Eiuol

Basically, indefinitely into the future and in this case the span of your lifetime with everything that extends it, while short-term is a delimited range of time, like one month for example.

I meant to clarify, that link I gave earlier explains many existing views about what happiness is. Happiness is not at all merely self-evident, and happiness is sometimes not even described as an emotion, or happiness might be described in only emotional terms.

An malnourished person is alive, and so is a well-nourished person. But the former is clearly something along the lines of "going downhill" in the long term. Do you see the difference there, and how one is better in terms of the ability to carry on the actions needed to live? I don't mean furthers life as "the kind of actions that are in accord with the type of life I like", or "being fulfilled", or "being happy". I mean furthers your ability to live at all which isn't measured only in terms of being alive or not at this moment. I'm talking about being able to continue living long-term. You could say "that which causes happiness is life-furthering", but that's because, as Rand would probably argue, anything that is life furthering will create happiness eventually. More or less, it comes out of the idea that man has a nature as a rational animal, and what is in accordance with that nature is moral and will then necessarily lead to (long-term) happiness. That's in contrast to say, the Stoics, who thought that being moral doesn't necessarily imply feeling happy eventually, all that matters is if you do the moral thing. I didn't answer all your questions, but I think this is good for now.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/

"I understand what you wrote. Can you explain how or why a code of action needed to further one’s life translates into morality or ethical behavior? For example, if I choose to live, I ought to breathe. Does this make breathing a moral or ethical action? If so, how?" Yes, but that's trivial, especially since breathing is automatic. I don't quite understand your question though. All I'm really saying is that a code of what one "ought" to do is morality, and that the only way to get to an ought is in reference to a goal. Are you asking why life is the goal, or are you asking why a code of action that furthers life should be morality? "It sounds like you are saying that it would be wrong to kill the man who washed up on the beach because it may be “an irreparable loss”. If we assume that you are correct and it is a fact that the killing of the man is an irreparable loss, how does this translate into a wrong ethical action?" Yeah, but to clarify, what I mean is that to kill a person would make it so they can't be a value or a disvalue, and you can't fix it if you make a mistake. It translates into an unethical action because it just adds on to reasons not to murder. 1) you'd be taking an action without gathering any information at all, and 2) you'd be making an assumption that the stranger is a disvalue of some kind before you have a reason to make that judgment. It's just icing on the cake to say that if you do make a mistake, there is no fixing it. Focus on 1 and 2: the immorality is irrationality since rational action is the only way to get at what is good for your life.

err, all I can say is I second the recommendation of Shannon's paper. There's information in everything, but I think Grames elaborated very well already. Basically, knowledge is information actively and cognitively integrated; information is a set of data that is useful for some task whether it be your eyes leading to vision or digital signals converted to analog signals. Data is a "raw" fact like "it rained 10 centimeters last night". Information and data can be blurry, but the distinction that's important is that knowledge needs a knower or a mind, but informaton exists without any knower or mind.

The questions you are being asked don't sound at all like a refusal to think. I don't know where you're getting the idea from even, as a lot that's being said is that your answers are fuzzy and not all that clear. You basically said "if you understand Rand's words, only then will you know what is truly moral!" Sounds like someone saying "if you understand the meaning of Jesus' words, only then will you know the Truth!" The point it sounds like you want to make is that one's thoughts eventually leads to habits and emotions, in a very Aristotelian way, and that's where a feeling of murder being wrong comes from. That's too far ahead though, since what's needed is an explanation of what's wrong in the first place. Murder is wrong because it is psychologically harmful is a reason based upon moral intuition, as in all people innately know it's wrong to murder. Psychological harm makes sense in terms of self-esteem or one's relationship to others, but as far as I saw, what matters to your position is that murder violates some inherent principle built into you, therefore any violation will harm you. Basically, this is backwards. establishing principles is first, followed by integration, making principles into habits, which after enough time, will become ingrained enough that only then will your psychological well-being and moral behavior be intertwined. By the way, that intertwining part, that's essential to teleology. For both consequentialism and deontology, your moral principles are all that matter - if morality makes you feel bad, well, too bad, deal with it. For Objectivism, if morality makes you feel bad, then something is wrong - something is negative to your life. Keep in mind though that feelings won't alone say something really is going wrong, but it sure is important to take seriously. Do you mean Hume's is-ought problem? If so, his problem is literally unsolvable, there really is no solution. What Rand does is not using an "is" to define an "ought", what she does is explain a goal of life is to live based on the fundamental choice between your existence or nonexistence. Death needs no action, so morality for that just... makes no sense, it takes no planning, nothing is even required as a code of action. Life needs action, so a code of action is required there. Some may say that there could be third options even, but without getting into a lot of detail, there is no middle for "life" and "not life". With a goal of life requiring action, one would need to take actions that will further one's life. In reality, only certain actions will further life, so that's where you can get a non-subjective answer to what one ought to do. In other words, it's deriving an ought from a goal of life, not simply a descriptive fact/statement. I said that you would not know at all if the stranger will be a value or not, but you'd never find out either way if you just go off and kill them just because you slept on a rock the night before. Like anything in life, usually acting on an impulse without any thought is just plain irrational. It's a good, positive thing to find out because at best, other people may be a great value to you, and destroying them accomplishes absolutely nothing except an irreparable loss. You are almost right about what I said, I'd just clarify that it's short-sighted to make *any* assumption of the value others is or might be before gathering any information. As you said in the scenario, nothing at all is known, so it would be foolish to kill them - other people existing is not a threat to you. I hope you can see how you might reason from here to think about rights in a much larger social context. Notice I'm not saying anything like "they'd be grateful, so that's why I'll let them live" or mutual backscratching, I'm saying it's good for you specifically, what the other person thinks is not my concern. Incidentally, this is good for both of you, it is mutually beneficial, but it's not at all the primary reason. What counts is that you get a benefit. Think of the difference like this. Some may say capitalism is good because it helps mankind, which assumes that only mutual benefit is moral, so if another person doesn't benefit, it's not moral. It may in fact be true that capitalism benefits mankind, but for egoism, that's not essential to the question *why* capitalism is good. Replace "capitalism" with "an action", and my meaning still remains.

