Biden’s Despicable Value Double Standard on Victims of Death Row Murderers

Axios reports that Biden “is commuting the sentences for 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.” The 3 remaining are “Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who helped carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.”

“The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities,” according to Fox News.

I find this to be a moral abomination. Biden says 

 "Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss," Biden said in a statement. "But guided by my conscience and my experience, ... I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level."

But this is tantamount to saying that the values of the lives of victims of cold-blooded murderers varies according to the motives of the murderers, a moral abomination. Are the lives of victims of racists and terrorists more valuable than the victims of bank robberies or drug dealers? Are the victims of the Mother Emanuel AME Church, the Boston Marathon, and the Tree of Life synagogue more valuable than the lives of police, military personnel, or prison guards? Is the suffering of those victims’ families less “unimaginable and irreparable” because the killer was only some “ordinary” cold-blooded murderer rather than a racist, terrorist, or antisemite?

If Biden had commuted all of the death row sentences, we could at least say he acted consistently on principle, albeit by circumventing the rule of law [again]. Hard as it may be to believe, Joe Biden may have reached a new moral low with his selective commutations.

Related Reading:

The Boston Bomber and the Death Penalty Debate

The Devaluation of Life in New Jersey

Amnesty International Shows It's Stripes

QUORA: 'How do capitalists defend inheritance? Isn't inheritance unfair?'

 QUORA: “How do capitalists defend inheritance? Isn't inheritance unfair?”

This is one of the easiest QUORA questions I’ve answered. Here is my answer:

“Property rights” is the right of use and disposal. As Investopedia defines it:

Property rights give the owner or right holder the ability to do with the property what they choose. That includes holding on to it, selling or renting it out for profit, or transferring it to another party.

My emphasis. Assuming your estate is property legitimately earned and legitimately acquired by you, it is your right to transfer it as you choose, upon your death, according to the instructions in your will. It’s as simple as that.

Here’s a question for you: If it is unfair for someone of your choice to inherit your property, then on what basis can you claim it is fair for someone not of your choosing to receive it?

Related Reading:

Is Inheritance anti-Capitalist and anti-Merit?

Does Inherited Money Ruin Lives?

Inheritance Taxes, Inequality, and the Economy

The Morals of the Israel/Hamas War—and the Vindication of Leonard Piekoff

The moral standing of the latest Israel/Hamas war is as bright a line as you’ll ever see. The aggressor is Hamas. The defender is Israel. From the moment Hamas launched its barbaric attack on Israel, every casualty on either side became the moral responsibility of Hamas, the aggressor. Every brick in the Gazan rubble resulting from the Israeli military retaliation; every drop of blood and every tear shed by Gazans, civilians, foreign nationals, or others, is the moral responsibility of Hamas. 

To be clear, let’s consider the alleged destruction of that hospital that was first reported to have resulted in hundreds of deaths. Hamas immediately blamed an Israeli air strike. It has since become clear that it was an errant missile fired by a Hamas ally. And the death total and damage to the hospital turned out to have been greatly exaggerated. But all of that is morally beside the point. Even if the original reports were accurate, and a strategically targeted Israeli air strike destroyed the hospital and killed many hundreds, the responsibility would be on Hamas. Hamas is the aggressor. Israel is the defender. That strike would not have happened but for Hamas’s attack on Israel.

From here on out, whatever death and destruction results from Israel’s avowed strategy to eradicate Hamas once and for all—including the use of nuclear weapons, if God forbid it comes to that, will be laid at the feet of Hamas and its master, the Islamic theocracy of Iran.

Which brings us to the next point. In 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks, Ayn Rand Institute founder Leonard Piekoff went on the Bill O’Reilly show to advocate for the response to the Islamic attack on America that he considered proper. In a contentious interview in which O’Reilly treated Piekoff at times less than respectful, Piekoff argued that the Taliban in Afghanistan was the wrong target. The right target, said Piekoff, was Iran, the spiritual and political head of the entire anti-civilization Islamic Totalitarian movement. Have a listen, think about where we are now, and then dare to tell me that Piekoff was wrong. 

Imagine where we’d be today had America followed Leonard Peikoff’s advice.

Related Reading:

The Jihad Against America and How to End It, by Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard blog

Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism, by Elan Journo

The War Between Enlightenment and Fundamentalist Political Islam—and the Choice All Muslims Must Make

Bush's Collapsing "War on Terror"

The "Forward Strategy" for Failure by Yaron Brook and Elan Journo

Related: Democracy in Action in Egypt

Ralph Peters: "Mesmerized by Elections, We Forgot Freedom"

Iraqi Democracy vs. Freedom

Mesmerized by Elections, the NJ Star-Ledger Forgot that Tyranny is Tyranny

QUORA: ‘What does economics have to say about the statement “If a company can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage, they shouldn't be in business.”?

