I should have pointed out that CoGs statement of Rand having an "all charity is morally repugnant philosophy" is incorrect...
Though I've read Rand, I'm certainly not an expert on her philosophy and I'll concede this point to you.
Agreed. That would be a bad thing. The question is how do you address that problem within the context of a free, rights respecting society. The man starving in the streets has the same rights as I do. His predicament, his need does not impose a moral imperative upon me. Unless you accept altruism as your moral code. The decision whether or not to help him and to what degree is mine.
Then why are they having them? Why should their poor or irresponsible decision put a burden upon me? Rational egoism declares that my life belongs to me, by right. Altruism declares that my life belongs to anyone but me. But that is the essence of altruism. Helping your own child is not a sacrifice. Helping your neighbors child at the expense of your own is. You are to deny your own values and sacrifice them to something of lesser value. The immoral man pursues his own values, the moral man denies them. That is altruism and that is what is evil about it.
You are objecting to my attempt to flesh out CoG's concern. I subsequently responded to her concern in what I felt was "within the context of a free, rights respecting society." My argument was later. You're refuting what is simply my restatement of somebody else's concern. I see no need to go further on this subject. My understanding is that we're essentially in agreement here. I don't think a combination of your solution and mine is the best system, or even close to that, but I think that it's workable and that it addresses CoG's concern.
I dont know why you find it difficult to argue in favor of rational self-interest. What better argument for it exists than the one you made in bold? Actually, there is one. You argue for it because it is right, and it is moral. That it works well is a side benefit.
I gave it my best argument, but I find it difficult for exactly the reasons you might find it difficult to argue a very statist conclusion. I agree with the premise and I agree with the conclusion but it's quite dissonant with many other things I believe and understand. If I more fully fleshed out my view, my statement would have read "this is correct
but...".
Most people function within certain rhetorical frameworks. Yours is different from mine. You utilize words that have a positive connotation to you to make points, but sometimes those words have negative connotations within my ideological framework. The same is true for what I say to you. The argument for mutually-beneficial trade is strong but it faces serious limits in my rhetorical framework because there's no way to resolve the language problems. There are points that I have to make for which I have no option but to rely on words that have very negative connotations.
I think most of our differences is due to the fact that you accept altruism as a valid moral code and I do not. That perspective leads you to conclude that need trumps rights. At the top of my hierarchy of things is liberty and individual rights. Nothing trumps it. If liberty leads to the end of the world, then I die a free man
You are a free man, your life belongs to you. Live it and enjoy it, without guilt. I think one of the proper roles of the state is to enforce contracts between individuals. The only valid contract that can exist between a free people and its government is one where the state is contracted to protect the lives, liberty and possessions of its people. There is just no way I can support a "social contract" whereby a state initiates force against one set of individuals to the benefit of another.
Me robbing you or defrauding you is an example of me initiating force against you. The force the state brings against me is a response to my use of force against you. It is the initiation of force that has to be outlawed, including initiation by the state. Look at it this way. You know that you have no claim to anything that rightfully belongs to me. If you try to relieve my of my possessions you will be arrested regardless of what you intend to do with them. That behavior does not somehow become moral when you enlist the state to do it for you. And if you dont have the power to confiscate my wealth, how do you give that power to the state?
I am not sure which mutually agreed to contracts you believe I oppose. Essentially, whatever mutual agreement two adults come to is fine with me--so long as that agreement doesnt violate anyone elses rights.
No. I do not accept altruism as a valid moral code. I accept it as a very good guiding principal for one's own life. I do not accept it as anything nearing a categorical imperative, and I definitely do not accept it as something that "should become a universal law". My welfare-state views derive from a philosophical difference that you and I have about contract rights. As I would phrase it, you don't respect an individual's fundamental right to engage in an agreement with another human being.
Imagine a tribe of hunter gatherers who are essentially free. They might sign a contract with one another (written and signed with nothing more than grunts and whistles!) that provides for 'cougar insurance'. Being as all members of the troop don't want to die but they face a very real risk of being mauled by a mountain lion, this makes sense for them. They make an agreement that if somebody does get shredded they'll provide some of their meat to the injured tribesman so that he can recover without starving. They sign this contract because they understand that they could potentially be said 'injured tribesman' and the benefits outweigh the costs of that agreement. This is a basic insurance contract and I'm certain it's considered valid in most libertarian worldviews including yours.