DA, I wasn't planning to get into a discussion about how what you're talking about is deontological. The quote you stand by is fine, but it's easy to misconstrue or misinterpret to take as stating a principle of reciprocity, which is by nature a deontological principle if taken to be an essential of moral action. Sure, some degree of reciprocity is expected when trying to trade with others in terms of trust, but the difference with Rand is that reciprocity is besides the point. You're missing the egoistic part, where you should get value from others, or perhaps even "use" people to your own ends, i.e. *your values*. I think what Rand's quote is getting at is that for rights to function as intended, it must apply to everyone. That then implies a moral obligation that everyone includes you. So, if you want a state of society that is most beneficial, you must assure that all rights are respected. That's the consistency demanded. Yup, perhaps some elements of recirocity, but it's not there if you focus on the egoistic context. Being honest because you want to be treated honestly isn't a good argument, at least not on egoistic grounds, because that implies two general possibilities for accepting it as a good argument. One is that morality rests upon what sort of actions help you get by without others hurting you in the process. That's a consequentialist reasoning, so I don't think this is your position. Another way to go at a deontological angle, which Kant did. Your principles would be arrived at by use of reason and internal consistency - the consequences don't matter, what matters is that my system of morality developed by reason is internally consistent and remains true universally. The issue for egoistic (Objectivist) ethics is that we also need references to what happens, not just our moral strength to follow a code (which would be Kantian notions of duty). I know you asked DA, but I would say the difference is that the former is a deontological standard. Somewhat Aristotelian in this case yet still elevates morality to a level beyond or beside oneself. I wouldn't say a person can be "no" value whatsoever, so let's leave the question at people of actively negative value to you. An easy case is someone trying to kill you, just kill them first. But then there are cases of people being verbally cruel people or people who lie to you. Those people are disvalues, it wouldn't justify murder though. My thinking is that unless someone is going as far as to use force, you are always able to ignore another person, yet still extract some value from because all of their sustaining efforts for their own life. This is premised on the idea that the only way to be outright denied values is by force (and/or fraud, just in case you didn't consider fraud to be force really). Keep in mind that we can abstract here to start considering what rights are, but since the topic is about only two people, we don't need to go down that road. If you do though, I've got book recommendations. *Because* you don't know anything about this stranger, you don't know if the person would be a value or even a disvalue. The rational and therefore moral thing to do would be to learn more about them. This isn't a battlefield where you have only seconds to make a decision - the stranger is unconscious.

Rand didn't believe that ethical reciprocity was a moral principle to follow. Any amount of reciprocity is the value you get from another. Kant is an arch-example of a deontologist, and all of his ethical principles are deontological. Acting how you would want to be treated is deontological because there is no reference to either consequences or the actor, the only reference is to presumably that no one should be used for one's own ends. There is simply nothing in Rand's writing that speaks of reciprocity. The "if you want your rights respected..." line is not reciprocity, it's that rights can only function as they should if I support the rights of others. Rights make a society better for yourself. Other than that, i know of nothing else that be construed as a principle of reciprocity.

Plasmatic, this is the closest thing you said to that: "The Island dweller can not escape the requirements of his own existence. He must discover the values required to live as man. His values must be in accordance with the full context of his life. This extends beyond mere metabolic requirements, man is an integration of mind and body." So, let's discover why other people are important values. Your points didn't connect "I need to figure out that there are a whole variety of reasons to value the life of another in terms of my own life" with "violating rights would also be self-denial of my conscience". So, that connection what I was trying to explain earlier.

