humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Feb 28, 8:36 am, Gordon Sollars wrote:
> In article <47C65E93.3070...@cox.net>, vonve...@cox.net says...
>
> > Gordon Sollars wrote:
> >  > In article <47C5120E.1070...@cox.net>, vonve...@cox.net says...
> >  >> Gordon Sollars wrote:
>
> >  > Yes, he can, insofar as "holding to the duty" is measured by the actions
> >  > that he takes.
>
> > He can only in your fantasies because as you assert, there is no duty to
> > be measured against, remember?
>
> There is no duty, but there is a description for the actions to be
> measured against.

And yet you have said:

"You are presumed to know that a right has a correlative duty."

And you once said: "The /most/ common usage probably conflates
obligation and duty. But my ethics professor many years ago taught me
that obligations were constraints voluntarily assumed, while duties
where constraints that held regardless." [And the ethics prof was not
an Objectivist.]


And then you say:

Of course he can [hold to "duty" which does not exist], he could be
mistaken, thinking that it did exist.

You have said: "Rights limit the permissible freedom of others."

I ask: by what power?

You say: "A right is not a power."

Really? Then how is something limiting something else?

It just does.

"Duty" is an anti-concept that neatly wraps up rights as a way to
limit or permit freedom.

. . . but you say: duty does not exist but rather is "action to be
measured against."

So . . . Is the limitation on permissable freedom is brought into
existence by an action to be measured against or is it just "is" ?


>  Thus, if a person says that he prays because there is
> a duty to pray to God,

Who says there is a duty to pray to God? Oh, this hypothetical guy
does.

>we can "measure his actions" by looking to see if
> he prays or not.  

All you have said is that based on the premise that someone says there
is a duty to pray to God, this person who prays to God is doing his
duty. I ask what about this premise there is a duty to pray to God,
let alone the premise of God? To you, I guess none of that matters.
I don't whether this is solipsism or subjectivism, but it is certainly
sophistry.