Fast forward a few centuries and this tribe of hunter gatherers is at the dawn of becoming an agrarian society. Some tribesmen have shifted from the profession of killing deer and running from mountain lions to the profession of planting turnips and getting sick from parasite infections. Progress!!! Unfortunately for these tribesmen, their hunter gatherer counterparts sometimes "gather" the turnips that they planted. This isn't very good for business. Our hunter gatherers and our farmers agree to another contract assigning property rights. Something along the lines of "you planted this turnip which improved the land, therefore you have the sole right to harvest and consume this turnip". That's a very Lockean argument, though we have to consider Locke's "enough and as good" caveat as this would be a major consideration in this society (imagine that consideration's importance in some places, like a Pacific island, where resources were extremely limited). Because of these very valid concerns and the overall increase in food harvests that resolving them provides, the societies that were ultimately successful in the course of history managed to resolve them by assigning a property right (though its extent varied).
Both 'cougar insurance' and 'hey that's my turnip' can be pareto-optimal agreements within this society. Everybody benefits from those two contracts even if they would prefer a slightly modified arrangement and even if one of the two was not agreed upon. Successful societies (the ones that didn't disappear millennia ago) generally made both. Additionally for the purpose of these contracts being valid, they don't actually have to be pareto-optimal. They simply have to appear pareto-optimal (or at least agreeable) to all participants. These two contracts are voluntary and pareto-optimal (or at least as close as we can hope to get if we assume EMH). I think that you would agree that both contracts are valid.
Now, this is where things gets a little more complicated. 'Cougar insurance' is essentially a welfare scheme. There's no 'state' involved but insurance systems are essentially welfare systems. Even if you don't define what a 'state' is, that's their fundamental function. 'Hey that's my turnip' is essentially a system of property rights. Once again there's no 'state' involved but our tribesmen have created a voluntary, no-government-needed contract with one another that protects their property rights.
Fast forward a few hundred years. The ice age that's developed since our last example has caused fewer deer to be available for hunter-gatherers to slay but the population of lions, tigers, and bears has soared. Turnip growers are still concerned that the system of property rights that our society has developed is too weak. "Sometimes the starving hunters have stolen my turnips, the jerks... I know we agreed upon a Lockean "enough and as good" caveat but I don't like this". Whatever. The farmers and the hunter-gatherers enter negotiations for a new contract. The main concern of the farmers is a better system of property rights. They really don't want the hunter-gatherers eating their turnips without explicit permission or trade being involved. The main concern of the hunter-gatherers is a better system of cougar insurance, especially considering that recent developments have made their profession much less profitable. The hunter-gathers, though they're not fond of a stronger system of property rights, would prefer a better system of cougar insurance even if it meant stronger property rights. The turnip growers, though they're not found of better cougar insurance, would prefer a stronger system of property rights even if it meant better cougar insurance. All parties here are rationally self-interested and there is no altruism involved. They are simply making contractual agreements with one another that they perceive to be in their own best interest. Thus they forge a contract with one another that is mutually agreeable. This contract includes
both 'cougar insurance' and 'hey that's my turnip'. All parties involved feel that they have gained more benefit than it costs them and thus it is perceived to be a pareto-optimal contract. This is a valid contract.
This contract, I think, is where we can definitionally remark that a 'state' has been born. My definition of 'state' is very weak and I think it probably differs from what you would define 'government' as, but my definition allows me virtually any society from a libertarian utopia, to a society that never progresses beyond 'cougar insurance' and 'hey that's my turnip', to something that Heinlein would like, to a society that accepts a version of Rawlsian 'birth insurance', to some Marxist dystopia. Maybe somewhere else along the line (before or after this) should actually mark the birth of a 'state', but I think this is a good moment. We've combined the basic principles of social insurance with an assignation with property rights into a single contract. That's as good a definition as any I can think of (though I'm open to similar alternatives). I diverge strongly with you on alternative definitions of state that consist of "coercion" or whatnot... I've managed to arrive at this position through an entirely free, voluntary, and self-interested process that is remarkably consistent with what we've actually observed human beings doing in the real world. Though there's something Hobbesian about my argument that this is free of coercion, I will assert that none of the alternatives are better. Indeed, all alternatives rest upon some contention that a voluntarily reached and pareto-optimal contract is invalid and that the participants should be coerced to ignore it.
My mental framework doesn't reject a society that you would find very amenable. Your preferences can exist within my mental framework. My preferences are not acceptable within your mental framework though... I ask you to at least consider mine as the strongest example of free interaction between rational human beings. That my framework does a very good job explaining interactions that we observe in the real world should be considered a plus.
Which is why Rand believed that Objectivism and Christianity were incompatible. It is hard to argue with that, but that doesnt mean that there arent any number of areas where Objectivist and Christian morality meet. I try to focus on those. At least here, anyway.
The fundamental principles of Objectivism are diametrically opposed to the fundamental principles of Christianity. One teaches egoism, the other altruism. When you draw them out to their natural conclusions they offer very different results. This is the problem but my time is limited and there are other posters who seem happy to argue this point so I'll leave it to them.
