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Is objectivism consequentialist?

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19 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Happiness is a means to an end. Man's proper ultimate end is his own survival. It is proper, therefore, to value happiness insofar as it functions as a fuel, to help one to survive, and no more than that.

I'll give it a try (speaking as myself). Happiness is an emotional state accompanying the periods of time when things are going well for you, existentially and psychologically. It would be a contradiction in terms to say that happiness is a means to survival, since in the causal chain, happiness is the result of survival. Legitimate happiness cannot ever be in conflict with (or periclitate) survival, period.

One of the major virtues of the Objectivist ethics is that it respects the epistemological principle of context. You cannot make valid ethical judgements, unless 1). you hold the entire lifespan in mind, and 2). you hold the entire hierarchy of your (proper) values in mind. In other words, Objectivism is not concerned with half of a lifespan, or with three quarters of it, or with a single year of it. And it recognizes that there are no isolated facts, that nothing can ever happen outside of a context. The need to sacrifice lower values in order to pursue higher values is metaphysicaly inherent in the universe. Time is finite, so you're bound to make compromises upon compromises in order to make all of your values play togheter well. Not all pain is wrong, and not all 'happiness' is right.

That you are happy now might be irrelevant - your next 10 years of happiness might lead to disastruous consequences later on, consequences that you cannot justify to your own self. If you endure suffering right now, your effort might lead to a bright future that will be worth every single moment of misery that you endured. How are you to decide? The full context. In some cases, it is right to shorten your lifespan. In some, it is outright insane. Some compromises are worth it, some aren't.

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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.

Let's assume that the Hero's dream is some kind of career. There are legitimate situations where you might love something so intensely (maybe the love became part of your psyche during your formative childhood years) that you simply can't find a replacement, no matter how long and conscientiously you try.

Let's do some horizontal integration and scan for other factors. Quitting his dream in order to live five years longer will not make the Hero live five years longer. The Hero will have to earn a living. If he doesn't resent his new job for always reminding him of his compromise, he will spend around 1850 hours every year doing something that will never give him the same intellectual and spiritual fulfillment that his other job would have given him. His self esteem will run into the ground. His personal sense of identity will suffer, since he can't identity with the job he truly loves. His recreation will become an escape, not a complement and reward for his achievements. He probably won't have the same types of friends or lovers he would have if he had the other job. Your central purpose is a sensitive subject, since it controls an exceptionaly vast array of things in your life.

When a person acts immoraly, a chain of factors start to domino into every aspect of his existential and psychological situation. Which in time corrodes his desire to live, as well as his physical and mental health. After many years, the pain might become too great, and the hero might say: 'I could have lived the best life possible to me. Yet, I am here - by my own fault'. If the pain overrides his rationalist/dutiful approach to ethics, he might find himself drinking a lot and escaping into the antipodes of his mind via certain substances - which will further speed up his demise. 

When people mention survival, they do not actually refer to survival. Their definition is limited to the Bear Grylls type of context where you eat bugs to remain alive for yet another day. If staying alive was the pupose of ethics, everyone in the world right now is a master of the Objectivist ethics. Things change if you expand 'survival' to include the best possible functioning and resillience to adverse conditions, taking in consideration both the mind and the body. When the Hero will understand that each action he takes will get him either closer, or further away from that state, he will know what to do.

Edited by KyaryPamyu
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3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

The Survivalist would like to attempt a fuller response to your post in the near future, but in the meantime, would you mind providing a Minimoralist response to the hypothetical as framed by Invictus2017 here:

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 2:40 PM, Invictus2017 said:

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.

How does the Minimoralist regard this?

 

Hero or no, I as a Minimoralist could not tell this man what to do.  He may be a Subjectivist, a Survivalist, an Intrinsicist or a Mystic for all I know.   I can only to advise what I believe is consistent with Minimoralism.  Were he to say that he is a Minimoralist and wanted to know my advice this is what I would say:

 

 

Life is full of uncertainty, the possible outcomes and their various causes, are too many to analyze with certainty the full consequences of any single action, or a single eventuality from a given number of known staring conditions.  At best we have limited knowledge, and more or less can know of the general magnitude of the likelihood of events.