Hidden premise: all people know that murder is wrong, so it would weigh on their conscience.

Then the important difference is not whether the other person cares. I'm saying that without reference to how your values are affected, it's just deontological justification. You pretty much paraphrased Kant, a deontologist: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.".

A dead person doesn't care either. So if you kill him before he wakes up, you're all set. I'll put it this way: to say you shouldn't kill (/steal/lie/etc) because someone wouldn't like it is to make a decision based on the feelings and beliefs of others (or it might be based on no beneficiary whatsoever). That's not egoistic at all. TJ: Yeah, it would be immoral to toss away a hammer without any evaluation of what it may be able to do. The only difference from a human, albeit a huge one at that, is the range of ways people can act to provide value is greater than that of a hammer. You do sum up my position accurately. If you also had some reason to expect he'd kill you, for instance you thought he was a Somali pirate, then it'd probably be wiser to tie him up and take his weapons before he wakes up.

Yes, the answer will make a difference, as it would determine whether it's any kind of rational decision. By rational, I mean an evaluated choice to achieve the most for your self-interest. Now, if this stranger were a friend, it's rather easy to see how killing a friend is harmful to yourself, so I wouldn't need to go into it really. Friends provide value to you as an individual, in whatever manner their life is important to you. But extend that choice to kill a little: consider a friend saying, while chopping onions, "I'm going to kill you" as a joke because you did something silly. If you were grumpy that day because you slept funny, perhaps you'll just say "eh, I don't like him today, so I'll kill him". Destroying your value because of motivations like that is largely immoral because you're destroying the sort of interactions that help you attain further values. You'd basically be taking an action that harms your ability to attain values you want. Suppose the same event happens. "I'm going to kill you" when they have a knife pointed at you and genuinely angry. That's the only difference. In this case, if you killed your friend to protect your life, that is actually protection of yourself. But if your reason was still "I don't like him today", then your action would be immoral to the degree you're killing for no particular reason at all - if you kill on whim, there is no basis to say what possibly improves or worsens in life. Your motivations matter, because it reflects how you make decisions, and by what standard, if any. Motivations are a way to identify what you gain. If there is a loss, then that's immoral, and if you base a decision on some momentary feeling, then you're not even trying to note values. Objectivism isn't consequentialism. Consequentialism doesn't care about motivations if the results are the same, all that matters is what happens. Objectivism isn't deontology either. Deontology doesn't care about results, as long as your actions are within ethical boundaries - nor does deontology care about what happens to you in particular. Objectivism has more teleological ethics to anything. Right or wrong is determined by what an entity is (not that all teleology is sensible, it depends on how you evaluate the entity). That is, actions are tightly linked to who you are, as opposed to the other two I mentioned that are mostly concerned about actions as such. Consequences matter to teleology, but the concern is consequences to you, not just a consequential event (i.e. the consequence of a person being dead has to be related to what happens to your value. So, when you ask "is murdering this stranger wrong", motivations help to answer what happens to you. As much as you want to say everything continues on as if nothing happened, that's impossible, as very literally, you are being impacted indirectly by all actions you take. Suppose you killed the stranger on the beach because the sun was in your eyes, like The Stranger. You don't know anything about him, so he's not a friend at all. So you kill him to preserve the food you have on the island. But you have to ask: what do you get out of killing him? If you just say "I just felt like it", then you're admitting you have no idea of what you gained or lost. Whether your action had a positive or even neutral effect on you would be impossible to know, so you couldn't evaluate whether it was good or bad. Objectivist ethics presumes that ethical actions help or improve your life and that you can make such decisions objectively. Skipping any thought is irrational and immoral because what you do might have a profound negative impact on your life. One reply might be "if I kill him the island won't change, and since he's unconscious, I won't know what I'm losing out on". Pretty standard idea that your ignorance of additional information can't ever hurt you. But that's wrong. What you don't know will hurt you. Not attempting to make any evaluation is equivalent to willful ignorance and evasion. You look at coconuts and figure out how to drink from one. You learn which fish are easiest to catch and then feed yourself. There's nothing about another person that makes the process any different, you should learn what another person can provide in terms of value. Perhaps he has a waterproof cellphone and can call for help. Maybe he'll help build a house. Who knows? You won't know until you ask. If you fear he'll take away your resources, that's bad reasoning - value isn't zero sum, not even on an island. An interesting point Rand made is that people are neither lone wolves nor social animals. They are traders.

Why would I need rights if the other person is dead? SL, can you ease off on the caps? Use italics or double asterisks instead. It's hard to read that.

