Denis Prager poses a question

Aaron,

I have to wonder if you've actually read my posts, before responding to them.

I'm having a very difficult time understanding how you can suggest to me that I "specify [my] assumptions. eg. my answer would depend on context of chance of death, who exactly was being saved, where, etc," since this is exactly what I've said to NH in regards to his vague imaginary emergency dilemma.

This is also EXACTLY the point of the Rand and Branden quotes I provided to the group.

In terms of morality, context is crucial. There are few, hard and fast "morals" that apply to any and all circumstances. I maintain that speculating about what someone might do to potentially "save" a random number of strangers from some unknown, imaginary catastrophe without context is a meaningless venture, in terms of the Objectivist ethics.

Not only did I "specify" my assumptions, and criteria for providing any kind of answer, but I also laid out a clear, unambiguous, everyday example with which to deal (the firefighter). So far, that's been completely ignored by everyone.

RCR

Post 61

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 4:51pm

RCR whined:

Clearly, Nathan, you don't read (or can't comprehend) what I write, and all you seem capable of in the way of discussion with me is insults, oh yeah, and lots of cyber-shouting.

Boo hoo. And your petticoats are snow-white, right Shirley?

You have been condescending and arrogant from the first time I exchanged posts with you elsewhere. Your posture is one of the guru holding forth for the philosophically unwashed, that of an Ayn Rand Jr.

I am relatively patient with this kind of pompous attitude, as I'd rather discuss issues. But I have very limited patience for dishonesty and evasion.

... I get insult after insult, and one ad hominem remark after another. ...

If you stopped sniffling long enough to actually distinguish between an ad hominem remark and a remark addressed to the argument form, it would serve you well.

Consider my remark about your evasion. Is that an ad hominem argument? Hardly. I never said your evasion made you wrong. Nor did I even imply it.

I simply said that you would make lots of verbal smoke, wave mirrors, and then flounce out of the room without actually answering the question. Which you proceeded to do on cue.

It is a little sad, really. I thought, SOLO was better than that, but it appears insults and ad hominem are what people here really sanction.

'Ere's an 'anky, Shirley. Yer breakin' me 'eart.

For your information, I received an email from a very thoughtful SOLOist who felt perhaps I was being too hard on you, that maybe you were being sincere instead of evasive.

I urged him to watch your responses when I whittled away the bullshit, to see if you actually address the issues or dodge them, and added that I hoped I was wrong.

Sadly, I wasn't. Here you are, hoisting your skirts and flouncing out of the room complaining about that evil Nathan man instead of answering a simple question--and blaming those evil SOLOists to boot.

I think you should hang around SOLO, RCR. You could be a valuable addition to the place. You may wish to rethink your argument and presentation strategies, though. Less verbose and less evasive would serve you well.

Nathan Hawking

Post 62

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 5:04pm

Aaron:

Glad to see this thread is still entertaining. What Nathan is asking is just not that difficult.

Well, let's be fair. I put this question to Koko the gorilla in sign language and she was very puzzled. LOL

Answering questions about whether you'd lose your life to save X others can legitimately have plenty of more refining points - but surely you can either 1) get a rough range that covers it or 2) specify your assumptions. eg. my answer would depend on context of chance of death, who exactly was being saved, where, etc. and I'd probably place somewhere between 10^5 and 10^9. Make context more specific like I can leave by myself in a jet or die certain death to save the city of Atlanta (where I live), I'd do it. Not so for Seoul or Lagos or Kiev, etc.

In view of the "incomprehensible" nature of the problem I posed, Aaron, you've clearly managed the intellectually impossible. And after all my effort to conceal my meaning. LOL

Anyway, it's not that tricky to give a range or refine the question to answer it; it's certainly 1/10th the work as such elaborate rhetoric and accusations to nitpick over words and definitions to avoid answering. But I have to admit it may just be more fun to watch people run and hide from such questions instead of address them.

LOL I shouldn't really get so annoyed at evasion. It does kind of spoil the fun.

Tired Globe Guy points for that, Aaron.

Nathan

.

(Edited by Nathan Hawking on 6/14, 1:21am)

Post 63

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 5:13pm

Nathan (the insultinator),

Let me make something perfectly clear to you, as benevolently as I can.

I don't care what *you* think of me, my style, my motivations, how I post, or whether or not I continue to post on this newest manifestation of the SOLO discussion group. Your opinions, as such, are to me, in a nutshell, totally meaningless.

Best Regards,

RCR

Post 64

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 5:26pm

I have answered this question. If you and Nathan are not satisfied with my answer, I don't care. Your attempts to goad me into feeling guilty about my answer are doomed.

