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  1. I can't quite agree that her starting point is question begging. It would seem to me that there is a set of principle data that the philosopher starts off with in every branch. A sort of foundation that any philosopher as such starts out with. The metaphysician starts by outward look at things and noticing that there is something rather than nothing, that he is a something, that he has questions. The epistemologist starts off with noticing that he has been correct sometimes, and incorrect other times, that he has selective awareness, that being wrong has consequences for him, and that he doesn't not automatically know which things are correct and incorrect. Unless he had noticed that he has fallen into error, he would not have reason to examine the processes that led him there. If we had a mode of operation that provided us with automatic knowledge, then we wouldn't need to distinguish between certitude and error, and thus wouldn't need epistemology. The ethicist proceeds in a similar manner. The ethicist must start from the fact of human action, that we deliberate between alternatives, say A or B, that we can't not act as long as we are alive and awake, and that our actions have consequences for us. Asking "why do we need ethics at all" is, in my view the exact right question. After all, maybe we don't need ethics, if we were provided with automatic action we wouldn't need to deliberate between alternatives. Or maybe our action automatically is aimed at life-sustainment or some other end. Rand follows Aristotle in starting with examining the concept of action, and differentiating between vegetative action, sensitive action (animals), and deliberative action. She does differentiate between types of action, volitional and non. Analyzing human action is just about the most non question begging way to start off ethics. In that she defines it as code of values, she doesn't mean values in a normative sense. As Smith points out, sometimes she uses "value" as "that which one ought to act for" and value as "that which one acts to gain/keep." But regardless, when she defines ethics as a code of values, value just definitionally refering to the object of action. "Values," descriptively, are interchangeable with "ends." Thus, saying it's a code of values is simply recognizing that man acts to attain ends, and deliberates about them. True there is deontology, divine command, consequentialism, emotivism, nihilism, Stoicism, all sorts of different codes, and that code man needs could be any of these things. But all of these things has to start out with the principle data, that the philosopher notices that man acts to attain ends (values), and has no automatic guide to them. This, I see as Rand's reformulating the first line of the Nicomachean Ethics, that every inquiry and activity aims at some good, into more modern language.
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  2. Ayn Rand said that the purpose of morality is to teach us, 'not to suffer and die, but to enjoy ourselves and live.' Well, let's ask whether the purpose of morality is primarily for survival or flourishing. Which is the end and which is the means? If it's flourishing then our moral code is fully applicable to any action of every single individual*, since there isn't a single choice that doesn't bear some consequence for our psychological equilibrium (indeed, most have a myriad of subtle and intricately multifaceted consequences) - especially those which impact our actual survival! It applies to serial killers regardless of whether or not they're ever caught (for reasons I just sketched, albeit not-too-neatly), to serial killers of the soul (like Kant or Toohey), to giants like Roark and to suicide bombers - equally. If survival then it doesn't apply to serial killers who don't risk their own capture (or even those who do risk it in a state without the death penalty); you can try to discourage them on the basis of "the survival proper to man" but if anyone presses you on why he has to live as a proper man - good luck. It doesn't apply to Roark's non-survival-related choices and so has nothing to say about him beyond "yeah, that's a good way to do architecture" (and even then there are scenes like his refusal to alter his design for the bank which, like Galt's promise of suicide in the event of Dagny's torture, we'd be hard pressed to even justify). Furthermore, if a suicide bomber doesn't want to live then it doesn't apply to him, either; we can call his actions "unfortunate" or "tragic" but we simply could not call him a bad guy** (a stance which, in terms of moral advancement, would leave us somewhere behind the fundamentalist Christians). But this is what I find truly essential. When I think of Egoism I think of Howard Roark (specifically Gary Cooper's rendition), the perfect and archetypical Egoist. He doesn't ask what he ought to want because he already knows (not which TV shows he wants to watch or what he wants for dinner but what he wants out of his entire life). He doesn't ask what he should do because he figured that out, too, decades in advance. In fact, he doesn't usually say anything; he mostly just does things (and he does them flawlessly, on the first try, every time). As slippery as the concept of "flourishing" is, what I mean by that is what Roark does, all day, every day, regretting nothing and making it all look easy. Howard Roark could make Chuck Norris his bitch if he ever stopped to notice his existence. And not a single one of the qualities which make him worth aspiring to have anything to do with his survival! You could easily survive just fine like a Keating or a Toohey (the literal living proof of that is all around us - literally)! It wouldn't be fun or a pretty thing to look at, but it'd be a life. James Holmes, who took a machine gun to a movie theatre full of strangers, survives in Colorado to this very day! Even Immanuel Kant, the diabolical one himself, could tell you how to survive as long as you truly wished not to! When we say that morality doesn't apply to non-survival-related issues (or imply it in various ways) we're amputating all of the best parts of Egoism; the very things that make it all worthwhile, worth arguing about and worth fighting for, if necessary. We know that it does matter whether you spend your time sitting around, killing time, or working to better