Now that our country is expected to be the foremost champion of the “free world” (for how long and at what cost nobody knows), it has become more important than ever for Americans to think clearly about American freedom. FULL ARTICLE by Bruce Winton Knight
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/10702/freedom-is-indivisible/
Freedom is Indivisible
Previous post: Security Without a State
Next post: The latest panic over Chinese goods
{ 80 comments }
← Previous Comments
mpolzkill,
A famous Christian, Billy Graham, when asked about sex before marriage replied:
“It doesn’t matter what I think, the Bible says it’s a sin.”
I rest my case.
Nate Y
Thanks for pointing a small but existing flaw in my argument. So, let me go around correcting it.
You asked
” You can’t have it both ways. If you claim it immoral, you must make an objection to it on moral grounds. ”
OK!! You are right. I can’t have it both ways. Acting as “my brother’s keeper” requires me to necessarily place his interest above mine, failing which I am not acting as his keeper but mine. In a rationally selfish code, acting thus is clearly immoral.
Note the correction – I am now saying that even if an individual chooses voluntarily to “be his brother’s keeper”, the action is immoral. However, the consequences of his immoral choice are faced by him alone. Irrespective of whether ornot he was aware of the consequences of this choice when he took it, he deserves those consequences.
That makes the statement “Man is his brother’s keeper” doubly immoral because it tries to give high moral status to that which is rationally immoral. It therefore places man’s self-interest in conflict with his moral code. Thus, it makes the very fact of holding a moral code (actually now an immoral code) a threat to his long-range self-interest. It thus makes man incapable of acting in his long-range self-interest in a variety of ways. If this is not immoral (as I defined immoral) what is?
Hope the correction clarifies the issue entirely. Nothing else changes in the argument.
Thanks for pushing me to make it more explicit.
mpolzkill,
Just responding to a specific statement based also on what I have said.
” How about: it would be nice if you cared about and helped your brother if he needs it. ”
Actually, that depends on whether I am convinced my brother deserves it. If he does, then by helping him, I am not being his keeper but mine. If he does not, then I am being his keeper but to my own detriment.
It would be interesting to note that I do indeed have a brother who is going through a lot of difficulty but I just do not bother with it because I think he does not deserve my time, what with he being parasitical by nature. By being his keeper, I know for sure that I will make my life a veritable hell on earth.
So, I do have first-hand experience of what I am talking of.
Bala,
You’re welcome for the push. Allow me to nudge you just a little bit more.
Read what you just wrote. You’re basically saying that if a person doesn’t adhere to your personal code which you call “rationally selfish” (abusing both words in the process) then his actions are immoral. You honestly don’t see a problem with that? I’ll expand my thoughts a bit later…
Nate Y
It is really amazing to note how many mistakes and misunderstandings are packed into that short comment of yours. So let me deal with the most obvious ones.
” your personal code ”
I was not presenting “my personal code” but the code of values a rational man is best off adopting if he makes a choice to live.
First up, reality is absolute and hence, so is morality. Here are a few examples of absolute reality.
1. You exist. I exist.
2. You are a human. So am I.
3. You are alive. So am I.
4. Life for humans like us is not automatic. We need to act to live.Consistent failure to act leads to death or the cessation of life.
5. Another aspect of the non-automatic nature of human life is that we need to make one fundamental choice – between life and death. (rational people under normal circumstances usually choose life over death)
6. Life presents us with a mind-boggling mix of choices. All these choices, however, follow logically from the previous choice – that of life over death.
7. Food sustains life while poison destroys life and causes death.
These are just a sample but sufficient for the explanation I plan to give.
Morality is a hierarchic code of values that man needs to formutale. This hierarchic code helps him compare different values with each other and choose from among them.
Having mentioned the word “values” it is essential to define it – Value is that which we act to gain or keep. That raises the basic question of why we do so. The simple answer is to sustain life for as I said, without action, life will soon cease.
Different physical and non-physical objects (including concepts) have different value to man. A Moral framework helps man place all these different values on a scale so that he may evaluate options for action and choose from among them.
There are two broad ways to choose values
1. Rationally – That means trying understand the gain/loss something brings him and grading it suitably. This requires an unflinching commitment to reality as it exists. As an example, if a man chooses life over death and he is still rational after making that choice, he needs to choose food to be a value because it sustains life and poison to be a disvalue because it extinguishes life.
