How can I have a desire to socialize?

[CadillacCTS]

It's about what you WANT?

Desire is the root of action

if you ask me, I think a part of you wants to be social but you don't want to comprimise your self (you want to be who you are, and be social). I suggest you take some time off for yourself, and reflect about your life, and what you WANT, and use your intelligence to get there

 

[Nocturnal]

bump

 

[Alicorn]

ah nevermind

 

[Visceral]

Once again, I’m very sorry that I could not reply sooner.

Originally posted by Nocturnal
Tell me, why must individuals of your morality have aligned interests in order for them to have the same moral standard?

Because if two people who define morality based on self-interest have very different interests, they will come to very different conclusions about what is moral and immoral. If self-interest defines morality, then what defines self-interest? You say logic, but what is that logic based on? What is the evidence you are drawing your conclusions from? It’s context. Who you are and where you are determines what is in your best interest to do, and that defines what you judge to be moral and immoral. Since most human beings are very different in this regard, they will end up with very different views of morality, even if they all define morality based on self-interest. This is why I say context matters and this is why I say a selfish morality is subjective – everyone on the planet can think like this, but unless they have the same or similar contexts to create the same or similar best interest, they will not have the same or similar views on what is moral and immoral.

The moral standard is not based on context. Read that again, it is a very important point. The moral standard is based on one idea that, "each individual acts in his own, self interest, no one else's."

I find it very difficult to believe that one’s self-interest will be the same at all times and in all situations. As the world changes around you, then so must your actions in order to stay ahead of it. Each individual acts in his own self interest … yes, I agree … but what is in each individual’s self-interest is very often different. Is what is in Donald Trump’s best interest the same as what is in my best interest? No, of course not; how could it be? I can’t understand why you think it would be. The moral standard is based universally on self-interest, but self-interest is defined almost solely by context.

My reponse to this is what I have said before about how ideals solve this problem, and they would do so without society living in a contradiction and acting against its own interests.

5,000 years of slavery, warfare, etc. would seem to argue that a society can do just about whatever it wants to so long as it has the means to avoid or reduce the negative consequences. Comeuppance may be inevitable, but big things are usually only done by those who think they’re above it or strong enough to survive it. Would Rome have become an empire if they considered the rights of the tribes around them? No. Would anyone do much of anything if they were concerned about the effect on others? No.

Self-interest in a vacuum works nicely, but self-interest while surrounded by others often involves moral dilemma. Imagine a situation where two men are faced with a choice between two courses of action, x and y. It is in the first man’s best interest to do x, so logically he would do it. It is in the second man’s best interest to do y, so logically he would do that. Sounds simple enough, but what about this … suppose we make it so that it is also in the first man’s best interest for the second man to do x like him, instead of y. What is the moral course of action here? Self-interest demands that the first man find a way to get the second man to choose x, but for the second man to do x instead of y would harm his own interests. This is just one example of the many possible situations where you cannot be selfish and respect the rights of others at the same time.

So you're saying that to this employer, he is moral by acting in his self interest, but his inferiors are immoral if they act in theirs? His definition of morality is a contradiction, it cannot be used to validify any of his actions.

”To this employer” those are the key words right there; the double standard exists in the mind even if the person doesn’t act on it. If whatever serves his interests is moral, then how well would his interests be served if he were surrounded by rivals of his own making? I may be totally wrong on this, but it seems like self-interest would have to involve a defensive strategy of some kind – protecting as well as pursuing what’s in your best interest – and the best I can come up with is making sure that there aren’t other people after what you have or are after. It’s in that employer’s best interest to stay right where he is, and he’ll have a hard time of it if he’s constantly being challenged by his subordinates, which would be the result if he held those around him to his own standard of ambition and ruthlessness.

This situation is like the situation I mentioned above – two men have to choose between two possible courses of action. But this time, things are different. The employer chose x - some strain of Machiavellio-Nietzscheanism - because it best served him, but his interests would not be served, and perhaps even harmed, if his employees were to choose x as well. In this situation, it is in the employer’s best interest that his employees choose y – a code of humility, obedience, and self-sacrifice – but when you look at the employer, his success would suggest that x is also in the best interests of the employees. So what does the employer do? Sacrifice his own interests to allow his employees to serve theirs … or sacrifice his employee’s interests in order to serve his own? Even if you argue that the employees’ interests are best served by choosing y so as not to antagonize their employer, you’re right back to the exploitation I talked about earlier. Perversely, the employees must deny themselves in order to survive.

Again, I have explained this before. For the same reasons as above, to lie is accept that words have no truth, and thus you destroy the means by which you planned on lying in the first place -- you have affirmed that language has no truth and thus that it is a contradiction and cannot be in your self interest.

That’s an interesting way of putting it: lying as the redefinition of a word or the relabeling of a deed. I had always thought of lying as a means to control information, to replace in the other persons’s mind a reality that does not serve your interests with a fiction that does. I doubt that a liar believes his own lies, and if the person lied to doesn’t know the liar is lying, then it seems like lying has very little to do with the meaning of individual words and a lot to do with an account of events you would have someone believe. I admit that if you lie and people know or find out that you’re lying, then there’s no point in lying and people won’t believe you again, in which case you would be right – the meaning of your words has been destroyed.

If your principles are not serving your self interest, they are the wrong principles. Serving self interest is the fundamental principle, other principles can only be valid if they meet the terms that that principle requires.

Yes, but what about the two x-y scenarios I mentioned above? I see in both of them potential for conflict, where one man must force his will on another and do damage in the process in order to pursue his own self-interest. Even if only one of them was to stick to a moral code of self-interest, then he would still end up violating the other’s rights.

It is impossible to have rights without recognizing the rights of others. The reason man has rights is because HE IS MAN. Every man has those same rights, and if you believe that any one of them does not, you must also believe that not you, nor anyone else has them either. Your "real" men who impinge upon the rights of others are really invalidating their own rights.

If you adopt the perspective that it’s not inherent rights but the leverage of wealth and power that determines both how a man is treated and how he treats others – or how he can compel you to treat him and how he can get away with treating you – then where do you end up? I would say that you end up with a world that far more resembles the world we actually live in than the world of inalienable rights that we claim to live in. A dictator can do terrible things to his subjects and have them all hate him enough to want to personally torture him to death, but so long as he has the military on his side – the power to compel his subjects to obey him anyway and crush the few who would still oppose him – then the opinions of his subjects really don’t play any role in anything. He holds power through fear (and starvation and ignorance as well, if necessary, so they don’t know what he does and even if they do, they’re too hungry to want to say or do anything about it), placing him in the classic Machiavellian situation where it is absolutely necessary to degrade and terrorize his subjects in this manner in order to retain the safety of power that allows him to avoid retaliation - self-interest requiring flagrant and extreme violations of the "rights" of others.

 

[Visceral]

Practical? At what cost? My integrity? No thank you.
Gaining is not gaining if you are denying reality, as well as yourself, in the process.

