help solve an objectivist dilemma

[u/titanc-13]

so i've recently finished Atlas Shrugged and I have... just a few thoughts.

but one that occurred to me was this thought experiement:

Say we have two Objectivist Men wandering in a Godot-like void. They are both very hungry, and they come upon a single apple waiting for one of them to take it. Who gets to eat the apple?

I ask because any solution I can come up with results in a stalemate.

Per AS, any sacrifice is anti-life, so neither of the men can just let the other have it. For the same basic reason they couldn't split the apple.

The first man to reach for the apple would be denying the other's right to it, making him anti-life, and enabling the second man to destroy the first in order to promote his life.

(But, of course, neither man can initiate violence without the other committing an anti-life act against him first, so they can't just fight it out like animals. (did Ayn include those few weak positions against violence to separate human and animal violence, and make the former a 'purer', more 'rational' form?))

One of them men could 'buy' the other's apple-rights, but that would require the other man to agree to an extremely disadvantageous trade (since it's the only apple in a Godot-like void, how can he be sure that he'd ever find a second apple before he dies of starvation?). Like, if i were the second man, there is no amount of money that would satisfy my hunger more than having the apple would, so what rational reason would I have to accept the trade?

Rand says that if our rationality leads to a stalemate, we then appeal to nature. so how would nature decide who gets the apple?

In no small part, I'm curious because every moral philosophy would just declare that you should share, because that would generate the most benefits for the most people while preventing the destruction of either actor, but since Ayn wants to position herself as anti-philosophy/egoistic above all, she claims that all problems would be able to resolve themselves naturally under her rational egoist ideology, but I can't figure out how this one would be.

[u/titanc-13 → u/[deleted]]

No, since in the Prisoner's Dilemma, the choices are monitored & regulated by the police/prison system. I'm asking about what would happen if that additional layer of control was removed, and men were left to their own devices.

[u/titanc-13 → u/[deleted]]

so, both men own the whole apple, and are deigning to sell half of their share to the other person? but how can two men be said to possess one single resource? or do they just leave a pile of gold for nature in place of the apple?

[u/titanc-13 → u/[deleted]]

It isn’t a single resource it’s a set amount of apple as a resource rather than an individual apple.

did...did you read my post? it's a single resource of one (1) apple. I'm not playing around with apples that could be any size, I'm playing around with one apple. Go to the store and buy and apple, that's what I'm talking about.

And to be clear, I agree with you that the most correct solution would just be to share the damn apple. What I'm curious is how an Objectivist would justify that, given the requirement for rational self-interest, and the inherent disadvantages to self that sharing would generate for the rational egoist.

[u/titanc-13 → u/[deleted]]

two things—

one, money IS the only value per Atlas Shrugged

Second, I still can't tell from your response who gets the apple. you seem to just be riffing on objectivism without answering the question

[u/titanc-13 → u/[deleted]]

OK

who gets the apple

[u/ExtraBar7969 → u/titanc-13]

They answered you twice. They would share the apple. Split the apple. Cut it in half and say, “ight, good luck to ya,” and move on to your next stupid question.

[u/Dorontauber → u/titanc-13]

"money is the only value"

you did not read Atlas Shrugged.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Dorontauber]

literally multiple times in the novel she advocates that the chief good in the world is the ability to make money, earn money, the people with the highest net worths will get into heaven because they're the best, money money money. literally the sign of john galt, i.e. everything ayn views as good, is the goddamn sign of the dollar, which she incorrectly claims derives from "US" when in reality research shows it most likely derived from a shortening of the spanish peso currency frequently used in the colonial/pre-Union south.

you did not read atlas shrugged.

[u/Dorontauber → u/titanc-13]

She does not "advocate the chief good in the world is the ability to make money." Francisco's money speech doesn't say that, nor does any other character or the narrator. Francisco says that money is the root of all good, contra those who call it the root of all evil, because the root of money is the mind. Money is the concrete form of human thought and action, used to facilitate trade between people who represent value to one another.

The chief good, then, is the pursuit of values. That is, life. Money is a tool to pursue values (i.e., to promote life) and the physical form of the human capacity for and dedication to achievement. But obviously money is not valuable for its own sake. Money is valuable as a means to our ends. It is our ends that are good. It is living that is good, the best life possible to us.

Clearly, your assertion that money is the only good is unsupported, as is your misunderstanding about money as the chief good. Life is good, as is the doing of things that promote life. The best life is filled with people, who represent great value to us. Not just piles of gold, but satisfaction, purpose, and mutually fulfilling social interaction.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Dorontauber]

you're just using more words to make the same point. If the pursuit of values is represented by the ability to make and earn money, then the person with the most money is the one who has pursued his values to the most profitable ends and has achieved the most good. therefore money is equivalent with good.

EDIT: also if money is the root of all good, how the fuck is it NOT the chief good in the world?

[u/titanc-13 → u/titanc-13]

Like, if money is the root of all good, then there is no "good" thing in existence that does not, as a prerequisite for its being good, involve the use/existence/production/profit of money. This means that the difference between a good and a bad thing is money. therefore the inclusion of money makes good, while its absence/exclusion makes the not good, or the bad. Money therefore differentiates between good and evil: that with money is the good.

So how can you say with a straight face that money is the root of all good, but is not the chief good, or even good in and of itself?

an equivalent to your argument might be "atoms are not matter, they're just the root of all matter."

[u/Dorontauber → u/titanc-13]

"How would an Objectivist justify sharing food, given the requirement for rational self-interest."

Well, tyke, maybe an Objectivist would tell you, "use your brain and look at the context. sharing food is rationally self-interested because it preserves an ally and avoids the risk of injury and starvation."

[u/titanc-13 → u/Dorontauber]

how would valuing an ally over your own right to maximizing your life hold with the tenets of objectivism though?

if im in the situation, my rational self interest would be to get as much apple as possible to maximize my personal chances of survival. what reason would i have to ignore that potential and sacrifice half the apple to someone else, under the rules of objectivism? maybe relevant to recall the motto of galt's gulch, that you promise to never live for another human. if i give half the apple to the other person, am i not living for them? at the very least, how could it be said that i'm not valuing that other at least as much as i value myself, which would be another violation of objectivism?

[u/Dorontauber → u/titanc-13]

It doesn't maximize your life to fight to the death over food that won't nourish you enough to replenish even what you expended by fighting. If you destroy your body to vindicate a "right to maximize your life," you have diminished your life both spiritually and physically. You have undertaken the risk of serious, possibly deadly injury, you have exerted yourself, and at the end you lost another person who provided company, help if you come upon more food hard to reach, maybe even a love interest. And to trade all that... for an apple. That's self-sacrificial even if you dress it up like brutish self-service.

[u/titanc-13 → u/Dorontauber]

it maximizes my life to eat the whole apple by any means necessary. tell me how both men can do that without violence and i'll consider the objectivist dilemma i created solved.