Eiuol

I had a longer response, but it got lost somehow. I remember my important sentences, though. If you can discover that a person has no value to you and then seek other people out, aren't you implying there is a "moral danger" to you? Immorality is impotent only if we take no stand against it. You seem to agree. Elsewhere in the thread, I talked about how to evaluate people with opposing beliefs without demanding agreement.

It's evaluated as good, not experienced as good per se. I didn't say it feels good because we like it, I meant that it feels like what we call good because the neural mechanisms simply make it feel that way.

I knew I was forgetting some!

Weird. O.o I find her stuff great and a good evaluation of Rand. About pride, I'm just going off how he called pride as the "crown" of virtues, so I interpret it as a virtue.

Better not lie to those Nazis at your door, you're impeding their ability to autonomously choose to kidnap the family in hiding or to refrain.

That's how judgment works! There's got to be enough information in order to make a proper judgment. I'd have to say I don't know. It's dishonest to make a judgment only because you don't want to say "I don't know", then wave away most considerations to just say "he chose, therefore it was good". Your subjectivism is showing.

Rand explicitly listed virtues: rationality, productivity, justice, honesty, pride. It's not that there are three corresponding virtues, but they're all needed for the cardinal values. I'd bet Rand meant it as an exhaustive list, while other things like "kindness" may or may not be required. The virtues are more like what always applies insofar the person already chose to live or ethics applies. Check out "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics" by Tara Smith for a more thorough analysis. By the way, you missed pride as one of Aristotle's virtues.

Well, it's imprecise to say "pleasure is experienced as good". There is an experience. We consider it good if we like it. So it's not like you directly apprehend "goodness". Asking why it feels -this particular way- is to me like asking why ice needs to melt at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It would be silly to ask "why couldn't it have been 33 degrees instead?" What else is there to say? It's just the nature of neural mechanisms.

At least to us around here, immoral also refers to stupid/unwise/rash/unreasoned actions or people, not necessarily great evils. I don't have a great indignation towards Marxist academics, after all, I said people really do compartmentalize sometimes, so I don't know what they do in other parts of their life.

In the other thread, I explicitly said CHARACTER varies by degrees, but SPECIFIC ACTIONS are only good or bad. I'm only objecting to your simplistic view where all you even want to do is judge who violates rights. It's moral relativism to care about that and not really care past that. I'm saying in pretty direct terms that even a rabid Marxist academic may not violate rights, they are still immoral to the degree their errors are probably dishonest. Their presence in your life is probably a negative by not promoting rational thought. It is against your values to keep them in your life - the person impedes your flourishing. My first posts were to qualify exactly what sort of moral judgments one ought to make of others, considering how some people compartmentalize or make errors; a Marxist academic isn't morally equivalent to a murderer, or to Steve Jobs. And yes, regarding pro-murder, I meant to say "aren't".

The reasons, yeah, but actions, too! "Accidental" flourishing is impossible. If you could act on faith and accidentally act on self-interest, then there really no reason to say faith is bad. It would be intrinsicist to say one must act in self-interest even if faith can result in "accidental" self-interest. Part of Objectivist morality is that the only way to flourish is to be rational, and you'd never just "happen" to flourish by faith - accidental self-interest is a contradiction. Your grammar was a bit awkward, I see that you agree with me. The problem I have and had is that you said: "So, I would argue it matters less, WHAT a religious person does, because it says nothing about their real character, only about what they have been told to think, and what they believe they must dutifully do." But since you can't accidentally flourish, isn't it sufficient to identify actions that lead to flourishing? DA: Consider that there are degrees that a person is moral or immoral. It isn't new or interesting to say Christians are against murder. Almost all people are. I think saying "murder is bad" is simple on the level of saying "winter is cold". We can ask why these statements are true, but that's not our purpose right now. In this way, murder is "very immoral", and I conceptualize these acts as "rights violations". Rights violators are the most immoral people, and harm values the most. It is easy enough to see this, so most people are against egregious rights violations. Clearly, a pro-murderer is still immoral, but it's an easy evaluation. There is a lot more to consider, especially since most people are pro-murder. Morality matters more than just who is a rights violator. This where rationality comes into play even stronger, and why I suggested "normative reasoning beliefs" as a baseline. Does the person care about contradiction, for instance? Is faith a valid tool of cognition? Perhaps a person doesn't violate rights, but if they're irrational, they'll be a harm to your values. If a person ALSO has normative reasoning principles, that's better! Past that, we can factor in more details of virtue. Is the person able to -do- good and promote their values and your values? Maybe there are honest errors about what virtue is, but if they are in fact just, honest, and productive, they're that much better than armchair academics who sit around tauting their beliefs but do nothing about it. By morally empty, I meant boring, where there is nothing more to morality than refraining from murder - that moral action is easy, and heroic people aren't so special. It ends up with excessive moral toleration since so many people pass your baseline, even those who harm your values. Adding more dimensions to morality makes it that much more important. Now, a rights respecting society is crucial to maintain a flourishing life, but it's important to make choices in your life of who will promote your values even more. Seek those people, encourage their growth.

