tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post5036949231984550862..comments2024-03-29T10:51:27.752+13:00Comments on Not PC: Should you ever lie to a thief? (updated)Peter Cresswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10699845031503699181noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-80295229417438621572008-02-20T08:35:00.000+13:002008-02-20T08:35:00.000+13:00anononyzzzzzYou are out of your depth. PC's comme...anononyzzzzz<BR/><BR/>You are out of your depth. <BR/><BR/>PC's comment indicates that it can be moral to lie to a criminal. He takes the position that it is not wrong to do so and that there is no obligation to tell the truth to such a one. There is no loss of honour or virtue in misleading a crook. That's it. That's his position. <BR/><BR/>He does not say that one NECESSARILY MUST lie to a criminal. He says it is not unethical to so do.<BR/><BR/>He does not say that one NECESSARILY MUST lie for self-advancement or advantage. That's your approach. You are being willfully dishonest when you smear him with that sentiment. <BR/><BR/>Your pathetic contribution is an attempt to build a contrived situation wherein a lie from a victim of crime is used as a jusification by a criminal to harm or kill another innocent person. From this you attempt to validate your opposition to all Objectivists/Libertarians etc. What a simple fool you are. <BR/><BR/>Understand, it is the criminal who causes the harm, i.e. the gestapo man, not the person being interrogated and totured. The prisoner is a victim. Should the gestapo man proceed on to hurt another person, it is the gestapo man that is committing that crime as well. He chooses to do it, not the victim. He is responsible, not his victims.<BR/><BR/>It is not the case that a lie offerred by one victim to the gestapo officer CAUSES the gestapo officer to execute another prisoner (much as you lust for this to be the case). The gestapo man is the one responsible for his own decisions and actions. He is not an automaton.<BR/><BR/>You generated that emergency situation story. You can't justify your position on that basis. In order to address issues such as loyalty or survival, it is necessary to consider a great deal more than a specific emergency that you designed to achieve an answer that you want. What you are attempting is the same idiocy as Peter Singer attempts. You are both nutty. <BR/><BR/>What I did was to add some details to your emergency situation to demonstrate that your conclusions are unsound. It is the specific nature of an emergency that one deals with. One brings one's eithics to that situation. One does not use the emergency to generate ethics, let alone justify them. An emergency is a special and specific case; a subset. You can't go on from there to make the sweeping conclusions that you attempt. <BR/><BR/>In the situation I outlined, the lies of prisoners misled your gestapo commander, your superior. He decided you were a traitor and chooses to deal with you in what he decides is an appropriate fashion. Soon you get to dangle from the meathook. That's a good thing, but, good though it is, PC and I are not responsible for your painful demise. Nor does it alter the point that it is not unethical to lie to a criminal. Nor does it have anything to do with "loyalty" or otherwise. Still, we were loyal to each other as ethical men. We contrived to use your evil against you. How about that?<BR/><BR/>What has been demonstrated to you here is that your argument fails. It is not rational. Your effort to smear PC's approach with your own shortcomings fails again. <BR/><BR/>LGMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-84826242812586101502008-02-19T17:56:00.000+13:002008-02-19T17:56:00.000+13:00PCOddly enough I agree with your conclusion and ye...PC<BR/><BR/>Oddly enough I agree with your conclusion and yet disagree with nearly everything else you write. I have posted my partial defence partial critique on my blog. <BR/><BR/>MattMandMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02694636663826784480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-79231970705180779562008-02-19T15:26:00.000+13:002008-02-19T15:26:00.000+13:00Maybe it boils down to how you balance the other p...Maybe it boils down to how you balance the other person’s love of liberty against your own liberty. <BR/><BR/>If you’re not particularly empathetic to other’s love of liberty then your behaviour will reflect that weighting, even if that means deliberately disadvantaging another rather than yourself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-22633511225773030832008-02-19T15:20:00.000+13:002008-02-19T15:20:00.000+13:001. what's nutty Peter Singer got to do with it?2....1. what's nutty Peter Singer got to do with it?<BR/>2. Isn’t the whole Gestapo scene, PC’s description, the Singerian ‘emergency situation’ you criticise?<BR/>3. so to be "truthful" or to have "integrity" is now cursed as socialist? Honestly!? <BR/>4. So brian is comfortable knowing that lgm would “lie” to implicate him and save lgm’s skin? How gracious of him.