How would someone be denying themselves or reality in that situation? I suppose you could argue that there’s no course of action without negative consequences, and so the scenario I suggest doesn’t apply to the real world. But still, integrity is an expensive luxury for the poor; survival, not morality, is the more pressing concern for them; if things get bad enough, they’ll push morals aside in order to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.
The word “villain”, with all its modern implications, is derived from “villein", a Medieval word meaning “peasant”. Supposedly the aristocrats of the time, living by a strict code of honor (they had the luxury of doing so since their survival was all but assured), saw the unscrupulous practicality of the underclass as “low” behavior – undesirable for oneself and unacceptable from others – and when one of their own manifested it, he would be dismissed and insulted as “villein” … “villain” … peasant.
Since that time, however, the merchants – for whom “unscrupulous practicality” is business as usual – have replaced the aristocrats at the top of the social hierarchy. They owe virtually everything they have to it. Where the poor can’t afford to be moral, the modern rich and powerful just don’t want to. They see morality only as a stumbling block, an obstacle to greater wealth and power. Granted, if you read the news, you’ll see how this can become a bad thing when it’s exposed, and on those grounds you could argue that the behavior should be avoided lest it ever become public knowledge. But this is why we have things like politics and marketing, means for justifying the behavior in the eyes of others or concealing it from public view …
… which is the point I’ve been trying to make all along. To my knowledge, God doesn’t punish immorality with eternal damnation, only people do with shunning or jail. If the people around you don’t object to what you’re doing – either because: they don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve convinced them that you should be allowed to do it, or you can compel them to let you regardless of how they feel about it – then what would stop you?

 

[STR8UP]

Originally posted by Visceral
This situation is like the situation I mentioned above – two men have to choose between two possible courses of action. But this time, things are different. The employer chose x - some strain of Machiavellio-Nietzscheanism - because it best served him, but his interests would not be served, and perhaps even harmed, if his employees were to choose x as well. In this situation, it is in the employer’s best interest that his employees choose y – a code of humility, obedience, and self-sacrifice – but when you look at the employer, his success would suggest that x is also in the best interests of the employees. So what does the employer do? Sacrifice his own interests to allow his employees to serve theirs … or sacrifice his employee’s interests in order to serve his own? Even if you argue that the employees’ interests are best served by choosing y so as not to antagonize their employer, you’re right back to the exploitation I talked about earlier. Perversely, the employees must deny themselves in order to survive.

Your entire argument is based upon the premise that somehow employers are dictators who are forcing people to act outside of their own best interests. That's a weak argument. The last time I checked, employees have plenty of freedom to pursue alternate employment if they find that their needs are not being met by their current employer. You would have us believe that a person is enslaved to a job for eternity. That's ridiculous!

Employers have to comete against EACH OTHER to employ and retian the employment of employees. The employer who does the best job of keeping his employees happy will retain the highest quality workers. To accomplish this he could offer monetary incentives, benefits, quality working conditions, etc. If he fails to provide an environment that meets the employees needs, the employee is free to seek another employer, simple as that. There is no collusion between employers to opress their workers, that's really what you are trying to say.

Same as prices are kept at the lowest possible level based upon competition, employee wages and other compensation are kept at their HIGHEST level based upon the market at any given time.

Just by the simple fact that your argument is based upon the presumption that employees do not have the freedom to act on their own free will....you HAVE no argument. It's all a big marketplace (becoming a global marketplace) and your compensation will be based upon the value of your labor in that market at any given time. You get what you deserve....no more, no less. No one has a responsibility to pay you what YOU believe you are worth, the market always determines value based upon supply and demand.

Bottom line- if you are unhappy with your compensation or working conditions it is YOUR responsibility to make changes to better your sitiation. And yes, this means acting in YOUR OWN self interest which might hurt your employer in the process. IT WORKS BOTH WAYS!

 

[Ice Cold]

Originally posted by OwlofMinerva
How do I think about this?

Talk about what interests the person you're talking to. Not yourself.

 

[Visceral]

Originally posted by STR8UP
Your entire argument is based upon the premise that somehow employers are dictators who are forcing people to act outside of their own best interests. That's a weak argument. The last time I checked, employees have plenty of freedom to pursue alternate employment if they find that their needs are not being met by their current employer. You would have us believe that a person is enslaved to a job for eternity. That's ridiculous!

I’m saying that employers have a significant advantage over their employees. It’s an issue of leverage, who can lose the most and still come out on top. Usually this is the employer; if he doesn’t have a personal fortune to fall back on, he still has hundreds of people ready to beat down his door looking for a job. This puts his employees in a very weak position. If he doesn’t get what he wants out of you …you’re gone; it’s as simple as that. As bad as things might be, they’ll most likely get worse if you put your interests ahead of his. It is on this basis that I claim that capitalism does not function according to self-interest but rather self-sacrifice (at least for the workers).

Employers have to comete against EACH OTHER to employ and retian the employment of employees. The employer who does the best job of keeping his employees happy will retain the highest quality workers. To accomplish this he could offer monetary incentives, benefits, quality working conditions, etc. If he fails to provide an environment that meets the employees needs, the employee is free to seek another employer, simple as that. There is no collusion between employers to opress their workers, that's really what you are trying to say.

This only occurs when there are more jobs than workers; most of the time, when there are more workers than jobs, it’s the workers that have to compete with each other in order to get (and keep) a job – it’s a race to the bottom and the employer just sits back and picks the lowest, then drops him as soon as he finds someone cheaper or outsources the job to India. There is no conspiracy to oppress workers … there doesn’t need to be. Employers have their pick of the litter. They have the jobs we need to survive and this puts the entire process on their terms that we can either accept and live up to or starve.

Same as prices are kept at the lowest possible level based upon competition, employee wages and other compensation are kept at their HIGHEST level based upon the market at any given time.

Two words … Wal-Mart.

Just by the simple fact that your argument is based upon the presumption that employees do not have the freedom to act on their own free will....you HAVE no argument. It's all a big marketplace (becoming a global marketplace) and your compensation will be based upon the value of your labor in that market at any given time. You get what you deserve....no more, no less. No one has a responsibility to pay you what YOU believe you are worth, the market always determines value based upon supply and demand.

I’m surprised that this doesn’t terrify you. What happens when what you deserve is less than you need to survive? What happens when the market decides that you’re worthless? The mere possibility is enough to turn my stomach, and the fact that it actually happens is just inexcusable - human beings used like tools to advance the interests of their superiors then discarded like so much garbage at the first opportunity. And we can either offer ourselves in sacrifice to them or die cold and hungry on the streets. Dependency, servitude, commodification, powerlessness … it’s disgusting on so many levels.

Bottom line- if you are unhappy with your compensation or working conditions it is YOUR responsibility to make changes to better your sitiation. And yes, this means acting in YOUR OWN self interest which might hurt your employer in the process. IT WORKS BOTH WAYS!