I'm only saying you said nothing interesting. If refraining from murder is sufficient to make you moral, then most moral philosophies are perfectly fine. Again, like that other thread, you're saying you don't care or mind what others do. I don't have time or interest right now to go over why there is more to morality than social harmony - it really does matter to your life to choose who warrants being part of your life. Your question was loaded because any answer implies that there was an implication I never advocated. You didn't explain how I made an implication that "murder is tolerable in some aspects". I literally said most people don't advocate murder, meaning that it would be frankly bizarre to say -anyone- advocates murder as though it is unique moral similarity to say Objectivists and Christians don't support murder... I'm objecting to your moral relativism. I'm objecting that you didn't help the OP who never asked about tolerating murderers and thieves, or evaluating a murderer.

Loaded question.

You said nothing useful. Most people, period, are opposed to all those same things... It's a morally empty world if you only care that people aren't murderers. Even most irrational people don't murder. Basically this is leads to the bad form of tolerance, normative moral relativism: nobody's beliefs are "better" as long as we don't kill each other, so I should tolerate all ideas that don't advocate murder.

If a person can act well WITHOUT thinking well, then you're saying it's possible to divorce thought from action. You'd be saying that you could lead a good life and act on faith. I've been saying that it's only possible to judge what people do. How would you propose getting into someone's head to know a person's rationality without focusing on their actions? Isn't a person honest to the extent that their beliefs result in honest actions?

It's not that those beliefs are harmless as much as it is wrong to judge a person morally bad just for making an error. But if the belief is harmful in light of what you know and the information you have, you should give the other person that information so they don't inadvertently do things that harm your values more.

Careful about the word virtue. To call it a virtue is to say it is a type of action that is necessary to attain or maintain values, a requirement even. Tolerance in the sense I described is a lot more variable than honesty for instance. Tolerance is like kindness - sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, and most of all, even non-emergency situations may not require it. On the other hand, honesty is always required, except for some emergency situations. By tolerance, I don't mean needing to cope or social peace. I'm referring to fallibility, where you can't assume the other person being wrong is evasive - you yourself may be wrong, so sometimes it's worth tolerating differences. I wouldn't excuse irrationality as an 'impulse' though, I wouldn't tolerate that one bit. You have to judge the whole person, including accepting that the other person is immoral to some degree.

