A question regarding Objectivism ethics

[Mick Pestis]

Hi!

I have opened a thread here over I month ago I recon, and since then I have been reading and even ordered some ayn rand's novels and non-fictions:) lots of fun.

A couple of days ago, someone asked me about a question regarding ethics, and I didn't really know what to tell him so I pointed him out to the wiki page about it.

His commented about couple of things about some of the objectivism definitions:

1.He said that two things are telleological;

1a. The definition of value, or the definition of life as a value -

- A value is "something you act to gain or keep." (Ayn Rand)

- You act to keep life

- life is a value which you act to keep which makes it a value.

I didn't know how to respond to that.

1b. He said that this was telleological as well: "

The Objectivist ethic begins with a meta-ethical question: why do human beings need a code of values? The Objectivist answer is that humans need such a code in order to survive as human beings."

2. Secondly, as a jewish person himself (So am I, both of us are atheist jews), he asked me about the paragraph regarding "Altruism":

"Objectivism rejects as immoral any action taken for some other ultimate purpose. In particular it rejects as immoral any variant of what it calls "altruism" — by which it means, essentially, any ethical doctrine according to which a human being must justify his or her existence by service to others. According to Objectivism, every ethical or moral action has the agent as its primary beneficiary.

Objectivism especially opposes any ethical demand for sacrifice. Objectivism uses this term in a special sense: a "sacrifice", according to its Objectivist definition, is the giving up of a greater value for a lesser one. (In other worlds of discourse, for example baseball and chess, the term is used to mean the giving up of a lesser or shorter-term value for the sake of a greater or longer-term one. Objectivism does not regard such an exchange as a genuine "sacrifice.")"

He asked me if a person in Poland, during WWII, is doing something immoral as he is hiding a jewish person in his basement or attic, thus "sacrifising" his own life, for the sake of another human being, when he knows the punishment for hiding a jew, is death by the nazis?

Looking forward for your reply,

Thank you very much.

[Nicky]

He asked me if a person in Poland, during WWII, is doing something immoral as he is hiding a jewish person in his basement or attic, thus "sacrifising" his own life, for the sake of another human being, when he knows the punishment for hiding a jew, is death by the nazis?

If he knows for a fact that he will be discovered, what's the purpose of the whole exercise? Both him and the Jew he's helping will just die anyway. Of course it's wrong to just throw you life away for no reason.

On the other hand, it can be perfectly moral to take a calculated risk, to help someone deserving of your help. So the answer is that it depends on the circumstances, and on the person being helped.

1.He said that two things are telleological;

Harry Binswanger: The biological basis of teleological concepts

Here's the review of this book, from Amazon.com:

Since Aristotle, the scope of teleological phenomena has proved a notoriously difficult subject to discuss. The problem isn't with our intuitions on the subject, but with our conceptual analysis of the facts. That is, any 5-year-old can tell you that *animals* act to satisfy their needs. But what about other things? This is the problem that has vexed many philosophers of biology who have tried to tackle the problem.

Binswanger, however, takes these hardest cases head-on and provides the most useful empirical analysis of teleological action that I've yet read. By focusing particularly on insentient entities (such as plants, hearts, and cells), Binswanger demonstrates the key features that unite conscious and non-conscious goal-directed action while distinguishing them from non-goal-directed movements. Thus, by examining the biological facts that give rise to non-conscious goal-directed action (or "vegetative action"), Binswanger is able to build a scientifically-grounded definition of "goal-directed action." For me, reaching this definition was the real treat of the book. Rather than simply "stipulating" a definition of goal-directedness, Binswanger analyzes a successively expanding context of biological facts, where at each step a provisional fact-based definition is given, later to be expanded and consolidated in light of further evidence. The result is a deep understanding of why all and only living things are teleological.

And as an added bonus, Binswanger shoots down about a half-dozen canards along the way, including such non-counterexamples as viruses and thermostats and the claim that only reproductive success matters biologically.

