Since the law isn’t good at anticipating such flukes, however, it generally considers all theft bad. And as a result it is, on some usually rare occasions, wrong.

Feel free to explain why by actually addressing one of my points. You know, instead of wandering off into your own tangents.

Ummm. . .okay. Again with the weird tangents. Who are Rand's followers exactly and how do you know so much about their investment activities? Besides, the current price of oil was predicted by the Peak Oil theorists back in the 1970's.

And still the selfishness über alles people voted into office in the Eighties chose to keep the economy an oil-guzzling easy motoring utopia rather than preparing for the big crash to come in the early 21st century. Rather than encouraging the development of renewable alternatives they decided to just invest into more of the same old stuff that would eventually run out. And even today their answer to the imminent crisis was to scramble for the last reserves rather than to encourage alternatives.

It's my impression that very few people, especially politicians, will openly admit to being objectivists. So, how do you know so much about what they've been up to?

Well, the guy they hired to run the Federal Reserve was a Rand acolyte…

Wait, is this another unrelated tangent that you can pretend is related to what I was talking about and then shoot it down? What's that called again?

Everything’s like, holistically interrelated, dude! :cool: So nothing I can ever bring up is off topic…

I don't remember ever saying that the original European settlers of North America were objectivists or that what they did to the Native Americans was right. Therefore, your use of this topic to discredit my ideas is not only sad but kind of pathetic. Just stick to the topic.

Again…

But seriously, “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” has quite an objectivist ring to it.

And anyway, even if you make the argument that the objectivists came long after the initial genocides—the point is that they developed their ideas in a world that was conveniently rich in resources and conveniently cleansed of claims for those resources. They may not have bloodied their own hands, but they hatched their ideology in a world where, some may assert, the easy availability of property was due to the fact that it was originally stolen.

So what if you live in a world where such a theft hasn’t initially occurred and everything’s tied up in heritage claims? That’s what an aristocratic, feudal Europe was like, and that’s what your ownership society will ultimately lead to for all the non-renewables…

"pragmatically regulated redistributing agencies". . .care to define that a bit more specifically?

Pragmatically meaning on a case by case basis. Regulating, redistributing meaning respecting private property when it’s the right thing to do and claiming eminent domain when that is the right thing to do.

Tax collecting, subsidizing, urban planning, you name it…

Tricky in detail. Basically it’s the worst system except for all the other systems.

There is nothing wrong with a "subjective imbalance in the market" because the market will adjust to accomidate it. That is what the market does best is balance one value against another.

That’s a bit like saying, “there is nothing catastrophic about this tsunami approaching my beachfront property because gravity will eventually make it recede into the ocean again.

It will, of course, but not before tearing your house and yourself along with it.

Market forces can be productive and benevolent in small portion. And they can be utterly destructive if they get out of hand. The market itself isn’t self-aware. It isn’t compassionate. It’s like evolution. You know it exists, you know that you benefit from it. But you’d be a fool to trust it, because it involves natural selection, and the one to be selected out next just might be yourself if you’re standing in the wrong spot…

I never said anything about monopolies, so you are once again grasping at anything you can to keep your argument above water. I've said in other threads that monopolies are generally bad, that the most benefit is acheived when there is competition and that monopolies stifle that. Objectivism is ultimately about what is best for life, not what is best for the market. If the market produces something that harms life then it should be dealt with accordingly.

Well, the whole thought experiment that this thread started out with deals with a monopoly that the pharmacist claims to have on his invention. So I don’t think I’m going off on a tangent when bringing up the pros and cons of monopolistic positions.

If objectivism is so much about life rather than markets then why does it value property so much higher than life? You see, the general consensus is that ultimately you can’t take it with you…

blueback

05-31-2008, 10:41 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
It's called "objectivism" partly because it applies the same rules equally to everyone all the time. What you guys are proposing is relativism where sometimes it's okay to do this one thing and sometimes it's not okay and there's no way to decide who is right.

… depending on your perspective and your needs.

That’s why objectivism clearly states that “needs” don’t mean much of anything. They are acknowledged as a motivating force for the individual but not for anyone besides that individual. No person lives for another person. You can still do anything in your power to help another person, but only if you want to. That other person has no moral draw on you or your resources. To not help someone in need is not wrong, it’s not even a factor.

That means trying to be objective isn’t ultimately an effort in futility. It just means that there isn’t such a thing as absolute objectivity, only very high objectivity, which still isn’t all-encompassing.

Objectivity doesn’t have anything to do with limited perception or cognitive abilities. All one has to do to be objective is to be focused on something which exists in reality and be uninfluenced by emotions. A person who makes a mistake because they reached the limits of their short-term memory can still be objective. Granted, it can be difficult to make a decision without consulting one’s emotions, but it is possible.

Ultimately, every motivation comes from an emotion, they are the ‘prime movers.’ However, that doesn’t mean that the planning process whereby we attempt to satisfy that motivation can’t be uninfluenced by emotion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
You guys are postulating that it's not only acceptable but admirable for the husband to steal from the pharmacist to save his wife. . .in this situation.

Admirable only if you share the husband’s priorities, tastes, and loves, and if you deem courage and sacrifice for his objectives something to be revered.

Which the majority of those answering the question seem to do. Most of the people who have posted a reply have stated that they are sure that the husband would be right to steal from the pharmacist because he could save is wife’s life. However, they only think that for this specific situation. If you change the situation they have to start all over again with balancing one ‘ought’ against another and hope that they can come to a conclusion. I was just pointing out that objectivism makes the whole process much faster and more reliable because its tenants are based on observable facts of reality rather than unobservable whims of imagination.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
But what if the wife just has a bad cold and the husband is contemplating stealing from the pharmacist to help his wife stop her sniffles, would it still be okay for him to steal when a life isn't in danger?

Only if you share the priorities of the perpetrator, which in the case of a less serious situation you’re less likely to do.

See, that answer is no good. The point of the discussion was to determine whether or not the husband was RIGHT or WRONG. Those are moral judgments. Morality is useless if no one agrees on it. If everyone is running around condemning everyone else because they can’t agree on what is right and wrong then nothing will ever get done. Just because an individual thinks something is right or wrong doesn’t mean they are correct.

A moral standard has to be outside of individuals. If we base our moral standard on what an individual thinks then what happens when a more powerful individual disagrees? What happens when our “moral guide” changes his mind and wants to change our moral standard? What happens when someone wants to know why they should follow the standard if it was made up by a man no better than them? The answer to all those questions is chaos.

