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: In response to this thread : http://hatteraslight.com/navy/Objectivismhall/cas/129.html : Interesting discussion here. : First I would like to respond to a peice of John's post, saying "I think Objectivism's biggest flaw is its failure to account for the fact that we all start our lives as children, and that we are necessarily _incapable_ of rationality, i.e., conceptual thought" : Your statement here is true, regarding the fact that people can not be held responsible for things they are incapable of knowing. But what you may be surprised to hear is that objectivism agrees with you! Somewhere, although I can not remember the specific page or quote, I read in the Virtue of Selfishness something to the effect of "Since men are not all-knowing, and Objectivist Ethics require one to live by thier capacity to reason, it can not require or expect one to act properly in situations beyond thier own comprehension." : Again, that is not precisely how it went, but the point it brings up is the same as the one you do. : "Do I think the cirstances of a particular person's life gives him the right to impinge upon the rights of others? No. Do I think the cirstances of a particular person's life can lead him to believe (correctly or not) that he has no choice but to be a second-hander or a parasite? Yes." : The conflict here is if one beleives something is right, and Objectivism supports thier acting in the interest of what one beleives to be right, then shouldn't the action be okay? I think in many of these cases there is a matter of evasion. A person would be willing to try to convince themself, for the sake of thier comfort and for thier justification shown out to others, to beleive that it is perfectly moral to sit on a couch all day eating potatoe chips and living off of thier grandparents money when in truth they know somewhere in thier mind that this is not a moral way of living. In this situation objectivism sites the conflict to be a matter of personal evasion. : In cases where a person truly beleives it is perfectly moral to live off of their grandparents or someone else's efforts while doing nothing theirself, the problem is the very knowledge itself. I don't personally know, but I think Objectivism expects someone to at least know better than to think it is okay, as there are lessons all around in life which prove the situation to not be ethical if a person is rational enough to take it in. : In other cirstances, this is a tough one to answer. Because someone doesn't know better, and they infringe upon others rights, should they be held accountable? I am inclined to think that because those people affected are free to defend themselves against such injustices, that the person who does not know is free to act so long as they take the concequences for thier actions. If they do not take in some sort of consequence, blame should be rested upon the persons who chose not to defend themselves from the actions, because they know better but are choosing to do what is wrong anyway. I am sure this may make more complex questions arise out of the intitial simple one, but feel free to reply so we can both elaborate on what comes up. : "I think laiz-faire capitalism would be disastrous without a foundation of rational ethics and philosophy." True. : "An entrepreneur is not rational and ethical by virtue of having a lot of money, as some hardline Objectivists seem to believe." True as well, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that Objectivism itself says that everyone without fail is ethical and rational by virtue of having a lot of money, although in a completley flawlessley moral society this would probably be the case. We just have to know better than to beleive that to be true. : "I have yet to hear a single Objectivist writing which attacks a _corporation_ for ethical violations. Objectivism isn't supposed to be about unconditionally defending those with big bucks, but as practiced, it sure seems to be." I hope it isn't about unconditionally defending those with the big bucks! I can not say that I know whether by certain individuals it is in practice anything else. But although Objectivism does not specifically attack corporations for ethical wrongdoings, its set of ethical rights and wrongs are clearly defined and it just makes sense to me that like all people and organizations, they would also be applied to corporations to judge whether what they are doing is right or wrong. : Abben.

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