<BR/>5. With such porous loyalty, could there ever be an “objectivist” underground resistance??<BR/>=========<BR/><BR/>It doesn't have to be a clichéd "getapo chief" waterboarding at "under the clock". That situation is contrived hyperbole. <BR/>This issue applies to any mundane situation where lying leads to an advantage for the liar. <BR/><BR/>The argument for lying given here does not take into account any disadvantage that other participants in the system might experience. Other system participants can be fellow objectivists (lgm, Nathaniel, brian, Allan, hugh jorgan, etc). <BR/>I guess it does consider others becasue there is no dimension of loyalty. <BR/>Given the circling-of-the-wagons comments on many other issues I think objectivists are more loyal to <I>each other</I> than LGM given them credit for!!<BR/><BR/>i.e. if lying is virtuous, “L” could happily lie to selfish advantage to frame someone “B”. The situation of “B” is not part of the calculation, only the survival of “L”. <BR/>It’s only the shining dedication of “L” and scrambling self-preservation of the gametes and fatty skull filler that matters! <BR/>Which, amusingly, is the most basic of animal impulses!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-63223028763356950832008-02-19T09:03:00.001+13:002008-02-19T09:03:00.001+13:00Interesting item on the return of the medal on Cam...Interesting item on the return of the medal on Campbell last night. John interviewed lawyer Chris Comeskey who claimed that he knew where the medals were only days after the robbery.<BR/><BR/>John commented that Comeskey must be in contact with some very shady characters.<BR/><BR/>TV3 News reports that Mr Comeskey said he began making inquiries "of people in Paremoremo, people in Mt Eden" immediately after the Waiouru breakin. <BR/><BR/>Comeskey states he could not reveal who the two male perpetrators were - and never would.<BR/><BR/>He doubted whether police would ever find them or discover the "ingenious" hidey-hole they used to secrete the medals for 10 weeks.<BR/><BR/>He said he was sure the men felt guilt and remorse over what they've done. (Yeah $300,000 worth of remorse)<BR/><BR/>"They're not bad guys. In fact they were quite likeable.".....<BR/><BR/>There is no honour amongst some lawyers either.Rebel Radiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04651727549510158967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-46043055825863759222008-02-19T09:03:00.000+13:002008-02-19T09:03:00.000+13:00Stonking good reply LGMStonking good reply LGMBrian Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06850292025352036051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-66833311073282407572008-02-19T07:19:00.000+13:002008-02-19T07:19:00.000+13:00anonymouseYou display your faultiness yet again. ...anonymouse<BR/><BR/>You display your faultiness yet again. What you are attempting to do is use a particular emergency situation to justify your own system of ethics. It's an irrational approach. A simple change of context in your model quickly demonstrates your error. Try it and see. <BR/><BR/>PC tells a lie. LGM in turn tells a lie. Your gestapo supervisior hears this and is led to understand that you are a traitor to the great socialist cause. Your career as gestapo officer is over. You are beaten and thrown in a cell. Tommorrow you will be hung on a meathook. The lies led to your demise. That is a good thing. So, in the end, the rational people saw to the demise of the irrational. <BR/><BR/>Your type of idiocy is reminiscent of the attempt by Singer to justify his collectivist ethics (wherein no person should posses more than that necessary for immediate survival so long as any other person exists who is in need). He starts by describing a certain emergency situation, seeks an answer to the problems of that particular situation and then uses that as a justification for his entire ethical system. The error is considering an emergency situation as somehow fundamental to life. It isn't. An emergency is a special case which can't be properly utilised to derive or justify a system of ethics. <BR/><BR/>Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with how a man should act and why that is. It presupposes an understanding of Nature of Man, Epistemology, etc. You are clearly ignorant. <BR/><BR/>LGMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-17497963930067943392008-02-18T19:57:00.000+13:002008-02-18T19:57:00.000+13:00"...from the needs of man's survival and flourishi...<I>"...from the needs of <B>man's </B>survival and flourishing right here on this earth."</I><BR/><BR/>Is that "man" the singular or "man" the plural? Singular of course...<BR/><BR/><I>"the application of reason to the problem of survival."