Education is prohibitively expensive for most people, and most of those people don’t have the intelligence or previous education to make it worth their while. If people limit themselves to only seeking jobs with livable pay and/or compensation, decent working conditions, and job security (unless a law is passed requiring all jobs to have these things), then the competition is going to become even more intense, which is the last thing the average worker needs. Ask Nocturnal about that last part; the Randian “enlightened self-interest” philosophy forbids harming others in the pursuit of your own self-interest.

 

[Double]

true man. what did happen to the good old days of self-employed hunting and farming?!tip: get some money, keep your expenses low and learn investing.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by Visceral Once again, I’m very sorry that I could not reply sooner.

Then I think you will understand when I say that I apologize for not replying sooner for the same reason that you have described -- school is taking up most of my time.

Originally posted by Visceral What is the evidence you are drawing your conclusions from? It’s context. Who you are and where you are determines what is in your best interest to do, and that defines what you judge to be moral and immoral. Since most human beings are very different in this regard, they will end up with very different views of morality, even if they all define morality based on self-interest.

Think of "morality" as following a set of rules, or more specifically, one rule. "Act in your self interest." If you follow this rule, you are moral. If you do not, you are not moral.

When context changes, the rule itself does not change.

Lets look at specific contexts.

A) I am hungry. I have to follow the rule,"act in your self interest." There is food on the table. Eating the food follows the rule, so I eat it. I am moral.

B) I am full, I have eaten so much that if I eat anymore I will throw up. I have to follow the rule, "act in your self interest." There is food on the table. Eating the food does not follow the rule. I eat it anyway. I broke the rule, I am immoral.

In case A, eating the food is moral. In case B, eat the food is immoral. I think this is what you mean by saying that morality is subjective. But I think you have it wrong. What is moral is defined as, "to do what is good." How do you determine what is good? You have to have some standard. That standard is what defines morality. That standard is the rule I have mentioned above. In either case, the rule does not change. The rule is objective, it defines an objective moral standard that can be applied to everyone.

To evaluate whether an action is moral or immoral, you have to have some standard that you can use and apply to the given context to determine the proper course of action.

Actions themselves cannot be classified as moral or immoral, only intent can.

If your intent is to act in a moral manner, to follow the rule, "I will act in my self interest," then your actions are born out of morality, regardless of context. Context does not determine what is moral or immoral, it only determines what actions satisfy ones moral standard. In this sense, two people can demonstrate actions that satisfy the same moral standard, but which counteract eachother.

Originally posted by Visceral I find it very difficult to believe that one’s self-interest will be the same at all times and in all situations. As the world changes around you, then so must your actions in order to stay ahead of it. Each individual acts in his own self interest … yes, I agree … but what is in each individual’s self-interest is very often different. Is what is in Donald Trump’s best interest the same as what is in my best interest? No, of course not; how could it be? I can’t understand why you think it would be. The moral standard is based universally on self-interest, but self-interest is defined almost solely by context.

I didn't say that what is in your interest is also in Donald Trumps interest. But you can both independently work towards your own self interests and both still be moral, as I have explained above.

Originally posted by Visceral 5,000 years of slavery, warfare, etc. would seem to argue that a society can do just about whatever it wants to so long as it has the means to avoid or reduce the negative consequences. Comeuppance may be inevitable, but big things are usually only done by those who think they’re above it or strong enough to survive it. Would Rome have become an empire if they considered the rights of the tribes around them? No. Would anyone do much of anything if they were concerned about the effect on others? No.

Once again you are assuming that acting in one's self interest allows for trampling the rights of others. I have already explained why you must respect the rights of others to truly be acting in your self interest. I am not defending men who act in any other manner.

Originally posted by Visceral Self-interest in a vacuum works nicely, but self-interest while surrounded by others often involves moral dilemma. Imagine a situation where two men are faced with a choice between two courses of action, x and y. It is in the first man’s best interest to do x, so logically he would do it. It is in the second man’s best interest to do y, so logically he would do that. Sounds simple enough, but what about this … suppose we make it so that it is also in the first man’s best interest for the second man to do x like him, instead of y. What is the moral course of action here? Self-interest demands that the first man find a way to get the second man to choose x, but for the second man to do x instead of y would harm his own interests. This is just one example of the many possible situations where you cannot be selfish and respect the rights of others at the same time.

Self interest does not demand that the first man get the second man to do x, unless he can do it without violating the other man's rights. If he cannot do it, then he cannot do it, that doesn't make him immoral. If it would be in my interest to make a salary of $10 million, but I cannot do it, does that make me immoral? No. If the second man is acting in his self interest, he will choose y, and the first man cannot force him to do otherwise. The first man will choose x, the second man will chose y, and that will be the end of it. Both men have done all that they could to act in their self interest, and no one's rights have been violated.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by Visceral ”To this employer” those are the key words right there; the double standard exists in the mind even if the person doesn’t act on it. If whatever serves his interests is moral, then how well would his interests be served if he were surrounded by rivals of his own making? I may be totally wrong on this, but it seems like self-interest would have to involve a defensive strategy of some kind – protecting as well as pursuing what’s in your best interest – and the best I can come up with is making sure that there aren’t other people after what you have or are after. It’s in that employer’s best interest to stay right where he is, and he’ll have a hard time of it if he’s constantly being challenged by his subordinates, which would be the result if he held those around him to his own standard of ambition and ruthlessness.

He can certainly hire inferior employees if that is what he wants to do, and if it is in his best interest then that is the moral thing to do (although I don't agree that it would be, but let's not get into that). But what does that have to do with whether the employees are moral or not?

Originally posted by Visceral This situation is like the situation I mentioned above – two men have to choose between two possible courses of action. But this time, things are different. The employer chose x - some strain of Machiavellio-Nietzscheanism - because it best served him, but his interests would not be served, and perhaps even harmed, if his employees were to choose x as well. In this situation, it is in the employer’s best interest that his employees choose y – a code of humility, obedience, and self-sacrifice – but when you look at the employer, his success would suggest that x is also in the best interests of the employees. So what does the employer do? Sacrifice his own interests to allow his employees to serve theirs … or sacrifice his employee’s interests in order to serve his own? Even if you argue that the employees’ interests are best served by choosing y so as not to antagonize their employer, you’re right back to the exploitation I talked about earlier. Perversely, the employees must deny themselves in order to survive.

You haven't answered the real question of how the employees would be immoral by choosing x.

Originally posted by Visceral That’s an interesting way of putting it: lying as the redefinition of a word or the relabeling of a deed. I had always thought of lying as a means to control information, to replace in the other persons’s mind a reality that does not serve your interests with a fiction that does. I doubt that a liar believes his own lies, and if the person lied to doesn’t know the liar is lying, then it seems like lying has very little to do with the meaning of individual words and a lot to do with an account of events you would have someone believe. I admit that if you lie and people know or find out that you’re lying, then there’s no point in lying and people won’t believe you again, in which case you would be right – the meaning of your words has been destroyed.