 

It is in this way that a man devoid of all hope in a concentration camp might yet live in the face of unsurmountable odds by the unforeseeable consequence of human action and the volition of unknown people.  It is in this way that a man of the 1600s would, based on his knowledge have no rational inkling that a man would eventually set foot on the moon... the actions, discoveries, and accomplishments of other men, because they are moved by free will are not easily predictable.

 

You, who have this particular life-long dream would likely not be able to replace that specific dream with a brighter one, but it is not impossible.  It is precisely the capability of each of us to learn and to change which makes so much of life unpredictable, and if not the spontaneous self-generated change that you yourself make, then changes in you in response to the unpredictable and unforeseeable inspirations, innovations, and creations of others.  Some new art form or discovery yet to be made by another may be more compelling to you than you could possibly imagine now... because of the very fact that you personally cannot imagine this new possibility.

 

Perhaps you did choose to pursue the specific life-long dream, perhaps it does not meet your expectations, perhaps you find upon your return a greater dream that you would have wished to live longer to enjoy, and you live the rest of your shortened life not with satisfaction but with regret.

 

The experts cannot know whether the pursuit of your singular dream will actually cut five years off your life.. even if they were 99% sure, there is an actual 1% chance that it will not...  the experts also cannot know that you will necessarily be severely depressed, nor the exact reduction of the term of your life which would result from its effects.

 

There are so many questions.  What could you do to change yourself, your pleasures, your dreams?  What could you do to minimize the chances that the so called one dream would result in loss of years of your life?  What could you do to reduce your depression (should you choose to forego the specific dream) and/or its effects on your lifespan? 

 

So much is uncertain, and yet so much hangs in the balance.  It IS your very life after all.

 

 

I would ask you to think, given the risks and the chances involved,

 

If you are uncertain about your particular dream and whether you could find an alternative to it, then by all means try to live your life on terms which exceed your expectations but in a safer way.  One which multiplies your ability to live and to experience your joys.  There are a humanly uncountable number of dreams, experiences, and pleasures to choose from.

 

IF, on the other hand, you know yourself with enough certainty to claim that NO OTHER LIFE would be worth living at all.  That no matter what the chances, that you would rather die if forced to give up your specific singular dream for any other alternative.  If so, you have already made the choice to renounce all of life’s possibility, to renounce Minimoralism, and its principles.  Your obsession, your purpose, your choice, and your end, is your one dream and it is more important to you than yourself and your survival.  You are no longer an end in itself to you, your specific dream IS... you are now merely the means. Clearly then, Minimorality could not serve you from that moment on, it could not serve your choice, your end, your dream... it thwarts it, and you should simply give Minimoralism up and use something else in its place as your guide to that single end which is your particular dream.

 

IF, on the other hand, you know yourself with enough certainty to claim that IF THERE IS JUST ONE CHANCE no matter how small that you can have your dream and live your life too, you would want to take that chance no matter how small because that life which includes your dream means too much to you, then I say take that risk.  Do everything in your power to maximize the chances of having your dream as well as those five years, even if all you can do is change those chances by the most miniscule amount, it may make the difference in the end.  You are not a helpless passivity in a malevolent universe (or some philosophical hypothetical), you can nudge the needle onto the camel's back, you can affect the outcomes in reality...   Pass through the eye of the needle of uncertainty (I know a second needle analogy), come out the other side, and maybe, just maybe you can die an old man with the knowledge you fought for your life with your dream, that the chances, although insurmountably low, were never impossible, and that you overcame the odds and won, and the fight was worth it.  And if you fail, know in your last moments, that that small chance was worth it to you. 

 

The main thing to be certain of that that the specific dream is important enough to take that chance.  If it is not important enough, find another dream!