Objectivism is a moral standard that is based in reality. It was formed from observable events. It takes people to explain it, but anyone can investigate it for themselves and see the same thing. It satisfies all those questions above. It is better than all the relative moralities because it is one coherent standard that applies the same way all the time to everyone. People won’t necessarily follow it, but it still allows you to determine right and wrong without having only your own opinion to reference.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
What if the pharmacist developed that cure because HIS wife is dying of cancer and he needs that treatment to save her life but the husband wants to steal it to save his wife's life? What if the pharmacist went deeply into debt trying to develop that cure and he needs to make a lot of money off of it quick to pay off Guido or he'll end up at the bottom of a lake?

Life can be a bitch sometimes. A big secret to happiness and world peace lies in avoiding the “too small of a lifeboat” situation in the first place. But once you’re in it then the “do not do unto others as you would wish to not be done unto yourself” goes out the window until such time as the world is stable again and out of danger…

No, we don’t have that situation. What we have is a woman on a sinking boat, a husband on a boat next to her, and a pharmacist on another boat. The husband is contemplating jumping over to the pharmacist’s boat and taking his leak-patching kit to fix his wife’s boat. (In this case a sinking boat means death and a leak-patch kit means medicine)

It might very well seem like a mad max situation to the husband, but it doesn’t to the pharmacist or to any of the 7 million other people observing the situation. Just because the husband is desperate doesn’t change the rules.

Your remark was that people should always trade and if they have nothing to trade then they’re screwed.

Close. What I said was that if a person can’t find anyone to trade with them then they are screwed. For a person to have absolutely nothing of value they’d have to be pretty close to death. The “trade to mutual benefit” idea doesn’t say anything about who is trading or what they are trading, only that they each own what they are trading and agree on the terms. If a person is desperate and destitute enough they could sell themselves into indentured servitude, whatever. As long as both parties agree on the terms there’s no problem.

But sometimes there are situations in which they have nothing to trade but they can steal and get away with it, and as a result they’re not screwed any more. Or, alternatively, sometimes you might get lucky and something falls into your lap for free, even though you would have had nothing to trade for it if you had had to buy it.

Yes, I addressed that idea before. Just because something is morally right doesn’t mean people will do it and just because it’s wrong doesn’t mean people won’t do it. People can often gain a short-term advantage by doing things that other people aren’t willing to do. However, stealing is always a parasitic activity. To steal means that not only are you taking something that isn’t yours but you are introducing waste into the market.

If there was absolutely no theft then no one would have to devote any resources to protecting their property. The extra resources that would have gone to ensuring that their stuff was still there in the morning can go into more profitable activities. By extension, the more theft there is the more resources have to be devoted to simply ensuring that your stuff doesn’t get taken, which means you have less resources to devote to profitable activities. The less profit the group as a whole is generating the more likely the group is to die. That includes the people who were doing all of that stealing. Without anyone to steal from they will die too.

Okay, let us analyze the idea of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” In most real life situations those are dependent variables, and there can be circumstances under which maximizing the one—the greatest good—leads to diminishing the other—for the greatest number—and vice versa.

Look at you with your math. It’s cute that you try.
First, you declared two dependant variables but no independent variable. Then, you changed that to one independent variable and one dependant variable. Finally, you never defined your system of measurement or did any of a number of things you need to do to set up a math problem. All you did was vaguely compare the concept of a variable to the concept of “good” and “population.”

In fact in the case of a linear relationship between the two, in which you have n resources and m people, the more equally you distribute the resources, the less of it anyone winds up with.

Yeah, that’s why I keep talking about profit. Profit creates more resources and/or allows the same resources to be used more efficiently.

What’s more, if the distribution process is leaky then the some of what everyone winds up with in the end might be less than what everyone would wind up with on average if the stuff were never distributed. So your system might actually lead to starvation if followed by the letter.

How do you get from “greatest good for greatest number” to “everyone starves?” How can everyone wind up with anything “on average” if it’s never distributed? Perhaps you should spend more time putting your analogy into context and less time patting yourself on the back.

The economy is based on the fact that it is a non-zero-sum game, meaning that if you invest in distribution of certain resources to people that you get back more from them than you handed out to them. But the more something turns into a zero-sum-game because the resources run out or the productivity cannot be stimulated, the more such a Bentham-ideal can actually be perverted into something squalid and slummy…

Well, I never said that life would be easy if all the resources we depend on for life disappeared. However, it doesn’t affect morality. The rules are the same no matter how difficult things are. The harder it is to survive the more likely you are to have to make uncomfortable trades. That’s just the nature of nature. It doesn’t change the underlying morality. The rules for how to preserve and enhance life are the same no matter how limited the resources are. Getting people to follow them is a whole ‘nother thing. In a scarce-resource environment the marginal benefit becomes great enough for just about everyone to break the rules. When everyone breaks the rules the marginal cost to following the rules goes up.

You should read about the Ik. They live in an environment so resource scarce that they have absolutely zero interpersonal ties. Every single individual lives as an individual. They even abandon their children at 3 years old to fend for themselves.

blueback

05-31-2008, 10:42 AM

Sorry, all together it's too long to post.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
Yeah. . .now you're definitely off on a tangent. I'm not interested in talking about the origins of the universe. Go start a different thread for that.

Ah, but the whole point is that things that are very expensive on a certain scale can become very cheap on a bigger scale or vice versa. That’s why I brought in the biggest scale of them all to point out that ultimately everything as a whole is free.

Except that a universal scale has absolutely nothing to do with humans. The scale we live at is so much smaller than that they aren’t even worth comparing. Everything is different at that scale, there isn’t even any time at a scale that large, it just doesn’t compare.

On a more practical level, we considered oil to be very cheap, trading it for less money than water, all while apparently blissfully unaware that on a higher, longer-term level it is actually very scarce and therefore ultimately expensive. On the other hand we consider sunlight to be a much more expensive form of energy, although on a larger scale its abundance will lead to its becoming dirt cheap eventually, once we have the infrastructure in place for redirecting it towards where we want it.

The price of oil was determined by how much work it took to make it available for sale and how many people wanted to buy it. The market doesn’t help people make good Earth-sized long-term decisions, it just helps them agree on a transaction cost. By extension, electricity from solar is expensive because it is hard to make available for sale. How many times have you seen a farmer walk out to their field and remark about how expensive the sun is today? Solar energy itself is abundant, converting it to electricity is expensive.

But on an even higher level burning stars might actually be an astrological fluke. And so on, and so on.

Doesn’t matter. Stars exist now and will continue to exist for billions of years. Read Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question (you can find the full text online, it’s a short story)

What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t assume that nothing is free, the same way that you shouldn’t assume that something specific that has been virtually free so far will remain so forever…

Wrong. Nothing is free.
Usually you have to expend resources to get it. If you didn’t have to expend resources to get it then you have to expend resources to keep it. If you don’t have to expend resources to get it or keep it then it still had to come from somewhere which means that “where” it came from now doesn’t have it. Because nothing can be created or destroyed nothing is free.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
Congratulations, you just described objectivism. See? I told you it works.
No, it doesn’t. Objectivism is a broad brush, and the devil’s in the details.

