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Walter Foddis

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About Walter Foddis

  • Birthday 01/01/1969

Profile Information

  • Location
    Tulsa, OK
  • Gender
    Male

Previous Fields

  • Sexual orientation
    Straight
  • Relationship status
    Married
  • State (US/Canadian)
    Oklahoma
  • Country
    United States
  • Biography/Intro
    Currently, I'm an doctoral student in clinical psychology. I plan to defend my dissertation in February 2013. My area of research is self-esteem in which Branden's theory, which has strong links to Objectivist ethical theory, is one of the underpinning models of my empirical studies.
  • Experience with Objectivism
    I have been an Objectivist/neo-Objectivist for about 18 years. I have read Rand's major non-fiction material, all of Nathaniel Branden's work, as well as the work of various Objectivist scholars like David Kelley, Chris Sciabarra, George H. Smith, and Ron Merrill.

    I see part of my research in self-esteem as putting an empirical face on Branden's self-esteem theory and the Objectivist ethics. I would like to see Objectivist ethical theory grounded within evolutionary psychology; if it all possible.
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  • Real Name
    Walter Foddis
  • School or University
    University of Waterloo
  • Occupation
    Psychologist (under supervision), researcher, & songwriter (currently a hobby with professional aspirations)

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  1. To be clear, I am not talking about lying as a matter habit, or that if you tell white lies, you must not value your integrity. With each example, I gave the context of multiple values and considerations, in addition to honesty. By principled, I mean there is a hierarchy of values. By context, I mean looking at the bigger picture (i.e., the consequences, cost/benefit, etc.). When judging whether to be dishonest in a situation, by thinking in principle and within a larger context, this does not mean you are rejecting honesty in principle, or throwing out your integrity by rationalizing that lying is moral. Here's another personal example. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. My fiancee's aunt died (from cancer) the day after my mother was diagnosed. In the weeks following, when my fiancee called me (we were long distance),she would talk to me about her grief. I saw no value whatever in telling her, during her early grief, that my mother was terminally ill. i did tell my fiancee about a month after mom's diagnosis. She was a upset I didn't tell her earlier, but then I explained that pouring salt into her wounds wasn't helping anyone. And that if she knew sooner, what would that of changed? At the time, I felt that her grief was more important than mine and that I wanted to be an emotional support for her during her most painful time. I knew that in time when mom would die that I would be turning to her for full support. In this example, I was in effect lying to her by withholding this information from her. Was I throwing my integrity out the window? Was I rejecting honesty as a principle? Why or why not? Did I feel guilty for not telling her? To be honest, I felt a little guilt at the time, but I understood why I was delaying telling her. Looking back, I have no moral regret for delaying. Life is complicated. I affirm that honesty is the best way to maintain trust and respect. But my point is that, at times, what to be honest about and when is not so clear cut. Instead of following the rule "be honest,all the time,no matter what," i submit that people consider the larger context and other values involved. In other words, to think of practicing honesty in principle.
  2. Expert Panda wrote: "Walter, thanks so much for sharing and the Nathaniel Branden essay was great." Glad you found it helpful. I think it really puts things into perspective on how moralism can cloud one's critical thinking, including thinking rationally about morality. You asked: "Suppose you're a starving salesman and closing a big deal would be greatly aided by a white lie?" You ask good questions, EP. As your hypothetical situation shows, when it comes to moral dilemmas, there is often a larger context. I am repeating myself, but one cannot think of honesty, or other virtues, as isolated rules that exist in a sacred moral sphere. If you follow the ~rule~ of honesty, meaning "honesty at all costs, no matter what the situation," well then you don't tell the white lie, lose your customer, and lose out on an opportunity to earn money to feed yourself. But if you look at this situation from a larger context, from a ~principled~ way of thinking, you ask yourself, what other values are in play. Your health, for one. The potential harm of the "white lie" to the customer is another. The benefit of the product/service you are selling to the customer is another. So in deciding in whether to lie, a principled approach is to consider all these factors. Which one is most important? Why? What are costs and benefits of lying or being completely honest? In the end, you may come out with an answer that many Objectivists may disagree with, but that doesn't make it "objectively" wrong. In coming to a reasoned decision, you have only yourself to be held accountable, whatever that is. But the point is that you took a rational approach and that's the best you can ask of yourself. This discussion reminds of one of Woody Allen's best movies, Crimes and Misdemeanors. The central premise of the movie is "What if you can get away with a serious moral breach with little to no consequences?" I would highly recommend it. It is sure to get your thinking about the nature of morality, especially at the psychological level.