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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On 10/14/2017 at 9:45 PM, Easy Truth said:

Ironically, if monks argued enough over interpretations of scripture, we would have had more atheists.

No, we wouldn't. Serious theologians argue with each other plenty - with the Bible as their standard of truth. And the Bible isn't too hot on the subject of atheism. A normal human being might adopt atheism in response to that, but a "monk" who could do so would not be.

 

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Which means that the field of psychology is the field that is ultimately telling us the characteristics of what is good.

Yes. See Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice by Nathaniel Branden.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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4 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

I'll give it a try (speaking as myself).

Let me welcome you to the discussion with an earnest (if brief) reply.

4 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

That you are happy now might be irrelevant - your next 10 years of happiness might lead to disastruous consequences later on, consequences that you cannot justify to your own self. If you endure suffering right now, your effort might lead to a bright future that will be worth every single moment of misery that you endured. How are you to decide? The full context. In some cases, it is right to shorten your lifespan. In some, it is outright insane. Some compromises are worth it, some aren't.

I agree with this. It is the stuff of what makes such a compromise "worth it" (or otherwise) which appears to cause such controversy.

4 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

Let's assume that the Hero's dream is some kind of career. There are legitimate situations where you might love something so intensely (maybe the love became part of your psyche during your formative childhood years) that you simply can't find a replacement, no matter how long and conscientiously you try.

Let's do some horizontal integration and scan for other factors. Quitting his dream in order to live five years longer will not make the Hero live five years longer. The Hero will have to earn a living. If he doesn't resent his new job for always reminding him of his compromise, he will spend around 1850 hours every year doing something that will never give him the same intellectual and spiritual fulfillment that his other job would have given him. His self esteem will run into the ground. His personal sense of identity will suffer, since he can't identity with the job he truly loves. His recreation will become an escape, not a complement and reward for his achievements. He probably won't have the same types of friends or lovers he would have if he had the other job. Your central purpose is a sensitive subject, since it controls an exceptionaly vast array of things in your life.

When a person acts immoraly, a chain of factors start to domino into every aspect of his existential and psychological situation. Which in time corrodes his desire to live, as well as his physical and mental health. After many years, the pain might become too great, and the hero might say: 'I could have lived the best life possible to me. Yet, I am here - by my own fault'. If the pain overrides his rationalist/dutiful approach to ethics, he might find himself drinking a lot and escaping into the antipodes of his mind via certain substances - which will further speed up his demise.

You make a compelling case, and again one with which I essentially agree. What I see you doing is comparing the qualitative experience of choosing one avenue versus another (or one "compromise" versus another), an experience which is felt in terms of (what I would describe as) "pleasures" and "pains." This is also how I would make such a decision, and I suspect that I would come to the same basic conclusions.

This would be so even if whatever choice we are considering would "make the Hero live five years longer," which I do not consider to be a compelling factor, as such; rather, in the pain-filled life you describe, five additional years may potentially be regarded as a curse rather than a blessing.

4 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

Things change if you expand 'survival' to include the best possible functioning and resillience to adverse conditions, taking in consideration both the mind and the body.

I agree with this, and some people may then start to speak in terms of "flourishing" (which seems apt to describe your second rose) or throwing around "quas" or etc., which is why, I suspect, David Kelley was so insistent on not expanding the meaning of survival, but keeping it delimited to "existence versus non-existence." And it is also why I disagree with him.

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8 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

Things change if you expand 'survival' to include the best possible functioning and resillience to adverse conditions, taking in consideration both the mind and the body.

This is not an illustration of the "expansion" of "survival", it is an identification of what that goal "survival" entails and implies.

The goal "Shelter" does not imply only a straw hut. If you live in Norway it at least implies insulation and a source of heat, if you live near a river or on flood plains it at least implies a raised floor, and if you live near a big bad wolf it at least implies a brick based structure.  And if cold, floods, and wolves are not impossible where you live, "shelter" implies all three.

