Ruppert9

I'm not sure :-) But I appreciate the response. Here is what the friend replied: You're simply asserting a tautology, you effectively saying below that moral murder is not murder, but you defined it before as killing someone who doesn't want to be killed. And we didn't say morality is about 7 generations down the line, is the person who invented gun responsible for all gun crime? The whole point is that morality is not universal and even now there are societies where blood fueds are accepted. The thing is I wouldn't want to live in such a society, but that doesn't make me arbiter of all morality. Fundamentally morality is a human concept, and as such not universal. It seems like after all my efforts, he is just talking right past me. Moral murder?? Not sure what he is saying there. No idea about the gun crime thing either. Here are some of my possible responses: The whole point is that morality is not universal and even now there are societies where blood fueds are accepted. It is not because some societies behave immorally that a universal moral criteria does not exist. Slavery's existance does not mean it is moral to have slaves. The thing is I wouldn't want to live in such a society, but that doesn't make me arbiter of all morality. You are not the arbiter of all morality, reason/logical/consistancy are. Fundamentally morality is a human concept, and as such not universal. Then by implication no human concept can be universal. Then mathematics, a human concept, in a society could state 1+1=3 and it would be correct if they said that was so. A banana could be an animal and fruit depending on what society you live in. Any thoughts?

So if he thinks killing the murderer is justified, he can claim it is moral to kill him? It might not be considered murder, but to you and me it is the same. Is there no universal criteria to determine if retaliation is justified? If not, then you could go about killing everyone and stating it is not murder, but justified retaliatory killing... In that case doesn't the point of view prevail? (I'm playing devil's advocate here)

Thanks. I'm listening to the podcast seeing if I can extract more counter-arguments.

Thanks guys! That means if someone sees something as moral then it is. So logically he must accept that it's moral for HIM to be murdered if someone sees it that way. His wife's murderer would also have be justified in killing her if he saw it that way. I think ProTeaBag had a good stab at it here. He might retort by qualifying further : that murder is only moral when someone has killed your relative unprovoked. Then say that is a universal principle. Therefore murder can be moral and immoral at the same time. I would could then say. If we take this as a principal then it would be immoral for the murderer to resist being murdered - because it is moral that he be murdered too. So it is impossible for everyone to behave morally with this principal, as the murderer needs to act immorally by resisting murder for his moral murder to take place. In practice too, one single unprovoked murder would have the potential of justifying the massacre of the entire family trees. If he killed his wife's murderer, the murderer's family would be morally justified in killing him. That family could then be murdered by the other family's relatives. and so on..

I had a long debate with a statist and one of the aguments came down to this: If someone murders his wife, he sees at as moral for him to kill the murderer. Therefore murder can be both moral and immoral in his view, so this proves there cannot be any universal moral principals. It all "depends on the context". Morals change with society and time. What would be the best way to go about succintly rebutting this? Thanks for any suggestions.

Priceless

No point trying to deny our biology. Humans want attractive mates. You can't rationalize that away. Don't fight it, but be aware of it. Note that Stef's wife is cute.

I don't find your arguments compelling.It's an open letter so he is going to refer to her directly. The Either-or-fallacy seems to hold though since what would be the other position? Childs refers to specific passages in her books in later parts of his essay, see here for the full text http://www.isil.org/ayn-rand/childs-open-letter.html There's a rebuttal to Child's letter here http://stoshwolfen.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/response-to-roy-a-childs-open-letter-to-ayn-rand-1969/ but again it is weak. The author is a Constitution thumper.

I recently listened to this video: [View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se0VmSaJDvc:560:315] if Roy Childs' essay was read by Rand and she didn't change her stance (which as far as I know she remained a minarchist), why is everyone so into her? It seems she is not a philosopher ready to examine the foundations of her thinking, as much as someone who post-facto justifies a philosophy she developed as a child. She might be a great writer, but as a philosopher isn't objectivism and her minarchist stance a testament she was not? What am I missing here?

An that's just the tip of iceberg...

I didn't think Stef did a great job arguing the case against IP in this podcast generally. The replicator raygun point was not dealt with.This is in the realm of possibility with 3D scanners and 3D printers. So why not deal with it? Instead focussing on the point about building a bike factory. Other products don't need a massive factory to build. IMHO Stef arguments were from effect and not from principal. I'd need to relisten to the podcast to detail this more. Couldn't Stef just argue that property rights only apply to physical matter? An idea/concept/story/melody is not physical matter until it stored in a physical form (paper, computer data, object) where property rights would then apply. But if I legitimately hear/see a song/idea/story and replicate it on my own physical support, then I am not trespassing nor stealing the physical form of the idea/song/story as it remains intact. IP is assigning property rights to an immaterial concept which grants it ownership rights on any of its physical reproductions. Homesteading of concepts shoud not apply as there is no matter to be homestead, only a concept. Another argument is to accept the premise that concepts can be owned, as IP states. We then universalize it and apply IP to every concept: words, letters, language, movement, running, breathing, life etc.. everything would then be owned by someone and nobody would be implicitly authorized to do anything. Even the concept of IP would be owned by someone. At least, that's my stab at it.

Good points. I believe that's where your opportunity lies. These comedians haven't been able to present their views in sufficiently proselytizing manner. Maybe you'll manage to create routines that push the thought process, not just the conclusions, of ancapism. If I had more time, I'd love to work on this myself as I've been thinking of doing standup to this same end for a few months.

I hear you. Ya, give it time. But that's the genius if you could turn it into comedy. I'm not sure these comedians were philosophical ancapists, more like Ron Paul-ites in my view - but I could be wrong. If they were, they would have conveyed ancap ideas to their audience more effectively/clearly.

Truth does sound a bit pretentious, but from a PR standpoint it might just work. It's an intriguing title for one. Nothing fancy. Short. It makes me want to click play, don't you think? Truth has been used just once for an unknown movie : http://www.imdb.com/find?q=truth&s=all If reviewers start blasting the title and it generates controversy, I say the more the merrier. Truth needs to explode past movies like Loose Change, Thrive and Zeitgeist.

Thanks for sharing. Sharing ancap ideas using comedy would be a valuable contribution to the world.