Posted on 12/17/2003 1:56:16 PM PST by LyricalReckoner
In Muslim countries – I mean countries where they go by the the clerics rule – you can get away with murder. Literally. You can kill your daughter if you think it will improve your standing in the community.
But England is not a Muslim country and it’s not easy to get away with murder there.
Consider the case of Heshu Yones, a 16-year-old girl who was stabbed to death by her father, Abdallah. (The Yones’ emigrated to England from Iraq. Kurds, they fled Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror).
Why did her father kill his daughter? Because he believed she was having sex with her boyfriend. Someone sent Abdallah a letter accusing Heshu of acting like a whore. So, he decided to kill her for the sake of his honor.
A spokesman for the police cautioned Muslims about religiously-inspired murder: “Violence in the name of culture will not be tolerated. Murder in the name of honor will be punished by the severest penalties available in law.”
Abdallah was sentenced to life in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at misterthorne.org ...
What would you say is the purpose of morality?
I've asked the question, and sought the answer -- from young children.
Phrase it like this: "Do you know right from wrong?"
You will learn from it.
You can't be so dense as all that. The point is, RAND'S PHILOSOPHY cannot objectively tell us why Bill Clinton is wrong. If we put him in the place of Pharaoh, why should Bill Clinton tell the truth, when he can get away with lying, and accrue the lucrative benefits it brings? Remember: we're looking for a rational, objective proof that you claim to be able to provide, from first principles. I've asked for this proof many times over the years, and never yet had one of you Randites rise to the challenge. Do you care to give it a try?
Following on into ethics, your ethical ideal appears to be altruism
Actually, we haven't gotten into my "ethical ideal" at all. We've merely been following Rand's philosophy to its unfortunate logical conclusions.
Now let's go through her little descriptions:
If a man accepts the ethics of altruism, he suffers the following consequences (in proportion to the degree of his acceptance).
Let's be clear here: Rand is claiming that people will suffer these consequences, because she's saying that altruism is eeeevil.
To avoid confusion, let's use Webster's definition of altruism: Unselfish concern for the welfare of others.
We can perhaps extend this definition to make it more tangible: an altruistic act is giving something to others without expectation of repayment. (Whether or not repayment occurs is therefore irrelevant.)
1. Lack of self esteem -- since his first concern in the realm of values in not how to live his life, but how to sacrifice it.
This is a strawman, and a lie. Some of the happiest people I know -- and I wager it's the same for you -- are those who give the most of themselves to others. And, of course, Rand's silly statement somehow leaves out the fact that those who are helped can be very grateful and even loving, which is of course very rewarding to those who give.
2. Lack of respect for others -- since he regards mankind as a herd of doomed beggars crying for someone's help.
A bigoted and stupid statement -- and also not generally true. On the contrary, an attempt to help someone in need can in fact be an expression of great respect. Sometimes things just happen to people, and an offer of help is often a vote of confidence that, given a leg up, those people can turn things back around. It is also quite true that there is a class of doomed beggars who are crying for help. If one believes that humans have intrinsic moral worth, then it is moral to try to help them -- which is again a mark of respect. (Note that Rand tacitly admits the existence of intrinsic moral worth when she says we can't sacrifice others to our own ends.)
3. A nightmare view of existence -- since he believes that men are trapped in a "malevolent universe" where disasters are the constant and primary concern of their lives.
This is ridiculous. The more plausible example is Mother Theresa, whose view of existence was that, given help, people who do live in ghastly squalor can be raised to a better life.
4. And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality -- since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever.
Huh. I wonder what dark recess of Rand's mind that crawled out of? The example of Mother Theresa, again, highlights the foolishness of Rand's statement.
Altruism, for what it's worth, is the demanded "self sacrifice" ethics underlying communism, socialism, modern liberalism and religions.
Not according to Webster's.
Yes -- but will you learn from it?
The fact is that kids learn the difference between right and wrong from others, and not by exercise of their abstract reasoning powers (which are extremely limited).
If you're going to claim, however, that they "just know" what's right or wrong, then you are required to tell us precisely how they know it -- seeing as how they've generally got neither the intellect nor experience to come up with that stuff by their own feats of reasoning. (I think at that point you're left with some form of "mysticism," or an argument from genetics -- neither of which supports Rand's claims.)
Indeed. And Rand basically says that what happens to you -- and what I do to you, should have no bearing on my moral calculations. Because if you did matter, then I would no longer be an end in myself, but would be constrained by you. So Rand's philosophy turns out not to be an individual matter after all. (Oops.)