Post 65

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 6:05pm

RCR goes:

Aaron,

I have to wonder if you've actually read my posts, before responding to them.

This from a guy who get pissy about insults. That's what Mr. Davison said--those who disagree surely can't actually be reading!

I'm having a very difficult time understanding how you can suggest to me that I "specify [my] assumptions. eg. my answer would depend on context of chance of death, who exactly was being saved, where, etc," since this is exactly what I've said to NH in regards to his vague imaginary emergency dilemma.

So be concrete.

In terms of morality, context is crucial. There are few, hard and fast "morals" that apply to any and all circumstances. I maintain that speculating about what someone might do to potentially "save" a random number of strangers from some unknown, imaginary catastrophe without context is a meaningless venture, in terms of the Objectivist ethics.

No, it's only "meaningless" to a person who refuses to commit himself in principle and make plain, simple statements to that effect.

Specify in what context you WOULD exchange your life for 10,000 strangers. How hard is that?

Not only did I "specify" my assumptions, and criteria for providing any kind of answer, but I also laid out a clear, unambiguous, everyday example with which to deal (the firefighter). So far, that's been completely ignored by everyone.

Poor RCR. Maybe if you didn't bury your views in tangled verbiage they wouldn't be overlooked.

Let's have a look at that poor, neglected example:

RCR wrote:

... is it a moral choice to choose to take as one's personal responsibility the protection (involving obvious personal risk) of the great mass of unknown others, in say, a firefighter's capacity.

This is a clear, unambiguous everyday example of human beings seemingly placing the lives of strangers above the value of their own. However, and I think this is important, these people are well trained to avoid many of the risks that go with the task, they do not "blindly" run into burning buildings with the hope that they just might save someone. They are very well prepared to exist in the dangerous environment, and efforts are continuously made to make the job less-risky. To this degree, the question of whether or not is moral for Joe Firefighter to run into a burning building, is not the same moral question for me--an unprotected, untrained passer-by.....

You seem to believe that firefighters risk their lives for the $14 per hour. I doubt that's the whole of it, for many or even most of them.

... this is why the issue/question/problem as posed by NH has thus far been largely incomprehensible.

This is only "incomprehensible" to one who's desperately avoiding an actual answer.

I repeat: Specify in what context you WOULD exchange your life for 10,000 strangers.

If you refuse to answer that, sir, I'll assume that either your ethics are impoverished, or your imagination. Not much of a choice.

Nathan Hawking

Post 66

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 6:19pm

RCR roared:

Nathan (the insultinator),

Let me make something perfectly clear to you, as benevolently as I can.

I don't care what *you* think of me, my style, my motivations, how I post, or whether or not I continue to post on this newest manifestation of the SOLO discussion group. Your opinions, as such, are to me, in a nutshell, totally meaningless.

Best Regards,

RCR

Bravo. That's the most honest, direct and succinct thing you've written in the months that I've known you online--even if you did use too many commas and get a little syrupy at the end.

I'll even give you sanction points for it.

If you were that concise and direct about the issues we were actually debating, I might not find you so "off-putting" (to recycle your expression about me).

Nathan Hawking

Post 67

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 6:23pm

Robert D. wrote (towards the beginning of the thread):

"This [assisting Jews in Nazi Germany] is a sacrifice or a random act of kindness. It is the same as stepping in front of a bullet, aimed at another. It is not in one's rational self interest."

I've been meaning to disagree with you on this... ;-)

Within the context of Nazi Germany, I think the situation in question fits quite nicely into Rand's "emergency ethics" (see my previous posts for quotes on this), in addition, I think one could also argue that anyone in Nazi Germany helping Jews ( Gypsies, Catholics, "homosexuals", or anyone else Hitler decided was expendable) was really fighting for their OWN freedom.

In which case, the following from Nathaniel Branden applies quite well.

"To call his act [risking death to achieve freedom] a 'self-sacrifice', one would have to assume that he *preferred* to live as a slave. The selfishness of a man who is willing to die, if necessary, fighting for his freedom, lies in the fact that he is unwilling to go on living in a world where he is no longer able to act on his own judgement--that is, a world where *human* conditions of existence are no longer possible to him." (*The Virtue of Selfishness*, "Isn't Everyone Selfish?")

RCR
(Edited by R. Christian Ross
on 6/13, 7:44pm)

Post 68

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 7:13pm

George:

I'm finally getting around to giving your post the attention it deserves.

... A man's life is not only the ability to continue breathing, but also the ability to make choices according to his values. ...