Illustrating that short sighted people do not fully grasp all the implications and consequences implied by a simple premise (eg a binary goal in an incredibly complex context) does not implicate the simple premise as somehow deficient, it exemplifies just how deficient simple mindedness is.

imho

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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The following is an absolute and irrefutable illustration of the full objective implications of simple considerations in the context of complexity and endless possibility:

Context: single celled organisms whose genetics are subject to small variation during life or during genetic reproduction in a complex natural system/environment of raw material

Simple Premise/Consideration:  rate of reproduction (if any) prior to death depends on fitness of organism - or simply "natural selection"

Let the "implications" reveal themselves over a few billion years as the simple consideration works over and over.

 

Current Resulting Implication: billions of individual organisms which are capable of self-awareness, conceptualization, language, science, art, philosophy.

 

Any man who claims mere "natural selection" logically implies nothing more than a slime mold, is gravely mistaken, and the reality of his very existence clearly stands as a direct refutation of his claim.

Simple premises or considerations in the context of complexity and possibility imply and lead to a rich diversity, objectively and necessarily.

 

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On Sunday October 15, 2017 at 9:18 PM, DonAthos said:

Valuing a pleasant feeling emotion at the cost of one's literal survival is choosing non-existence over existence, and is thus immoral.

Morality is only relevant to a being that has chosen to live; choosing non-existence makes morality irrelevant and takes one's actions outside the realm of morality.  Once you've decided to die, you can't act immorally. So, if I've chosen pleasant feelings over literal survival, and doing so constitutes choosing non-existence over existence, my choice is not immoral, it is amoral.

This is the logical reason why survivalism must be false.  It requires designating the choice to die as immoral when, in fact, this choice is premoral.

 

Or, "Check your premises". :)

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On Sunday October 15, 2017 at 9:18 PM, DonAthos said:

Whatever it is you mean by "continuing to live," it is not possible without "simple survival." Valuing "continuing to live" at the cost of "simple survival" is illogical, it smuggles subjectivity into the standard of "life" (emotionalism).

For remember, "it is the bare fundamental alternative of survival versus death that stands at the root of all values." Our hero faces that bare, fundamental alternative and chooses death over survival -- for what? The experience of some emotional thrill.

Rand, in defining "value", observed that this concept is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to "to whom" and "for what".  "Survival" is also not a primary; it presupposes an answer to "as what".  Thus, to excise the fact that the entity surviving is a human being from the question of his survival is to commit a logical error.  "Surviving" must mean "survival as a human being" or it is just a floating abstraction.  Thus, defining survival merely in terms of longevity is necessarily wrong.

The reductio ad absurdum is to suppose that a person can be moral by reducing himself to a dish full of cells that is to be kept indefinitely in a lab somewhere.  That's "survival", but not "survival as a human being".

 

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On Monday October 16, 2017 at 5:41 AM, DonAthos said:

Yes, that's why I don't particularly relish this form of argument... it's difficult enough to communicate complex ideas, sincerely held, in anything like a clear manner; it is especially hard to be able to put something you don't quite believe in, into terms that sound plausible (and it isn't a particularly pleasant thing to do, of itself). And it may be that I'm not doing a great job of it, either, but I would ask for your patience while I make the attempt.

The thing that struck me about that post was how mechanical it sounded.  Totally not-life. Appropriately so: the survivalist doesn't live, he merely exists -- as he must, since he drops his humanity out of the equation when he makes survival his only goal.
 

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On 10/16/2017 at 8:37 AM, StrictlyLogical said:

I have chosen survival for my minimorality because it is amenable to objectivity and science and will prove thereby most useful as a guide.

The usefulness of any theory depends on more than its simplicity or ease of quantification. Behaviorism is also extremely "amenable to science" but its omission of the fact of consciousness, while enabling it to quantify human behavior in the language of physicists, also restricts it to the description of reflexes (and invalidates any attempt to use it to quantify any meaningful behavior).

