[mike777]

ok we ended concentration camps in the heart of Europe in the 1990's because of self interest......so be it .....

and yes thank you would still be nice to those Americans who died and/or served.

Next time lets cut the budget and pay back China.

[Cthulhu D]

 dwar0123, on 2012-September-21, 00:54, said:

The reason I make money is so I don't have to kill people to survive. If I will die if dont kill this man, maybe, I dunno, I'd really have to beleive I will die. But as I can survive on a lot less than a 100 million, I have no ethical dilemma here.

You vastly over value the benefits of money and vastly under value the toll taking a life has on the human psyche. It almost seems like you think taking a life has no cost except in that you might get caught, which is kinda scary, that almost fits the definition of a psychopath..

Why are you assuming that I'd answer the question yes? I think it's immoral to kill the homeless guy. However, we're talking about the objectivist system of ethics - in the objectivist system of ethics, considering the impact on the homeless guy is immoral. The leading objectivist thinking specifically held up as their ideal man someone who was unburned by their concious regards to their impact on others.

 luke warm, on 2012-September-21, 15:25, said:

maybe, but you're saying that all who practice the objectivist philosophy would act in the way you describe... that's a fallacious argument - some might and some might not... acting in one's own self-interest might mean not killing a homeless man, even at the risk of losing $100M... however, in this scenario, i doubt if one philosophy has any more moral quandary than most others

You're not taking away the point of this thought experiment: Lots of people when presented with the oppotunity to gain $100 million dollars risk free are going to act in an immoral way. The point is, does the system of ethics judge that the act is moral or immoral?

Objectivistim judges the only moral act to be killing the man for personal profit. Anything else is unethical!

Quote

@Cthulhu: All I can say to your little scenario is that our respective understandings of Objectivist philosophy do not match.

Please point out the incorrect component.

Quote

As for your request for an example, it's based on a false premise: that an example has to exist in order for your statement to be demonstrably false. As I've already demonstrated how it is false, your premise is false, your conclusion is false, and the fact that I know of no such actual example (as I'm sure you were expecting) is irrelevant. Or do you deny that privately constructed and privately owned roads could provide the trucking company with the necessary infrastructure?

Yes, privately owned road networks have historically been unable to deliver the sort of footprint to manage distribution to regional and suburban centres. The trucking company would not be able to effectively operate in such an environment. There is no particular reason to assume this would change, and the reason why it is the case is well understood - the positive externalities generated by the system are impossible to capture.

Let's look at a real tangible example that is much the same: Fire Departments!

Privatised Fire Departments have been tried extensively globally. I'm very familiar with the Australian examples, but the problems are universal. Australia had many of them, and after a number of incidents they were universally abolished and replaced with government owned agencies.

The issue is if you run Fire Departments as a competitive service is that it doesn't work out for anyone on the ground due to the large negative externalities generated by a fire, particularly in urban or rural areas! If no-one makes an effort to contain the fire before it spreads or takes hold, you have bigger issues. Privatised fire departments failed spectularly at this and lead to a major fire in Sydney for example.

So yeah, in summary the private sector has an extensive track record of shitting the bed in some areas. It's important to understand how government and business can work together for the general good of society. Both are essential parts of a functional society.

[kenberg]

I probably would shoot myself rather than channel Ayn Rand, but in cases of national policy I think that rational self-interest is pretty much the way to go. Yes, morality figures into it, but in fact the morality of a policy has a lot to do with sustaining public support for it.

I don't think that I am totally naive, but it is remarkable how often I find that morality and long term practicality, at the personal level and also with states, have a far stronger coupling than is often imagined. At the personal level, life is simply easier if the people you interact with believe that they can trust what you say. It's easier if they believe that you are happy to cooperate for the common good. Something like that applies internationally as well.

[mike777]

 kenberg, on 2012-September-24, 20:27, said:

I probably would shoot myself rather than channel Ayn Rand, but in cases of national policy I think that rational self-interest is pretty much the way to go. Yes, morality figures into it, but in fact the morality of a policy has a lot to do with sustaining public support for it.

I don't think that I am totally naive, but it is remarkable how often I find that morality and long term practicality, at the personal level and also with states, have a far stronger coupling than is often imagined. At the personal level, life is simply easier if the people you interact with believe that they can trust what you say. It's easier if they believe that you are happy to cooperate for the common good. Something like that applies internationally as well.

Not sure I follow this;
1) shoot self rather than follow Rand.
2) follow Ann Rand in cases of national policy.

[dwar0123]

 barmar, on 2012-September-24, 18:39, said:

There's no such thing as true altruism -- as we've learned from evolutionary biology (the "selfish gene" stuff), the altruist almost always gets some benefit as a result. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that they're doing good in the process.

Agreed, but I still feel the reason our military exists is far to self interested to in general be considered altruistic.

Quote

I give money to the Alzheimer's Association. Some of the reasons why I consider this an appropriate charity to contribute to are that I'd hate to see my mother afflicted with it, and even more I hope that I won't suffer from it. Do these personal reasons take away from the good I'm doing for society by helping to find a cure for this disease?

