Question for you regarding Altruism
Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
We've had a totally voluntary military for about 40 years now.
The ultimate altruistic act would be to willingly give one's life for others.
We've had several periods of conflict over those 40 years.
How do Objectivists view those who volunteer for the military? Especially the Army and Marines who have been the brunt of the casualties in the past 40 years.
Isn't volunteering for something that might result in the ultimate sacrifice, one's own life, for the benefit of others, the ultimate form of altruism?
Should those who volunteer for the military be admired, or vilified?
The ultimate altruistic act would be to willingly give one's life for others.
We've had several periods of conflict over those 40 years.
How do Objectivists view those who volunteer for the military? Especially the Army and Marines who have been the brunt of the casualties in the past 40 years.
Isn't volunteering for something that might result in the ultimate sacrifice, one's own life, for the benefit of others, the ultimate form of altruism?
Should those who volunteer for the military be admired, or vilified?
Previous comments... You are currently on page 4.
If none chose to do so, then your country is clearly not a very good country.
Really you argument boils down to the fact that you think it is important and therefore you think you should have the right to force other people to undertake military service.
Love of Country depends on the country, it depends on the particularly time in that country. England was a great country worth of much love in the early 1800s. In the 1950s, England was a basket case not worthy of much love at all.
“Isn't protecting that freedom rational?” I'd say most would say, yes. Most would also ask, "at what cost?"
“Can a rational mind come to a different conclusion?” What conclusion is that?
Before you decide something is a contradiction, just be sure you are starting from the correct premise.
You're standing in the Dollar General. A maniac walks in, and pulls a gun. You stand up, pull your own, which you've practiced with for hours and hours, and shoot him dead.
Did you shoot him for the lives of everyone else in the store? No, you were defending your own life, and in the process the lives of everyone else in the store, even those who prefer not to carry their own weapons.
Do they owe you? No. You did it for practical purposes. That it also saved them is just a nice bonus.
Isn't protecting that freedom rational?
Can a rational mind come to a different conclusion?
Check your premise.
So far, the interchange on this thread has been disappointingly void of information to understand the Objectivist views on the question.
http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com...
Proud Legions:
http://space4commerce.blogspot.com/2006/...
"Everywhere Matt Ridgway went, however, he found the same question in men's minds: What the hell are we doing in this godforsaken place?
If men had been told, Destroy the evil of Bolshevism, they might have understood. But they did not understand why the line must be held or why the Taehan Minkuk – that miserable, stinking, undemocratic country – must be protected.
The question itself never concerned Matt Ridgway. At the age of fifty-six, more than thirty years a centurion, to him the answer was simple. The loyalty he gave, and expected, precluded the slightest questioning of orders. This he said:
The real issues are whether the power of Western Civilization, as God has permitted it to flower in our own beloved lands, shall defy and defeat Communism; whether the rule of men who shoot their prisoners, enslave their citizens, and deride the dignity of man, shall displace the rule of those to whom the individual and his individual rights are sacred; whether we are to survive with God's hand to guide and lead us, or to perish in the dead existence of a Godless world."
What about those who do so for "love of country" or "patriotism?"
I fear that you also cannot answer my query, as we have very different views on the issue than hard core O's. It is they whom I wish to engage.
In short, I consider myself such but who knows what others think.
Matters not to me in any case.
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