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Is the nature of Man to be Narcissistic? By Social Awareness I mean knowing that others exist, knowing that you are not alone. Not just a thought, knowing the truth that you are not alone. Isn't human companionship a requirement for survival and an ethical value and virtue. My purpose of this thread is to get clarification on it. I also wonder if it is not acknowledged and declared enough in Objectivist circles. We know that David Kelly has sort of debated the chairman of whole foods about it. But the debate is more like "chill out, reword altruism, do the Philosophy a different way". Isn't this particular social context (the awareness of others) have to be part of one's personal ethics? Knowing how to choose people around them, best practices etc. I argue that social awareness is necessary for survival. Not being aware that others exist can be a matter of life and death. And yet the pitfalls of doing so: "There's a point at which "social awareness" would cease to be healthy, benevolent coexistence and turn into second-handedness (trying to think through another brain, see through their eyes and do whatever you think they'd most approve of); beyond that point human beings stop being helpful or uplifting for each other's lives and gradually become codependent and monstrous." Harrison "Trying to define the ultimate standard and purpose of ethics in social terms will prevent you from being able to define that cutoff point." Harrison I wonder if prevent is too strong a word, for now, I can see it hampering and causing confusion. And then there is the related issue of the value of others which is derivative: "A rational man does not forget that life is the source of all values and, as such, a common bond among living beings (as against inanimate matter), that other men are potentially able to achieve the same virtues as his own and thus be of enormous value to him. This does not mean that he regards human lives as interchangeable with his own. He recognizes the fact that his own life is thesource, not only of all his values, but of his capacity to value. Therefore, the value he grants to others is only a consequence, an extension, a secondary projection of the primary value which is himself. “The respect and good will that men of self-esteem feel toward other human beings is profoundly egoistic; they feel, in effect: ‘Other men are of value because they are of the same species as myself.’ In revering living entities, they are revering theirown life. This is the psychological base of any emotion of sympathy and any feeling of ‘species solidarity.’ ”" (Virtue of Selfishness, p 42)