Let us die to make men free

[idomeneus]

As children we are taught the history of the Civil War as a sort of moral fable. One side, by virtue of practicing slavery and defending it with force of arms, is clearly the villain. The other, by virtue of freeing the slaves, is clearly the hero. A more mature analysis reveals things are not so simple. I do not mean that the Old South was not

Comments

[airstrip]

But, however much we admire the fighter against evil, we should not admire self-sacrifice

I don't see how you arrived at this?

[idomeneus]

That's a standard Objectivist position, which I take for granted for the purpose of this post. The proof is too long for me to provide here (hmm, I sound like Fermat). If you're interested, check out Rand's _The Virtue of Selfishness_, especially the essay _The Objectivist Ethics_. It solves the is/ought problem by pointing out that values pertain only to living things and therefore the fundamental choice for a living thing is life or death. Unlike inanimate objects (for which the concept of "ought" is meaningless), for living things the very fact that they exist imply an "ought", namely continuing to live. The key here is the metaethical question of why does such a thing as values exist. A living thing's ultimate value must therefore be to preserve its life and all other values contribute to this ultimate value. If this is true, then self-sacrifice is immoral, because it means placing a lesser value above a higher one. Again, I recommend reading _The Objectivist Ethics_ for the full argument.

[airstrip]

Hmmmmm... sounds more like a misunderstanding of the problem than a proof against it.

In any case, we can still presume that one should value their life most highly but it doesn't simply follow from such a position that one should not be willing to die for a cause. The reason is simply that being willing to is a good way to insulate yourself from threats; however, to make it a plausible position, you have to take on the risk that you will be killed precisely because your position is believed--as it must be to derive the benefit. Everyone dies, it's a more a game theoretical-cum-statistical question how you bargain with that fact.

Losing my life might be a great loss but a small risk of death might well be worth large rewards and, accepting that risk as a central position might be enough to reduce the total risk of being killed as well.

[airstrip]

It's not available online and thus would have to wait, the basic response, that such a statement isn't implied by egoism or self-interest generally remains.

With regard to The Virtue of Selfishness and "The Objectivist Ethics" as arguments, attempting to track them down brought this up again.