Sidebar: A Harmony of Interests
Spring 2009 -- Individual, objective liberty rights make possible a society based on the principle of trade. One basic kind of interaction would be banned: initiating force against others. Force could only be permitted to be used defensively against others who had already initiated it. In other words, all your interactions with others would respect their freedom to choose. Interactions would also aim to be of benefit all the parties involved. Such a system would only be possible—and moral—if human interests did not fundamentally conflict. After all, if our interests conflicted, you could not seek your own benefit except through harming me, and vice versa. It would be self-sacrifice for the loser to accept trades in that circumstance. Objectivism holds that your own life is your ultimate value. Real self-sacrifice is what one should never do.
8 septembre 2010
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3 min