The non-Jew that recalls his motivation in saving the lives of Jews will tell you of his inability to stand by and do nothing in the face of such evil, or his love and respect for human life, or his need to do something to strike out against the tyranny, or his great empathy for the greatest victims of that tyranny ...

... They acted upon that part of them that was the highest and noblest: I can think of nothing more rational than that.

George

I hope my snips did not do your post any injustice. But the parts I left were the parts which spoke to me the most powerfully.

People rarely do anything from a single motivation, but I think you've captured a cross-section of our finest motivations as human beings very well.

Nathan Hawking

Post 69

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 7:35pm

Aaron wrote:

BTW, RCR and RD, I don't believe there's any SOLOHQ mechanism that prevents you from sanctioning each others' posts.

Perhaps not. On the other hand, personal integrity and/or a desire to have the sanctions mean something might.

Post 70

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 7:41pm

RD-

I was careless using plural when not intending to include you. You have not been evasive. Though I disagree with your assessment, I respect you for giving the previous direct answer that you would not die to save effectively an infinite ('as large a number as you would care to mention') number of strangers.

RCR-

I followed your posts since your first in this thread, and I hadn't seen anything I thought was you clarifying context and answering the saving strangers dilemna. I had regarded your firefighter mention in #42 to be brushing the question aside by essentially saying 'I don't have the training to save people, so it can't apply to me.' OK - but that is a way around facing the real ethical thought experiment that obviously underlies pondering such scenarios.

The question poses a scenario where you alone can die to save a million others. Your concern seems to be focused on: 'How could this be?' Again, you can choose the context to fit the thought problem. eg. I'd been thinking of it as a scenario where you know a terrorist nuclear bomb is in the city on a relatively short timer, and more appropriate authorities ignore your calls informing them of this as you being a crank caller. You lack trained bomb disarm skills, but possess the caveman-era skills of smashing a delicately crafted and timed Pu device to prevent chain reaction, though at high risk of your death from either the high explosives or radiation from plutonium. What do you do?

It would be possible to push another layer back to avoid the question by focusing on, say, 'Well, how could I know where the bomb is?' or 'Why do the authorities ignore me?' I hope you don't take that route though, and instead clarify context to really answer the core ethics question of whether you'd make such a ('trade' or 'sacrifice', depending on what connotation you want to lend) to save others.

Post 71

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 7:46pm

"Perhaps not. On the other hand, personal integrity and/or a desire to have the sanctions mean something might."

*laugh* I like your comment because of its cleverness in potentially being a snipe against me or RCR/RD depending on how you read it.

Post 72

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 8:21pm

RCR:
>Within the context of Nazi Germany, I think the situation in question fits quite nicely into Rand's "emergency ethics"...

Y'know, I've always thought "emergency ethics" was the very oddest part of Rand's ethical system. Because its precisely when the going gets tough *that ethics matters most*. Ethics is a difficult, sharp-edged subject, with real dilemmas and real consequences. Ethics that you only stick to when it suits you to aren't generally regarded as ethics at all.

Yet "ethics of emergencies" basically means: when the going gets tough, you don't have to be ethical!

Go figure.

- Daniel

(Edited by Daniel Barnes
on 6/13, 8:22pm)

Post 73

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 8:23pm

Aaron:

The question poses a scenario where you alone can die to save a million others. ... What do you do? ...

It would be possible to push another layer back to avoid the question ... I hope you don't take that route though, and instead clarify context to really answer the core ethics question of whether you'd make such a ('trade' or 'sacrifice', depending on what connotation you want to lend) to save others.

Some seem to invoke "context" as a way to AVOID saying what they would or would not do in various situations. "Context" is an intellectual-sounding "that depends..." Of course it does, but the discussion is rather incomplete unless we're willing to say UPON WHAT.

I appreciated that you were willing to spell out a situation in which such things could happen.

Ayn Rand was not unwilling to fashion thought experiments. In Philosophy: Who Needs It?, for example, she begins by offering a scenario where an astronaut crashes on an unknown planet, and she spends the better part of a page reasoning on the basis of this hypothetical circumstance.

How many people are ever going to be stranded on an unknown planet? Very few people alive today, probably. So is the particular "context" the important thing, or is the principle which one can derive from a type of context what's important? Obviously, the principle is what she was drawing.

It's no different with the hypothetical circumstance I posed. What matters is the principle of whether it's moral to exchange one's life for the lives of others.

Nathan

Post 74

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 10:52pm

If I had the power to save a billion people and didn't, I'd have to ask myself what in the hell am I here for and now what? To celebrate my individualism? I don't think my Objectivist philosophy would keep me from killing myself as fast as I could. I've had some rough times in my life--and I've done some things I shouldn't have--but I've always liked the guy looking back at me in the bathroom mirror.

