humanities.philosophy.objectivism

In article <81cd2d95-6270-4e8f-9f4a-f83ebeaba348@
41g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, cbell97@bellsouth.net says...
> On Feb 29, 1:54 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
>
> > No, because a negative obligation can be imposed without choice -
>
> Then how do you explain the fact that later (not before) in the
> article she writes:
>
> "Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a
> man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men." ?

Because what is later comes in the context of what came before. She has
said that obligations of a negative kind are imposed, so she must now
mean positive obligations. Unless she is being inconsistent - which is
what you have to claim, not me.

> If she had really meant to carve out a political philosophy of
> "positive obligations" (chosen) and "negative obligations" (unchosen)
> as you claim,

I have never claimed that she had a political philosophy of positive and
negative obligations. Her political philosophy put special emphasis on
rights, which, as she tells us, impose obligations of a negative kind
only. There was no place for positive obligations in her political
philosophy.

> she would have mentioned it here again in a perfect
> opportunity to emphasize and reiterate that point, but she does
> nothing other than reiterate and emphasize that obligations are not
> imposed..

Are you channeling her ghost now? Or is that "would have" in the sense
of "otherwise Charles's pet theory goes poof"?

> Not only does she never mention it (the "negative
> obligations" you allege) here, she *never* mentions it anywhere in her
> writing..

I think this is because she was generally writing in reaction to the
emphasis altruists put upon positive obligations, which *they* simply
refer to as "obligations". When it was important to *her* exposition
defining rights, she used the idea of negative obligations to make clear
her differences with them.

Your view is we must attach some strained, clumsy, and vague - if not
opaque - meaning to "obligations of a negative kind". And why? Only to
save your theory.

> > in the
> > context of rights.  As Rand explains, it is man's nature that determines
> > what man's rights must be.  According to Rand, a person does not have a
> > choice about what is man's nature, but rather the choice to act or not
> > in accordance with that nature.
>
> That is exactly the reason all obligations must be chosen and that
> there are no unchosen obligations. Man may not have a choice in his
> nature, but he always has a choice to think.

And since man's rights follow from his nature, he has no choice about
what they are, and what they are, according to Rand are things that
impose obligations of a negative kind.

> >
> > > She says:
> > > "accept no unchosen obligations".  She does not say "accept no
> > > unchosen positive obligations but take the unchosen negative ones."
> >
> > She doesn't say "take the unchosen ones" because they follow from man's
> > rights;
>
> No they do not "follow". Again you put words in her mouth.

No, I put only the words she used: impose obligations of a negative
kind. That, she said, is what rights do.

> An objective observer would observe two neighbors "imposing
> obligations of a negative kind" to be doing exactly nothing with
> respect to each other.

Don't be silly. It is the *rights* that impose the obligations of a
negative kind, not the neighbors. And this does not mean that the
neighbors must do nothing, but only that they must do nothing that
violates the right of the other. Trade, of course, does not do that.


--
Gordon