Fairly altruistic, but not as much as gving to a charity to help wipe out malaria in Africa.

[mike777]

 dwar0123, on 2012-September-25, 00:15, said:

Agreed, but I still feel the reason our military exists is far to self interested to in general be considered altruistic.


Fairly altruistic, but not as much as gving to a charity to help wipe out malaria in Africa.

but we did that also...how in the heck did you miss that?

I mean what country do you live in?

[gwnn]

edit

[mike777]

Sorry but this is the crap we hear all the time....


Your country gave more for malaria ...usa wants to kill innocent.......for oil/power


We never hear that your country and young men wanted to die willing to stop concentration camps in Europe in 1990's.

[gwnn]

What are you talking about mike777 (this is not rhetorical, I am quite ignorant about history, maybe you are right)? The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was a NATO mission and there were not really that many casualties (less than 10 NATO, more than 1000 Serbians). Or...??

[Zelandakh]

 mike777, on 2012-September-24, 09:17, said:

But it does seem the world wants us in places such as Korea, and guarding the shipping lanes of the world.

I mean no poster here has said they dont.

If you want the USA out of Korea, Japan, Asia, Europe and Africa ok...just say so.

My impression from Germans is that (almost) nobody actually wants American soldiers here. Some local governments feel the need to keep the bases for economic reasons. I would think that every American base closing tomorrow would be incredibly popular. There are probably other countries with a similar attitude.

[kenberg]

 mike777, on 2012-September-24, 20:49, said:

Not sure I follow this;
1) shoot self rather than follow Rand.
2) follow Ann Rand in cases of national policy.

Surely a bit of incoherence now and then is good for the soul!

But really, if encouraged to elaborate, I would put it this way:
I have a friend who advocates Rand's idea that selfishness is a virtue. In my opinion, this forces him to talk funny. After I helped someone out financially, he explained that my underlying reason for this involved my self image, my emotions, and so on. Perhaps in some sense this is true, but it's the same sense in which Freudians explain that my enjoyment of walking along a forest path is an expression of my underlying sexuality. Once we agree that every choice is due to our underlying selfishness, or our underlying sexuality, or our underlying need for dominance, or whatever, we lose the ability to make useful distinctions. Selling a product that has undisclosed defects or dangers is selfish in a way that helping out at the soup kitchen is not, even if the act of helping out makes us feel better.

Anyway, back to international affairs. It does not require great cynicism to observe that we are more interested in what happens in the Middle East, particularly where there is oil, than we are in Africa, particularly where there is not oil. But going too far in this would be both immoral and, in the long run, not very practical either. We should do what we reasonably can, even in areas of the world where there is no clearly visible immediate payoff. As I understand it, we have been somewhat successful in dealing with the worst of the AIDS devastation in Africa. Possibly this will rebound to our benefit in some way, but I would not be prepared to say exactly how and my guess is that the decision to help was based primarily on humanitarian grounds. Some faith that acting decently may be beneficial to us in the long run perhaps was part of it.

A more direct linkage between aid and self interest was recently promoted in the Senate by, who else, Rand Paul. As I understand it (I have not read the speech) his idea is that aid must be directly tied to the ability and willingness of the receiving country to protect our embassies. Protecting American Embassies is a really good idea, of course it is, but this explicit tit for tat seems, to me, to be short sighted.

[billw55]

With no particular enemy nearby since 1989, I often wonder what exactly our troops do in Germany.

[lamford]

The topic has strayed a little from the OP, so I shall try to get it back on track. I thought when I was in Boston in June that 8/13 Obama was huge, as he passed the 13 Lichtmann keys, and as I can occasionally count up to 13 that seemed enough for me. Now he is 1/4 on (1/5 on in places) and I think value. I had to remote in to London to get the bet on as the US still frowns upon online gambling, even on politics!

http://www.informs.o...the-White-House

was an interesting article in June, and that called it well, in my view.

[blackshoe]

 billw55, on 2012-September-24, 06:31, said:

I wasn't expecting so much debate on that one

I only meant to point out the (entirely obvious) fact that our military is vastly larger than any other, and still would be if it was substantially smaller. Actually I thought that a quarter was a pretty big underbid, I considered a third and even half, which would still undeniably leave our military as the largest.

That does not automatically mean that we should do such a thing. Personally, I do think that we should cut defense spending and allocate those funds to infrastructure. But that is a separate debate.

And yes, if we reduced the size of the military, we would maintain fewer foreign bases, fewer naval vessels, fewer planes, and fewer troops deployed. That seems obvious too, and not necessarily bad, in my opinion. Currently, the USA floats 11 aircraft carriers. Britain has a few, and as far as I know no other nation operates more than one. If we cut back to nine or eight or even six, would it be such a tragedy?

And no, I did not mean "easily" in the literal sense, rather, in the sense of "well within realistic possibility."

Before you can decide the necessary size of the military budget, you need to have a well thought out military policy. Should we continue to be "the world's policeman", or should we abandon that job to someone else? If China takes on the job, and then does something we don't like (for example, kicking the Japanese out of certain disputed islands), what do we do about it? If no one takes on the job, and piracy increases drastically in several parts of the world, do we just ignore it? What is our military policy?