 QUORA: ‘What does economics have to say about the statement “If a company can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage, they shouldn't be in business.”? Is that an economically sound argument?’

I posted this answer:

By “they shouldn't be in business,” does the questioner imply that anyone who doesn’t think the employees are not being paid what he imagines equals a “living wage” can physically threaten or attack the business and its owners, including the use of violence, unless they raise the wages or close the business? Or by “they shouldn't be in business,” does the questioner mean they shouldn't be legally allowed to be in business?  If the first, you are a criminal. If the second, you are worse than a common criminal; you are a fascist.

I don’t think economics has anything to say about this statement, because this is a moral, not an economic, statement. Economics is the science that studies production and trade. Morality covers individual rights, which underlies the premise of the question. (economics and morality are actually integrated, but in modern thinking they are not.)

A job is a two-way street. It is a mutual, voluntary agreement between employer and employee. A worker is entitled to compensation he agreed to, and what the employer agreed to pay him. An employer is entitled to a worker’s labor only according to the compensation a worker agreed to accept. If a worker agrees to work for something less than what some busybody calls a living wage, it’s the worker’s business, no one else’s. It would be immoral for any outside interest to force any labor contract agreement on unwilling parties. 

“Living wage” is a political, not economic, term. When an employer and employee agree to an employment agreement, it is none, and shouldn’t be any, of anybody else’s business, including the government. The premise “If a company can’t afford to pay their workers a living wage, they shouldn't be in business” is neither an economically nor morally sound argument.

Related Reading:

Taking vs. Earning a "Livable Wage"

Tuesday’s ‘Fight for $15’ is about Imposing Demands by Government Aggression

Earned Pay vs. Need-Based Pay--or, Justice vs. Injustice

"Greed" is a Two-Way Street

If We’re to Have Labor Laws, Should They Work Both Ways?

"Greed" is a Two-Way Street

Business vs. Workers' Jobs: Who Makes Who Possible?

Minimum Wage Doesn't Belong in the Constitution--or Law

Contra Hugh Hewitt, America Does have a Shared Morality

In a Washington Post op-ed, Hugh Hewitt asks “Without shared moral values, how can we call Putin evil?” After listing a litany of Putin’s war crimes, Hewitt asks:

In an increasingly secular age, where can we ground the moral consciousness that supports the value judgment “evil”? More and more Americans find appeals to Judeo-Christian teaching unpersuasive.

Does Hewitt mean Judeo-Christian teachings like “love your enemy?” Unconditional forgiveness? “Turn the other cheek?” Grant love, forgiveness, and cheek-turning to a monster like Putin? No thanks. 

Hewitt obviously clings to the religious dogma that morality comes from a supernatural realm. That belief therefore blinds him to the true source of the shared moral consciousness upon which we, as Americans, can support the value judgment of Putin as “evil.”

America does in fact have a unifying morality—the revolutionary morality strongly implicit in its Founding ideals. It’s best implied in the nation’s originating legal document, the Declaration of Independence—the equal, inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The social application of each individual’s right to the freedom to pursue one’s own personal happiness is best summed up by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration. In a letter, Jefferson explained 

Liberty then I would say that, in the whole plenitude of it’s extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.

This conception of liberty is derived from the Enlightenment philosophers, led by John Locke, the Founders’ most consulted philosopher. Locke and Jefferson established the right of the individual to actively pursue his own happiness in any way he deems appropriate so long as he respects the same right of all others. 

This is a deeply pro-egoistic moral principle. It is also the moral code that underpins the Natural Rights principle that the United States of America is built on. Indeed, the pursuit of happiness is America. It is an individualistic morality. There is no America without it.  It is a moral code derived scientifically from the study of man’s nature. This idea does have connection to Judeo-Christian teaching, Natural Law Theology. But that is an Enlightenment-inspired ideal. It is not a morality that rests upon or needs any religion. Regardless of whether or not one believes in a Godly origin of nature, it is an objective natural, not subjectives mystical, morality. If we’re looking to nature to inform our conception of morality, then the truths of the Declaration of Independence can just as easily stand even if all references to God, a Creator, and divine Providence are stripped from that document. The same goes for Christianity’s individualist orientation. Individual rights can be explained independently of the Christian version of individualism, the unique soul of every person, by reference to natural law.

