Children’s Rights (Show 057)

Spinning off from a comment about “the common good,” Mosley discusses children’s rights and to what extent they have them. He walks through various questions about the topic such as:

• What does a parent owe his or her child?
• Does a child have the right run his or her own life contrary to parents’ wishes?
• At what point does a child become an adult?
• Does a child have the right to an education?
• What constitutes neglect (by a parent)?

Check out the show for Mosley’s views and feel free to leave a comment or join the next show if you have some views that you’d like to share!

Drugs, Alcohol & Addiction (Show 056)

Because today is 4/20, commonly known as “Weed Day” (among other things), this show was about drugs, alcohol & addiction. It began as Arthur read a quote from Dr. Peikoff’s Q & A about the issue of smoking and drinking explaining how the morality of its use is dependent on the context (see the Q & A/show for details). After discussing that, Mosley and Arthur proceeded to discuss a topic not directly mentioned in Peikoff’s Q & A, illegal drugs.

Then, for a good portion of the show, there was a discussion about drug addiction and its relation to free will. It was concluded that although one may experience compulsions, withdrawal symptoms, etc., anything that requires the use of concepts is necessarily volitional. For example, a drug addict may become biologically dependent on a drug, but he could willfully ignore this necessity, should he choose to.

And since 4/22 is near, a day conventionally known as Earth Day, Mosley decided to end the show with a mention of a new holiday invented to contrast with the environmentalists’ celebration: Exploit the Earth Day. The premise behind it? “Exploit the Earth or Die™. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies.”

The Common Good & Mixed Economies (Show 055)

On this show Mosley discusses three interrelated topics: the common good/public interest and mixed economies. To set the context for the discussion, he reads some relevant quotes from the Ayn Rand Lexicon.

The Common Good & The Public Interest:

“The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; “good” and “value” pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships.

Mixed Economy

We are not a capitalist system any longer: we are a mixed economy, i.e., a mixture of capitalism and statism, of freedom and controls. A mixed economy is a country in the process of disintegration, a civil war of pressure-groups looting and devouring one another.

Mosley then proceeds to the discussion the manifestations of these issues in the world today. Check it out!

Shows 053 & 054

Hello all, sorry for the delay in show notes. I was away for Spring Break this past week, but I’m back and so are the notes.

The Open Mind vs. The Active Mind (Show 053)
Mosley and Arthur discuss the term the expression “having an open mind” and what it actually means. They argue that having an “open mind” is not being open to reason, but disregarding it. It consists of granting equal plausibility to any claim, regardless of any knowledge that one may have that contradicts it. And so, they conclude, one should not have an “open mind” but rather an active mind. Their view corresponds with Ayn Rand’s position.

Corporate Responsibility/States’ Rights (Show 054)
Show 054 consisted of an excellent discussion of two topics suggested by a listener. The first topic dealt with how responsibility should fall on, and how justice should be served amongst, a corporation. The second topic dealt with states’ rights. I won’t try to rehash the arguments here. It was a great show and I highly recommend it.