From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Mon Jan 11 1999 - 14:55:00 MST
>> If degrees of rationality define rights possession, maybe
>> we could beat up on some demented people, or use them in
>> experiments... "greater good" and such. Imagine that we
>> have an unbroken chain of primates before us, from tree
>> monkeys to humans with all the missing links, it's like
>> a morph from tree monkey to man with an individual for
>> each step of the way. Which individual would you declare
>> the right to saw off their leg against their will and why?
> I'll try to find the exact Rand quote about humans and rationality and
> we can argue from her quote instead of my limited memory.
If you have to search for a quote to tell you what you think,
you've already lost the argument. Not that you're wrong, you
just lose the game when you admit that you haven't actually
deliberated, considered, and understood the point you are trying
to make.
I'm as much a fan of Rand as anyone, but there are a few things
she got just plain wrong: (1) The human mind is not "tabula rasa"
at birth; it is littered with predispositions instilled in us by
eons of evolution. (2) Blind chance plays a far greater role in
individual success than she admits. (3) There are no bright-line
distinctions sufficient to define "force" or "reason"; the diff-
erence between the reasoning of a dog and a human is one of
degree, not of kind. Likewise, the distinction between tapping
a stranger on the shoulder to ask the time and punching him in
the nose is one of degree, not kind. (4) Her analysis of
homosexuality is laughable, but in fairness she probably would
have done a better job if the psychiatric literature of her time
had been better. (5) The "objective necessity" of patents and
copyrights is, like all arguments claiming necessity, a result
of her lack of imagination of the alternatives, combined with
her esthetic prejudice toward writers and inventors.
Given (3), I am likely to have more sympathy for the suffering
of non-humans than a strict Randian might, and I think it is
quite rational to do so. I would be uncomfortable eating primates
or cetaceans (though I have probably dined at many restaurants
that serve mahi mahi), and I do feel revulsion at the unnecessary
torture of higher mammals (I rarely eat meat). I certainly
wouldn't codify any of those feelings into law, and I lose no
respect for those who don't share my feelings in the matter, but
I just can't justify confidently asserting a moral position here.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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