For two hundred years and more, the US has been a maritime nation. We depend on freedom of the seas. I would think our military policy would be to continue to be able to ensure that we have that.

Piracy is a problem. We need to be able to combat it, when and where it occurs.

Intervention in the internal affairs of foreign countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran)? Not such a good idea, IMO, but is "let them alone until they do something really stupid (like attack Israel) and then turn their country into a glass parking lot" really better? It would certainly be cheaper, at least in the short run.

What do we do about terrorism?

The Founding Fathers were vehemently against a standing army, and set up things in the Constitution so as (they hoped) to prevent such a thing. They failed. Do we need a standing army, or not? If so, how big does it really need to be?

We still have, and are still building, the tools we needed to fight the Cold War. The world has changed. What new tools do we need? What old tools can we do without? How much will the change-over cost? How long will it take? How do we overcome the resistance of entrenched interests in the military-industrial complex?

There's more, but I'm running out of time. Bottom line, it's not nearly so simple as "cut X% of the military budget". I can guarantee you that if you just do that, the idiots in Washington will continue to try to get the military to do the same job as they're doing now, but with fewer resources. The result will be disaster after disaster, and eventually someone will decide we've become a "paper tiger" and the US will either have to fight for its life, or become a backwater nation again. Possibly both.

[phil_20686]

 kenberg, on 2012-September-25, 06:55, said:

I have a friend who advocates Rand's idea that selfishness is a virtue. In my opinion, this forces him to talk funny. After I helped someone out financially, he explained that my underlying reason for this involved my self image, my emotions, and so on. Once we agree that every choice is due to our underlying selfishness, or our underlying sexuality, or our underlying need for dominance, or whatever, we lose the ability to make useful distinctions. Selling a product that has undisclosed defects or dangers is selfish in a way that helping out at the soup kitchen is not, even if the act of helping out makes us feel better.

Chesterton wrote:

Quote

There is a certain kind of madness, much beloved by intelligent men, that meshes logical completeness with spiritual contraction...for if you were to travel round a small circle you would find it quite so infinite as a large circle

Rand, like Freud, is like this. They wish to contract the reasons and motivations of humanity to a purely interior phenomenon. By shrinking humanity and the world they can label it and understand it.

Of course, such explanations conflict with our experience. There are things I do because I enjoy them, even though they are selfish, and other things I don't enjoy, which I do because I should. Arguments along the lines of "You do things you don't enjoy, because your self image is that you should do this, and you gain satisfaction from living up to your expectations" are the small circles that Chesterton was describing. My self image is the man that I would like to be, by definition. Its true that I gain satisfaction from doing the kind of things that add to my self image. But that is a non-explanation, as it does not explain why those activities are a part of my self image in the first place. To which the answer is that I decided they should be there.

[dwar0123]

 mike777, on 2012-September-25, 00:18, said:

but we did that also...how in the heck did you miss that?

I mean what country do you live in?

You are baffling incoherent at times, and by at times, I mean pretty much always.

I wasn't addressing you, I was addressing barmar, you can tell because I quoted him.

In the quote, I am responding to his example of personally giving to a charity for alzheimers as being altruistic despite the fact that a cure may result in a benefit for him or a loved one down the road. I merely pointed out that giving to a charity that has a lot less likelihood of benefitting him is even more altruistic.

How you took that and went on this little rant is beyond me.

[lalldonn]

 blackshoe, on 2012-September-25, 09:16, said:

There's more, but I'm running out of time. Bottom line, it's not nearly so simple as "cut X% of the military budget". I can guarantee you that if you just do that, the idiots in Washington will continue to try to get the military to do the same job as they're doing now, but with fewer resources. The result will be disaster after disaster, and eventually someone will decide we've become a "paper tiger" and the US will either have to fight for its life, or become a backwater nation again. Possibly both.

You are 100% right that if we are to cut funding to the military, which I agree with doing, that it should be based on the military doing fewer things and we should decide what those are, rather than having the military continue to do everything it is doing with fewer resources. I don't think cutting certain of those things should be controversial, but of course if people defend actions such as 'being with worlds policeman' with justification along the lines of 'to be generous' then I guess anything will be controversial.

[blackshoe]

I mentioned the "are we to be the world's policeman" question only to point out that it is something we as a nation need to address, not to suggest that the answer is or should be "yes".

[lalldonn]

You weren't the person I was refering to. Earlier in the thread the idea of 'being the worlds policemen' was justified as a form of altruism, which seems beyond insanity to me.

[Vampyr]

 y66, on 2012-September-20, 11:37, said:

This appeared in "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace along with a warning against blind certainty and close-mindedness -- the Romney qualities that scare me the most.

Closed-minded, Romney? Surely not. After all, his beliefs are the opposite of what they were when he was governor of Massachusetts. So clearly he is capable of (radically) changing his views based on new political objectives new information.

 jonottawa, on 2012-September-20, 12:45, said:

Those who say that government doesn't belong in the marriage business (because marriage is a religious concept) are also right.

This may be true in some places, but not in the United States. In the US the government oversees a substantial financial subsidy from unmarried people to married ones.