Platt, Ron, Arlo mentioned --
I threw out this question because you two are discussing morality in terms of "higher and lower levels", whereas this forces you to think in terms of Values: Which is more moral? A collectivist society in which no one is free but no one is hungry, or an individualist society in which everyone is free but a few go hungry. Platt suspected it was a "trick question", but gave me a direct answer. > Give me the individualist society as more moral. Ron seems to feel that either answer is a trade-off. Apparently he believes that inasmuch as we are "slaves to survival" we can never be free. > I think it depends on how one defines "free". > My own opinion is that freedom is defined by degrees > responsibility. Freedom is relative to the values one holds. > In each instance stated above, one freedom is exchanged > for another. In the collectivist society the people enjoy > freedom from finding and maintaining food, housing health > care and clothing but they exchange the freedom of > personal choice. > > In the individualist society they are free to choose anything > they wish but are burdened with the responsibility of attaining > and maintaining food, clothing, health care and housing, > they bear full responsibility for their own survival. > > So who is more free? The one who is a slave to survival > or the one who is a slave to society? Arlo chimed in wanting to parse the data. Apparently it's the number of individuals affected rather than the principle (value?) of freedom that's important to him. > How are they "not free"? > How many are "a few"? There is no "right" answer. I framed the question from a quotation by David Kelly, founder of the Objectivist Center, which I believe is the official Ayn Rand institute. (I can hear Arlo's loud "a-Haa!") The theme of my Values Page this week [www.essentialism.net/balance.htm] happens to be "Misplaced Altruism", and I found these paragraphs from Kelley's treatise on "Altruism and Capitalism" a useful rebuttal to the argument for government-sponsored welfare: "If we had to choose between a collectivist society in which no one is free but no one is hungry, and an individualist society in which everyone is free but a few people starve, I would argue that the second society, the free one, is morally preferable. No one can claim a right to make others serve him involuntarily, even if his own life depends on it. "But this is not the choice we face. In fact, the poor are much better off under capitalism than under socialism, or even the welfare state. As a matter of historical fact, the societies in which no one is free, like the former Soviet Union, are societies in which large numbers of people go hungry." Thanks for your opinions. folks. I think they raise some interesting new questions about human freedom as related to value. --Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