I apologize, I retract my statement about lying. You are correct in saying that lying is a way to control information. Lying is perfectly moral in situations where you are protecting yourself or the right to your privacy. My error lies in saying, "to lie is accept that words have no truth." Lying does not mean accepting that words as a whole have no truth, just that the words that you speak have no truth.

What I should have said is that to be dishonest is to accept that you have a right to some value which you do not have a right to, and so dishonesty is immoral because you have contradicted the principles that men have rights.

It should be noted that lying can in fact be honest, if it is not being used to gain something that you have not earned. It is fine when you are protecting something which you have earned or are entitled to.

Originally posted by Visceral Yes, but what about the two x-y scenarios I mentioned above? I see in both of them potential for conflict, where one man must force his will on another and do damage in the process in order to pursue his own self-interest. Even if only one of them was to stick to a moral code of self-interest, then he would still end up violating the other’s rights.

Like I have explained above, you cannot violate someone's rights and still be acting in your self interest.

Originally posted by Visceral If you adopt the perspective that it’s not inherent rights but the leverage of wealth and power that determines both how a man is treated and how he treats others – or how he can compel you to treat him and how he can get away with treating you – then where do you end up?

This is not the perspective I am advocating.

Originally posted by Visceral How would someone be denying themselves or reality in that situation?

Because to do that you must adopt the principle that says men have no rights, meaning that you are accepting that you have no rights either.

Originally posted by Visceral But still, integrity is an expensive luxury for the poor; survival, not morality, is the more pressing concern for them; if things get bad enough, they’ll push morals aside in order to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

In which case they are immoral like I have said.

Originally posted by Visceral But this is why we have things like politics and marketing, means for justifying the behavior in the eyes of others or concealing it from public view …
… which is the point I’ve been trying to make all along. To my knowledge, God doesn’t punish immorality with eternal damnation, only people do with shunning or jail. If the people around you don’t object to what you’re doing – either because: they don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve convinced them that you should be allowed to do it, or you can compel them to let you regardless of how they feel about it – then what would stop you?

You keep bringing this point up, "what is to stop someone from violating the rights of others." I have already explained that. If you are going to question me about that, then show me how my logic is flawed.

 

[Nocturnal]

bump

 

[Jerry Maguire]

I suffer a similar way of thinking/acting.

I think a condescending view on society/trivial conversation only acts as a way of coping with rejection. You're rejecting them before they reject you.

To be honest, life is only as complicated as you make it. Study your philosophy and whatever else interests you. Find other people with common interests, yet also remember the bond between you and your friends and that life doesn't have to be complicated, it can be deceptively simple.

 

[Visceral]

In case A, eating the food is moral. In case B, eat the food is immoral. I think this is what you mean by saying that morality is subjective. But I think you have it wrong. What is moral is defined as, "to do what is good." How do you determine what is good? You have to have some standard. That standard is what defines morality. That standard is the rule I have mentioned above. In either case, the rule does not change. The rule is objective, it defines an objective moral standard that can be applied to everyone.

That is what I’ve been saying: two people pursuing their own self-interest must, by virtue of their differing circumstances, regard different actions as moral and immoral. One man does things that the other would condemn as immoral and vice versa, especially if what the first man does doesn’t serve the interests of the second man.

Actions themselves cannot be classified as moral or immoral, only intent can.

How do you even define intent, much less judge it moral or immoral? Even if they’re all wrong, probably every person on the planet, regardless of what they do, considers their intent to be moral. I would think that basing “moral” and “immoral” on an intangible like intent has the potential to lead to all sorts of abuses.

If your intent is to act in a moral manner, to follow the rule, "I will act in my self interest," then your actions are born out of morality, regardless of context. Context does not determine what is moral or immoral, it only determines what actions satisfy ones moral standard. In this sense, two people can demonstrate actions that satisfy the same moral standard, but which counteract each other.

First of all, you’re assuming that acting in your self-interest will make you moral. In my mind, this is as broad and ultimately unprovable an assumption as religious people make about their god’s requirements of them. Also, I can’t help but think that there is at least the possibility that the self-interest morality is just apologetics for doing what we would prefer to do rather than what we ought to do, if we ought to do anything at all.

Once again you are assuming that acting in one's self interest allows for trampling the rights of others. I have already explained why you must respect the rights of others to truly be acting in your self interest. I am not defending men who act in any other manner.

I’m assuming that acting in one’s self-interest tempts one to trample the rights of others, and when the stakes are high enough or the risk low enough, will actually lead to trampling the rights of others. This is immoral in The World According to Ayn Rand, but yet it happens anyway. Genghis Khan didn’t respect the rights of those he conquered or butchered, but look where it got him … ruler of the largest land empire in history and direct male ancestor to one in eight men alive today. In today’s world, you could look at Enron or Saddam Hussein and argue that trampling the rights of others does not serve your own interests, but to be perfectly honest, I think situations like these are flukes. Dictators, organized crime, Wal-Mart, and quite a few I didn’t mention so you wouldn’t have to close the thread, are examples where thoroughly immoral behavior not only goes completely unpunished, but serves the self-interest of the perpetrators far better than moral behavior would. If I’m assuming anything, then I’m assuming that situations like these are the norm for humanity … at least at the very top.

Self interest does not demand that the first man get the second man to do x, unless he can do it without violating the other man's rights. If he cannot do it, then he cannot do it, that doesn't make him immoral. If it would be in my interest to make a salary of $10 million, but I cannot do it, does that make me immoral? No. If the second man is acting in his self interest, he will choose y, and the first man cannot force him to do otherwise. The first man will choose x, the second man will chose y, and that will be the end of it. Both men have done all that they could to act in their self interest, and no one's rights have been violated.

Yes, such behavior would be consistent with the demands and limitations of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. The only problem is that most real people in this situation would probably not act in this way, but would instead find some means of getting the second party to choose the option that serves the first party’s interests, rather than the second party’s own interests. I know that I would not trust anyone to respect my rights if it meant depriving themselves of some additional benefit, especially if there was little or nothing I could do to make them pay for that transgression.

 

[Visceral]

He can certainly hire inferior employees if that is what he wants to do, and if it is in his best interest then that is the moral thing to do (although I don't agree that it would be, but let's not get into that). But what does that have to do with whether the employees are moral or not?

I did not say “inferior” employees, but rather employees that either believe it is their honor to serve and obey, have no interest in advancement, or something like that. Unless the CEO is looking for a successor, I find it difficult to believe that he would want employees that manifest the same ruthless ambition that he did when he was an employee, as he would know full well how powerful such a mentality is and how it could very easily be turned against him. The CEO holds his employees to a different standard than he holds himself to. He got to where he is by valuing one thing and behaving in one way, but if one of his employees where to value that same thing and behave in the same way, most likely, the CEO would regard it as a threat to his position and find some way to eliminate that threat.