--Brant

Post 75

Monday, June 13, 2005 - 10:55pm

Joel (Post 2),

I agree along the same line as Robert Davison in Post 4. I believe Prager is deliberately confusing reason with knowledge when he says "If you want to achieve good, reason is immensely helpful; if you want to do evil, reason is immensely helpful."

Reason is the means of acquiring that knowledge. It's revealing. From his subjectivism, it makes perfect sense, not allowing for there to be tangible, practical differences between good and evil. Evil could be designing medicines from stem cell research just as it could be murdering someone for a person's organs. To him, reason--hopefully not his own--has led people to practice all forms of brutality and barbarity.

That said, Prager is one of the better right-of-center talkers on the air, standing albeit on some still flawed ethics. Every so often, he'll pose the "how can life have any meaning if there is no designer" question. My favorite is the old tact that there is no secular argument that favors human life over that of lower species.

He assumes that life can have no meaning if you don't believe you were created for a purpose. But for me, the question has always been mute.

Even if I were created out of a divine purpose, then that would mean this life is not my own, but the property of an invisible being who someday will come to collect its due.

I find a purpose in life in the things I love: my work, my friends and family, and my mind. That's more than any god can offer.

Post 76

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - 4:41am

[Justin:] "Reason is the means of acquiring that knowledge. It's revealing."

And what has that to do with morality? Is a digital camera with a good lens more moral than a camera with a poor quality lens? Reason is a tool, and tools, by definition, have no morality.

[Justin:] "From his subjectivism,"

He is not a subjectivist; he defends an absolute, eternal morality:

"It [moral absolutism] means that if an act is good or bad, it is good or bad for everyone in the identical situation ("universal morality")." [Italics mine.]

[Justin:] "not allowing for there to be tangible, practical differences between good and evil."

You are wrong (or prejudiced). Please read the following lines from Mr. Prager, in were he points out (rather poignant) practical differences:

"An act that is wrong is wrong for everyone in the same situation, but almost no act is wrong in every situation. Sexual intercourse in marriage is sacred; when violently coerced, it is rape. Truth telling is usually right, but if, during World War II, Nazis asked you where a Jewish family was hiding, telling them the truth would have been evil.

"So, too, it is the situation that determines when killing is wrong. That is why the Ten Commandments says "Do not murder," not "Do not kill." Murder is immoral killing, and it is the situation that determines when killing is immoral and therefore murder. Pacifism, the belief that it is wrong to take a life in every situation, is based on the mistaken belief that absolute morality means "in every situation" rather than "for everyone in the same situation." For this reason, it has no basis in Judeo-Christian values, which holds that there is moral killing (self-defense, defending other innocents, taking the life of a murderer) and immoral killing (intentional murder of an innocent individual, wars of aggression, terrorism, etc.)." [Italics and bold mine.]

[Justin:] "Evil could be designing medicines from stem cell research just as it could be murdering someone for a person's organs. To him, reason--hopefully not his own--has led people to practice all forms of brutality and barbarity."

The point of Mr Prager is not that reason "leds" necessarily to "all forms of brutality and barbarity."

Reason does not "let" you to morality or amorality: reason is a tool you use in order to pursue your goals, independently of their morality. That's his point.

[Justin:] I find a purpose in life in the things I love: my work, my friends and family, and my mind. That's more than any god can offer.

Justin, you can find a purpose in life, but not for life. My opinion on this issue was stated in other thread in this forum:

"Then, today you [Mr. Dean Michael Gores] think that life and the universe are without an ultimate purpose.

"That was precisely the issue that bothered me when I was an Atheist. I solved it that way: for everything to really make sense, for �consistency & symmetry� of it all, if you prefer, there must be a Creator that created everything purposefully. Then, that's really not a problem for humans because we are endowed with the capability of free will. And then I though that to be a Theist makes more sense of it all than to be an Atheist."

Best wishes,

Joel Catal�

Post 77

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - 8:00am

Objectivism, of course, is about living, not dying.

--Brant

Post 78

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - 8:42am

[Brant Gaede:] "Objectivism, of course, is about living, not dying."

Dear Brant, Objectivism is good, but not very original, in that respect:

"See, I have put before you, life and death, good and evil, blessing and barrenness. Choose life so that you may live." (Deuteronomy, 29:15-20)

You can choose between life and death (that's free will), but you are morally compelled to choose life.

Best wishes,

Joel Catal�

(Edited by Joel Catal� on 6/14, 8:44am)

Post 79

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - 9:29am