What does that even mean?
Objectivism is a guideline, not a set of technical instructions. It is as specific as it can be without being too specific, what more do you want?

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
Objectivism states that people have to generate a profit off of their actions. People need a minimum amount of resources to survive, but they need an indeterminant amount above and beyond the survival level to at least prepare for the unexpected. However, that is just to tread water. If they want to advance their lives they have to generate an actual profit. For example, inventing the wheel was a profitable activity, as was money-lending, animal husbandry, etc.
All of which extremistan results that don’t fit into a mediocristan model. See the Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book “The Black Swan” for details…

Again with the random tangents. I don’t care how many obscure words you picked up in your readings. You quoted an entire paragraph and then didn’t respond to it at all. If you want me to read something at least explain how it relates to the discussion. Or, you know, you could stay on topic. Was that paragraph too hard to tear apart?

But sometimes the return is so immense that a little bit of theft doesn’t hurt anyone and the protection from theft is actually more harmful a delay than the swift rolling out of the product.

If that’s known ahead of time then it is part of the deal that all parties agree too and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not theft it’s the cost of doing business. You’re having a lot of trouble with this “trade to mutual advantage” idea aren’t you?

Since the law isn’t good at anticipating such flukes, however, it generally considers all theft bad. And as a result it is, on some usually rare occasions, wrong.

Well that was a fun tangent. It doesn’t have anything to do with the “free lunch” idea I was talking about, though. It’s hardly ground-breaking to accuse the criminal justice system of making mistakes.

And still the selfishness über alles people voted into office in the Eighties chose to keep the economy an oil-guzzling easy motoring utopia rather than preparing for the big crash to come in the early 21st century. Rather than encouraging the development of renewable alternatives they decided to just invest into more of the same old stuff that would eventually run out. And even today their answer to the imminent crisis was to scramble for the last reserves rather than to encourage alternatives.

That reply is so far away from answering my question that I’m going to restate it. “who are Rand’s followers exactly and how do you know so much about their investment activities?” You mentioned “the guy they hired to run the Federal Reserve” which is a start, I guess.

But seriously, “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” has quite an objectivist ring to it.

Yeah, universal truth is universal truth. It tends to show up a lot.

And anyway, even if you make the argument that the objectivists came long after the initial genocides—the point is that they developed their ideas in a world that was conveniently rich in resources and conveniently cleansed of claims for those resources.

Yeah, funny how people tend to make philosophical advances when they aren’t worried about starving to death. That’s hardly a ground-breaking observation.

They may not have bloodied their own hands, but they hatched their ideology in a world where, some may assert, the easy availability of property was due to the fact that it was originally stolen.

Well, you say stolen, I say it’s more complicated than that. The European settlers killed a lot of Indians but most of the killing was actually done by other Indians under contract. Additionally, once the fighting started it’s hard to say how much was preemptive and how much was self-defense.

Besides, isn’t implying that the objectivists are evil because they were born after bad things happened kind of a weak argument? Also, Rand was born in Russia and spent her first 20 years there, so she didn’t have anything to do with killing any Native Americans.

So what if you live in a world where such a theft hasn’t initially occurred and everything’s tied up in heritage claims? That’s what an aristocratic, feudal Europe was like, and that’s what your ownership society will ultimately lead to for all the non-renewables…

“My” ownership society, eh? I live in America so there are about 300,000,000 other people who would think of it as “their” society too.

A feudal system directly violates objectivist principles because it is kept feudal through force. That’s probably got a lot to do with the fact that you can’t find very many feudal systems any more. Capitalism is better.

I think you’re saying that oil (etc) will become the basis for a new feudal system? What does that have to do with objectivism. Objectivism doesn’t lead to feudalism.

Pragmatically meaning on a case by case basis. Regulating, redistributing meaning respecting private property when it’s the right thing to do and claiming eminent domain when that is the right thing to do.

Too vague. That could apply equally well to communism or capitalism. All you said was that people should make good decisions. That’s hardly ground-breaking.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blueback
There is nothing wrong with a "subjective imbalance in the market" because the market will adjust to accomidate it. That is what the market does best is balance one value against another.

That’s a bit like saying, “there is nothing catastrophic about this tsunami approaching my beachfront property because gravity will eventually make it recede into the ocean again.

No it’s not. It’s like saying “there is nothing unnatural about this tsunami approaching my beachfront property.” If you build on the beach you are accepting the possibility of water. The market is a good system, the people in it are perfectly capable of being bad. The great depression was caused by an improperly structured banking system, the internet bubble was caused by an improperly structured investment system, the housing bubble was caused by an improperly structured securities system. The market doesn’t make mistakes, people do.

know [the market] exists, you know that you benefit from it. But you’d be a fool to trust it, because it involves natural selection, and the one to be selected out next just might be yourself if you’re standing in the wrong spot…

Again with the non-ground-breaking observations. Yes, we live in nature and nature can turn on you at any moment. That is why it’s so important to generate a profit off of your actions so that you can deal with as much change as possible. Do you see yet how objectivism answers all these questions?

Well, the whole thought experiment that this thread started out with deals with a monopoly that the pharmacist claims to have on his invention. So I don’t think I’m going off on a tangent when bringing up the pros and cons of monopolistic positions.

The pharmacist has a legal monopoly on his invention. It is rules like that that propelled America to super-power status. The government grants inventors a legal monopoly for long enough to get rich off of their invention before it reverts back to public use. That encourages people to invent things.

If objectivism is so much about life rather than markets then why does it value property so much higher than life? You see, the general consensus is that ultimately you can’t take it with you…

Wow. Congratulations on not understanding the idea you are trying to tear apart.
Objectivism doesn’t rank property more highly than life. It simply states that property rights are one of the rules that makes life better for everyone. I explained that back in the part about stealing.

jesse

06-01-2008, 03:39 AM

This is an example of applied moral dilemma. It was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg and its extended questions were formed by other psychologists. I have found it very interesting.

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine?

If he has the opportunity to do so which would save his wife, then why not?

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine?

Neither.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine? Why or why not?

Heinz loves his wife presumably, nevertheless I cannot picture this as being obligation or duty. (What's the difference anyway?) They say love and affection causes people to do all kinds of things out of respect for someone else.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not?

In my opinion Heinz is not responsible for the death if he does not steal the medicine. In a legal sense he would be wrong from the beginning if he steals something. However, simply because there is a law against something, it does not mean it is a good law.

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine? Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife?

