Video: State Involvement in Marriage

In Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast, I discussed whether and how the state should be involved in marriage -- a crucial question for the debates about gay marriage. The question was:

Should the state be involved in marriage contracts? Many people say that gay marriage shouldn't be a political issue, because the state shouldn't be involved in defining marriage at all. Is that right? Why or why not?

My view, in brief:

We ought to separate politics and marriage, by treating marriage like any other contract. The state has a limited but crucial role to play in marriage to ensure that marriage contracts are objective, voluntary, and enforced. However, the state should not play social engineer by deciding who can get married or the terms of that marriage.

Here's the video of my answer:

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All my webcast and other videos can be found on my YouTube channel.

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Two Videos on the Ethics and Politics of Nudity

In Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast, I discussed two questions on private and public nudity. Since people's views on this topic are often driven by religion, I thought that I'd post the videos of my answers here.

The first question was:

What's the proper approach to nudity? Should we all be nude all the time? Should nudity be saved for your lover only? Should children see their parents naked? Should we have clothing-optional get-togethers with friends? Basically, what is your view of the proper contexts for nudity?

Here's the video of my answer:

The second question was:

Do restrictions on nudity and sex visible to others violate rights? While having a zestful online debate, someone claimed that Ayn Rand contradicts herself in claiming that public nudity should be censored. (See "Thought Control" in The Ayn Rand Letter.) Since sex is a beautiful act, why should people be protected from it? Could a ban on visible pornography or sex be a slippery slope to other intrusions by government?

Here's the video of my answer:

If you like them, please share them! Also, all my webcast and other videos can be found on my YouTube channel.

My next live Rationally Selfish Webcast -- where I answer questions on practical ethics and living well -- will be on Sunday morning at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET. You can submit and vote on questions, as well as watch the live webcast and join the chat, from www.RationallySelfish.com.

Here are the questions that I'll answer this week:

• Question 1: Fear of Death: Should death be feared? Why or why not? Also, why do most people fear death? How can a person overcome that, if ever?
  
  
• Question 2: Using the Do Not Call Registry: Should the "Do Not Call" Registry exist? The National Do Not Call Registry was established in 2003, and it's run by the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Is this legitimate? Does a person have a right not to be called by solicitors and other unwanted persons? Given that there was no real attempt to come up with a private, market-based solution for the issue of unwanted solicitations, was this a legitimate case of "market failure"? Should advocates of free markets put themselves on the "Do Not Call" list and/or report violators thereof? Why shouldn't a person just hang up?
  
  
• Question 3: Genetic Influences on Thinking: Do our genes affect our reasoning? Evolution makes fruit taste sweet and burning human flesh smell awful. Presumably, evolution can hard wire pleasures and pains because interaction with that thing has caused our ancestors to live longer or die earlier. Wouldn't this same process make certain actions easier or more difficult, such as sacrificing yourself to save your child versus watching your child die? Couldn't evolution affect that decision by making focus more difficult, so that a person is easier impelled by his immediate emotions?
  
  
• Question 4: The Morality of Selling Your Body: Is it moral to sell your body? Selling our bodies or certain parts of them are perfectly acceptable in our society, such as being an egg or sperm donor, being a pregnancy surrogate, or selling hair. But others are condemned, such as prostitution or selling organs. Where should the line be drawn? When is it moral to sell a part of oneself -- and why?

After that, we'll do a round of totally impromptu "Rapid Fire Questions."

If you're unable to attend the live webcast, you can listen to these webcasts later as NoodleCast podcasts by subscribing in iTunes to either the enhanced M4A format or the standard MP3 format.

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Ayn Rand As Atheist: Skepticamp Talk

I delivered a twenty-minute talk August 27 at Skepticamp in Colorado Springs titled, "Ayn Rand As Atheist." I open with the American Values Network attack on Ayn Rand for her atheism, then I describe what her atheism actually entails.



Somebody pointed out that I may not set up an early quote about duty well enough; it comes from Rand's Red Pawn (in Early Ayn Rand) and it comes from a character whose views Rand criticizes as typically Communist.

This post originally was published at Ari Armstrong's web page.

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Video: Fatherhood Should Be Voluntary

In Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast, I answered the following question about the child support obligations of unwilling fathers:

Should a man unwilling to be a father have to pay child support? Suppose that a man and a woman have sex, and the woman becomes pregnant -- even though the couple used contraception based on a shared and expressed desire not to have children. If the woman decides to raise the baby, should she be able to collect child support from the man? What if they'd never discussed the possibility of pregnancy? What if they didn't use any form of birth control?

Here's my answer, now posted to YouTube:



No involuntary servitude! No involuntary parentude!

The policy paper mentioned in the video is The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception by Ari Armstrong and me.

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