  3. "Yes, lying is an easy way out of sticky situations. But honesty is the RIGHT way out. And you may have to face uncomfortable results: others may not like you (become displeased, not give up the booty, etc.) for who you are. There's nothing you can do about that, if you wish to maintain your integrity, except explain why your opinions are what they are. They will see the light -- or not. You can't force them to, so deal with reality accordingly and move on." It seems like you are presenting the case that a person needs to be honest 100% all the time, no matter the situation. Do you ever see a situation in which you can lie? I've tried outline the questions involved to put things into context, but I haven't really seen answers to those questions. You kind of tweaked the examples and presented your own solution to the problem in which honesty is the only option. Let me return to the dress example. Essentially, what I hear you saying that it is important to your integrity to give your honest ~opinion~ on the dress, which is not a factual statement of reality, but rather your ~subjective~ belief of what looks good on this woman. Holding true to one's values and expressing them is essential to integrity, but to hold one's subjective opinion on fashion as more important than having a pleasant conversation, that's not what I think of as being honest in principle. Some things I consider to be vitally important to be honest about, but in my book, an opinion on a woman's fashion choices is not one of them. As to the buddy example, the lying in this case is to postpone a conversation because the timing was not right. He asks you, "What do you mean he rubs you the wrong way?" You then explain some of things he says, or how he says them, that bother you. Your buddy then begins to defend his new friend, or tell you are you are taking him too seriously, or criticizing you for not being open-minded in meeting new people. Then you find yourself defending yourself and sensing tension building up, and you get a feeling the shit is going to hit the fan. Finally, your buddy tells you to you're a pretentious snob and hangs up on you. What I am saying is that this shit storm could have been avoided by telling a "white lie" in the moment, which is not to say you intend to keep lying, but to postpone your talk for a more appropriate time in which the conversation can be less hostile. Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse with the above examples. Here is a better one. I believe Nathaniel Branden gave this one, or a variation of it. Imagine that you are on your deathbed with your wife of 30 years sitting with you. You had a romantic affair about 10 years ago, but she never found out about it. At the time of the affair, you and your wife were already going through a turbulent time. Because of this, you sought emotional and sexual refuge in the affair. You had a feeling that your marriage could end. However, you and your wife eventually worked things out. You ended the affair once you and your wife made serious steps to reconcile your differences. Indeed, you felt your relationship with her was stronger because of overcoming these obstacles. But now you are dying. Is this the time to be honest about the affair? Your wife is already in a lot of pain in anticipation of your death, and she will be grieving for a long time after you've gone. Is honesty the best policy, that is, is it essential to your integrity to you drop this bombshell on her? I'd be curious to know whether you believe it is a good idea to be honest in this situation and why.
  4. "appreciate your responses, but to the people that replied, is there no part of objectivism that you agree with but fail to fully apply to your life?" Before responding to your question, and reading Jam Man's responses, I want to mention another perspective. I think it's more important to be a person of moral integrity, independent thought, and rationality than it is to be a "good Objectivist." But you may say, "But those are Objectivist values!" Yes, they are. But sometimes in the pursuit of being a "good Objectivist," this kind of mentality can lead to following rules, scripts, or more simply, "whatever Rand said" in a very rigid, acontextual way.This is where cultishness creeped into the movement those many years ago and can still be seen among the more dogmatic "Objectivists." For instance, telling a "white lie" may or may not be going against Objectivist value of honesty, or necessarily mean you are a hypocrite (as Ram Jam suggests). You need to ask yourself why you are telling the "white lie." What are the gains or losses in telling the white lie? Is there another value you are placing higher than honesty about your opinion about a dress? If you respond to woman who asks, "Do you like my dress?" with "I don't want to get into that right now," she will read between the lines. She'll know that means you don't like it. If you don't believe me, give any woman the hypothetical situation. First, they may say something like, "That's a weird response." And if you follow that up with the question, "Do you think the person likes or doesn't like it?" She will probably say, "The person doesn't like it." If a person likes a dress, they will say it. Rarely do men turn down the invitation to compliment a woman I think what's important is to think about the level of impact (benefit or harm) in being honest or dishonest in any given situation. Let's say you don't like your buddy's new friend and your buddy has invited you out to go a bar drinking with them right now. You could tell your friend that you don't like that guy, but then this raises curiosity, confusion, and possibly doubt in your friend's mind. This "honest" response might not be the best thing to mention in this moment. Here you could tell a "white lie" that you're busy, or you're feeling too tired, so as to avoid what can be an awkward phone call. What harm are you causing in telling this lie? At the moment, there is no harm except your realization that you lied. But then you had some social considerations in mind that prompted you to lie. There may come a point in time when you have this discussion with your friend (e.g., if their friendship has a negative affect on your relationship to your friend) and then you can bring it up in a reasoned way, explaining what you don't like about his friend. But does the "white lie" during the phone mean you betrayed of your value of honesty? That you are now a hypocrite, morally reprehensible, and deserve 10 Objectivist slashes? I would suggest an emphatic, "no" because there is a broader context to the situation beyond being honest. You were not lying to manipulate your friend. Rather, you lied so as to put off an important