It would seem rather senseless to steal a medicine on behalf of someone you do not love or even respect. I think it does make a difference since if you love and respect someone you are able to set aside restrictions and go the extra mile for them.

6. Imagine that the person who is dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the medicine for a stranger? Why or why not?

This is a question best left to Heinz, if it could be asked. The question would require one to further know Heinz's morality. From my point of view, he does not owe it to anyone, unless he knows and has an affiliation with said person.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal? Why or why not? What if it was his loving dog?

Once again this depends on whether the animal is of use to Heinz and whether he respects the animal. If Heinz were a farmer and one of his few dairy cows were ill, he probably would at least attempt to save the animal because it is a useful animal to him. If it were a pest that causes more harm than help, then he shouldn't even think twice about letting nature take its course.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life? Why or why not?

If there is a good chance of recovery and the person pulls his/her own weight, then yes.

9. Is Heinz acting against the law for stealing the medicine? Why or why not?

In simple terms yes because if you take something by force and without consent, then you are stealing in the eyes of the law. This, however, is a very one-sided and watered down account of the entire event around the cancer-struck wife.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law? Why or why not?

I say we shouldn't. More often than not, laws exist in an overabundance and the assumption being that one cannot even fulfill the law at all times anyway. Secondly, just because something is defined in law or regarded as a law due to customs and practice, it still does not mean it is good or bad. Some laws, however do make sense while others less. This again depends on one's conscious and their views on certain aspects of law.

These are indeed tough questions and there are no right or wrong answers per se. They are just answers based on individual morality and circumstances.

Beery Swine

06-01-2008, 04:52 PM

If you really, truly, need something but you have nothing to trade for it then you are screwed. There's nothing wrong with that, it's not a judgement on you, sometimes people just get screwed.

Evolution isn't a set of moral guidelines. At its core your entire political/economic philosophy seems to be non-violent social darwinism. It is inhuman and indifferent towards human suffering. Everything that I refer to as "I" rebels against this crap. It is not morality. Its just a set of rules. Rules are ammoral. I think you've tried to kill every last aspect of your F function.

It's called "objectivism" partly because it applies the same rules equally to everyone all the time. What you guys are proposing is relativism where sometimes it's okay to do this one thing and sometimes it's not okay and there's no way to decide who is right. You guys are postulating that it's not only acceptable but admirable for the husband to steal from the pharmacist to save his wife. . .in this situation.

My morality, along with a lot of others', is defined by individual human suffering, not by arbitrary things like laws or this passing dogma known as objectivism. Sure, it all makes perfect sense on paper and theoretically and might even work for some virtual video game market like in WoW, but this is the real world. Reality. Ever hear of it? Humans aren't computers or robots. Get in touch with your inner crocodile brain and work on that F function.

Human > $2,000

And Ayn Rand is a huge <Vn+.

cBorg

06-01-2008, 07:57 PM

This dilemma has been used to measure morality by Kohlberg's stages of moral development that he set. In the initial text there was only one question but I assume that other psychologists developed the rest of the questions because I have found them elsewhere.
How he measures morality is very interesting and there are lot of sites in the internet that present it, one of them is wikipedia (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.'s_stages_of_moral_development).

When I was presented the problem I did not answer it because I saw so many paths of thinking, so many things to take into account and every question raised other concerns. The interesting for me was that little changes or additions to the dilemma or the questions twists the view of the problem. You see I had in the back of mind that Heinz could do other things in order to get the medicine, maybe take a loan from the bank, or get a court order for being able to pay less based on monopoly rules (since the pharmacist was the only one that had the medicine), so I could not say what he did was right. But if we add some more info to the problem I see my view changes. Let's say that the woman is due to die tomorrow, the doctors give no hope and the only thing that can save her is that medicine without doubt and the pharmacist knows it, wouldn't it be like the pharmacist is actually threatening with his lack of action the woman's life? Wouldn't the husband had the right to defend his wife's life?

Its interesting re-reading the responses in light of the wikipedia article. You can see the spectrum of development from 2-6 (Trinity's answer being the closest to 6).

I also found it interesting that they couldn't find anyone who consistently acted with a level 6. I wonder why it surprised them. There is big difference in determining the moral choice and actually following through on it. For example, lets say the man believed that life was more valuable than financial gain for all the "correct" reasons, but couldn't follow through with the theft because he was afraid of the dark.

I also disagree that our moral reasoning is consistent. It takes effort and I tend to fall back to lower levels for minor things. Am I going to exercise or read a book? I'll think about it in terms of level 1-2, maybe higher depending on how tired I am. Making decisions involving my family, policies at work..serious consideration and justifies level 5. (I don't think I normally make decisions at level 6).

Elfrun

06-01-2008, 09:02 PM

Its interesting re-reading the responses in light of the wikipedia article. You can see the spectrum of development from 2-6 (Trinity's answer being the closest to 6).

I also found it interesting that they couldn't find anyone who consistently acted with a level 6. I wonder why it surprised them. There is big difference in determining the moral choice and actually following through on it. For example, lets say the man believed that life was more valuable than financial gain for all the "correct" reasons, but couldn't follow through with the theft because he was afraid of the dark.

I also disagree that our moral reasoning is consistent. It takes effort and I tend to fall back to lower levels for minor things. Am I going to exercise or read a book? I'll think about it in terms of level 1-2, maybe higher depending on how tired I am. Making decisions involving my family, policies at work..serious consideration and justifies level 5. (I don't think I normally make decisions at level 6).

Interesting, just checked out Wiki. I'm thoroughly enjoying the different perspectives here.

Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine because he will consequently be put in prison which will mean he is a bad person. Or: Heinz should steal the medicine because it is only worth $200 and not how much the druggist wanted for it; Heinz had even offered to pay for it and was not stealing anything else.

Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because prison is an awful place, and he would probably languish over a jail cell more than his wife's death.

Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband. Or: Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is bad and he is not a criminal; he tried to do everything he could without breaking the law, you cannot blame him.

Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine because the law prohibits stealing, making it illegal. Or: Heinz should steal the drug for his wife but also take the prescribed punishment for the crime as well as paying the druggist what he is owed. Criminals cannot just run around without regard for the law; actions have consequences.

Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone has a right to choose life, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because the scientist has a right to fair compensation. Even if his wife is sick, it does not make his actions right.

Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as badly, and their lives are equally significant.

Definitely six for me, this just explains it more eloquently! No doubt it would difficult to remain at that level for all aspects of your life like you suggested cBorg.

blueback

06-01-2008, 09:56 PM

Evolution isn't a set of moral guidelines.

I don't remember saying it was.

At its core your entire political/economic philosophy seems to be non-violent social darwinism.