 

On 10/16/2017 at 8:37 AM, StrictlyLogical said:

What need is there of volition, will, experience, personhood and when it could be replaced with the cold calculus of a perfect set of rules to guide all of a person?

The person would still have to choose to adopt that cold calculus. He'd have to learn about it, learn how to apply it to his own life and choose to apply it consistently (with nothing to ensure the accuracy of his conclusions -or the efficacy of his actions- except his own severity). There can be no calculus without a calculator.

Furthermore, while I see what you mean about survivalism, if this calculus is about consistent ways to achieve happiness and is used for that same purpose then it wouldn't even make sense to ask whether it serves or is served by its user.

 

Still further, what would you say to a minimoralist who decided that he just wanted to spend his life collecting welfare checks, staring at a TV screen and occasionally voting to maintain the status quo? I'm sure we'd agree that it's a rather repugnant prospect, but could you argue against his feeling that it's a good way to live?

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2 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:

Once you've decided to die, you can't act immorally.

So if I stopped wanting to live tomorrow then it'd be alright for me to blow myself up on a bus full of nuns and orphans, right?

 

Can ANYONE here think of a reason why not?

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2 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

So if I stopped wanting to live tomorrow then it'd be alright for me to blow myself up on a bus full of nuns and orphans, right?


 

Can ANYONE here think of a reason why not?

It wouldn't be "alright".  And it wouldn't be unethical, either.  Your action -- to you -- would have no value significance whatsoever, since you had abandoned the standard by which values get significance. Of course, to others, who have not abandoned life, it would be evil.
 

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38 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

It wouldn't be "alright".  And it wouldn't be unethical, either.  Your action -- to you -- would have no value significance whatsoever, since you had abandoned the standard by which values get significance. Of course, to others, who have not abandoned life, it would be evil.
 

Now don't be hasty claiming it would not be "alright".  He asked the question, you don't know what he means by "alright".

Also, your claim seems absolute... like there is a universal intrinsic "alrighty then-ness" dial or gauge in the universe we could tap tap tap ... to get a reading.   Besides, I think that such an answer would be insulting to persons who hate nuns and orphans with a holy rage, who would find this outcome rather "swell", and the last thing we want to do here is be insulting.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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3 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Now don't be hasty claiming it would not be "alright".  He asked the question, you don't know what he means by "alright".

This is a discussion about ethics, so I took his question to be whether his action would be ethical.  
 

6 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Also, your claim seems absolute...

Actually, I qualified it with, to those "who have not abandoned life".  (I can think of extraordinary circumstances where, even by the standard of life, doing so would be ethical.  Nevertheless, what I said stands as a general proposition.)

14 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Besides, I think that such an answer would be insulting to persons who hate nuns and orphans with a holy rage, who would find this outcome rather "swell", and the last thing we want to do here is be insulting.

Is that humor, sarcasm, or a well disguised point?


 

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1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The usefulness of any theory depends on more than its simplicity or ease of quantification. Behaviorism is also extremely "amenable to science" but its omission of the fact of consciousness, while enabling it to quantify human behavior in the language of physicists, also restricts it to the description of reflexes (and invalidates any attempt to use it to quantify any meaningful behavior).

This is a non sequitur, and you have conflated the concept of objectivity with material determinism.. which has nothing to do with objectivity of a standard being useful.

If you happen to feel that running your life based on how you feel every morning is more useful as a guide to action for you... well who am I to stop you.  What you find useful is probably, no certainly, quite different from I find useful.

 

1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The person would still have to choose to adopt that cold calculus. He'd have to learn about it, learn how to apply it to his own life and choose to apply it consistently (with nothing to ensure the accuracy of his conclusions -or the efficacy of his actions- except his own severity). There can be no calculus without a calculator.

Furthermore, while I see what you mean about survivalism, if this calculus is about consistent ways to achieve happiness and is used for that same purpose then it wouldn't even make sense to ask whether it serves or is served by its user.

 

I cannot tell if you are taking up the Survivalist's position, or arguing against the idea of minimoralism being minimal i.e. only what is necessary.

