For years I've grappled with a dilemma which is really only
relevant to people who want to argue with Objectivists. Basically
once you claim to live by a selfish code of ethics, what prevents
you from violating the rights of others for personal gain, in
situations where you know you will not be at risk?
David Friedman calls this the Prudent Predator dilemma, and he's
been twisting up Randroids with it for 40 years. He even got me with
it, back in the day, when I was basically trying to re-write
Objectivism into something that made sense.
Ethics,
empathy, and primate brain holdovers
I wish I knew of this argument a decade ago when a few of my friends fell
heavily into Objectivism. In trying to understand them, I even read all
zillion pages of Atlas
Shrugged (neat story, but she could have used an editor).
The entry also points out some recent research showing that there may be
a biological component to society. Read, as they say, the whole thing.
You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go
ahead, I won't bite. I promise.
The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or
entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent
links to that entry only. The format for the links are
simple: Start with the base link for this site: http://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are
interested in, say 2000/08/01,
so that would make the final URL:
http://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01
You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day
portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.
You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's
intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the
page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in
using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If
you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that
important.
It is assumed that every brand name, slogan, corporate name,
symbol, design element, et cetera mentioned in these pages is a
protected and/or trademarked entity, the sole property of its
owner(s), and acknowledgement of this status is implied.