2. Arbitrarily – This is what most people do – Absorb values from the society they live in without questioning why something is a value or a disvalue or why something is of greater value than something else. Arbitrary choices of values carry a great risk with them, the risk being that what one thinks is a value could turn out to be a disvalue. Hence, death may lurk at the end every choice made under an arbitrarily chosen code of values.
The basic point to note is that a person who has made the choice of life over death needs to then go on to choose other values in consonance with that because otherwise, he risks death or at least getting closer to death. Hence, a rational choice of values is a better choice for a person who chooses life. Please note that this is not my opinion but what objective reality tells us. It tells this to you as much as it does to me.
Now to some basic ideas of the objective nature of Morality, especially a rational morality.
1. Life is the highest value to any human.
2. My life is my highest value just as your life is your highest value.
3. All other values are judged in terms of how and to what extent they enhance this fundamental value. For instance, since concepts such as Liberty and Property Rights enhance life to a great extent, they come vey high up in the hierarchy of values.
4. That which diminishes life is called a disvalue and takes a suitable negative value on the scale
5. The scale is ordinal rather than cardinal
Where each value ought to fit is determined by reality. As human beings, what we do is try to understand that objective reality and try to place our value choices as closely mirroring reality as we can figure out. The better we do it, the better we live.
This brings me to the next mistake.
” you call “rationally selfish” (abusing both words in the process) then his actions are immoral ”
You are essentially saying that I judge a person’s actions as immoral. How wrong you are!!! The truth is that no one is a better judge of a man’s choices than reality. All we mere mortals try to do is to be as close as possible to reality.
The error in your statement is that it is not “who” decides whether an action is moral or immoral but “what”. That’s because Objective Reality is the only true judge.
For instance, if a person chooses to live and then eats something poisonous under the arbitrary value choice that says it is not a disvalue but a value, his action is deemed immoral not by my but by reality. He receives the just punishment for his bad choice – death.
Another person who similarly chooses to live, let’s say, chooses idleness over production. Reality judges his choice as immoral and doles out the most just punishment for his choice – poverty.
So, in any situation involving value choices, it is the Objective Reality out there and not any one – not you or me – who decides whether an action is moral or immoral.
Your question betrays your fundamental assumption that value choices are relative and arbitrary and hence morality too is subjective.
Now that I have done a little bit of explaining, could you please explain the following bit that you posted?
” which you call “rationally selfish” (abusing both words in the process) ”
Please explain how I have abused the two words.
I don’t know what your mistakes were, Nate, but they MUST have been amazing.
Nate Y,
Just to add a small point, in questions involving evaluation of moral choices, the correct question to ask is not “Who decides?” but “By what standard?”
So, your statement/accusation is completely off the mark.
@ “Acting as “my brother’s keeper” requires me to necessarily place his interest above mine, failing which I am not acting as his keeper but mine. In a rationally selfish code, acting thus is clearly immoral.”
No, one acts as “my brother’s keeper” also when he pursues his own interest by engaging in any exchange for mutual benefit.
Such action is not required, it is evident.
It also does not “necessarily put his interest above mine” by virture of the fact that the exchange was mutually beneficial.
The only alternatives to not acting as “my brothers keeper” are:
No interaction
or
immoral interaction.
John Mac
G8R HED,
Define “happiness”!
————————————————–
“Subjective”!
@ ” These Randians think “keeper” means total responsibility for how everyone else does in life, apparently. You don’t think that, I’m sure. ”
No, I do not think that being “my brothers keeper” means total responsibility for everyone else.
@”I’m all for ditching this word “keeper”: “attendant, a guard, or a warden”.
I believe the word “keeper” is appropriate in the sense that one attends to, guards, and is a ward of peace and prosperity in society whenever one engages in any exchange for mutual benefit (economic or otherwise), regardless of selfish consideration.
Being “my brothers keeper” is a manifestation of the NAP…
….(and, since someone else brought it up) in addition a sound Biblical
principle – rightly understood.
By ‘rightly understood’ I mean that: if one believes that Biblical principles are somehow incompatable with liberty then there’s some work to be done.
It is possible that this is central in the conception of “my brothers keeper” as used in this article.
Many, including Christians, see it as a political imperative. I believe that if this is what is understood as what ought to be, then Biblical principles are mis-understood.
