[EGreg]

I never understood this argument from objectivists.

If you use cold hard logic and take Ayn Rand at her word, then someone can totally screw others over as long as they were sure wouldn't personally get in trouble for it.

After all, the "as befits a rational being" is the only qualifier and that's so vague as to be a "no true scotsman" argument making her whole praise of selfishness moot. If selfishness is an amazing thing except when she doesn't like it, then her whole philosophy isn't objectivism at all, but back to the "subjective whims" and pronouncements of "mystics" she so derides.

You can't have it both ways. If altruism is criticized and selfishness is praised, then it can be perfectly rational for a person to screw others over as long as they know they won't personally get in trouble. I never got a good response from Objectivists about this.

[roenxi]

If it helps; I agree with your assessment that someone could totally screw others over as long as they were sure wouldn't personally get in trouble for it. That is pretty much at the core of the argument.

I recall a case in Australia where someone mailed seniors saying 'you own shares valued at $X. I will buy them off you for half that. Please respond' and made a substantial profit from the scheme. Objectivism accepts that as a moral situation.

I can't see any elements of the No True Scotsman fallacy here however hard I look - the philosophy is that when someone is truthful and follows through with what they say they will do then they are being moral. There isn't even an objection to people being altruistic; the only objection is forced altruism.

It isn't a friendly philosophy but it is quite clear as far as moralities go. Nothing escapes from shades of grey.

[EGreg]

Okay cool. So no matter who the mark is (an elderly person, or a child) you can just take them for a ride if you're honest and she finds that moral. Btw in your example, in order to make a profit the shares must have been worth more than $2X in reality so the person lied and they didn't check the lie.

But what part of her philosophy says you must be honest in everything? Selfishness may entail lying, especially in sales (if you don't at the least creatively omit things, someone else who does will eat your lunch).

In addition, if you didn't promise anything, you can go ahead an just steal or screw everyone as long as you don't get caught. Check out example #1 and #2 and tell me where Ayn Rand's theory says you can't do that:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20Got%20Mi...

[roenxi]

I'll just remind you I'm not an objectivist, I'm just trying to explain how I see it working. It does seem pretty reasonable to me personally though so I'm happy to advocate for it.

> in order to make a profit the shares must have been worth more than $2X in reality so the person lied and they didn't check the lie.

No, you misunderstand, he told them the market price then offered them half the market price. He basically straight up told them they could sell them on the market for twice what he was offering.

I don't know the details of why they accepted, I think they didn't understand how to sell stock. They guy was scrupulously honest, he just offered them a jaw-droppingly bad and unfair deal.

> Okay cool. So no matter who the mark is (an elderly person, or a child)

I see an implicit question there. Yes, the elderly and children have no special protection under Objectivism. The objectivist treatment of how that could be acceptable is:

* For children, their parents have rational incentive to protect and nurture them (otherwise why have them? They cost a fortune). If something happens to the parents, there are individuals who will rationally adopt to (or maybe just want to).

* For the elderly, they have to make provisions for their ageing while they are younger. Much like what self-funded retirees try to do.

The objectivist argument is that children and the elderly aren’t protected very well by other standards of morality, which have not proven robust when tested. Stories of child suffering and taking advantage of the aged are not rare. Even extremely moral institutions (such as churches [1]) have committed atrocities. Objectivism doesn’t promise better outcomes for the weak, but objectivists don’t expect the situation to get worse for them.

> tell me where Ayn Rand's theory says you can't do that

#2 seems straightforward, workers have a supervisor who is paid to make sure they don’t do that. He sacks them if they are uncooperative.

The worker isn't particularly immoral, just stupid. He will be out of work.

#1 is really a question of how enforcing property rights fit into an objectivist society. My understanding is that:

1) People agree rationally that they need an enforcement entity to protect property rights and personal freedoms.

2) This is either organised collectively through a government or individually through some sort of insurance-like mechanism.

3) Theft is dealt with.

There are some interesting subtleties here:

- Yes, if old mate unionist can get away with it then in a sense maybe he gets away with it on the moral scale too. To some degree, it falls to property owners to enforce property rights.

- Objectivists can actually work collectively if everyone is contributing voluntarily. The idea would be that anyone who doesn’t contribute to the policing service wouldn’t get protection but also wouldn’t be prejudiced against.

- Yes, in practice I can’t see this working in a philosophically pure way. This isn’t actually a problem for an objectivist any more than for anyone else who notices that their government doesn’t always represent their own moral preference. If the world were run by objectivists, you’d get a very basic service where it is easier to see that people are receiving assistance in proportion to their contributions. Americans, for example, believe in a fairly radical freedom of speech but still prohibit some very specific restrictions.

- Objectivists can indeed form armies. Old-school Athenian Greek democracy is probably a template for how they would like o see that sort of thing run.

[1] https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-swee...