Well, as I understand "non-violent" and "social darwinism" you aren't totally wrong. It is possible to view objectivism as a cold-hearted, passive genocide against useless people. However, I would disagree. One of the tenents of objectivism is that no person is required to live for another person. That means that just because someone needs help to maintain their life doesn't mean you have to, or even should, help them. Life, in and of itself, is pretty darned important. . .but individual lives don't embody that importance except to their owner.

Every single living thing on the planet is a descendant of ancestors who fought tooth and nail to survive, even at the expense of the lives of their weaker peers. Life takes resources to maintain, therefore it just isn't possible to keep more than a certain number of people alive. Why shouldn't those people be useful, productive people rather than useless, unproductive people?

I'm not claming to be the one to make that distinction. I'm just pointing out that if everyone has to earn their own life that nature will take care of making that distinction for us. Besides, the point of following the principles of action that objectivism encourages is that there will be more room for everyone. By allowing the most productive members of society to be productive they produce more efficiencies and resources that help keep the less productive members of society alive when they otherwise wouldn't be.

It is inhuman and indifferent towards human suffering.

Inhuman? Indifferent? Only people can be inhuman and only people can be indifferent. Objectivism is just a philosophy, a set of principles, don't personify it.

Besides, the whole issue of human suffering is kind of a red herring. There has never been a period in history where people didn't suffer and I'm pretty sure that we are doing better on average now than at any point in our history. Suffering is relative, everyone suffers. It doesn't matter how "good" someone's life gets they still find something "bad" to justify their suffering.

Everything that I refer to as "I" rebels against this crap.

So? One of my other points was that a moral code based on the opinions of one person is useless. No one will agree on it. I'm sure it's just dandy for you, but you can't apply it to everyone all the time so, really, what good is it?

It is not morality. Its just a set of rules. Rules are ammoral. I think you've tried to kill every last aspect of your F function.

Ummm. . .are you saying that morality is "more" than just a set of rules?

Again, only people can be moral. Don't personify the philosophy.

You think so, huh? It seems you've implied that is a bad thing. Why? What made you reach that conclusion?

My morality, along with a lot of others', is defined by individual human suffering, not by arbitrary things like laws or this passing dogma known as objectivism.

Yeah, suffering. Is it liberating to be struggling against something you can never defeat? Do you feel like a martyr? Tell me, do you believe you can actually ever end human suffering?

Did you seriously just make an appeal to the populus? I don't care how many people you claim agree with you, you're probably wrong and even if you were right it wouldn't matter. A lot of people use to be certain the earth was flat simply because they had never heard of any alternatives.

Objectivism is another idea. I happen to think it's a pretty good idea, but all I have to convince you is my ability to communicate my understanding of it. You have to verify it for yourself. That extra step makes dismissing it so much easier then dismissing a faith-based philosophy.

Sure, it all makes perfect sense on paper and theoretically and might even work for some virtual video game market like in WoW, but this is the real world. Reality. Ever hear of it? Humans aren't computers or robots. Get in touch with your inner crocodile brain and work on that F function.

LOL, right. Your self-righteousness is practically oozing out of the screen.

The simple fact that you are telling me to listen to the most primitive side of my brain is enough. It explains a lot. Objectivism specifically and consistently encourages people to use their rational mind, the most advanced part of their brain. The "crocodile brain" isn't even capable of consciousness, if you think with it you can't possibly understand objectivism because objectivism begins at self-awareness. Do you really think it's your "crocodile brain" that invented a cure for small pox? The crocodile brain has never figured out a way to relieve human suffering. Where's your morality come into it?

And Ayn Rand is a huge <Vn+.

What does that mean? "<Vn+"?

JusVisiting

06-02-2008, 07:18 PM

1. Should Heinz steal the medicine? If I was Heinz I would steal the medicine.
Why or why not? I would steal the medicine because my love one's life would matter more to me than the possible repercussions of my stealing.

2. Is it good or bad that he steal the medicine? I would say the act of stealing from another person is bad.
Why is it good or bad? Stealing is bad because it undermines security.

3. Has Heinz a duty or an obligation to steal the medicine? I'm not sure I'd call it duty or obligation.
Why or why not? I don't think Heinz would steal the medicine had it been a stranger. We can argue that it is morally just for Heinz to steal since human life has higher value than the law against stealing. But the fact he (at least I wouldn't) steal the medicine for a stranger means human life has value only when we are emotionally invested; which means not ALL human life has equal value. So is Heinz stealing acceptable because we can empathize with his situation? We are social animals and members of a larger group. We benefit from being part of that group as they should benefit from our being part of that group. Had Heinz and his wife been shut-ins far from civilization there would be no choice but to die as the medication would not be available as there would be no contact with the pharmacist. Part of what allows a group of people to coexist is the assumption they are safe within that group. The members all know the rules and are abiding by them. When Heinz steals he is saying that he no longer honors the rules of the group because his wife matters more than receiving the privileges of being part of the group -- which is fine. But he must accept the repercussions of his actions.

4. If Heinz did not steal the medicine would he be responsible for his wife death? Why or why not? This would depend on if Heinz had promised his wife to always protect her regardless of the possible harm to himself. I don't think you can hold another person responsible for letting someone else die. I think on some level we all accept that watching out for other people is a luxury. Even in a situation like the Hippocratic oath a doctor saves the life of another person based on his own abilities. Heinz is stealing the livelihood (abilities) of another person to save his wife. To me there is a difference.

5. If Heinz does not love his wife, should he steal the medicine? I don't know.
Does it make any difference, for the purpose of stealing or not stealing, if Heinz does or does not love his wife? It might effect his decision to steal or not steal. I'm basing this on what I believe my honest reaction to the situation would be were I Heinz.

7. Imagine that it is an animal that is dying. Should Heinz steal the medicine in order to save the life of an animal? If Heinz is willing to accept the repercussions of his actions than he can steal if he so chooses.

8. Is it important to do the best in order to save another person’s life?
Why or why not? No, I don't think so. I mean where does anyone who claims to believe this draw the line? Every single day thousands of people are dying and there are countless ways each of us could help. Think about all the BS all of us spend our money on everyday that we don't need. A pack of gum has the equivalent cost of feeding a starving child for a day.

10. Should we do anything within our power in order to obey the law? It depends on whether the law is just and reflects the needs of the group. Mindlessly living in oppression when the laws are no longer suitable for the group as a whole is ridiculous. Something like revolution makes sense to me if the legal system is no longer beneficial to the needs of the people. However, in Heinz's situation I will assume that this is not the case. I'm showing my bias here but I believe that the pharmacist has the right to charge whatever he wants for the medication. My morality is pretty simple and I hated the one ethics course I took because there isn't much for me to expound on. I've been fortunate to live a life that allows me the luxury of trying to help other people (as well as the emotional capacity to find pleasure in doing so) but my desire to help someone in need is a personal choice -- not an obligation.

