From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Letting Someone Drown
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:44:53 GMT

In article <106727@bu.edu> ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit) propounds:
> 
>    (in response to my scenario of Roark not bothering to
>     throw the drowning man a life preserver)
> 
>>If the contemplation of his own glory is truly more valuable to him
>>than the possible consequences of expending a little effort that means
>>saving some one's life, then, IMO, he has acted in accordance with
>>Objectivist principles.
> 
>By your own standards, though, who are you to impose this condition -
>that the contemplation of his own glory is *that* valuable - on Roark?

he is no-one. and i doubt he suggested he was. he simply said
that by definition if Roark didn't throw the preserver, he did it
because he considered whatever else he was doing instead to be
more valuable.

>Suppose he just doesn't *feel* like tossing the life preserver to the
>drowning man. He just isn't in the mood. It isn't a question of awesome
>values clashing in the heavens: he just doesn't particularly care
>whether the guy lives or dies. Is this still "in accordance with
>Objectivist principles"?

see above.
he acts within the objectivist principles, but he chooses 
to twist them intentionally to their most possible negative outcome.
as is possible in any system. but that does not mean that objectivism
would necessarily lead to this result, and so your point is not
particularly difficult.

>>                  Furthermore, I would point out to him that he might
>>get a tremendous return for a bit of effort if the drowning person is
>>wealthy.  Heck, he might even get another yacht.
> 
>Ah, the old "but the guy you help might be rich" maneuver. I'm familiar
>with this kind of line often offered by "objectivists" to explain why
>they generally act like decent human beings instead of the bastards
>their theories would seem to make them.

now we're bastards again?

>So let's rule out this
>possibility. There's no-one else around watching, and Roark knows that
>the drowning man is poor. The drowning man is screaming for help, Roark
>sees the life preserver, muses on how easy it would be to toss it to the
>man and save his life, and then goes back to contemplating his own glory.
>And to close another loophole, let's assume that Roark is heavily
>armed and otherwise protected from harm, so there isn't any real
>possibility that his saving the guy's life could somehow backfire
>on him (as in the case of the roadside Good Samaritan who gets shot).

he is within his rights to behave as evilly as he wants.
as long as doing so violates no-one else's rights.
and since you know so much about objectivism, you know that objectivists
would not say that not throwing the life preserver to a total stranger
is a violation of the stranger's rights.

>Those who read this group out of curiousity as to what "objectivism" is
>might pay particular attention to this issue.

as an objectivist who has had his postion torn to shreds numerous
times, i would say that your example (so far) is neither particularly
interesting nor difficult to deal with. you have not yet demonstrated
the knowledge of objectivism that your quaintness above would imply.

>It is most revealing.

not yet. but maybe we'll get there.

--
charles

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