yourself; that it's important because the way you choose to spend your life is important - and that that's important because your own happiness is important! We have the blueprints for how to "flourish" like Roark and we're sitting here asking each other whether the upper half of its skyscraper is really necessary! Given the existential threat that actual suicide bombers could potentially pose to us at some point down the road, it's not necessarily hyperbolic to call our ability to condemn them a matter of life and death (maybe a little bit over the top but not out of the question). To put it perfectly bluntly, though, if we're pulling out the supports which make man-worship conceivable then I really don't give a damn about the Jihadis. And brother, if we're saying that Egoism has no direct (non-instrumental) role in human happiness then we are either messing around with exactly that or else playing some kind of conceptual game which I am not familiar with. --- I'm sorry for the length and general tone of that; chopping my thoughts into acceptable-sized chunks was getting to be exhausting. But I'm done now! --- *This doesn't mean that allegedly-amoral choices, such as which flavor of ice cream to eat, must be carefully pondered for days on end. Rather, it means that there is only one correct answer for you (and for your mood and tastes right now) which you probably already know. If you'd most prefer chocolate today then that's the moral thing for you to get, and any other option would be a sacrifice (and immoral) and don't do that to yourself. Your emotions are not tools of cognition but they are facts (just like gravitation) which you must take into your consideration of any relevant choice. They would not be "whatever you felt like" if you lied to yourself about them (which regular people do actually attempt alarmingly often) nor will knowledge of them automatically enter your skull if you fail to look inward in the first place; your emotions are specific mental things, with specific identities, as perceived by your (introspective) consciousness. The nature of some emotional responses is immediately self-evident after paying a fraction of a second of attention to them, which is precisely why your preferred flavors of food make such great toy-examples. Knowing the nature of other emotions (romance comes to mind again) will actually demand some careful studying. If you act consequentially (say eating cyanide instead of chocolate ice cream) on some emotion, without understanding what it is or where it comes from, that's whim-worship. So much for that. **Have I mentioned that I am not advocating ethical subjectivism?
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  3. Dear Miss Wodlinger: ... A book cannot be "ruined" through a film or "through the interpretations of some of its readers," as you say. Nothing can ruin a book. It is a completed entity. Misinterpretations are merely the misfortune of those who make them. —The Letters of Ayn Rand
    1 point
  4. If you put it that way, I would have to agree. But that assumes that the pleasure derived is not malleable. The pain and pleasure in this context are going to be emotional pain or pleasure. That is based on your thoughts. If your thoughts change, your whole view of life can change and your emotions toward your goals can change too. Suddenly, your walking on ice when it was solid a moment ago. With an objective standard to compare to, you don't have that problem. An objective concept can be counted on. I assume the new thread is trying to answer that question.
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  5. It's fairly easy to frame the hypothetical in this case. Our Hero has been given the opportunity to pursue his life-long dream, which he expects to bring immense happiness. The gotcha is that the experts tell him it'll likely cut five years off his life. Other experts tell him that he'll likely suffer from severe depression if he doesn't go, and this will likely knock off a year or so from his life. As you say, the survivalist, going with the best knowledge available, will stay home. The proper analysis is different, though, and leads to a different conclusion. Before that analysis can be undertaken, your hypothetical needs an additional assumption. This assumption is that of emotional health. There's no need to get into the details of what constitutes emotional health. Rather, a definition suffices: Emotional health is that state where one's emotions are generally a reliable indicator of ethical action. That is, as a rule, one gets positive emotions from acting ethically and one's positive emotions motivate actions that are ethical. (And conversely with negative emotions.) On this assumption, Our Hero goes through his life seeking happiness, only occasionally checking to see that doing so is really the right thing. In this hypothetical, Our Hero could actually just follow his emotions and end up doing the right thing. But he would be acting unethically were he to do so; when the possible consequences are so serious, he needs to reason things through. The reasoning is fairly simple, though. His goal is not simple survival, but continuing to live. He does not ask what will keep him alive longest, because he does not live an abstract "life" where the only factor of significance is whether he continues to carry out the process of life. The question he asks is, instead, what constitutes "continuing to live" for the particular life that is his. In essence, what he seeks is not longevity but health, in the broadest sense. Health, basically, is the state where each part of an organism carries out its function of contributing to the organism's life. (It's a little more complicated than that, but the difference doesn't matter here.) Our Hero's choice, from this perspective is to go, satisfying his emotions, or to stay, setting them against himself. In either case, he will still be able to effectively carry out the other processes of life, so that isn't a factor. But there are situations where following one's emotions would not be right. I implied one earlier, where one's emotions are not healthy. An example of another such situation would be one where the trip was expected to be one that would damage his ability to pursue his dream. In that case, his immediate sense that taking the trip would bring happiness would have to give way to the rational conclusion that it would not.
