humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Feb 25, 6:44 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
> In article <67fd9fd0-6cab-4d2c-ad8e-
> 69494bfc3...@q70g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, cbel...@bellsouth.net
> says...
>
> > On Feb 24, 10:23 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
>
> > > The issue is not what *you* do, but whether it is wrong to "lightly
> > > abrogate" a promise.  Is it or not?
>
> > No, not in the context of the discussion.
>
> The context of the discussion is morality;

Not it isn't -- it is egoism versus collectivism and the concepts of
rights and obligations.

Morality is only relevant in such statements as "moral right" to which
Prescott has said:

< I disagree with Ayn Rand. Her formulation conflated what is
morally right with "a right," >

To which you said in your first post in this thread:

< James was clearly referring to a legal duty, which no good Hobbesian
is
in a position to deny. >

In your first and second posts you did not say the words "moral" or
morality" once.

In your third post you mentioned "morally":

< States *should* not; that is, that they are morally bound not to -
which is to say that their agents have a duty not to. >


. . . a statement which is false. You introduce the concept of
"morally bound" which equals "duty", which would be, of course, a true
equality of terms, if there were such thing as a condition of being
"morally bound" or encumbered with moral "duty". However, that does
not keep you from making the same false assertion over and over again.


> You fail to see the implication of an action being wrong.  Ought a
> person do what is wrong?


What he ought to do is not under discussion and never has been until
you tried to change the subject. You are faced with the impossible
task of attaching "duty" to rights by this thing you are calling
"moral obligation", and you thereby change the subject in order to
evade the fact that you do not have a clue as to how to prove the
existence of something called "duty".


> > The fact that someone is
> > presented with a choice of right or wrong, does not create a duty to
> > do right.  That I may have insight as to what is moral does not give
> > me the "right" to force an obligation upon anyone who does not wish
> > it.
>
> With the result that you can make no moral objection when someone comes
> to take you life.  You've ignored this point twice before; I'm betting
> you will evade it again.

There is no such thing as "moral obligation" to do anything. In some
absurd little hypothetical situation of someone coming to take my
life, I doubt that I would be arguing with him over his "moral
obligations". That really is the point: someone acting against my
interests will not be persuaded by any argument that I might have
about what I feel *his* obligations are to me. Moreover, he will have
had obviously no mystical power of "duty" acting through him for my
interests and against his, nor presumably would I have mystical power
of "duty" for his interests and against mine, else why would I not
just commit suicide and save him the trouble?

Until such time as you can prove, rather than assert, that such thing
exists as "duty" in some thing called "moral obligation", you really
are just spinning your wheels saying nothing that every theocrat has
not already said since the beginning of the God scam.