For a long time, that uniquely American egoistic moral code was largely implicit in American ideals. On this point, America clashes with the Christian ethics in the most profound way. The pursuit of happiness simply does not jibe with the ethics of altruism and self-sacrifice at the core of Christian ethics. It would take until the 20th Century for a philosopher to explicitly identify and explain America’s moral code. The moral code implicit in these ideals was best identified and justified by the American philosopher Ayn Rand as “rational self-interest.” Rand explained the moral right to make the most of your own life, so long as you respect the same moral rights of all others, and proved it with reference to facts of reality. The Founders told us we have the political right. Rand told us we have the moral right. The American Revolution was completed.

Contra Hugh Hewitt, America does have a unifying moral code, and always has. It’s true that it seems to have been lost or abandoned by a large segment of America. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You won’t find (or rediscover) it in Judeo-Christian teaching. You will find it in our own Declaration of Independence. And the moral values embedded in that document is the basis of judging Vladimir Putin and any other collectivist monster. Putin is systematically denying countless Ukrainian and Russian people their rightful liberties to pursue their own happiness as they see fit. That is the basis for declaring Putin to be evil.  

Related Reading:

America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

The Mount Vernon Statement - Conservatism's Unilateral Moral Surrender

Where does Morality Come From?

The Roots of Morality: Primordial "Intuition" or Human Nature?

Another Counter-Productive Attempt to Define Capitalism as Something it’s Obviously Not--Unselfish

Defenders of Capitalism never stop trying to deny that Capitalism is the system of self-interest, and that self-interest is its prime driving force—and the source of its great moral strength. In The Driving Force of Free Markets Is Empathy, Not Greed, Dr Rainer Zitelmann claims, “Only the entrepreneur who prioritizes other people’s needs can be successful. Empathy, the ability to recognize the desires and needs of others, is the true basis of capitalism—not unbridled greed and selfishness.”

Both capitalists and anti-capitalists frequently accuse capitalism of being a system driven by selfishness and greed. Capitalism’s defenders sometimes say: “By nature, man is selfish, which is why socialism will never work. Capitalism better reflects the fundamental characteristics of human nature.” Anti-capitalists claim that capitalism promotes the worst characteristics in man, especially greed.

But are greed and unbridled selfishness really the driving forces of capitalism? Human self-interest is one—not the only—driving force of all human action. But this has nothing to do with a particular economic system. Rather, it is an anthropological constant. In capitalism, however, this self-interest is curbed by the fact that only the entrepreneur who prioritizes other people’s needs can be successful.

Unfortunately, selfishness is never properly defined, just seems to be assumed to equate with treating others badly, rather than the end result of being rational. That’s what’s behind the idea that self-interest needs to be “curbed,” rather than to acknowledge that man needs a moral code to teach him to figure out what is in his self-interest and how to achieve it.

It’s true that to succeed under Capitalism, the entrepreneur must consider or project the needs and wants of consumers. But that focus is a means to the end, not the end. The end--the driving force--is personal fulfillment—selfishness, properly understood as rational self-interest. But every coin has two sides. If the entrepreneur unselfishly “prioritizes other people’s needs,” then what does that make his consumers? According to Zitelmann’s standard, these consumers are geedy takers exploiting the good empathetic nature of the entrepreneur. 

This is nonsense. The consumer is primarily motivated by the same moral force as the entrepreneur, rational selfishness. By protecting every individual from force and fraud through individual rights, Capitalism prioritizes every person’s freedom to pursue his own happiness through trade. Trade is mutually beneficial self-interest in action. By protecting individual rights, Capitalism denies the ability to achieve one’s ends through coercion, predation, violence, fraud, or other criminal means. In this sense, Capitalism actually curbs, rather than promotes, “the worst characteristics in man.” But this is not meant to curb genuine self-interest, the pursuit of personal happiness. The great virtue of a system built on rational selfishness is that it protects everyone’s pursuit of happiness equally by denying to everyone the achievement of one’s goals by engaging in rights-violating actions. *

The happy consequence of this universal benevolent display of “greed” (which is never defined, either) is a system of general betterment without the sacrifice of anyone’s self-interests.

So we get another attempt to define capitalism as something that everybody knows it is not--unselfish. This is and always has been destructive. The underlying assumption that Zitelmann’s line of defense fosters is that Capitalism is at best a necessary evil. To save Capitalism, Capitalism’s defenders must proudly embrace its obvious moral root as a necessary good, making Capitalism itself a necessary good.

* [In fact, it is altruism that promotes the worst characteristics in man. Rational selfishness promotes mutual respect, universal benevolence, and peaceful coexistence. Altruism promotes universal predation as a moral ideal.]