    1 point
  6. The problem is not yours, but that reader's. I had no trouble at all understanding your position or that you were agreeing with me. No other interpretation was possible. At some point, one must conclude that a particular reader is either too sloppy or too hostile to understand what one is saying. At that point, further attempts at persuasion are irrational.
    1 point
  7. . William, I’m not sure Audi sticks to that list of conditions in all his works, and anyway, the list circumscribes a more narrow concept than the usual. In his The Architecture of Reason, he allows that certain moral principles could be self-evident or at least, more weakly, a priori. Right principles present to us in this way would seem to be at least about the perceptual level and, frankly, in the thick of it. That goes as counter only to his item 2 on the list. The usual definition of the self-evident is the manifestly true requiring no proof. This is still a good place for philosophers to start and not forget. I doubt one would be laughed out of the academy if one did not confine one’s philosophic uses of the term to the constraints Audi was formulating for it. “Percepts, not sensations, are the given, the self-evident” (ITOE 5; similarly, early Heidegger). A paragraph from my book in progress: Sextus, Peirce, and Moritz Schlick argued against self-evidence of our cognitive bases.* They erred in supposing self-evidence in cognition is spoiled by any obscure or fallible aspect and by connection of any purported self-evident cognition to other cognition. To the contrary: In one’s present perception is this text. That one perceives those marks in this read, perceptually knowing their existence and character, is self-evident. They are not only perceived as present, but as having the particular character they have. Additionally, they are not only perceived as present, but can then be reflected as self-evident. Their status as self-evident does not require they have no obscure or fallible aspect and have no connections with other cognitions, preceding, overlapping, or subsequent. *Sextus c.200b, I, 151; Peirce 1868b, 19; Schlick 1925, §19; see also Maddy 2011, 118–37; cf. Binswanger 2014, 382. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PS Rand rightly held that it is incorrect to try to prove the existence of the external, perceived world.* The world’s existence is self-evident in perception. The existence of character and spatiality and action is self-evident in perception. *Rand 1961b, 28; cf. Gilson 1937, 146–47, 152–55; Heidegger 1953, 202–7/194–200. (1961b is For the New Intellectual, paperback.)
    1 point
  8. " Well, since "utility" means usefulness, I think that Objectivism actually represents the only "Utilitarian philosophy". "Utility" assumes some purpose to someone (just like "value"). The purpose of an irrational philosophy is analogous to that of an anesthetic; for its adherents it serves to distort their thoughts, numb their emotions and deaden their awareness of reality. However, if one evaluates such philosophies even by that standard (their capacity to negate suffering, like an anesthetic), none of the dominant philosophies that have ever existed before have actually come close to achieving that goal because the only way to rid oneself of any knowledge of reality is to depart from it altogether. If the 'goal' is an escape from pain then the only way to truly reach it is to die. Since philosophies exist only in the minds of living people, who live in reality, a philosophy which affirms that- a philosophy for setting crooked thoughts straight, sharpening awareness and bringing reality into clear focus- is vastly more helpful for any of them, in any endeavor except suicide. So I think Objectivism is the only real form of Utilitarianism. You are, of course, correct; what most people refer to by that is fundamentally antithetical to O'ism. I just think it's a worthwhile thing to point out.
    1 point
  9. In addition to what SN mentioned, that would also mean that there can't really be any moral "good"; just varying degrees of evil and various degrees of pain. I prefer to think of ethics as a way to weigh and judge our desires, themselves; to see what's worth spending our finite lifespans in the pursuit of. As for "qua man", man is a 'rational animal' because his primary means of survival is his mind. If you stop thinking then you will die. A man who doesn't live as "man qua man" is one who doesn't really want to be what he is; like a bird that wants to break its own wings. He lives according to other peoples' decisions and thinks whatever other people think, because- while even that requires some amount of thought (if only to know what others think)- it allows him to survive on the least possible amount of it. So living as "man qua man" means living as consciously as possible; looking with your own eyes and thinking with your own brain, making all of your own decisions for the purpose of optimizing your own longevity and prosperity. It means to understand and embrace your own nature. It's your 'proper estate'.
    1 point
  10. No. That's the very opposite of both what I had intended in your quote of me, and my entire meaning in this, and every other thread in which I've commented upon this subject. Invictus said, "both quantity and quality of life are ethically relevant," and when I responded, "precisely my point," it meant -- as I thought clear -- that I agreed with his statement. But obviously I have done a poor job of explaining my position, despite all of the pains I have taken. I shall have to reflect upon how I can communicate myself more clearly in the future.
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