For students of the philosophy of biology, I would recommend this treatment of teleology above any other, even including Ernst Mayr's and his followers (though they now agree with Binswanger). For Rand scholars, too, this work is a must. I think it's the only contemporary work cited in Peikoff's opus, and it also figures prominently in Smith's "Viable Values" and "On Ayn Rand," a work by Gotthelf, who is himself a world-renowned expert on Aristotle's teleology.

To my mind, this work is philosophy at its best.

Is this what he means by teleological?

Edited March 20, 2012 by Nicky

[Reidy]

The first objection seems to be that Rand's argument leads to an infinite regress. Why do we act to gain or keep life? Because it's a value. Why is it a value? - and so on.

The reason this doesn't get into an infinite regress is that value and what an organism acts to gain or keep are synonyms. To get a regress, the objects generating it must be distinct. Consider, for example, four is the sum of three and one and four is the square of -2. You can substitute 3 + 1 and (-2) ** 2 for one another as many times as you want, but this is not a regress. Instead of going backward indefinitely it goes back and forth sideways.

An example of a true infinite regress is everything has a temporally prior cause. If the cause is temporally prior to x, it must be distinct from x. No matter how far back in the chain you go, you have to keep going back further. Each new cause is different from what it caused.

Another example is Plato's third man argument, which is supposed to raise a problem for his theory of forms. We call something an F because it participates in the form F. We call that person a man because he participates in the form man. Very well, then, the form and the individual are both examples of man. They must then participate in a third form, which is also man. And if all three are men, they must participate in a fourth, and so on. At each step n, the n + 1st form is distinct from the first n examples. (Whether this is really a problem for Plato is a separate question.)

Cases where the terms are the same, then, do not suffice to get a regress started.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Reidy

[Mick Pestis]

If he knows for a fact that he will be discovered, what's the purpose of the whole exercise? Both him and the Jew he's helping will just die anyway. Of course it's wrong to just throw you life away for no reason.

On the other hand, it can be perfectly moral to take a calculated risk, to help someone deserving of your help. So the answer is that it depends on the circumstances, and on the person being helped.

Harry Binswanger: The biological basis of teleological concepts

Here's the review of this book, from Amazon.com:

Is this what he means by teleological?

The first thought expirement regards actually a very real situation people dealt with. I read that rand said something about times of danger and under the threat of death, the "rules" of morality and so forth don't "apply" in the same manner (correct me if i'm wrong).

But this situation has no real death threat, unless you, yourself, cause it.

The threat of the nazis doesn't imply that the person hiding a jew would die "for a fact". The person is indeed, taking a HUGE risk, because anybody who is caught hiding a jew, would most certainly get killed by the nazis, but not every person who hides a jew, would necceceraly be caught [by them].

So, if im polish, and I'm aware of the punishment regarding hiding a jewish person in my house, I know that if I refuse to take one inside, I am not putting myself and my family in jeporady, hence I increase my chances to live.

If I hide a jewish person, on the other hand, I am risking my own life and my own family's life aswell.

What is the moral thing to do in that situation, in your opinion, based on objectivist values?

About the book, it sounds really interesting, I didn't really understand all of the review, but it does sound interesting:)

Ty

[Mick Pestis]

The first objection seems to be that Rand's argument leads to an infinite regress. Why do we act to gain or keep life? Because it's a value. Why is it a value? - and so on.

The reason this doesn't get into an infinite regress is that value and what an organism acts to gain or keep are synonyms. To get a regress, the objects generating it must be distinct. Consider, for example, four is the sum of three and one and four is the square of -2. You can substitute 3 + 1 and (-2) ** 2 for one another as many times as you want, but this is not a regress. Instead of going backward indefinitely it goes back and forth sideways.

An example of a true infinite regress is everything has a temporally prior cause. If the cause is temporally prior to x, it must be distinct from x. No matter how far back in the chain you go, you have to keep going back further. Each new cause is different from what it caused.