G8R,
I appreciate your thoughtfulness and I think you are quite logically sound on the meaning of the word. Logic does not prevail in this world though, perfectly innocent words collect dirt (just ask “progressives”) and are many times completely redefined by the masses; I am only thinking from the propaganda angle. Perhaps you are right to disregard such considerations, I don’t know.
“By ‘rightly understood’ I mean that: if one believes that Biblical principles are somehow incompatable with liberty then there’s some work to be done.”
That was excellent.
Please tell me; your definition of “keeper”, do you believe this was Cain’s definition, thus destroying my interpretation of the story? Thank you.
G8R HED,
” No, one acts as “my brother’s keeper” also when he pursues his own interest by engaging in any exchange for mutual benefit. ”
I would rather call that trading for mutual benefit rather than calling it “being a keeper”.
To take this further, let us take a simple situation – Can “being his brother’s keeper” come in conflict with a man’s selfish interest? The truthful answer is that it can. In this situation, if the statement “Man is his brother’s keeper” is a moral principle, man has two options.
1. Act as per his moral code and place his own selfish interest below that of his brother’s interest
2. Violate his moral code and live a life of guilt knowing that he did so.
Sadly, this is the way the world lives. It creates a situation where being moral will someday mean acting against one’s selfish interests (however rational) or choosing an immoral action in order to act selfishly. You can be either moral or selfish but not both. It thus makes morality impossible for a rationally selfish man. However, man cannot survive without a sound moral code.
This is why the notion “man is his brother’s keeper” is truly immoral. Hope this makes it clear.
@ “I would rather call that trading for mutual benefit rather than calling it “being a keeper”.
Exchange for mutual benefit is not limited to economic transactions and I do not limit them as such as I stated above:
” (economic or otherwise)”
————————————————–
@ “To take this further, let us take a simple situation – Can “being his brother’s keeper” come in conflict with a man’s selfish interest? The truthful answer is that it can.”
Granted…. as I have already said above: “regardless of selfish consideration.”
But it still does not (as you stated earlier) “require me to necessarily place his interest above mine”.
——————————————
@ ” In this situation, if the statement “Man is his brother’s keeper” is a moral principle, man has two options.
1. Act as per his moral code and place his own selfish interest below that of his brother’s interest
2. Violate his moral code and live a life of guilt knowing that he did so.”
Both of these are voluntary actions, and moral as such.
Living a life of guilt is also voluntary.
Up to this point being “my brothers keeper” is not immoral in the sense that you claim it to be.
I would add that there are at least two more options:
3. Be forced per his moral code and place his own selfish interest below that of his brother’s interest
4. Be forced to Violate his moral code and live a life of guilt knowing that he did so.
Now we have reached a point of agreement in which option 3. and 4. are immoral.
But it is important to note that it is not the claim of being “my brothers keeper” which makes the act immoral, it is the use of force.
———————————————
@ “Sadly, this is the way the world lives. It creates a situation where being moral will someday mean acting against one’s selfish interests (however rational) or choosing an immoral action in order to act selfishly. ”
A subjective worldview (to which you are entitled) which precludes force as the only option.
——————————————————-
@”You can be either moral or selfish but not both.”
Not true. Exchange for mutal benefit implies a moral exchange and satisfies the selfish desire of both parties.
@ “Logic does not prevail in this world though, perfectly innocent words collect dirt”
As a self-confessed village idiot I can only say that I often get handed a broom.
@ “Please tell me; your definition of “keeper”, do you believe this was Cain’s definition, thus destroying my interpretation of the story? Thank you.”
He knew good-n-well the definition of “keeper” and that he had not acted accordingly…..but pride often blinds reason. There is a good example that it is the use of force, not the definition of “keeper” which makes the act immoral.
mpolzkill,
Thanks for the kind words.
G8R HED,
Thank you for already doing what I was about to attempt.
The entire discussion turns on the idea “You can be either moral or selfish but not both.” You countered it quite well.
G8R HED,
The fundamental problem in your argument is that you are assuming that every action that is voluntary is moral. That is just not right. That would be a vain attempt to reality by saying that a choice is moral because you wished it to be.
If you go back to the explanation I gave on Objective Morality, if a person who chooses to live then goes on to choose to consume poison voluntarily, the fact that it was voluntarily does not make the act moral. As per the Objective Reality that poison kills, the person’s choice of poison will be judged immoral and his punishment will be death.