discussion for a more appropriate time. For what it's worth, I go into all this detail in these examples because, frankly, Objectivism offers little in terms of social skills, or how to apply one's "emotional intelligence." Anyway, to answer your question, if there are Objectivist (or other rational) values that one finds hard to follow consistently, it might not be that the values are "too hard" to follow, but perhaps there is a misunderstanding of how these values are to be applied to a given situation. In the moment, we are prone to our habitual responses. However, if after the fact, we are mindful about your actions, reflect on them when our emotions are not clouding our judgement (although emotions need to be considered as they represent "facts" of our mental states), we can then question whether we were consistent in our values. And if we were not, figure out what was getting in the way of this consistency. Were feelings interfering with thinking clearly, like anxiety, frustration, depression, or anger? Did we act impulsively rather than take a moment to think about the situation a little more? Did we have all the relevant information to make the best decision? Were we trying impress someone (i.e., were you strongly motivated to be liked, which is a natural motive)? And perhaps one of the most important questions: What did we hope to gain in acting this way? This is where self-honesty becomes incredibly important because humans are masterful at rationalizing their behaviour; at explaining it away or justifying it. The self-reflection I suggest is aimed at understanding one's motives, not justifying them. This may be hard to do, especially when we feel we have betrayed a moral value. But this reflection works best when our goal is to understand ourselves and not adopt the mentality of self-condemnation or self-criticism. It is through self-understanding that we identify the obstacles. Then once we have identified these obstacles (i.e., found answers to our questions that sound reasonable to us), we can then recommit ourselves to the value with the knowledge that we now ~know~ what to do next time. Hope you find this useful. For what it's worth, Nathaniel Branden has an essay on some of the pitfalls of "Objectivist" thinking, which I think you might find useful. http://mol.redbarn.o...AndHazards.html
  5. ExpertPanda, I think that what's important in practicing Objectivist morality, and can be missed, is to think about moral values as principles--not rules (e.g., "Always be honest."). By this I mean to view values (i) in their broader context of other values and (ii) in relation to the potential real-world consequences of one's enacting one's values. For instance, what benefit (or value) is there for you and her in telling a woman that you hate her dress? If you tell her you like her dress, but you actually hate it (i.e., a white lie), what's the greatest harm you are committing? This may be obvious, but if your intent is to make the woman feel comfortable in your company, and open the channels of communication, giving your negative opinion of her dress (especially if you don't know each her that well), won't get you very far. The way I see it, the "competing" values in this example involve establishing an amicable interpersonal connection and being honest about one's fashion preferences. Which is more important to you?
  6. Although Branden doesn't go into the specifics in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, when explaining the pillar of self-acceptance, he does discuss the importance of self-compassion toward one's negative self-aspects, which can include actions for which you feel regret. Fortunately, though, there is now a school of thought, which is grounded in research and solid theory, which focuses on self-compassion (e.g., Paul Gilbert's Compassion-Focused Therapy, Kristin Neff's self-compassion research). Strong negative self-evaluative feelings, like shame, regret, inadequacy, and worthlessness, are difficult to accept because they are so painful. However, in learning to approach these feelings and associated thoughts with compassion, one adopts a non-judgmental attitude. That is, one uses understanding, kind, support, and empathy toward one's self. In order to do this, you need to separate within yourself an observer-self and a self-as-object. This separation of self-as-observer and self-as-object can be challenging, and may take some practice, but it is essential to this process. This separation is easier (i.e., less emotionally daunting) when the mental content is simply intellectual (e.g., following a train of thought; introspection), which you can use as a starting point to understand this separation at the experiential level. Branden's sentence completion can be useful to gain intellectual self-awareness of how self-compassion can be helpful. For instance, you could write 6-8 endings for each of the following incomplete sentences. As Branden recommends, sentence completion is best done spontaneously without rehearsal or "thinking." Just go with the flow and after you've finished all your endings, then you can go back and see which endings really resonate for you. If I were more understanding and supportive toward myself for actions I feel regret, I.... 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. If I were kinder toward myself for actions I feel regret, I... 1. 2. 3... If anyone is interested in learning more about self-compassion, both theoretically and its application, Paul Gilbert's tome, The Compassionate Mind, is a good one. He makes his theory, which is very sophisticated, understandable to the layperson. He grounds his work in evolutionary psychology. One caution though: Gilbert is a fan of Karl Marx and you'll see some anti-capitalist sentiment here and there. I think these sentiments are a distraction from his work on self-compassion (although he attempts to his tie political beliefs to self-compassion), but after my irritation settled down, I ignored those parts. They are not essential to his psychological theory. Namely, I view his political opinion as as a superimposition over his psychological framework and not a logical consequence of it. Hope you find this helpful. Walter
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