Objectivism versus Natural Rights?

[Xray]

Jeez, Xray.

Just for a moment there I thought we could be in accord, for once. Damn.

First, it is the "rights" part of natural rights I am uneasy with - not the "natural".

What would speak against dropping the term 'natural' and calling them 'unalienable' rights instead?

[MrBenjamatic]

You're right, I should have worded that: helping others cannot be moral. I should have been more specific. That sentence I thought about only for a second before posting it and now I realize was wrong.

Still false: On the contrary, it is often totally rational and moral to willingly help others (i.e.strangers).

Where do you get this stuff? If you don't understand rational selfishness, don't fake it. Ask. Read. There must be dozens of pertinent threads on OL.

In terms of Objectivist ethics, the worst harm is to misrepresent something to yourself, only secondarily to others. And some people are not as honest and as forthright as you, and knowing your ignorance, will cynically use your statements against you (or against Objectivist ethics in general.)

Helping others cannot be moral. It is right to sustain your existence. In order to sustain your existence you have to think and you can only think with your mind and no one else's. This is self-evident to me. You cannot think for another. As YOUR mind and no one else's is YOUR means of survival and NO ONE ELSE'S, how can it be moral to sustain anothers existence when they alone can think for themselves? If thinking is mans only means of survival, and he can only think with his brain and no one else's, how can it be moral to help another if you can't think for him and faith is evil. You cannot help another in any important way because you can't think for them. Thinking is the virtue upon which all other virtues must be based on as without thinking, you cannot sustain your existence. This conviction Rand said and I understand and know (knowledge being sensory evidence and reason based on sensory evidence). I do not take Rand on faith, that would be stupid, haha. I laughed after I wrote that. Independency is a virtue because you and no one else can think for you and no one else, because you must act on the judgement of your mind and no one else's and the only alternative is not judging and dying or death by faith (which is usually a slow death). It is right to act on the honest and rational judgement of your own mind. Depending on others to make reality-judgements for you (faith), depending on others to sustain your existence is an evil death wish. How can it be immoral to, in some cases, receive help, and, at the same time how can it be an absolute that helping others be moral. That is a contradiction. That being said, morality (virtue) consists of sustaining your existence. I've helped others but helping those others niether contradicted my life-purpose nor my reason nor that which is required to sustain my existence. I agree with Rand when she said that helping others is neutral and only evil so long as it is an irrational sacrifice (redundant but included because of the existence of altruists who hold death as a greater value than life). I know I'm rationally selfish, and, I think, so do you.

Also, if helping others was moral, it would be moral for Dagny Taggart to have refused Galt so to continue helping her own destroyers destroy her.

This borders on nonsense. Has it occurred to you that, on a thread where George Smith and other serious thinkers are posting relevant points about natural rights theory and history, discretion on your part would militate in favor of simply piping down?

Have you found the time to finish Rand's Capitalism yet, in advance of these pronouncements of yours?

People I respect tell me that you are not engaged in parody on this site. I suppose I cannot dispute that premise. In that case, and assuming you are not jacking with all of us, a little humility would seem to be in order--and please, in advance, spare me a speech about Randian heros did not have humility. You haven't quite established yourself as a Randian hero yet.

I have posted my response in the discussion: New Architecture, Couture