Now, this brings us back to the idea of intrinsic moral worth. Rand says we must not sacrifice others to ourselves. But why not? If this is in fact true, the only explanation for it would be because a) other people have intrinsic moral worth, and b) we are duty-bound to respect it.
This leads us to the next step. The idea that all people have intrinsic moral worth that must be respected, is a description of a collective property that we somehow own merely by virtue of being human beings -- we do not choose it: we're born with it.
The next step for Rand is to figure out how evolution produced that "objective" and "absolute" property in humans. Well, of course evolution cannot have produced such an objective and absolute property: evolution doesn't work that way.
So we're left with the words of the Founders: that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights....
I must have missed it. We're looking for a rational, objective proof of what?
Dogs learn the difference between right and wrong from others; but human children have a blossoming ability to "know" things on their own -- all sorts of things, including knowing right from wrong.
Take Muslim kids, for instance. Do you really think that ALL (ALL is what you've implied) nine year old Muslims kids -- in contrast to what their insidious elders teach them -- can't use abstract reasoning to KNOW that suicide bombings are evil?
That is either ignorance or an outright lie.
It's neither. It follows directly from Rand's statement that "man -- every man -- is an end in himself." If I have to consider you in my moral calculations, then I am no longer an end in myself.
Now you're making things up. Kids have concepts of right and wrong long before they've got the mental faculties necessary to derive them on their own. Your error is that you're talking about kids as if they exist in a vacuum. But they don't: they pick things up from their families, and the people they're around.
Do you really think that ALL (ALL is what you've implied) nine year old Muslims kids -- in contrast to what their insidious elders teach them -- can't use abstract reasoning to KNOW that suicide bombings are evil?
No. In fact, even YOU would probably be hard pressed to do it, because there is moral latitude even with something as extreme as a suicide bombing. For example, suppose that you have a choice of blowing yourself up and killing somebody like Hitler, thereby saving millions. Would that suicide bombing be evil?
Please see your remarks regarding item 4 in post 83 ...
4. And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality -- since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever
... and then reconsider your own comment to that item 4 ...
"Huh. I wonder what dark recess of Rand's mind that crawled out of?"
As a direct answer to the ethical question you ask, the answer is yes because there are better ways to rid the world of dictators.
Are we speaking of an individual code of ethics, or societal mores?
Here is what Rand wrote regarding the term "end in itself."
The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one's own life as one's ultimate value, and one's own happiness as one's highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one's life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one's life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself -- the kind that makes one think: "This is worth living for" -- what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.
The above is from Rand's "The Objectivist Ethics," page 29 (paperback edition).
What are they? And when you say there are "better" ways, please note that you've merely taken a utilitarian, and therefore relativist, approach to the problem.
... and then reconsider your own comment to that item 4 ...
What's to reconsider? I see no "lethargic indifference to ethics" in the situation I presented to you -- which is reminiscent of the bomb attempt against Hitler in 1944. Or, if you like, we can replace the "suicide bombing" example for a "Hamas suicide assault on an Israeli settlement" -- is a suicide assault always evil? Well, in such cases we must consider the fellow who gives up his life in battle to save the others in his unit: would that make him evil, too?
Kids are innocents when compared to "more developed" adults, and it is within that context of innocence that kids shine ethically.
When they answer "yes" while explaining the basis for some one of thir ethical decisions, that is when you might come to realize how adults screw up kids.
As an example, I was watching some kids for their mother (all close relatives) and one of them noted a "Bush" sign (this was 1990) in my front yard as we climbed in the car for a lunch at McDonald's. As the car door closed, it was the ten year old boy that innocently asked: "You're not voting for Bush, are you?"
Given that, I thought for a tense minute or so and then I asked, while driving: "Do you kids know the difference between right and wrong?"
Without hesitation, they both answered "yes" and -- given the Clinton/Gore record -- it was a most interesting experience -- it was a great opportunity to "talk."
In a sense...you are correct.
We cannot actually see the God. (reality)
We cannot believe in God based inherently reasonable, logical and explainable principles. (reason)
We cannot physically prove that God exists. (truth)
But...a faith in God is just that...faith. Sometimes faith is not reasonable
No, giving your life for those you know or love is an honorable act.
Rand covers the ethics of emergencies well in her book on ethics. One example she uses involves a boy scout river trip with you alone in a powered boat and your son in a canoe with several others. When the canoe overturns in rapids above a waterfall, there is little time for you to act and you see your son adrift while the others cling to the overturned canoe. .
The ethical question to be answered is ... Do you save your son and let the others perish, or do you save the others and let your son perish?
The objectivist would save his son; but the altruist would save the many ... and live unhappily ever after.
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