Karamazov

06-04-2008, 11:15 PM

What does that mean? "<Vn+"?

Do you really need to know?

Ool

06-05-2008, 02:08 AM

Well, as I understand "non-violent" and "social darwinism" you aren't totally wrong. It is possible to view objectivism as a cold-hearted, passive genocide against useless people. However, I would disagree. One of the tenents of objectivism is that no person is required to live for another person. That means that just because someone needs help to maintain their life doesn't mean you have to, or even should, help them. Life, in and of itself, is pretty darned important. . .but individual lives don't embody that importance except to their owner.

That may very well be the case when you look at individuals.

But you’re talking about laws. Laws aren’t passed and accepted as laws by a single individual. They are passed by whole groups of individuals. They are passed by governments.

Now, while it is, indeed, true that you cannot expect an individual to endanger their own lives or possessions in order to save someone else’s life or wealth, a government isn’t supposed to be selfish. Its sole purpose is that of protection of whatever the individuals constituting it hold dear, in the most altruistic fashion possible. That is because governments aren’t alive per se. They don’t suffer, so their own well-being shouldn’t be their priority. People’s needs are what governments are for. Governments exist solely to help and protect people, unlike other people.

But which people they help in a situation where helping one person means hurting another person—that’s where you enter undefined territory. That’s where you cannot apply objective standards any more.

You see, you act as if the pharmacist were the government. In that case his priorities would be the law. But he isn’t the government. Neither is Heinz. The government is ultimately forced to take sides. It is forced to become subjective in order to arbitrate this case. There is no objectivity here.

I repeat it once again: Objectivism is bullcrap.

Now which side the government chooses is dependent on who makes up the government and whom they are beholden to. If elected officials fear the average voter more than they fear pharmacological industry lobbying interests then they will side with Heinz. If it is the other way around then they will side with the pharmacist.

I’m not saying that one of those forms of government is better than the other. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who you are within that state, too. I’m just saying that there is considerable subjectivity there.

Your objectivism idea implicitly states that those who have the money and the goods should be able to write the laws; their priorities should carry more weight, because they’re the ones who apparently know how to run things better, or otherwise they wouldn’t be rich in the first place. Which is an argument you can make. But it’s not objective. It’s subjective in favor of the “better, fitter people.”

Calling it objectivism is simply a misnomer. It basically implies that the perspective of a loser in the society doesn’t exist. But it does. You can choose to ignore it in favor of your own interests and the interests of those people in your own class, but you cannot claim that you are objective any more when you do that. Objectivity takes all points of view into account.

You can make the argument that there really isn’t any true objectivity in practical life and that there are always points of view we have to ignore in order not to paralyze ourselves and to get on with our lives. And you will find me in agreement. But that means even more so that so-called “objectivism” isn’t.

blueback

06-06-2008, 06:43 AM

That may very well be the case when you look at individuals.

Yay! I win.

But you’re talking about laws.

No I'm not. You're the only one that has mentioned laws.

Now, while it is, indeed, true that you cannot expect an individual to endanger their own lives or possessions in order to save someone else’s life or wealth, a government isn’t supposed to be selfish. Its sole purpose is that of protection of whatever the individuals constituting it hold dear, in the most altruistic fashion possible.

Well. . .
I'm having a hard time responding to your argument because you are reminding me of one of those Whack-A-Mole games. You start on one point and then you pop up on another point and then another point. They're unrelated so I'd have to address each one but there isn't enough support of each individual point to actually address them.

Why does a government only have one purpose?
Why does that purpose involve altruism?

That is because governments aren’t alive per se. They don’t suffer, so their own well-being shouldn’t be their priority. People’s needs are what governments are for. Governments exist solely to help and protect people, unlike other people.

Government is a thing which has to maintain its own form or it wouldn't exist to fulfill its various functions. So, in a sense, a good government acts in a way similar to what in a human would be called self-interest. I would say that governments exist to enforce justice. Have you ever read Hobbes? Basically, he says that justice doesn't exist between two equal powers, it only exists if there is a "soverign" above both to enforce their compliance with their mutual contracts. Everyone gives up certain rights to the government and in return the government enforces a level playing field.

So, the government exists to enforce laws, basically. That means if you put yourself on the wrong side of the law then the government has a responsibility to punish you, not the person who was obeying the law.

But which people they help in a situation where helping one person means hurting another person—that’s where you enter undefined territory. That’s where you cannot apply objective standards any more.

Well, yeah, cuz you just defined it as undefined.

The government is supposed to enforce an objective standard. In this case, that theft is bad. It is good to invent new medicines and it is bad to steal what doesn't belong to you. Therefore there is nothing subjective about this situation. The punishment might get into subjective territory, just what should be done to a person who steals? Is it their first offense? Are there mitigating circumstances? Etc. However, the standard is objective.

The government is ultimately forced to take sides. It is forced to become subjective in order to arbitrate this case. There is no objectivity here.

No, you just keep ignoring the objective standard and then claiming it doesn't exist. Answer this: Is it wrong to steal?

I repeat it once again: Objectivism is bullcrap.

That's all you've done is mindlessly repeat that statement. You haven't explained it yet.

Now which side the government chooses is dependent on who makes up the government and whom they are beholden to. If elected officials fear the average voter more than they fear pharmacological industry lobbying interests then they will side with Heinz. If it is the other way around then they will side with the pharmacist.

Ooooh, a false dichotomy, I haven't seen one of those in a while. <-sarcasm

The government doesn't choose sides; the government choose its side back when it was formed. The individuals involved choose sides through their actions. If the husband steals from the pharmacist then he is choosing to be on the wrong side of an objective standard, that stealing is bad. The situation isn't any more complicated then that.

Besides, why shouldn't the government "side" with the pharmacist? The pharmacist is not only law-abiding but he is contributing to the collective good by inventing new medicine. The husband, on the other hand, is a thief.

Your objectivism idea implicitly states that those who have the money and the goods should be able to write the laws; their priorities should carry more weight, because they’re the ones who apparently know how to run things better, or otherwise they wouldn’t be rich in the first place. Which is an argument you can make. But it’s not objective. It’s subjective in favor of the “better, fitter people.”

Are you sure about that? You should be careful telling me what my statements "implicitly" state. How about this: how about you ASK me if something is implied by my statements just like I've asked you to clarify your statements.

You should really listen to my explanations of objectivism because your argument is based on blatantly misunderstanding them. The "objective" standard is life. Once you define life as 'good' anything which aids life is good and anything which degrades life is bad. That is a standard which applies to all things all the time, objectively.