You'd have to evaluate what they say and do, less so than a specific belief. Many beliefs are subject to change, even your own, yet why belieifs are different may be an utter lack of virtue. Other times, it's only a different set of information, so a belief isn't always a matter of negative moral evaluation if they are able and willing to be rational. Even if their method is bad, they may be totally fine about thinking. In a way, I'm talking about "tolerance" in terms of errors - this is not tolerance if the person is plainly irrational. For these people, and even people who share your values, beliefs alone don't warrant a positive or negative evaluation. Take the example you gave. A devout Christian may have erroneous beliefs, so since they act virtuously, those Christian beliefs aren't necessarily morally bad for you or them. I'd question if they "really" are devout, although it is moot if they're honest. On your end, the view is irrational, but that isn't to say they're acting irrationally, acting on faith, or acting on emotional reactions. In a way, I'm saying a person's normative reasoning beliefs take precedence and is the main measure for judging another person's moral character, a baseline perhaps. Of course, some people compartmentalize. Some people are wholly irrational in one area, but fine elsewhere. In that case, evaluate how they integrate that irrational belief into their life. Is it a driving part of their career? Or is it just a topic they are opinionated about but their career is elsewhere? A friend of mine has obvious socialist beliefs and is opinionated about it, and I think irrational about it. But they're mainly into music and aesthetic values, and very positive views of music. Their political beliefs are a conflict to be sure, but their actions, not just words, are good.

As related to the OP, I found an interesting book: An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics: Mathematics as the Science of Quantity and Structure

"How does pursuing any other value that involves personal risk not place ones "ultimate" value further down the list?" Depends on how risky it is and the value in question. The word "risky" has all sorts of connotations and in a way makes uncertainty perfectly acceptable. " If the man was a life guard jumping to save a swimmer in distress would you withhold moral judgement?" I thought you implied suicide, as in he wanted to kill himself, not "died as an unfortunate consequence he couldn't foresee". I'd investigate what happened before judgment. I'll put it this way: 1) deliberate suicide is amoral, 2) acting without consideration in a "suicidal" way is immoral, and 3) the unforeseeable is not the fault of anyone so it might be moral when someone happens to die. Unforeseeable is something like it turns out a shark was in the water when there was no reason to expect a shark. He has the moral -right- to do any of the three, but only 3 might be -morally right-. Why? Because 1 disregards life anyway, and 2 is immoral because it's avoiding knowledge while at the same time wanting to live. By the way, there is no "between" choosing to exist or not. Rand argues that the law of excluded middle applies here. Putting life at risk could be 2 or 3 above, but it's not a continuum of life pursuit in a specific choice. A continuum only exists when evaluating people in their whole character. I agree with Rand, as in I don't see a reason to evaluate specific choices as "in between".

You're asking about the morality of suicide. It is the only sort of choice that is itself not a choice of morality, as it is the foundation to good or bad. I explained this in my first few posts in terms of the choice to live. So, his actions are neither good nor bad. Yes, impediments to choice are morally bad and I agree. If that is your benchmark, you are missing numerous other considerations of Objectivist ethics and grant many standards as valid by implication, thus moral relativism.

That there are multiple valid standards of morality. Subjective to the degree in your case you are broadly stating morality as based on whatever an individual deems important. To you all that matters is that "choice" happens. Not a mention of what SORT of choices are right. So in comes ethics to get us to interact peacefully. The ethics-as-distinct idea you've defined in only social terms, and making no judgment of another person's choice as right or wrong, only judging IF a choice is made or able to be made. As long as I act peacefully, literally anything else is valid. Stated differently: only those who seek destruction of the social world is wrong. If someone wants to be a hedonist, that's just as right as someone who holds Catholic morality as their standard. The essential question is, as you stated: "What in this case is essential to pursuing any value?" Choice is one important part, but that alone misses things, like how some choices lead to loss of value, or how to measure a value in the first place.

Part of the issue is you said "immoral to use force against someone". No, the Objectivist view is that initiating force is immoral.

Right. This is moral relativism. As I said before. And exactly why it fails to address Vect. What you said "makes sense" now, but it is still a lot of equivocation that avoids the clear context of Rand's essay "Objectivist Ethics".

Okay, that explains a lot! What you're saying makes sense. But I have to say, I don't think the OP is talking about "ethical standards", it's talking about the basis or reason to choose to live in the first place. I'd argue that your moral/ethical distinction only opens the door to an altruistic or duty-bound society. I treat the words as a synonym. That's a topic for another time, though.