You haven't answered the real question of how the employees would be immoral by choosing x.

From their own perspective, they would not be immoral. And their employer probably doesn’t give a sh!t what they do so long as he gets what he wants from them. The issue that I was trying to explore is a potential conflict between opposing self-interests. It is in the employee’s best interest (therefore moral … but only to them) to choose x, but it is not in the employer’s best interest for his employees to choose x, as it would turn them into rivals – threats to his position. It is in the employer’s best interest for his employees to choose y, but y is not in the employees’ best interest. The employer therefore regards his employees’ choosing x as immoral because it does not serve his interests, and would no doubt find a way to punish it, and regards y as the moral choice for his employees regardless of the fact that it does not serve their interests.

I apologize, I retract my statement about lying. You are correct in saying that lying is a way to control information. Lying is perfectly moral in situations where you are protecting yourself or the right to your privacy. My error lies in saying, "to lie is accept that words have no truth." Lying does not mean accepting that words as a whole have no truth, just that the words that you speak have no truth.

”accepting … that the words that you speak have no truth”, this makes sense. Unfortunately, it’s probably a non-issue to a liar, and therefore not likely to prevent him from lying.

What I should have said is that to be dishonest is to accept that you have a right to some value which you do not have a right to, and so dishonesty is immoral because you have contradicted the principles that men have rights.

Once again, do men have rights, or does Rand just say that they do?

It should be noted that lying can in fact be honest, if it is not being used to gain something that you have not earned. It is fine when you are protecting something which you have earned or are entitled to.

And yet lying is almost always found out, with serious consequences to the liar. Again, honesty might not always be in one’s best interest. Wait a minute, you’re saying black is white … that lying is honesty. Lying is, by definition, not honesty.

Like I have explained above, you cannot violate someone's rights and still be acting in your self interest.

Then for my own edification, I have to ask you why? Please clarify what exactly constitutes violating someone else’s rights. Failing to act in their best interest? Using them to advance your own interests? Sacrificing their welfare to serve yours? Please explain why exactly is it bad. Because others will see you as a threat and avoid you? Because others will feel free to do the same to you?

This is not the perspective I am advocating.

I never said that you advocate this perspective, only that this is the perspective that drives most immoral behavior. I keep forgetting that you have been giving me your opinion on how people ought to reason and behave, while I have been giving you my opinion on how people actually do reason and behave. Ideals vs. Reality - we’re talking right past each other.

Because to do that you must adopt the principle that says men have no rights, meaning that you are accepting that you have no rights either.

My concern is that the person who would adopt that principle really doesn’t care. Someone with the means to guard against any potential backlash would no doubt feel free to do as he pleases with the world and the people in it. Something like this is the idea behind the saying “Power Corrupts”; someone who has nothing to fear (from his victim, from the community, from fate) won’t hesitate to do something. This is obviously why Rand put her “do no harm” proviso into her philosophy, but the result creates a philosophy with two mutually exclusive commandments. I could argue that someone would be immoral no matter what they do, either failing to act in their own best interest or violating the rights of others.

In which case they are immoral like I have said.

The issue I was referring to is the absurdity of expecting someone to behave in any manner that does not serve their interests. This is what you are asking people to do: put their interests on hold to make room for someone else. A noble sentiment I agree, but unlikely to happen if one can weather the consequences of failing to do so. This is what enables sufficiently powerful individuals to violate the rights of others. You say it is immoral to violate the rights of others because it is not in your best interest to do so, but for the life of me I can’t see your reasoning as to why it is immoral. I can’t accept the idea of inherent rights because history and current events tell me that there are no and have never been such things. There are manufactured rights that people extend to each other, but I can’t recall there ever being anything that anyone could lay claim to simply by being born unless the society they were born into extended it to them.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by Visceral That is what I’ve been saying: two people pursuing their own self-interest must, by virtue of their differing circumstances, regard different actions as moral and immoral. One man does things that the other would condemn as immoral and vice versa, especially if what the first man does doesn’t serve the interests of the second man.

This is what I've been trying to show you. From your perspective, an action is moral to a man if it serves his purpose. From my perspective, an action is moral to a man if it serves the purpose of the man commiting the action.

To act morally is defined as "to do good." We have established that "doing good" is acting in your self interest. Where does that include the actions of other people? What is moral is entirely dependant on how each person acts to further their own interests.

There is a difference between, "this action is in my self interest," and "my action is in my self interest." Morality only includes the actions of the person in question, not anything else in the environment that can affect his or her state of being. So when you are evaluating whether someone is moral or not, there is only one point of view that it can be evaluated from -- their own. To twist it around and try to evaluate it from your own perspective is to disqualify the very meaning of morality.

Originally posted by Visceral How do you even define intent, much less judge it moral or immoral? Even if they’re all wrong, probably every person on the planet, regardless of what they do, considers their intent to be moral. I would think that basing “moral” and “immoral” on an intangible like intent has the potential to lead to all sorts of abuses.

When I say intent I mean the expected and desired outcome for a given action that has been made by choice.

If I take an apple from a tree, and my intent is not to steal, then I am not acting immorally even if the apple belongs to someone else. If I take the apple with the intention of stealing it, even if it is no one's property, I am acting immorally.

In evaluating whether I am acting morally, it doesn't matter who owns the apple or whether I have the right to take it. What matters is how much of that I know and whether I use that knowledge to act in a moral manner.

Now, to address the question of whether everyone acts morally or not. Lets say that John shoots Sarah because he thinks that in the long run, it will benefit him. He intends to act in his self interest so he finds it to be a perfectly moral thing to do. And since I have explained that morality is dependant on one's intentions, not actions, then it might appear that he is acting morally.

But there is a problem. If his intent was to act in his self interest, then he would have properly evaluated whether he really was acting in his self interest or not. Remember when I was talking about errors of knowledge, and acting irrationally? It could be that John has logically evaluated his situation and has simply made an error which would lead him to logically conclude that it is in his best interest to shoot Sarah. If this is true, then he is acting morally. But, maybe the premises that he is acting under the assumption of are irrational. Acting irrationally is immoral because it contradicts acting in one's self interest. If he is living and making choices based on irrational premises, then he is acting immorally by turning a blind eye to his broken belief system.

I personally do not believe in any kind of higher power or gods, but for one second, let's assume that one of the world's religions could be correct. Obviously the different religions cannot all be correct, they contradict eachother in different ways. This means that at the very least, the majority of them are flawed in some ways. Following that, the billions of people who follow flawed religions are living with non-rationalized belief systems. Do you think most people in third world countries have sat down and said to themselves, "You know, I've been heavily exposed to this religion since before I can remember. It has determined who I am, and I have never questioned it. But just to make sure, let me start from the very beginning, shed my biases, and logically evaluate whether the things I believe are true." I don't. Do you think that people are too dumb to notice all kinds of contradictions with their religions? Do they ever really question them? No, because if they did, they would slowly unravel the threads that would reveal that for their entire lives their beliefs have been unfounded and are void. That would be too much for them, so instead, they pretend everything is ok and they tell themselves that it is not to be questioned, and that there are just some things that they will never understand. THIS is acting immorally. And any logical conclusions evaluated with these broken beliefs and premises will be immoral as well.

