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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/13/11 in all areas

  1. If I understand the alleged analytic/synthetic distinction correctly, the truth value of an "analytic" proposition depends only on the "meaning" of the concepts, i.e., "[the] predicate concept is contained in its subject concept". So, for example, the proposition "All bachelors are unmarried" is a so-called analytic proposition since "bachelor" is defined as an unmarried male. It is said that the negation of a true analytic proposition results in a contradiction, i.e., "all unmarried males are married" and so, true analytic propositions are necessarily true. On the other hand, the truth value of the alleged "synthetic" proposition "All bachelors are less than 8 feet tall" does not depend on the "meaning" of the concepts, i.e., the definition of the concept "bachelor" does not involve height. Thus, it is said that a synthetic proposition, if true, is not necessarily true, i.e., the negation of a true synthetic proposition is not a contradiction. According to those that accept the analytic/synthetic distinction, the "meaning" of a concept is the concept's definition. However, according to Objectivism, "The meaning of a concept consists of the units—the existents—which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units" and so the height of unmarried males is contained in the meaning of the concept "bachelor". The definition of a concept may change - it may become more refined - as new discoveries occur but the meaning of a concept doesn't change, the same units are referred to. Now, consider the case that there is (or was or will be) a bachelor that is greater than 8 feet tall. According to Objectivism, the alleged synthetic proposition "All bachelors are less than 8 feet tall" becomes "All unmarried males including that one there that is greater than 8 feet tall are less than 8 feet tall" which is indeed a contradiction, i.e., it is a necessarily false proposition. I'd like to write more but I'm pressed for time so this will have to do for now.
    1 point
  2. Writing for The Harvard Crimson, Ms. Sandra Korn points to an interesting phenomenon. A large proportion of Harvard’s recent graduates have chosen to pursue careers in finance such as investment banking. This is no doubt due partly to the impressive salaries that such careers often provide. The author proceeds to scold these graduates for disregarding Harvard’s imperative to “depart to serve better thy country and thy kind.” Financial careers, she says, are largely “socially useless” and even “socially destructive.” She concludes: It is vital that students question the ubiquitous pre-finance culture that pervades Harvard and dedicate themselves to truly serving their fellow human beings—not creating more wrongs. Still reeling from the economic crisis, many likely sympathize with the idea that financiers are socially useless. But are they? Even the author concedes that the financial industry provides companies with capital to enable hiring, expansion and innovation. In “The Morality of Moneylending,” Dr. Yaron Brook writes: ...[L]ent money is not “barren”; it is fruitful: It enables borrowers to improve their lives or produce new goods or services. Nor is moneylending a zero-sum game: Both the borrower and the lender benefit from the exchange (as ultimately does everyone involved in the economy). The lender makes a profit, and the borrower gets to use capital—whether for consumption or investment purposes—that he otherwise would not be able to use. Although Dr. Brook refers specifically to the practice of moneylending, the principle applies to all financial practices. Finance is characterized by trade, which allows each party to exchange his time, money, or expertise for something of greater value to him. Financiers make a living by providing others with the means to achieve retirement, home ownership, a more comfortable lifestyle, and an education for their children, just to name a few. Are we to believe that a specialized service which enables people to improve their lives is socially useless? And yet, there is a question much deeper than the benefits of the finance industry at stake here, a question of moral value. Is it true that Harvard graduates looking to turn their hard work into dollars are wrong to do so? Should one’s moral purpose be to dedicate oneself to serving one’s fellow human beings? Are we our brother’s keepers? In the hero’s speech in Atlas ShruggedAyn Rand writes: Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but immoral when experienced by you? If the sensation of eating a cake is a value, why is it an immoral indulgence in your stomach, but a moral goal for you to achieve in the stomach of others? Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? Every value, from a slice of cake to a Wall-Street sized salary, requires an act of creation. Each individual must earn values through his own thought and action. For this reason, each needs a moral compass that acknowledges his need to benefit from the values he creates; a code that recognizes his life as the standard of moral value. From this perspective, a financier who produces abundant wealth for himself is pursuing his happiness. He is as moral in pursuing his happiness by creating wealth as he would be in teaching an elementary school or putting out fires. When it comes to a moral evaluation of careers, we should not apologize for creating and enjoying values but assert the pursuit of our own happiness as right. Cross-posted from the multi-author UnderCurrent feed
    1 point
  3. Eiuol

    Sustainable development

    Yes, it should have nothing to do with politics. By saying it should not have anything to do with politics is a political statement, though. So I'm unsure what problem you have with anything I said. Sustainability is a consideration to make, it is not to be automatically demonized. It's not the sustainability that's the issue, it's how the ecofreaks want to achieve it and their basis for their beliefs. Putting the Earth first, man second. The purpose of my posts is to say how a negative knee-jerk reaction to the word sustainable (a word environmentalists have destroyed and obliterated for political purposes) is silly/incorrect. I have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the word altruism, but it is a rational and correct reaction.
    1 point
  4. claire

    Having a tough time

    You mistreated her. She left you for another man. Now you resent that there was another man in her life. Sorry, no sympathy here. Grow up, man up and start treating women better in the future.
    0 points
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