I could cite many more examples in many more situations, but you need to drop the flawed premise that mere voluntary choice makes something moral.
If that is so, your options 3 and 4 get eliminated and we are left with only my 2 options.
Sorry…
Line 2 should read “vain attempt to evade reality”. I missed out the “evade”.
G8R HED,
” There is a good example that it is the use of force, not the definition of “keeper” which makes the act immoral. ”
This too is a flawed statement because you are making the false claim that only the initiation of force is immoral. This is false because it assumes that morality governs only the interactions of an individual with other individuals. Morality, in reality, is just as valid for a man marooned on a hitherto uninhabited island as it is to a man born among a million others.
Nate Y,
” The entire discussion turns on the idea “You can be either moral or selfish but not both.” ”
Please note that I mentioned that this is the case when you accept the credo that “man is his brother’s keeper”. It is not valid under a rationally selfish morality because the moral and the selfish would become one and the same.
Bala,
I know you addressed your most recent replies to G8R HED but I’m gonna respond.
You say “The fundamental problem in your argument is that you are assuming that every action that is voluntary is moral.”
No one is arguing that every voluntary action is moral. How on earth did you get that into your head? The argument is simply that voluntary actions and moral actions are not mutually exclusive.
The world of actions is bigger than moral and immoral. Other categories exist. You seem fond of this “consuming poison vs. food” example. Let’s leave aside the fact that some foods are indeed poison if consumed in large amounts (for example, the beer I wish I was drinking right now) and focus on proper poisons.
Let’s say a man sits down at home and decides to drink some highly toxic arsenic. In this case, his action is neither moral nor immoral . His actions fit into another category. That category is called “stupid”.
(unless, of course, his aim is to kill himself after much suffering)
Nate Y,
You are right. In a rationally selfish morality, the “clearly stupid’ is what one would call immoral. In my opinion, this is the beauty of a morality based on rational selfishness. It is easy to understand even for a person of well-below-average intelligence (once the other pollutants in his mind have been addressed) and very practical.
As I have said earlier, the purpose of morality is to guide human action. The purpose of human action being the sustenance of life, smart action, i.e., that which enhances life, is moral and stupid action, i.e., that which diminishes life is immoral. It is indeed that simple.
Why else would one need a morality if not to tell oneself how to act?
Nate Y,
” No one is arguing that every voluntary action is moral. ”
This is factually incorrect. G8R HED was actually saying that because the action is voluntary, it is moral. That can only mean what I said. He used it to develop options 3 and 4.
@ Bala
Nate Y,
” No one is arguing that every voluntary action is moral. ”
This is factually incorrect. G8R HED was actually saying that because the action is voluntary, it is moral. That can only mean what I said. He used it to develop options 3 and 4.”
No, I said every voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.
I did not say ‘every action’, nor did I intend to imply ‘every action’.
Nate Y is correct that “every voluntary action is moral” is excluded.
As I stated above:
The only alternatives to not acting as “my brothers keeper” are:
No interaction
or
immoral interaction.
G8R HED,
” No, I said every voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. ”
This statement ducks the point I had made and hence has to be dismissed. If you go back to the point I made in my statement posted on September 25, 2009 11:00 AM, I took the specific situation where “being his brother’s keeper” comes in conflict with a man’s selfish interest. In this circumstance, which is metaphysically possible and involves an “either-or but not both”, the interaction is not “voluntary interaction for mutual benefit”.
By bringing that circumstance in to contradict my statement, you are failing to address my statement but claiming to have addressed it.
I addressed your statement directly. Your example does not function as claimed:
Both of these are voluntary actions, and moral as such.
Living a life of guilt is also voluntary.
Up to this point being “my brothers keeper” is not immoral in the sense that you claim it to be.
More specifically:
1. Act as per his moral code and place his own selfish interest below that of his brother’s interest
In voluntarily choosing to place his selfish interest below that of his brother’s interest he voluntarily manifests his moral code. That is not immoral.
2. Violate his moral code and live a life of guilt knowing that he did so.
In voluntarily choosing to violate his own moral code to benefit his brother at his own expense he manifests a charitable (selfless) act. This is not immoral either. Voluntarily choosing such action values the charitable act mor highly (and thus the interaction become mutually beneficial) than one’s own moral code. One may choose to feel guilt for that or not.