Originally posted by Visceral First of all, you’re assuming that acting in your self-interest will make you moral. In my mind, this is as broad and ultimately unprovable an assumption as religious people make about their god’s requirements of them. Also, I can’t help but think that there is at least the possibility that the self-interest morality is just apologetics for doing what we would prefer to do rather than what we ought to do, if we ought to do anything at all.

How is it that the statement, "acting in your self-interest will make you moral," is so unprovable? That is a description of morality. That is the definition of morality. If the definition of a triangle is a tree sided polygon, if I show you a three sided polygon and tell you that it is a triangle, would you then tell me that that is unprovable? If acting in one's self interest is not moral, what is? I thought we had already agreed on this.

Originally posted by Visceral I’m assuming that acting in one’s self-interest tempts one to trample the rights of others, and when the stakes are high enough or the risk low enough, will actually lead to trampling the rights of others. This is immoral in The World According to Ayn Rand, but yet it happens anyway. Genghis Khan didn’t respect the rights of those he conquered or butchered, but look where it got him … ruler of the largest land empire in history and direct male ancestor to one in eight men alive today. In today’s world, you could look at Enron or Saddam Hussein and argue that trampling the rights of others does not serve your own interests, but to be perfectly honest, I think situations like these are flukes. Dictators, organized crime, Wal-Mart, and quite a few I didn’t mention so you wouldn’t have to close the thread, are examples where thoroughly immoral behavior not only goes completely unpunished, but serves the self-interest of the perpetrators far better than moral behavior would. If I’m assuming anything, then I’m assuming that situations like these are the norm for humanity … at least at the very top.

Firstly, you are assuming that it was in Genghis Khan's interest to end up where he did. If you want to talk about history, how many emperors, kings, dictators etc were in power for a few years before someone killed them? Even many of the great ones like Genghis Khan died at the swords of the men they were trying to conquer.

Secondly, the point is that if you trample the rights of others, it is impossible to expect anyone to respect your own rights. You invalidate them. Try to live in a world where you don't have rights and then tell me that it will get you to the top.

 

[Nocturnal]

Originally posted by Visceral
Yes, such behavior would be consistent with the demands and limitations of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. The only problem is that most real people in this situation would probably not act in this way, but would instead find some means of getting the second party to choose the option that serves the first party’s interests, rather than the second party’s own interests. I know that I would not trust anyone to respect my rights if it meant depriving themselves of some additional benefit, especially if there was little or nothing I could do to make them pay for that transgression.

Most real people might indeed act that way. But morality doesn't depend on what "most real people" what do, so this is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Visceral
I did not say “inferior” employees, but rather employees that either believe it is their honor to serve and obey, have no interest in advancement, or something like that. Unless the CEO is looking for a successor, I find it difficult to believe that he would want employees that manifest the same ruthless ambition that he did when he was an employee, as he would know full well how powerful such a mentality is and how it could very easily be turned against him. The CEO holds his employees to a different standard than he holds himself to. He got to where he is by valuing one thing and behaving in one way, but if one of his employees where to value that same thing and behave in the same way, most likely, the CEO would regard it as a threat to his position and find some way to eliminate that threat.

Once again, what does that have to do with whether the employees are moral or not?

Originally posted by Visceral
From their own perspective, they would not be immoral. And their employer probably doesn’t give a sh!t what they do so long as he gets what he wants from them. The issue that I was trying to explore is a potential conflict between opposing self-interests. It is in the employee’s best interest (therefore moral … but only to them) to choose x, but it is not in the employer’s best interest for his employees to choose x, as it would turn them into rivals – threats to his position. It is in the employer’s best interest for his employees to choose y, but y is not in the employees’ best interest. The employer therefore regards his employees’ choosing x as immoral because it does not serve his interests, and would no doubt find a way to punish it, and regards y as the moral choice for his employees regardless of the fact that it does not serve their interests.

Here we again hit the issue of whether morality changes depending on what point of view you interpret it from, which I've already explained in this post.

Originally posted by Visceral
Once again, do men have rights, or does Rand just say that they do?

If you really want to get into this, let me first ask you how it would support your argument if men did not have rights? If there are no rights then how can anyone ever be immoral by rising to the top, whether they treat their employees fairly or not?

Originally posted by Visceral
And yet lying is almost always found out, with serious consequences to the liar. Again, honesty might not always be in one’s best interest. Wait a minute, you’re saying black is white … that lying is honesty. Lying is, by definition, not honesty.

I am not saying that lying is honesty, in fact, my point was that lying is not always necessarily dishonest. I'm saying that lying can be honest, under the right conditions. And honesty is always in one's interest, although lying is not always.

Originally posted by Visceral
Then for my own edification, I have to ask you why? Please clarify what exactly constitutes violating someone else’s rights. Failing to act in their best interest? Using them to advance your own interests? Sacrificing their welfare to serve yours? Please explain why exactly is it bad. Because others will see you as a threat and avoid you? Because others will feel free to do the same to you?

Violating someone else's rights is as simple as acting in such a way that you prevent them from having one of the things their existence as volitionally-conscious beings entitles them to.

Everyone is entitled to the right to maintain their own life, for example, so that right can be violated by killing someone.

Why is that bad? Because when you violate someone else's inherent rights, you adopt the principle that men have no inherent rights (that is the only way you can justify violating someone's rights). When you adopt such a principle, it applies to you as well. So by violating someone else's rights, you are, in effect, accepting that you have no rights and that people can do what they choose with you. This is not a healthy principle to adopt.

Originally posted by Visceral
I never said that you advocate this perspective, only that this is the perspective that drives most immoral behavior. I keep forgetting that you have been giving me your opinion on how people ought to reason and behave, while I have been giving you my opinion on how people actually do reason and behave. Ideals vs. Reality - we’re talking right past each other.

How people actually do reason and behave doesn't change what is moral, which I thought was the subject of discussion.

Originally posted by Visceral
My concern is that the person who would adopt that principle really doesn’t care. Someone with the means to guard against any potential backlash would no doubt feel free to do as he pleases with the world and the people in it. Something like this is the idea behind the saying “Power Corrupts”; someone who has nothing to fear (from his victim, from the community, from fate) won’t hesitate to do something. This is obviously why Rand put her “do no harm” proviso into her philosophy, but the result creates a philosophy with two mutually exclusive commandments. I could argue that someone would be immoral no matter what they do, either failing to act in their own best interest or violating the rights of others.

If you adopt a principle you don't care about, then you are making a mistake, it's as simple as that.