</I><BR/><BR/>Who's survival? <BR/>It's the survival of the singular objective rational creature isn't it? <BR/><BR/>So addressing the proverbial Gestapo officer again, what if the lie that saves your own skin leads to the demise of ANOTHER person. This is a more realistic situation. <BR/><BR/><B>i.e. if PC gets to answer first and lies convincingly to save himself would LGM then be thrilled if that lie implicated him and led to his own demise? </B><BR/><BR/>In other words, in a game of prisoners dilemma you don't want to be paired with an objectivist even if you are one yourself!<BR/>Your only hope to survive is to beat the other "rational creature" to the lie.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-9389301592150431722008-02-18T19:51:00.000+13:002008-02-18T19:51:00.000+13:00I would wager that the movement of that money will...I would wager that the movement of that money will be watched VERY closelyOswald Bastablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11828229103486326473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-55115170618622364902008-02-18T18:37:00.000+13:002008-02-18T18:37:00.000+13:00I'd rather never see them again than pay the thiev...I'd rather never see them again than pay the thieves to bring them back. You don't have to see the medals to appreciate the bravery of the hero. Criminals should never be rewarded for the crimes that made them criminals.AngloAmerikanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02002362092073890146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-26039614025855191722008-02-18T16:53:00.000+13:002008-02-18T16:53:00.000+13:00Of course, you don't know that the police actually...Of course, you don't know that the police actually paid up. It's not as if the thieves are going to be able to complain.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-67974199177404413252008-02-18T15:32:00.000+13:002008-02-18T15:32:00.000+13:00Peter, you made NewsTalkZB with this blog: Leight...Peter, you made NewsTalkZB with this blog: Leighton read much of it out on air this morning, (full crediting of source, of course).<BR/><BR/>Mark HubbardAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-91947586414183952242008-02-18T11:56:00.000+13:002008-02-18T11:56:00.000+13:00And by bestowing thousands of dollars of "ransom" ...And by bestowing thousands of dollars of "ransom" money to such criminals is criminal in the way that you are the one who is rewarding crime. You are not the messenger you are the enabler, the instrument which is the process of rewarding criminals and their criminal actions.<BR/><BR/>Yes Peter, I also thoroughly agree with you. "There is no HONOUR in doing so." Well said.Rebel Radiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04651727549510158967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-4720356049908510672008-02-18T11:24:00.000+13:002008-02-18T11:24:00.000+13:00The debate on paying the thief (and implicitly the...The debate on paying the thief (and implicitly the police keeping their word) started as soon as the reward was posted.<BR/><BR/>I think lance is correct when talks about precedent. If a criminal knows that the police will lie then it all starts to go downhill. The police would have also in effect been lying to the NZ public and that opens up a huge can of worms.<BR/><BR/>Given that no personal injury or loss of personal property was involved, a no questions reward was pragmatic. Of course, if you start talking about rewards for act of serious harm (a la your Gestpo analogy) then it should be policy not to offer such rewards.Dismal Soyanzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15527794711511575050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-88367225334630666302008-02-18T10:47:00.000+13:002008-02-18T10:47:00.000+13:00Honour among thieves.Honour bound? Certainly not. ...Honour among thieves.<BR/><BR/>Honour bound? Certainly not. However there is the small matter of setting a precedent. If in future, you ever want to use the "Excuse me, but could you bring back our stuff? We'll pay you for it" angle, then you are going to need to at least appear to be a "man of your word". If you want to go down the route of offering unconditional rewards to whoever returns the item/items in question - knowing that the thieves themselves may seek the reward, then you necessarily must keep your word <I>if</I> you would seek to use such a tactic again; and people often do.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps they could instead have offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators (and consequently - possibly the recovery of the medals).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-49954634698778048772008-02-18T10:21:00.000+13:002008-02-18T10:21:00.000+13:00Trading justice for valuables--where's the "honour...Trading justice for valuables--where's the "honour" in that?KGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01940428991630766942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11906042.post-5519992988590079722008-02-18T09:57:00.000+13:002008-02-18T09:57:00.000+13:00Completely agree. Well said.LGMCompletely agree. Well said.<BR/><BR/>LGMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com