G8R HED,
You are way off the mark for a simple reason. In a rationally selfish morality where reality is the judge of the moral status of an action, placing one’s interest below those of another or accepting (unearned) guilt do not count as moral actions even if they are voluntary. The reason for this is that under a morality rational selfishness, human beings are expected to act to maximise their own long-range well-being or their rational happiness, the latter being a reflection of the consistency of their actions with their values. This is as moral as saying that once you have chosen “life” over “death”, acting so that you die is moral because you have voluntarily chosen to act thus.
You are being stubborn in refusing to drop the notion that an act becomes moral just because it is voluntary. Reiterating it many times over does not make it correct. You are therefore bordering on whim-worshipping.
Bala,
Are you seriously so unimaginative? Can you not appreciate that a voluntary act of charity such as letting a friend stay in your spare room (being your brother’s keeper) can very much serve to maximize a person’s “long-range well-being or…rational happiness”?
This is why I posted this: You’re basically saying that if a person doesn’t adhere to your personal code which you call “rationally selfish” (abusing both words in the process) then his actions are immoral.
Because that’s exactly what you’re saying.
Are you really so arrogant to believe that you can determine what specific actions every person should and should not take in order to maximize his/her happiness? You must make this claim (however tacitly) in order to call voluntary actions immoral and promote your “rational selfish morality”.
Nate Y,
” letting a friend stay in your spare room (being your brother’s keeper) can very much serve to maximize a person’s “long-range well-being or…rational happiness”? ”
Letting a friend stay in your spare room is neither charity nor being “your brother’s keeper”. It is very much a selfish act you (and I) engage in because we value the friend for what he is, especially his virtues. It is an action in consonance with the first choice of seeking his friendship. It is an act of trying to keep that value that you have on hand – a friend.
To call it charity or “being your friend’s keeper” is the biggest insult you can hurl at your friend and your friendship.
This is the point YOU are missing. When I make a friend, I know why I am doing it. When I then go on and help him, I once again know why I am doing it. I do it because I think he is a good person, the kind of person who shares the very virtues I admire and has a similar code of values. That’s the kind of person whose very company gives me happiness. Inviting him is in my long-range well being too (that’s why it makes me happy). I can invite him to my house with the confidence that he will not become a parasite on me. In case some time in the future, I really need his help, I can bank on him to be there for me because he admires me just as I admire him.
Now tell me if my imagination is lacking or yours.
” Are you really so arrogant to believe that you can determine what specific actions every person should and should not take in order to maximize his/her happiness? ”
As I said earlier, I donot even claim to be capable of determining anything of that sort. If you go back to my posts, you will find me saying that the only real judge is Reality. And trust me, Reality is as harsh a judge as you will ever get. I just try to figure out how Reality tends to judge, why it judges specific things in specific ways, figure out if there is a consistency across time and space and use that understanding to figure out what is the best thing for me to do.
All I am saying with respect to other people and their choices is that if a person has first chosen life and then makes subsequent choices that are inconsistent with this choice (like reducing his well-being or his happiness, which is a measure of his success), he is making a mistake and that Reality will judge him very harshly. This is what I call immoral. Not because I think it is but because Reality treats it that way.
Bala,
Apparently we operate with different understandings of “being your brother’s keeper”.
I think I found a site that shares your views http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth–2129-brotherskeeper.aspx
All I can do is laugh at this nonsense. The objectivist responds as if “be your brother’s keeper” is the only moral/ethical idea by which people are suggested to live their lives. I’ve seen this before with those who call themselves “objectivists”. They tend to look at concepts as isolated from all others. As such, their analysis is doomed from the beginning.
I’m curious, when were you first presented with the choice to live or die? I was not provided such an option before I was born.
Anyway, you use the word “life” as a catch-all and switch it out for other words like “well-being” and “happiness” so it’s tough to nail down exactly what you’re talking about. There is no such thing as objectivity when it comes to issues of well-being and happiness. What makes one person happy can make another person miserable. How does the objectivist explain this? How would you reckon with those people who engage in activities that shorten their chronological lives but enhance their well-being? It seems reality can’t make up its mind.
@ “In a rationally selfish morality where reality is the judge of the moral status of an action, placing one’s interest below those of another or accepting (unearned) guilt do not count as moral actions even if they are voluntary”
Reality/nature is neutral as to morality.
“It” cannot value and is therefore incapable of moral judgement.
← Previous Comments
Comments on this entry are closed.