Related Reading:

Why Capitalism is Selfish--and Why That’s Good

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Capitalism and the Moral High Ground by Craig Biddle

Why Capitalism Needs a Moral Sanction

QUORA: ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

 QUORA* : ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

I posted this answer:

To be rationally selfish is to think carefully about the values likely to contribute to your happiness and flourishing within consideration for the full, long term context of your life. To be rationally selfish likewise impells you to consciously place your values in a hierarchy of importance to your life, and to act accordingly. Certainly, there can be charitable causes that can fit into your hierarchy of values and to which you deem worthy of your donation. To donate to such causes would therefore be a rationally selfish thing to do, not as a duty or a sacrifice but as a reflection of your values. The only “rule” would be that you should never, as a rationally selfish person, sacrifice a higher value for something you value less. So your donations should be made as and when you can afford it, to causes you value, but not at the expense of giving up something you value more highly, such as the welfare of your children or your next mortgage or rent payment.

Related Reading:

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

QUORA: ‘What do people misunderstand about Ayn Rand's ideas?’

Conflating Altruism with Generosity — and Selfishness with Collectivism — Undermines Liberty

 Ronald Bailey has an article in Reason titled More Individualism Means More Altruism . He cites studies “proving” that "There may be no inherent conflict between doing well and doing good". 

If “doing well” means the self-interested pursuit of one’s own happiness, and “doing good” means engaging in occasional philanthropic goals that fit one’s values, then this is certainly true. But following in a long line of pro-capitalist liberty champions, Bailey refuses to embrace Ayn Rand’s moral incites, and inadvertently accepts that there actually is an inherent conflict between doing well and altruism. Let’s examine: 

The countries with more individualistic values are also the countries with higher levels of altruism, according to an upcoming study in the journal Psychological Science. A team of psychologists from Georgetown and Harvard reached this conclusion after parsing data from around the world on subjective well-being, individualist versus collectivist cultural values, and various measures of altruism, ranging from charitable giving to helping strangers to living organ donations to the humane treatment of animals.

The researchers include the latest data (from 2019) in the Charities Aid Foundation's annual World Giving Index, which surveys people across the globe asking them if in the past month they had helped a stranger, donated money to a charity, or volunteered time to an organization. "The United States of America is the world's most generous country over the last 10 years," the 2019 report notes. Others in the top 10 include are Myanmar, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

China ranks as the world's least generous country. Others in the bottom 10 include Greece, Yemen, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Russia. [My emphasis]

Note that self-sacrifice is not mentioned, only generosity. But self-sacrifice, not generosity, is the essence of altruism. Any of those “do-good” efforts can easily be motivated by generosity. If "doing well" means achieving one's own self-interested values, then "doing good" can be among those values. (I’m a self-interested regular blood donor to my local medical center.) Altruism, in fact, is incompatible with "doing well" because altruism demands the sacrifice--the giving up, the renunciation--of the very values that doing well demands. Individualism begins with self-value. Individualism doesn't generate altruism. It clashes with altruism.

Altruism must be properly defined, which here it is not. Altruism means self-sacrificial service to others as the standard of moral good. The dirty little secret of altruism is that altruism leads to predation. If morality demands living for others, then it logically means demanding that others live for me. Collectivism is the genuinely altruistic society, with everyone living for the group, thus expecting to live off of the group. Individualism is the self-interested society--that is, capitalism, the system of individual rights. When people are secure in their lives, liberties, and property, generosity logically follows. When they are not, as in collectivist societies, generosity is stupid and in fact impossible. Why care about others when everyone else already has a greedy claim on one's life, liberty, and property? If one considers this type of living as selfish, then collectivism certainly promotes selfishness. But this type of “selfishness,” as we can see, is really just the flip side of the altruist coin. 

It's true that individualistic societies generate generosity. But that's because individualism is not altruistic, properly defined. The point of this article is correct only insofar as altruism is misinterpreted as generosity.

Not surprisingly, Bailey also fails to properly conceptualize selfishness. Both he and the study he cites assume only negative connotations, failing to distinguish between bad "selfishness"--narcissism, self-centeredness--and rational selfishness, the respectful pursuit of one's own self-interest. The article notes "the common conflation of individualism with selfishness," and tries to debunk it. But no one is ever going to believe that individualism does not promote selfishness, and no one ever has, which is why it is so important to get the definitions and concepts right.