It would probably help if you read about the social contract (Hobbes) and mabye some classical relativism (Thucydides). I could explain the ideas but it would take longer than I have.

Calling it objectivism is simply a misnomer. It basically implies that the perspective of a loser in the society doesn’t exist.

Wow. You are so wrong I think I see some of it oozing out of the screen. This is so far out in left field I'm not going to respond to it as if it was a legitimate argument.

Objectivity takes all points of view into account.

How can you claim to speak for a philosophy you can't explain and don't understand?

Lets be clear about something. "objectivity" is not "objectivism." I see how the words can be confusing if you're hearing them for the first time cuz they do look really similar, but try to understand that they are different.

You can make the argument that there really isn’t any true objectivity in practical life and that there are always points of view we have to ignore in order not to paralyze ourselves and to get on with our lives. And you will find me in agreement. But that means even more so that so-called “objectivism” isn’t.

Ah, and a strawman, it's like you are trying to give me a lesson in logical fallacies.

I've been making the argument that there is an objective standard in all aspects of our lives. How did you miss that point?

Brutananadilewski

06-06-2008, 08:54 AM

No, you just keep ignoring the objective standard and then claiming it doesn't exist. Answer this: Is it wrong to steal?

You should really listen to my explanations of objectivism because your argument is based on blatantly misunderstanding them. The "objective" standard is life. Once you define life as 'good' anything which aids life is good and anything which degrades life is bad. That is a standard which applies to all things all the time, objectively.

This post wasn't directed at me, but I still fail to see how it is an objective standard. The standard itself, life, and that it is good, is a value statement, since we're talking about teh desirability of life. Then it's further based upon value statements to define "good" and "bad." In order to subscirbe to this philosophy, one must agree with the premise that life is good, but that premise is a value statement that's subject to the values of an individual. Since the premise itself is based upon a value statement, it is therefore not an objective standard. A standard cannot be objective so long as there are individuals who don't accept the same premise.

Ool

06-07-2008, 07:24 AM

Well. . .
I'm having a hard time responding to your argument because you are reminding me of one of those Whack-A-Mole games. You start on one point and then you pop up on another point and then another point. They're unrelated so I'd have to address each one but there isn't enough support of each individual point to actually address them.

Welcome to real life…!

Why does a government only have one purpose?
Why does that purpose involve altruism?

You’re answering it yourself:

So, the government exists to enforce laws, basically. That means if you put yourself on the wrong side of the law then the government has a responsibility to punish you, not the person who was obeying the law.

And, unless the contract was with the government itself, that’s altruistic.

The government is supposed to enforce an objective standard. In this case, that theft is bad. It is good to invent new medicines and it is bad to steal what doesn't belong to you. Therefore there is nothing subjective about this situation.

So, objectively, is withholding assistance you could render at no great sacrifice to yourself bad? Is monopolistic usury bad?

The punishment might get into subjective territory, just what should be done to a person who steals? Is it their first offense? Are there mitigating circumstances? Etc. However, the standard is objective.

Only if you assume that the initial appropriation of property was just. After all, at some point in life resources belonged to no one and people just took it. Then, at some later point, there wasn’t that much left any more.

Today property is usually left to one’s biological heirs, just as in the days of aristocratic bloodlines. Who knows, maybe the only reason the pharmacist had the means to invent a cure was because he had inherited a pharmacy and Heinz didn’t. Maybe Heinz would have been an even more brilliant pharmacist, given the chance. But we’ll never know.

The problem with this “objective” standard is, the first people to come to a place have a lot of unclaimed property to claim for themselves, including the wealth that goes with it, and including the freedom that comes with that wealth—even the freedom to avail yourself to the best possible education. The people coming after them have to negotiate for scraps, and if those who first came and who first served themselves are unwilling to give up any of their property then the situation is rather stratified and ownership is rather consolidated and oligolopolized—all based on the objective standard that those who happened to be somewhere first are the most deserving.

Since those with the most buying power can also often set the price and the market conditions they can also exacerbate the situation, should they so choose. And the protection of property above all else helps them.

No, you just keep ignoring the objective standard and then claiming it doesn't exist. Answer this: Is it wrong to steal?

And some glibly reply: “Property is theft.” (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

So in the opinions of some all we’d have in our case would be thieves stealing from thieves. So I guess they’re both bad guys…

The government doesn't choose sides; the government choose its side back when it was formed.

In other words it upholds the status quo, no matter if good or bad, beneficial or detrimental.

But, you see, favoring the status quo is choosing a side—the side of those satisfied with the status quo. It’s conservatism. You’re describing a conservative government. And it didn’t choose that side. The side was chosed for it by those who formed it, meaning it’s subjective.

The individuals involved choose sides through their actions. If the husband steals from the pharmacist then he is choosing to be on the wrong side of an objective standard, that stealing is bad. The situation isn't any more complicated then that.

Besides, why shouldn't the government "side" with the pharmacist? The pharmacist is not only law-abiding but he is contributing to the collective good by inventing new medicine. The husband, on the other hand, is a thief.

The pharmacist doesn’t cause benefit by inventing a cure. He causes it by administering it. At the point when it’s merely been invented but collecting dust on a shelf it might as well be non-existent. Once someone survives as a result of its invention who would have otherwise died, that’s when the benefit starts.

Is he the one administering the cure? No. The thief, on the other hand, is.

So who’s really contributing to the collective good? I would say it was actually both of them: The inventor by creating the cure and the thief by subjecting it to its intended use. They’re both good guys…

Are you sure about that? You should be careful telling me what my statements "implicitly" state. How about this: how about you ASK me if something is implied by my statements just like I've asked you to clarify your statements.

I could ask you, but you’re unaware of the tacit implications of your ideological framework—the false premises underlying it. (False because you call them objective when they’re really subjective.) That’s why my asking you would be pointless. I have to tell you what you’re not aware of—what’s hidden from you in plain sight.

You should really listen to my explanations of objectivism because your argument is based on blatantly misunderstanding them. The "objective" standard is life. Once you define life as 'good' anything which aids life is good and anything which degrades life is bad. That is a standard which applies to all things all the time, objectively.

That would make having a cure but refusing to hand it out to those who need it bad. It’s basically like baking a cake and then throwing it away. Because the good deed is not in the baking. It’s in the baking and the serving.

So I accept your apology.

How can you claim to speak for a philosophy you can't explain and don't understand?

Trick question! Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Lets be clear about something. "objectivity" is not "objectivism." I see how the words can be confusing if you're hearing them for the first time cuz they do look really similar, but try to understand that they are different.

I know they’re different. That’s why I said that objectivism is not based on objectivity, meaning calling it that is a case of Orwellian type propaganda.

I've been making the argument that there is an objective standard in all aspects of our lives. How did you miss that point?