 

1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Still further, what would you say to a minimoralist who decided that he just wanted to spend his life collecting welfare checks, staring at a TV screen and occasionally voting to maintain the status quo? I'm sure we'd agree that it's a rather repugnant prospect, but could you argue against his feeling that it's a good way to live?

First I would say he is in fact contravening his morality because he is shortsighted and simple minded about the consequence of adopting survival (and all that entails and implies) as a standard of his morality.  He simply is not living up to the enacting all that is required for a complex physical and mental being... the consideration is simple, the context and the subject is complex and full of both uncertainty and possibility.

Second I would argue with him over his relying on "feeling" rather than deciding what he wants from life and doing what is required.

Last I would remind him that he is forgetting what his minimoralism is for.  It's keeps him alive so that he can find meaning, purpose, and the happiness that he wants in life, which he still needs to do IF he wants to.

As for the meta-ethical question of what he lives his life FOR, and what meaning he gets from life, and whether he even chooses to live.. there is nothing in reason I could say to him other than ... don't you want it?

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Just now, Invictus2017 said:

This is a discussion about ethics, so I took his question to be whether his action would be ethical.  
 

Actually, I qualified it with, to those "who have not abandoned life".  (I can think of extraordinary circumstances where, even by the standard of life, doing so would be ethical.  Nevertheless, what I said stands as a general proposition.)

Is that humor, sarcasm, or a well disguised point?


 

Perhaps too well disguised.

Once you adopt an ethics, it is straightforward to determine what t means to be ethical according to your chosen aim... all prescription is roughly of the form of "If you want X, then you ought to do Y"

To try to analyze as "alright" or not, what someone else does, or the sheer fact of something having happened, is not as straight forward without some specification of what is meant.

1.  Someone killing a nun and orphans, is not "good" or "bad" for the universe.  Neither is the fact of reality of nuns and orphans dying good or bad... the universe is not morally culpable. 

2. Now is a person who abandons life, chooses death and kills nuns and orphans someone I should act to approach or someone I should act to avoid?  Clearly, any ACT on my part to support, sustain, trade with, or deal with this person is bad (inimical to my life) and any ACT on my part to avoid, shun, imprison or isolate myself from this person would be good (supports my life).

3.  Also, assuming my ethics are such that persons with the same ethics (life supporting ethics) as mine are good to associate with and persons whose ethics differ from mine are bad to associate with, then judging my actions, as to whether to be repulsed or drawn to them, can be determined by judging how close their ethics are to mine.  Is this person "alright", based on their character and ethics... or not.

4. Now a person who has abandoned ethics entirely because they have chosen death... they literally have no chosen moral standard.  No "if you want X, then you ought to do Y".  There is no argument you could provide to them in reason which makes sense for why they "ought" do Y (refrain from blowing himself up) if they simply do not care about X or have rejected X (life).

Which "alright" is meant?

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9 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

4. Now a person who has abandoned ethics entirely because they have chosen death... they literally have no chosen moral standard.  No "if you want X, then you ought to do Y".  There is no argument you could provide to them in reason which makes sense for why they "ought" do Y (refrain from blowing himself up) if they simply do not care about X or have rejected X (life).

How does one imagine death? You can't, you still see an existence. You only know rationally that there is no existence. So when one wants death, they want a release for this contextual existence. Anesthesia/unconsciousness is better than feeling how you are being operated on. Death seems like that to a person making those suicidal decisions.

The "X" that you mention is still existence. But not this existence/environment. I am not talking "metaphysics", I am talking "the experience". (By the way, this is, at the core, consequentialism/anticipated consequence).

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The scenarios mentioned remind me of the Godfather movies, people so warm and caring with their family and yet cold-hearted killers "doing business".

The social aspect of morality is being ignored in these discussions. What about wanting to live in a just world, in a world with sane people, fair people or institutions that create fairness.

In choosing to live in such a world, won't you accept limits on your impulses? All in the name of either survival or flourishing.

