Pure
Fiel a Verdad
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Posts
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The focus of the thread is on whether morality has anything to say about, in a non emergency situation, giving help to another person.
Rand's example:
A. ...to take an example that can occur in everyday life: suppose on hears that the man next door is ill and penniless. Illness and poverty are not metaphysical emergencies, they are part of the normal risks of existence; but since the man is temporarily helpless, one may bring him food and medicine, if one can afford it (as an act of good will, not of duty) or one may raise a fund among the neighbors to help him out. But this does not mean that one must support him from then on, nor that one must spend one’s life looking for starving men to help.” [VOS, P. 55.]
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Rand's rational ethic calls for one always to avoid sacrifice of self to others, to avoid harm to one's (rational) self interest (and not to use force to subordinate their interests to one's own). One's morality, she says, is to serve one's own interests; such is the result of a rational and objective analysis [see B and C, below].
Rand's explanation:
B. The moral purpose of a man's life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental—as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence—and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life."
- Ayn Rand, "The Ethics of Emergencies"
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Peikoff, Rand's spokesperson, summarizes her rational analysis of the situation.
C. //Any action one takes to help another person ... must be chosen within the full context of one's own goals and values. One must determine the time, the effort, the money that is appropriate to spend, given the position of the recipient in one's evaluative hierarchy, and then act accordingly.
It follows that a man must certainly act to help a person in trouble whom he loves, even to the point of risking his own life in the case of danger. This is not a sacrifice if he loves the individual.... But the same reasoning, a man must certainly not help others promiscuously. He must not help men who defy his values, or who declare war on him, or of whom he has not knowledge whatever. If a man is to qualify as self sustaining and self respect, he must not help, let alone love, his enemy, or even his neighbor--not until he discover who the neighbor is and whether the person deserves to be helped. // p 238 Piekoff, Objectivism.
Rand's example:
A. ...to take an example that can occur in everyday life: suppose on hears that the man next door is ill and penniless. Illness and poverty are not metaphysical emergencies, they are part of the normal risks of existence; but since the man is temporarily helpless, one may bring him food and medicine, if one can afford it (as an act of good will, not of duty) or one may raise a fund among the neighbors to help him out. But this does not mean that one must support him from then on, nor that one must spend one’s life looking for starving men to help.” [VOS, P. 55.]
===============
Rand's rational ethic calls for one always to avoid sacrifice of self to others, to avoid harm to one's (rational) self interest (and not to use force to subordinate their interests to one's own). One's morality, she says, is to serve one's own interests; such is the result of a rational and objective analysis [see B and C, below].
Rand's explanation:
B. The moral purpose of a man's life is the achievement of his own happiness. This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental—as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence—and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life."
- Ayn Rand, "The Ethics of Emergencies"
===
Peikoff, Rand's spokesperson, summarizes her rational analysis of the situation.
C. //Any action one takes to help another person ... must be chosen within the full context of one's own goals and values. One must determine the time, the effort, the money that is appropriate to spend, given the position of the recipient in one's evaluative hierarchy, and then act accordingly.
It follows that a man must certainly act to help a person in trouble whom he loves, even to the point of risking his own life in the case of danger. This is not a sacrifice if he loves the individual.... But the same reasoning, a man must certainly not help others promiscuously. He must not help men who defy his values, or who declare war on him, or of whom he has not knowledge whatever. If a man is to qualify as self sustaining and self respect, he must not help, let alone love, his enemy, or even his neighbor--not until he discover who the neighbor is and whether the person deserves to be helped. // p 238 Piekoff, Objectivism.
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