Kinda besides the point anyway. The "social context" is so small that you don't need to refer to rights anyway. The thread is basically about if and why it would be wrong to murder some random stranger. Some replies seem to be along the lines of "well, it's their moral choice, not yours", which is far from a selfish standard, and other responses seem to be like "respecting rights is valuable". This gets confusing due to the lack of reasons connected explicitly to one's own life. What would happen if the guy lived with regards to your own life? "Guilt" is a bad reason to avoid murder, because emotion itself shouldn't guide action, so besides that, what else matters? Think of the topic is trying to reduce rights and validate the concept.

The question though is what is wrong about murdering in this circumstance. Right to life, okay, so what? My answer for TJ's question directed at me will address the ethical considerations of why you should care. If we stop at "initiation of force is wrong" that's libertarian and/or deontoligcal ethics in a literal sense that an action is wrong if and only if it violates rights (or principle regardless of the actor)..

No, I'm saying your argument that value of the particular person isn't why murder is wrong just isn't true. I am saying the value of life "in general" implies that individuals in general are valuable and therefore shouldn't be killed. I still can't evaluate the scenario, though.

Why would you want to kill the man? Might the man somehow provide a means to escape the island? Perhaps he can contact a rescue crew. If you want a moral evaluation of your scenario, we need to know motivations. Nope. You would have to figure out which is more important. There are few to no circumstances where solitude at all moments is truly better than letting another person live. You missed where it's crucial to make a rational evaluation, not just any evaluation you come up with. So, to be more clear, if there was no value to you at all from a person, it doesn't matter what you do to them. But no one is value neutral.

I don't see it as "not choosing is also a choice". It just says one can't avoid the need to make choices in order to exist. You *have* to choose in order to eat and gather food, or act at all. Doing nothing requires no thinking, so it's not even a choice any more than a tree chooses to photosynthesize. However, unlike a tree, not choosing or acting passively will lead inevitably to your demise.

That's actually a topic in the book I linked. There is an interesting discussion regarding Darwin's investigation of barnacles. Barnacles were once considered their own phylum, but then there were various arguments for considering them mollusks on account of development seeming to be more essential than surface features, at least for how to classify relationships between animals. That was before he published about evolution. It's a very insightful essay about conceptual change.

i think you're extrapolating too far for that quote. Keep in mind the quote is specific to measurement, not concept formation. Measurement is necessary, but probably is not sufficient for concept formation. I wouldn't use differentiation into parts as good example, at least because that's an entity of an entity more or less. At the very least, it's too complex if you want to illustrate measurement. The triangle is better because it presumes no kind of concept to perform the quantitative comparison, it only presumes noting a change in visuals. Indeed, you can reason about it, but even without cognition, a mathematical relationship is still there and indicating some kind of relationship. From there, you could explain where concept formation arrives. Many animals implicitly use mathematical relationships for navigation. Not conceptually of course, but their perceptual systems are quite complex, enough to do measurement as you are describing, which animals are aware of to some extent. See studies with bees, ants, and locusts to understand what I mean. (Or this [link] book for the science on all that)

I doubt really that biological essentialism is anything Objectivist epistemology could support. Have you read the new book edited by Gotthelf? http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Their-Role-Knowledge-Philosophical/dp/0822944243/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376780277&sr=8-1&keywords=gotthelf There are some interesting points on concept formation and philosophy of science that I'm sure you'd be interested in it. I can elaborate if you want. I'll probably jump into your anti-realism thread soon.

I didn't think of it in those terms, so thanks for pointing it out. However, it's also quite open to misinterpretation and perhaps expectations beyond the law of identity. In a metaphysical sense, rational or irrational would be mostly arguments for god by means of asserting a metaphysical rationality. In an epistemological sense, expectations are rational/sensible to humans, or at least, that's the most viable way to set standards. Irrational would be about a lack of a standard that does any good. As for how the universe is "supposed" to look, that's the law of identity, and the only facts people should take as a given are the axioms. But I shouldn't say that black holes are "supposed" to be a certain way other than they are supposed to have an identity. So, I'm thinking Vickster might have a hidden premise from the start that the law of identity is falsifiable meaning that indeed contradictions might exist, or perhaps that some principles of physics are axiomatic making any violation of them (such as some aspects of black holes) as proof against the law of identity. I still find (ir)rational universe to be awkward phrasing, given that inanimate objects have no kind of intentionality ("aboutness" to thinking) or rationality.

Before I respond to Vickster's larger post directed at me, I want to point out that a rational or even irrational universe doesn't make sense. Rational or irrational refers to thinkers, or more specifically, intentionality. To say the universe could be either rational or irrational basically assumes the universe is "supposed" to look a particular way and if it doesn't conform to your expectations, it's irrational because it behaves as it shouldn't. What would a rational universe even be? In my mind, you have to assume there is a creator that puts it all together in a rational way, i.e. accomplishes its goal. Even if that were the case, rational according to whom? I would bet Vickster has some hidden premise he didn't realize. *edit* I thought you were Vickster somehow, so... I edited wording >_>