If you want such a world aren't you obligated to abide by a certain morality? Which would also apply if you want to die?
 

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11 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

The social aspect of morality is being ignored in these discussions. What about wanting to live in a just world, in a world with sane people, fair people or institutions that create fairness.

I am ignoring and will continue to ignore it because it is derivative....way down the logic chain.
 

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12 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

I am ignoring and will continue to ignore it because it is derivative....way down the logic chain.
 

So your flourishing does not include other people in the picture?

Man’s survival qua man is now Robinson Crusoe instead of Hugh Hefner.

Edited by Easy Truth
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1 hour ago, Invictus2017 said:
2 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

So if I stopped wanting to live tomorrow then it'd be alright for me to blow myself up on a bus full of nuns and orphans, right?

 

Can ANYONE here think of a reason why not?

It wouldn't be "alright".  And it wouldn't be unethical, either.  Your action -- to you -- would have no value significance whatsoever, since you had abandoned the standard by which values get significance.

Here's what I find fascinating about this, in contemplation...

When I suppose a person who has decided to commit suicide, in most contexts, I imagine that most such people -- even if they are quite serious about killing themselves -- would 1) have no desire to bring harm to others, and 2) would consider it unethical of themselves to kill themselves in such a way as to bring harm to others, in the manner of suicide bombers or etc.

Given two proposed suicidal methods, one which hurts others (let's say loved ones), and one that merely ends the life of the individual who has chosen to take his own life, but not bringing harm to those he loves, do we think that it's true of most suicidal people (let alone all) that there is no value significance whatsoever between them?

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18 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

Here's what I find fascinating about this, in contemplation...

When I suppose a person who has decided to commit suicide, in most contexts, I imagine that most such people -- even if they are quite serious about killing themselves -- would 1) have no desire to bring harm to others, and 2) would consider it unethical of themselves to kill themselves in such a way as to bring harm to others, in the manner of suicide bombers or etc.

Given two proposed suicidal methods, one which hurts others (let's say loved ones), and one that merely ends the life of the individual who has chosen to take his own life, but not bringing harm to those he loves, do we think that it's true of most suicidal people (let alone all) that there is no value significance whatsoever between them?

You can, morally speaking, sit next to the suicide using hemlock but you need to run away from the suicide with the Bomb.. it's the moral thing to do.

 

EDIT:  The above may seem flippant so I will complete my answer.  The above addresses ethical action by myself in view of my identification of these two people and that generally one is inimical to my life and the other is not a threat.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "value significance".  I have already answered regarding moral action on my part, and implicit in that is an evaluation that the first person is a non-value while the second is a disvalue. 

If you are asking what my emotional reaction to these two people are, it is on the one hand profound sadness and on the other hand rage.  The sadness because of the potential (what perhaps could have been had the person chosen life, productivity, creativity, etc) of a person to be direct and indirect value in the complex web of existence, and the rage because of the destruction of presumably actual direct and indirect values other people represent (barring specific evidence to the contrary).

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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On 10/16/2017 at 3:32 PM, KyaryPamyu said:

When people mention survival, they do not actually refer to survival. Their definition is limited to the Bear Grylls type of context where you eat bugs to remain alive for yet another day. If staying alive was the pupose of ethics, everyone in the world right now is a master of the Objectivist ethics. Things change if you expand 'survival' to include the best possible functioning and resillience to adverse conditions, taking in consideration both the mind and the body. When the Hero will understand that each action he takes will get him either closer, or further away from that state, he will know what to do.

Indeed, that's one of the problems with the survivalist interpretation of Rand. If Rand's ethics were only necessary for literal survival, then how did the human race manage to survive up until Rand? If Rand's ethics were necessary, the human race would've died or long ago, unless everyone, or most everyone alive, is already a Randian hero accidentally, then her ethics are reduced to pedantic Bear Gryllsism. Clearly her novels point to a richer, more full conception of human life than mere survival as an ultimate end for man.

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