ClumsyMonkey.net

If preserving life is what's important, why do you believe that we should all be able to snort crack and shoot up heroin??

Because part of lving is preserving the right to choose. I don't think Chris is saying we SHOULD all snort crack etc, but that we all have the RIGHT to choose to do it, as ...

That question was by no means meant to be sexual. I question your thought process with a response like that.

I know it wasn't MEANT to be sexual. I understand what the question was intended as. I will also not make excuses for what I wrote, as that would be a cop-out, and as an Objectivist, I ...

There is one thing I believe and that is that everything is realitive. If everyone has an intelligence of X, and Person A has an intelligence of Y and Y > X then Person A is a Genius. However if everyone had the intelligence of Y, then Person A in no longer a Genius, but rather he would be average ...

Matt,
I'll give a brief explanation of these to answer some of your basic questions:


"Man is an end in himself—which means that each individual must live by his own mind and for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor others to himself."

While this may seem rather like ...

Ahhh... now we're getting somewhere... so you agree that there are levels of "wrongness"? One cannot easily say that one wrong is more wrong than another without being subjective. Just try it.

Ergo, a level of morality. How this list is constructed is purely subjective.



Different levels of ...

That is bologna. First off, you ignored the rest of my post. My question was that if all wrongs are equally wrong, how could they possibly be deserving of different punishments?? Second, who decides what the suitable punishment is? It is ALL subjective!


I did not ignore the rest of your post ...

Not true. You are doing something. You are passing her by. You are leaving her in the desert. You are witholding aid. You are preventing her from staying alive. You are witholding water. You are allowing her to die.
You made the choice to drive on by and you acted on that choice.
You actions ...

I apologize for what I said earlier about "strange morals"......I had no basis for saying that... It makes it quite difficult for me to challenge or to learn about something that I know very little about. Some assigned readings may help me ascertain a foundation towards what it is.


I didn't ...

CoreyRIT wrote: I'm puzzled by this:

Person A is wrong. Person B is wrong. Person A will be executed and Person B will be charged a $20 fine.

See my explanation of quid pro quo and the scales of justice

Perhaps. But in Jack and Bob's case, they don't even see that the car is gone. The concept of "car" never entered their minds. Jack, being a contractor, sees the broken up driveway, not the missing car. Bob, being a selfish bastard, sees a reminder of his own possessions, not the missing car.
The ...

Also, an Objective relationship works for the benefit of each individual mutually. If person A is getting more out of the relationship than person B, person B should, according to Objectivist values, leave the relationship as it is no longer mutual. One cannot ask for more than they can give.

Nikita, do you see what I'm getting at........an objectivist always views murder as being wrong??...........because there would have to be a certain lack of morality for someone to commit such an act. In other words, they would have to rationally decide that it is murder that they will commit ...

there has to be some way to objectively measure the degree of wrong and the degree of action required. I know somebody smarter then me must know the way.

ahhh. And this is the point I was trying to make.

Here's another one. Should Microsoft be allowed to kill individuals who install one ...

Here's some simple logic:

if X = 1, Y = 3, and Z = 5 then you can make several conclusions:

X != Y
Y != Z
X != Z

Or you can make a relational conclusion:

X < Y < Z

Both are correct.



Corey, before you can make such "conclusions," you need to have premises. You cannot just say X < Y< Z ...

Let's focus on the car and the driveway, as I hope this will clear up a lot of stuff.

You look at my driveway and say, "Hey. No car."
I feel that cars pollute and harm the planet, so I look at my driveway and say, "Hey. I'm doing my small part to save the world."... Am I wrong? Am I not "not ...

And another basic concept is the careful choosing of our variables. If you make the mistake of picking the wrong ones, or define the ones you pick improperly, your entire train of logic that follows is going to be erroneous.


Point taken. However, the variables in this argument seem to be ...

To clarify the apparent miscommunication of what reality and existence really are:

"Existence exists - and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists posessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of ...