It’s true that people don’t understand altruism as self-sacrificial. Or they do, but think of self-sacrifice as simply the giving up of short-term satisfaction or indulgence for the sake of a long-term and/or other goal that you value more. But if anyone suggested that you donate your food to a soup kitchen at the expense of the hunger of your own child, people would rightly see that suggestion as monstrous. Yet, people equate the mere giving of food as altruistic. People have mixed premises about altruism, and that’s a problem. But the same problem of mixed premises afflicts selfishness, such as lumping together the pursuit of “pure” self-interest through predatory practices with rational self-interest through mutual respect and mutually beneficial trade, such as making money, or giving money to a cause for self-interested reasons, into the same package deal. If liberty advocates insist on avoiding dealing with the true nature of altruism by equating it with generosity, they can at least start using the term rational self-interest to give the term “doing well” the moral backing it needs to save individualism from the onslaught of the collectivists. Put another way, it is good -- morally good -- to do well for yourself.

Related Reading:

Altruism—the Ayn Rand Lexicon

The Virtue of Selfishness—Ayn Rand

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

Once Again, a Business Champion Morally Neuters Her Own Case

In A Brief History of Corporate Social Responsibility—and Why It Must Stop,  Kimberlee Josephson writes:

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) gained notoriety with Howard R. Bowen’s 1953 publication Social Responsibilities of the Businessman, and although times have since changed and CSR has taken on various forms, a constant question remains unchanged.

What is the role of business in society?

Some claim that a greater focus on corporate social performance over corporate financial performance is now warranted, while others adhere to a more classical viewpoint, siding with Theodore Levitt’s assertion that business should simply aim to achieve material gain while operating in good faith. Levitt, a German-American economist and professor at the Harvard Business School, spoke of “The Dangers of Social Responsibility” in a 1958 Harvard Business Review article. He posited that profit maximization over the long term should be the primary goal of business as this would have a spillover effect improving the wellbeing of society.

Not bad, so far. But ethics is the subject that continues to trip up the pro-Capitalists.

The propensity to exchange to benefit oneself as a means for societal advancement was most notably espoused in Adam Smith’s 1776 magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations. Milton Friedman later drove this message home in his seminal essay in the New York Times Magazine about how the “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.”

The collectivist premise that the good of society is what justifies profit-seeking corporations is a fallacy that has deep roots. And it is deeply destructive to Capitalism. To "exchange"--i.e.,trade--to "benefit oneself" is not a "propensity." It is a requirement of individual survival and flourishing. It follows that self-benefit is not a means to "Societal advancement." It is a means to the personal pursuit of happiness. “Society” benefits, for sure, but only as a consequence of the successful achievement of personal happiness and flourishing.

Yet, the prioritization of self-gain has proven to be a hard pill to swallow for a culture that seeks emotional fulfillment via altruism. As such, businesses have not only been encouraged to engage in CSR, but also to harness it and pursue a higher calling.

Unlike the stages of the CSR Pyramid, which tended to be industry oriented, firms stretching beyond their domain of competence to prove themselves as worthy contributors to society at large (rather than streamlining efforts toward core stakeholders) is disconcerting for shareholders and distracting for budding entrepreneurs.

And well it should be! The creation of value for consumers and jobs for employees is precisely the act that makes business “worthy contributors to society.” There is no “at large” beyond which business owes some benefit, other than to respect the rights of others. 

 

The spearheading of virtuous ventures and advocacy advertising show no sign of slowing down—and it won’t, until social pressure shifts back to value rather than virtue.

There's so much wrong here. CSR can't stop when even opponents of CSR keep giving altruism the banner of virtue, while separating the pursuit of value from virtue.  How can "social pressure" even begin to "shift back" to value when even the champions of business are stuck on altruism as virtue? The young champion of business Kim Josephson once again proves Why Capitalism Needs a Moral Sanction. And altruism can only be overcome by first explaining the real nature of altruism and then adopting a spirited defense of altruism’s antipode, rational selfishness.

Related Reading:

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

On the Purpose of a Corporation by the Business Roundtable, PART 1

On the Purpose of a Corporation by the Business Roundtable, PART 2

Why businesspeople need moral principles--Jaana Woiceshyn

In Defense of the Corporation—Robert Hessen: This book was first published in 1979 to defend “the right of the corporation to exist and function freely.” Hessen’s goal was to counter Ralph Nader’s argument that corporations are “creatures of the state.” The book is relevant today because Nader’s call for federal chartering of corporations is the precursor to Elizabeth Warren’s neo-fascist "Accountable Capitalism Act."

The Capitalist Manifesto--Andrew Bernstein

Elizabeth Warren wants to weaponize and federalize corporations for social justice activism--Mary Chastain