Originally posted by Visceral
The issue I was referring to is the absurdity of expecting someone to behave in any manner that does not serve their interests. This is what you are asking people to do: put their interests on hold to make room for someone else. A noble sentiment I agree, but unlikely to happen if one can weather the consequences of failing to do so. This is what enables sufficiently powerful individuals to violate the rights of others. You say it is immoral to violate the rights of others because it is not in your best interest to do so, but for the life of me I can’t see your reasoning as to why it is immoral. I can’t accept the idea of inherent rights because history and current events tell me that there are no and have never been such things. There are manufactured rights that people extend to each other, but I can’t recall there ever being anything that anyone could lay claim to simply by being born unless the society they were born into extended it to them.

I have explained why it is immoral to violate the rights of others as best I can... the best thing I can do is point you to this.

About inherent rights, I probably shouldn't say inherent but they might as well be because they apply as long as men live together. The short answer comes from knowing these three things:

1) Men survive using reason
2) The initiation of physical force interferes with the ability of men to reason
3) Men in societies have the ability to use physical force against eachother

If men are to live as men, in societies, the initiation of physical force must then be banned, and rights must be respected.

If you feel that this discussion has exhausted its usefulness, then just say so and we don't need to continue. This has been a hell of a discussion, thanks.

 

[Visceral]

This is what I've been trying to show you. From your perspective, an action is moral to a man if it serves his purpose. From my perspective, an action is moral to a man if it serves the purpose of the man commiting the action.

So you’re saying: “From Nocturnal’s perspective, an action is moral to Man 1 if it serves the purpose of Man 2.” That makes sense, but what happens when Man 2’s action does not serve the purpose of Man 1? Or when Man 2’s action prevents Man 1 from serving his own purpose? In both cases, Man 1 would end up with a moral dilemma – a choice between self-interest and respecting the rights of Man 2 – though perhaps only from a misinterpretation of the self-interest morality.

To act morally is defined as "to do good." We have established that "doing good" is acting in your self interest. Where does that include the actions of other people? What is moral is entirely dependant on how each person acts to further their own interests.

I would say that this is due to the fact that we do not live in a vacuum, that a person’s well-being is affected by actions of others and vice versa. This would seem to make it necessary for a person to ensure that the actions of others are at least not hostile to their own interests, because if they were, and the person did nothing, then it seems like they would no longer be acting in their own best interest. This is where “do no harm” comes into play; it is meant to solve this problem by preventing one person’s self-interest at the expense of another, which keeps the second person from having to control the actions of the first person, and thus violating the first person’s right to self-interest.

There is a difference between, "this action is in my self interest," and "my action is in my self interest." Morality only includes the actions of the person in question, not anything else in the environment that can affect his or her state of being. So when you are evaluating whether someone is moral or not, there is only one point of view that it can be evaluated from -- their own. To twist it around and try to evaluate it from your own perspective is to disqualify the very meaning of morality.

This makes sense; I would just point out that the environment, including other people, can help or harm a person’s interests as much, if not more, than could their own actions. I’m concerned that your perspective would not allow a person to safeguard their own interests against a less-than-helpful environment (other people included), something I’m sure people will do (moral or not) if you back them into a corner like that.

When I say intent I mean the expected and desired outcome for a given action that has been made by choice.
If I take an apple from a tree, and my intent is not to steal, then I am not acting immorally even if the apple belongs to someone else. If I take the apple with the intention of stealing it, even if it is no one's property, I am acting immorally.
In evaluating whether I am acting morally, it doesn't matter who owns the apple or whether I have the right to take it. What matters is how much of that I know and whether I use that knowledge to act in a moral manner.

You’re talking about something like “criminal intent”, how a person who commits a criminal act can receive a lighter sentence because they either did not intend to commit the act or did so while ignorant of the fact that it was illegal. In terms of morality rather than legality, you’re arguing that the person cannot be said to be stealing the apple since they do not know that it belongs to someone else … assuming, of course, that if they did know, they would not have taken the apple. If the person took the apple knowing full well that they had no right to it, or did not know but refused to give it back if they were confronted by its owner, then they would be stealing, and thus immoral. That makes sense; acting accidentally or out of ignorance, while it doesn’t make the act go away, is not immoral because at least it cannot be proven that you would still have acted had you been more careful or informed. This also explains the necessity of being properly informed or at least being damn careful, as this would make for a very poor defense in court.
I think I finally get the word “moral” meaning “consistent with a moral philosophy” rather than “good”.

Now, to address the question of whether everyone acts morally or not. Lets say that John shoots Sarah because he thinks that in the long run, it will benefit him. He intends to act in his self interest so he finds it to be a perfectly moral thing to do. And since I have explained that morality is dependant on one's intentions, not actions, then it might appear that he is acting morally.
But there is a problem. If his intent was to act in his self interest, then he would have properly evaluated whether he really was acting in his self interest or not. Remember when I was talking about errors of knowledge, and acting irrationally? It could be that John has logically evaluated his situation and has simply made an error which would lead him to logically conclude that it is in his best interest to shoot Sarah. If this is true, then he is acting morally. But, maybe the premises that he is acting under the assumption of are irrational. Acting irrationally is immoral because it contradicts acting in one's self interest. If he is living and making choices based on irrational premises, then he is acting immorally by turning a blind eye to his broken belief system.

A person’s actions have a particular, practical end in mind, but this end is itself means to the ultimate end of self-interest. The practical end can be a rational conclusion based on perception of self-interest, which would make it moral, but if the perception is flawed, then the practical end ceases to serve the ultimate end and therefore becomes immoral. A person must therefore be certain what is in their best interest and how to achieve this, and arrive at this knowledge through rigorous logic. Since there is no guarantee that what logic reveals will be something that the person would actually wish to do, they must also have the will to do it regardless.
I think that I need to stop viewing self-interest in narrow terms of personal gain; I can imagine there being times where the logical, self-interested course of action involves shutting up and doing as you’re told, choosing the lesser of two evils, or sacrificing what you want for what you need, etc. When I take that into account, much of what you say makes a lot more sense, as it enables situations where what is in one’s best interest is not what one would expect (or want) to be in their best interest.

Firstly, you are assuming that it was in Genghis Khan's interest to end up where he did. If you want to talk about history, how many emperors, kings, dictators etc were in power for a few years before someone killed them? Even many of the great ones like Genghis Khan died at the swords of the men they were trying to conquer.

I doubt that Genghis Khan was forced to conquer all of Asia. He wanted to and he had the power to, so he did it. This is the mentality that drove these men to greatness and drove their rivals to kill them. Admittedly, it’s far closer to Nietzsche than to Rand, but also far closer to the way the rich and powerful of today think, and the way most people would like to behave (so long as no-one else does). As things are, I don’t think anybody cares about “doing harm” unless it’s someone else doing harm to them, or perhaps, if given the choice, people would choose to harm others instead of serving their own interests.

Secondly, the point is that if you trample the rights of others, it is impossible to expect anyone to respect your own rights. You invalidate them. Try to live in a world where you don't have rights and then tell me that it will get you to the top.