Another example is Plato's third man argument, which is supposed to raise a problem for his theory of forms. We call something an F because it participates in the form F. We call that person a man because he participates in the form man. Very well, then, the form and the individual are both examples of man. They must then participate in a third form, which is also man. And if all three are men, they must participate in a fourth, and so on. At each step n, the n + 1st form is distinct from the first n examples. (Whether this is really a problem for Plato is a separate question.)

Cases where the terms are the same, then, do not suffice to get a regress started.

It doesn't necceceraly has to do with life as the value in question, it actually applies to other things you choose to put as values in rand's definition.

The definition is ofcourse (from the wiki): A value is something you act to gain or keep.

So, for example:

You act to gain and keep Health

Health is a value

You act to gain love

Love is a value

You act to gain soup

Soup is a value (does that work on these things aswell?)

I cant really identify if there is a "problem" with the definition of value on my own, it seems okay but it also seems "too easy", or something like that, you know what I mean?

If you can try to simplify this a bit I'd really appreciate it, I think you understand the argument against the definition.

Thanks in advance.

[Reidy]

Life is one of indefinitely many values we might hold and pursue, but with a unique feature: it's all-subsuming, residing at a higher level than the others you cite, because it's a necessary condition of any of them and because, unlike them, it's a natural stopping-point beyond which a series of "and why in turn do you value that?" questions can't go. ("Architectonic" is Aristotle's term for wider values or principles gpverning others.)

Your examples are cases of replacing synonyms with one another. If the procedure looks trivial, that's because it is.

[Nicky]

The first thought expirement regards actually a very real situation people dealt with. I read that rand said something about times of danger and under the threat of death, the "rules" of morality and so forth don't "apply" in the same manner (correct me if i'm wrong).

You could be referring to two things:

1. The Ethics of emergencies, an emergency being an unplanned, life-threatening event.

2. A famous Ayn Rand quote that states that "morality end where a gun begins" (or something to that effect). This second quote is irrelevant to the subject, it means that you don't owe someone who is holding a gun to your head any kind of "moral" consideration. You don't have to be honest with him, respect his rights, etc.

But this situation has no real death threat, unless you, yourself, cause it.

If it is an unplanned, unforeseeable event that threatens someone's life, then it's an emergency. Even if it's not your life that's threatened.

If someone shows up on your doorstep uninvited, and asks you to hide him for a little while, because his life is in danger, that counts as an emergency. It would not be immoral to do it.

However:

The threat of the nazis doesn't imply that the person hiding a jew would die "for a fact". The person is indeed, taking a HUGE risk, because anybody who is caught hiding a jew, would most certainly get killed by the nazis, but not every person who hides a jew, would necceceraly be caught [by them].

So, if im polish, and I'm aware of the punishment regarding hiding a jewish person in my house, I know that if I refuse to take one inside, I am not putting myself and my family in jeporady, hence I increase my chances to live.

If I hide a jewish person, on the other hand, I am risking my own life and my own family's life aswell.

What is the moral thing to do in that situation, in your opinion, based on objectivist values?

About the book, it sounds really interesting, I didn't really understand all of the review, but it does sound interesting:)

Ty

In Nazi Germany, Jews were systematically exterminated over the course of many years. Turning your house, in which your family lives, into a hiding place for Jews for the length of that period, does not qualify as an emergency decision.

This is by no means "the Objectivist position" (Objectivism is a philosophy, not a FAQ section for various thought exercises one can come up with), but in my opinon, yes, turning your home into a safehouse for Jews in Poland, with your children living in it, would be immoral. Your primary obligation, in that case, should be your children's safety. It would be OK to help a friend, in an emergency, and for a limited time, but not strangers, indiscriminately, as part of a long term plan. An emergency is by definition unplanned.

On the other hand, if there are only adults living in a house, and they all agree to do this, the same thing would be moral. It would be consenting adults, participating in the anti-Nazi Resistance. Nothing wrong with that. Not because it's an emergency (it's still not), but because it is a calculated risk, and part of an effort to wipe out the Nazis and re-establish a free and safe world for everyone. That's a perfectly selfish thing to do.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Nicky