Grizwald

Let me distinguish between what I'm asking and saying. This is a fact: my property belongs to me. But my question is should my property belong to me? And why? " If I'm in the same room as you and I yell, this is binding upon you." I still don't understand. You said earlier that moral behavior is binding while not interfering with property rights. And I agree that moral behavior must be binding, otherwise it cannot be debated as immoral. But then why is respect for property rights morally good? Is there any situation in which I can interfere with someones property rights (involuntarily on their part) and in doing so behave morally?

Well I never repackaged anything. This particular section of my paper was written before the fact. I created that thread about intervention as a thought anaylisis for this subject.

"Behaviors that are moral are binding upon another person but do not violate their property rights. How is not violating the property rights of others selfish?" Binding how? What if that moral duty conflicts with my natural desire to take your property? Property rights might be a natural and objective fact, that I own what I create and thus is naturally mine. But that tells me nothing about what I should do with your property. Should I take your property or not take your property and why? "How is accepting that you only own 1/7 billion of people selfish?" Technically claiming ownership of that one person is still selfish since that one person is yourself. Not saying it is a good or bad thing though.

So one of my college homework questions asked us to analyze an action or inaction as moral or immoral. Before I analyzed it I strove to define what is moral or immoral. My conclusion was that moral behavior is that which serves the self-interest of all individuals involved. Immoral behavior is that which does not serve the self-interest of all individuals involved. Would this stand up to scrutiny? Am I correct? "The definition for morality is “how humans ought to act.” But this runs into problems when you ask if a human can be immoral by them self? If a single human is isolated and alone on an island then their behavior can never be immoral. Every action they take can never be scrutinized as immoral as it does not in any way effect any other person. Every action the isolated human takes is therefore classified as moral because it would be beneficial to the one human. Because of this I believe the definition for morality should be extended to include “how humans ought to act with one another.” If two humans live on the island together, then what is beneficial in regards to the two may be in conflict. One human may want to kill the other which would be beneficial (moral) to one and harmful (immoral) to the other. By this logic, any behavior which is beneficial to a human is moral while any behavior which is harmful is immoral. So why should the one human not kill the other? They should not kill them because it would be harmful (immoral) to the victim. While the killing may be beneficial to one human it is not mutual. While it served the interest of one it did not serve the interest of the other. This would mean that the action of killing the other human cannot be universally justified as moral since it inflicted harm upon another human. It is only relative to one. To justify a behavior as moral it must be universally beneficial to all humans involved. Any action which in some way is harmful to a human must automatically be classified as immoral even if it does lead to a greater number of humans benefitting. For example, killing one human to save the lives of a thousand is immoral no matter how many more thousands of humans are added on. If it is in some way harmful it is not universally justified and therefore immoral. What is universally moral is that which serves the self-interest of the individual humans involved. This is because any action which universally serves the self-interest of individual humans must be beneficial." - Grizwald One possible contradiction I observed was this. My moral behavior might not be in the self-interest of others. For instance, if I sell an item for $10, the person I'm selling it to might want me to sell it at a cheaper price. This would mean that I'm not serving the self-interest of the person I'm selling it to. But of course selling it at a cheaper price would mean my self-interest is not being served. So what do you guys think?

Well yes it would be impossible to procreate and it would fall pretty quickly. But then what are you saying about morality? Universality is necessary but it doesn't determine moral or immoral behavior. You're defining moral behavior as that which benefits society (all individuals). So it would be, under that context, to say that moral behavior is non-aggression. But why should morality (moral or immoral) be based on beneficial or harmful behavior? Why can't morality be, lets say, democratic, autocratic, based on fiction novels, ect. Why can't morality be based on helping the poor? Why can't we say morality is based on something else? Why is altruism immoral? How/Where do we derive the basis for determining what we ought to do? I define selfishness as acting upon one's own desires. But when taken to its extreme, selfishness can lead to things such as mass murders. This is why I can't conclude selfishness to be the ultimate moral good. If humans are naturally born or develop empathy towards each other, then why is altruism condemned by Ayn Rand? Or is it true that empathy is just a form of selfishness? What do you think?

Thanks for everybody sharing in. I'm beginning to think that intervening (private army that does not hurt innocent) would be morally justified. But this would only be true depending on what you agree to be justified as moral. This has been raising my other questions, particularly, what is justified as moral behavior? Why is the NAP justified as moral? I know this is kind of going off topic from the thread but I'm asking for some clarity. I am not as well versed in moral arguments as everyone else on this site. My question is why is selfishness upheld as the ultimate moral good? The problem I see is that if selfishness is justified as moral, while selflessness is immoral, then how can the NAP fit into this framework for morality? Just saying that selfishness is moral lacks the non-aggression principle and also promotes aggression of individuals who would be acting selfishly. It is because of this that I'm beginning to conclude NAP as the ultimate moral good and selfishness is not.

No if I'm threatened the moment the threat reached me does not negate my justification for violence (defense) to counter violence. And your adding scenarios. I'm asking, if I go and kill only my neighbor, leaving all others unharmed, why would this not be a good thing? If I sent a private army to North Korea to DEFEND the oppressed people why would this be a bad thing? Violence to counter violence is not a bad thing. It's called defense. No I'm not suggesting that. I'm talking about private cooperation in the defense of others. No government is involved. Are you trying to say that removing immoral behavior from the world is immoral? If innaction is not an immoral behavior then what is it? I cannot see how minding your own business and allowing people to suffer is morally good. Soif it is neither moral nor immoral then it must be neutrality. And if it is neither moral nor immoral, but a neutral behavior, then it's not getting us anywhere.