This is where power comes into play – the power to do whatever is necessary to get to the top and the power to do whatever is necessary to stay there. Down below you mention the need to ban force, well, here is the reason why. With sufficient force, the relationship between self-interest and respecting the rights of others breaks down and it becomes possible to serve your interests without respecting or even by deliberately violating the rights of others

Once again, what does that have to do with whether the employees are moral or not?

This situation was about the moral double standard we talked about a while back, where the CEO holds his employees to a different standard than he holds himself to in order to keep his employees from becoming a threat to him. I would expect people in positions of power to employ not people like themselves – selfish and ambitious … enlightened or otherwise – but rather either selfless people who are honored to serve or unambitious people who don’t care about anything they don’t already have. This situation involves the CEO being selective about the morality of his employees, choosing either people who don’t believe in selfishness at all or are satisfied with what they have, neither of which the CEO himself believes in or practices, but recognizes their usefulness to him.

 

[Visceral]

If you really want to get into this, let me first ask you how it would support your argument if men did not have rights? If there are no rights then how can anyone ever be immoral by rising to the top, whether they treat their employees fairly or not?

It’s not men not having rights that supports my argument, but rather that it is either the belief that they don’t or the act of ignoring their rights that is the driving force behind immoral behavior. The fact that this behavior is so widespread indicates to me that Rand’s assumption of inherent and/or universal rights is in some way flawed, or immoral behavior would be far less common than it is. However, it may simply be that Rand’s inherent rights do not extend as far as I would think they need to be in order to prevent harm being done to anyone, or, in the worst case scenario, I have a twisted or erroneous belief as to what a person’s rights are.
The second part is the state where much of society currently is: do anything legal to get ahead, regardless of how it may harm others – and some don’t even stop there, but will resort to illegal means if it suits them and they can find some way of escaping the consequences. Perhaps I should be arguing that we presently live in a society of laws, not morals; it would certainly explain why so many are so eager to alter or eliminate laws to allow them greater means to serve their own interests. Obviously this is very far from a society built on “enlightened self-interest”, where harming others is unacceptable no matter what you stand to gain from it. I think what I’ve been saying is that society does not yet play by Rand’s rules, not that it shouldn’t play by them.

Violating someone else's rights is as simple as acting in such a way that you prevent them from having one of the things their existence as volitionally-conscious beings entitles them to.

Does this apply to inaction as well? Rand says “do no harm”, but she doesn’t say anything about helping. I could argue that failing to help would cause harm, and would therefore seem to be immoral. But it could also not be in your own self-interest to help, so what would happen then?

Why is that bad? Because when you violate someone else's inherent rights, you adopt the principle that men have no inherent rights (that is the only way you can justify violating someone's rights). When you adopt such a principle, it applies to you as well. So by violating someone else's rights, you are, in effect, accepting that you have no rights and that people can do what they choose with you. This is not a healthy principle to adopt.

I understand. Now that I think about it, I would suggest that most people already believe that they themselves have no rights and are totally resigned to other people having their way with them. They dismiss themselves as undeserving or unworthy for some reason, or expect an Oliver Twist scenario where asking for more than they are given will anger the powers that be and cause them to lose everything. You don’t want to piss off the guy who signs your paycheck; in fact, you might give him whatever he wants even if he doesn’t deserve it … just in case. If they invalidate their own rights first, then would this lead to failing to recognize the rights of others, or an "if I can't have it, then no-one will" situation? You’d think so, but people tend to give others a great deal more leeway than they give themselves, at least through their actions but maybe not in their own minds.

How people actually do reason and behave doesn't change what is moral, which I thought was the subject of discussion.

Yes, but if morality doesn’t inform people’s reasoning and behavior then this whole issue is academic – the reality would be that people play by their own rules and you should act accordingly: screw them first before they screw you, and make damn sure that you can’t get screwed right back. Would it be logical to adhere to a philosophy that does not reflect reality?

If you adopt a principle you don't care about, then you are making a mistake, it's as simple as that.

What I was referring to is that this man doesn’t care about the fact that violating, and thus disbelieving in the rights of others invalidates his own rights because he has the power to protect himself from any potential consequences as a result of this. You can violate the rights of others, invalidating your own rights in the process, but if those others do not have the ability to exploit the “opportunity” to violate your rights that you’ve given them, then does it matter if you have invalidated your own rights? It hasn’t come back to haunt you. Additionally, if subsequent violations of others’ rights will continue to keep you safe, then this becomes if not the logical course of action, then the pragmatic one. This is the situation I was describing, and one that, as an alternative, “enlightened self-interest” only inhibits people like this.

About inherent rights, I probably shouldn't say inherent but they might as well be because they apply as long as men live together. The short answer comes from knowing these three things:
1) Men survive using reason
2) The initiation of physical force interferes with the ability of men to reason
3) Men in societies have the ability to use physical force against each other
If men are to live as men, in societies, the initiation of physical force must then be banned, and rights must be respected.

I was thinking of [physical] force as a tool, something that enables courses of action that would not be considered otherwise, not as a substitute for reason. Force may preclude the use of rigorous logic, since with sufficient force, one does not need to be efficient with their actions, as well as being likely to survive mistakes, but I am sure it is guided by some sort of cognitive process, if only the recognition that: “I can do this and, more importantly, I can get away with it.” I admit that sufficiently powerful men have the luxury of acting on whim alone, and I understand that those that cannot handle the consequences can be destroyed by them. I also understand that the vast majority of men do not have sufficient force at their disposal to make such behavior a desirable option (if it is an option at all), and therefore reason and respecting the rights of others become necessities. My concern is that nothing less than a universal adoption of Rand’s philosophy would prevent those few cases where power enables a man to not only violate the rights of others, but only suffer little (if at all) as a result.

You’re also talking about laws and power structures as well, aren’t you – some kind of quasi-anarchistic system where “enlightened self-interest” replaces the state? In order for this to work, you’d have to instill a very powerful adherence to the philosophy before abolishing all laws and the means of their enforcement, otherwise there’d be chaos as all people would instantly be freed to do whatever they could get away with doing. In addition, there’d still be a need for some means to clean up after flawed logic.

 

[Visceral]

What's Ayn Rand's take on things like pleasure and happiness?

Do they have a place in her philosophy, or does she just expect you to do what's in your best interest, regardless of whether or not you like it or it makes you happy? She assumes that life is preferable to death, but life would be a miserable experience without pleasure or happiness. What could make self-interest worth a life of pain and suffering?

Rand distinguishes between "living" and "surviving", in much the same way that laypeople often do, but a life spent satsifying needs strikes me as the mere survival she expects people to avoid, unless she takes for granted some grand ambition that self-interest will serve to advance.

If that's the case, then what does Rand expect a person's self-interest to be, beyond practical matters of survival?

If you are getting bored with this discussion, then feel free to say so; I won't take offense.