And I’ve been telling you that your “objective” standard isn’t. When I said, “you can make the argument that there really isn’t any true objectivity […],” then I meant “you” in the sense of “one,” or “the argument can be made.” Or I was talking about a potential future you, hence the verb “can.”

blueback

06-08-2008, 07:57 PM

So, basically your argument is that everything is subjective. As long as you assume that you can tell anyone who asserts anything as true that they are wrong.

The problem with the idea that "everything is subjective" is that it is the same as saying "nothing is certain." The idea invalidates itself. If the idea is certain then the idea can't be certain. Any philosophy based on that idea logically contradicts itself. That means that a coherent philosophy must first be based on the idea that there are things that are certain; that way the statement "something is true" can be one of the true things.

"Welcome to real life…!"

Wow. Really? Does that mean you were aware of the incoherence of your own paragraph and decided to double-down on irrelevance?

"So, objectively, is withholding assistance you could render at no great sacrifice to yourself bad? Is monopolistic usury bad?"

Does this mean you agree that theft is objectively bad?
No, withholding assistance is not bad; unless you entered into a contract to provide assistance. Offering assistance which doesn't violate an objective standard can be good. Well, "usury" means charging an illegal rate of interest, so to do so would break the social contract, which would be bad.

I'm not saying that things can't get complicated. You can come up with any number of hypothetical situations which are so convoluted that right or wrong could be argued either way. That doesn't invalidate the rules. Just because no one's quite sure what an electron is doing doesn't mean that gravity doesn't still work.

"Only if you assume that the initial appropriation of property was just"

History doesn't change objective standards. What is wrong is wrong, what is right is right, sunk-costs don't matter. I've repeated several times that right and wrong don't necessarily influence people's actions, but that doesn't change what was, or is, moral.

If you need some more detailed explanation, Hobbes does a good job. Humans, as individuals, exist in a perpetual state of war or potential war. To form groups people have to give up certain rights. A group can't form if it's okay to kill anyone at any time or if it's okay to lie to anyone about anything (for example). There is no justice between individuals. Justice only exists when it is enforced by a government to which people give up certain rights. That creates the social contract which protects people from the state of war they would return to if the government and the social contract broke down. The social contract, when you can get it, is "more good" then the right to do whatever you want. BTW, a "right" means "not being forbidden."

"...all based on the objective standard that those who happened to be somewhere first are the most deserving."

I thought you didn't agree with the idea of objective standards; so why are you making up a new one? I didn't say that was one.

People live better when the actions of other people are restricted. Without the restrictions people don't trust each other enough to get close to each other. That means that there will always be people trying to take advantage of the social contract by disobeying the rules while everyone else obeys the rules. Wolves in sheep's clothing to stretch a metaphor. There is nothing wrong with being born at a disadvantage; the problem is that being born at a disadvantage tends to instill in one a sense of 'nothing to lose.' People don't care much about the social contract when they feel they are missing out on the benefits. Stealing is still wrong, even when you're poor, but that doesn't stop many people from doing it.

The rules are correct even when people ignore them or apply them incorrectly. For example, the US government use to officially endorse the idea of "seperate but equal." However, that meant that a group of citizens weren't being dealt with equitably. That is why "seperate but equal" was overturned, because it was incorrect; in the same way there are plenty of other official activities which are incorrect even when they are official.

"And some glibly reply: “Property is theft.”"

You didn't answer the question; you didn't even try to answer the question. You just appealed to the argument that people disagree on the topic so there's nothing wrong with you avoiding the question.

Just because it's possible to string words together into a technically correct (in structure) sentence doens't mean the sentence means anything. For example: "The egg tells my church how to fly with no sense of gas." The sentence doesn't violate any rules of grammar, but it's still gibberish. One of the amusing things about philosophy is the shorter you make your sentence the harder it is to argue with. "Property is theft" is so short you can do anything with it because it's too short to be correct. Because you have to summarize the argument you can skip over all the illogical parts. Are you actually planning on defending the "property is theft" idea?

"But, you see, favoring the status quo is choosing a side."

You can't lump "the status quo" all together, it's too broad. In America, the majority of our system is pretty good. There are some things that should be fixed, but changing them isn't abondoning the status quo and not changing them isn't favoring the status quo.

"So who’s really contributing to the collective good? I would say it was actually both of them: The inventor by creating the cure and the thief by subjecting it to its intended use. They’re both good guys"

Okay, which one would you prefer lived next door to you? Which one would you rather be in this situation? Which one would you want your daughter to marry?

The bottom line is that they both benefit from the social contract but one of them is fulfilling his part of the contract and one of them isn't. The only way it would be "not wrong" for the husband to steal the medicine would be if there wasn't a government enforcing a law against theft; but for that to be the case both the husband and the pharmacist would be living without the benefit of a society so the medicine wouldn't exist because the pharmacist would be too busy boiling water to stay alive. The husband's theft of the medicine is a parasitic activity. He is living off of the spare capital created by a successful society. Sure, the pharmacist probably won't be severly damaged by the husband's theft of the medicine, but you have to look at it based on the idea that everyone is following the same rules. If everyone steals from everyone else then everyone's life gets worse.

The only way you will get people to invent new medicines is if you promise them a reward that is worth earning. Telling them that as soon as they invent the medicine anyone can steal it and they have no recourse to be compensated means that no one will bother inventing new medicines. It's not so much about who is benefiting society as who is harming society. If the pharmacist invents a new medicine and never tells anyone about it he has had a neutral effect; if the husband steals a new medicine he has had a negative effect.

"That would make having a cure but refusing to hand it out to those who need it bad"

Nope. That is a good example of misunderstanding the objective standard. You can apply your misunderstanding correctly and still be wrong because you misunderstood it.

There is no differenc between the effect of not inventing a medicine and inventing one but not letting anyone use it. To say that the latter is bad would mean that the former is bad, which would mean that we are all bad for not inventing new medicines all the time. The standard "life is good" and the implication that anything which aids life is good and anything which degrades life is bad is correct even when you don't understand it. The potential to aid life doesn't have a value. You aren't wrong for not fulfilling a potential. There are an infinite number of potentials, to say that it's wrong simply to not fulfill them would mean no one can possibly be right.

"And I’ve been telling you that your “objective” standard isn’t"

Well, I think I've defended the philosophy effectively. Try again. This time maybe you could try actually presenting a coherent philosophy of your own which invalidates objectivism as I've explained it. When I say I'm right and I explain how the ideas support each other, and then you tell me I'm wrong, you must have a better idea. . .you haven't said that you have a better idea, so are you simply claiming that you're sure I'm wrong but you have no idea what's right? How can you be so certain that I'm wrong but have no idea what could be right?