I don't understand why libertarians support non-interventionism when asked about problems such as ISIS, or oppressive states such as N. Korea, Iran, ect... I myself am a libertarian but this is an issue I've had trouble understanding. Even in an anarchist society, how can we say that interfering in another part of the world is immoral. If I hired a private army to enter Iraq and totally annihilate ISIS, how is that immoral? I'm helping the people of iraq who are getting butchered, shot and murdered. I don't think you can get around that. It is helpful and humane to help these people overcome a violent and oppressive terrorist group. ' Now another problem I run into is whether or not we are being immoral by not helping them. If we do not do anything, even though we have the ability to, is this immoral? A great example of this is slavery. If I know my neighbor is holding people captive and forcing them to work for him, would it be immoral for me to kill my neighbor and rescue the slaves. And in this scenario, the free market doesn't exist. Please only analyze both me and my neighbors actions in regards to the slavery. My neighbor is forcing the slaves to work for him through his own force. The slaves are forced through violence to work. My neighbor takes almost all of the food they produce and gives only enough to the slaves. Is it immoral for me to not intervene even though I have the ability to?

Yeah, within the first week we got our little multiculturalism lesson. She showed us a culture in which wives are kidnapped and said interfering in the kidnapping would be wrong. She also argued that it was somehow voluntary because in the end if they refused to get married they let the woman go. Of course she didn't make any point about how damaging that can be to be kidnapped, driven miles away from your home, held against your will, and shunned for not accepting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_kidnapping

Well, if any one here is in college, do not take anthropology class. Or maybe you do as a challenge. But I registered for this class because I thought it would be concerned mostly with looking at various cultures but specifically I wanted to learn about archaeology. Anyway, within the first week I realized this was an indoctrination. Pure propaganda and lies coming from the professor. She is an anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, socialist with a hint of feminism. I've been wanting to confront her during class about things but find it hard to work up the courage. I managed to today. She outright lied about this She claimed a) on this island that the monetary system creates no debt b) because the currency is pig tusks and mats (island tradition) the currency will never be inflated or deflated because the traditions will basically control it. and c) globalization on this island would create low wage jobs making the islanders worse off than they are right now. Because this was near the end of class I only had time to question her about a. But I feel like I have a duty to confront her in class so she cannot spread this propaganda. But I don't feel up to the challenge. I don't feel ready.

Lol yeah probably not.

I have to do a persuasive speech for my speech class. We have to choose a contreversial issue and argue one side of it. I was thinking of doing... -All drugs should be legalized -Businesses should be allowed to discriminate -NSA should be destroyed! Not sure which one I want to do. Any suggestions I really want to promote libertarian prinicples and the non-aggression principle.

Thanks. I'm still going to try listening to the audiobook but I'm also going to try reading more educational books.

Growing up I never enjoyed reading. In fact I can't even remember the last book I read all the way through. The only book I came close to reading all the way through was Wuthering Heights, and that was a tough one to get through. I couldn't tell you how many times I fell asleep reading through that book. I had to get through it or else I would have failed English 12. I have just never found reading to be fun. I always loved more interactive things like sports, movies, and music. I can read through educational books like history books. But that's it. People always told me that reading will make you smarter but I never understood the correlation or the causation. Sure people like Ben Carson read books as a kid but I don't think it contributed to his becoming of a doctor. I mean if that were the case then brain sergeants would be English literature majors. But of course this is just me kind of ranting. I actually do think that this might be hurting or hindering me from becoming more intelligent. I have been getting much better at my math skills over the past three years of seriously applying myself to studying subjects like College algebra and Calculus but my major in college right now is history.And as far as I know, seriously studying history requires a lot more reading than just history textbooks. Not only that but I have also been wanting to read books like Atlas Shrugged but can't find myself interested enough to read it. I am interested in the story and want to know how it relates to libertarianism but the actual reading aspect of the book is bothering me. I just downloaded the audiobook and am going to give it a try while I'm driving (I have a 40 minute drive to work and then a 40 minute drive back everyday). But I have been listening to it for a couple minutes and am finding myself distracted. How can I become more interested in reading in general? Any suggestions?

What do you think happens to our consciousnesses after this life? I refuse to believe that it's just nothing. That just doesn't make sense. What I've learned from objectivist epistemology (and it's very little so far) is that our conscience is separate from the universe. If that is true then while we might die in our bodies, and while we do know about the physical decomposition of bodies, we do not know about the metaphysics and what happens to our "souls." I'm only speculating about all of this but here is my logic. If in the physical world there is a cycle of matter. And if the law of conservation of matter is true, then the metaphysical world must also have a conservation law. I just lost my dog today. She was very sick all week long and it's really been stressing me out. Today she died of cancer. We got her when she was about a year old. She was an abused dog and we've been taking care of and loving her for close to 14 years. Up until now I was an agnostic. But now I just can't believe the possibility that existence has no purpose or meaning.