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Highest moral feeling?

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Galt, from Atlas Shrugged:

"Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need - and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling."

Then what, pray tell, would be the highest moral action?

Wouldn't the highest moral feeling be something more along the lines of self-esteem, love, happiness... and not said desire to kill?

Now, happiness is the highest moral purpose, can It be the highest moral feeling?

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The intent to kill iisn't the emotion he is talking about; he is talking about Contempt. Romantic love and happiness don't feel as powerful to me at least. Contempt mixes positive and negative emotions into a single state (Pride and Hatred).

Also we have a troll on our forum; Neither of the things listed by Justin Benner are emotional states.

Edited by Hairnet
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The intent to kill iisn't the emotion he is talking about; he is talking about Contempt. Romantic love and happiness don't feel as powerful to me at least. Contempt mixes positive and negative emotions into a single state (Pride and Hatred).

Also we have a troll on our forum; Neither of the things listed by Justin Benner are emotional states.

Empathy isn't an emotional state? When I see another person suffering, even a person I don't know, and I am compelled to help them, even when it goes against my own well-being - that isn't a high moral calling?

Interesting perspective.

Edited by Justin Benner
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When I see another person suffering, even a person I don't know, and I am compelled to help them, even when it goes against my own well-being - that isn't a high moral calling?
No it isn't. When you see someone work hard, and do really well, and feel enough empathy to smile at their happiness and are then inspired to similar success yourself, that is much closer to a high moral calling.
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No it isn't. When you see someone work hard, and do really well, and feel enough empathy to smile at their happiness and are then inspired to similar success yourself, that is much closer to a high moral calling.

So charity and a desire to help others isn't a high moral calling, but personal success and ambition is?

I suppose what I'm saying is that, in my own life, I have noticed that the thing I feel most passionate about is injustice. I want to help those that can't help themselves. When somebody is hurt, or needs help, I feel compelled to help them. Some of that motivation is pure self-interest; I like the idea of being a hero, and of getting recognition. But some of it is selfless - I feel genuinely passionate about doing what I can to help others, and that motivates me to succeed to the point where I am able to do so, financially, physically, etc.

Edited by Justin Benner
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Empathy isn't an emotional state? When I see another person suffering, even a person I don't know, and I am compelled to help them, even when it goes against my own well-being - that isn't a high moral calling?

Interesting perspective.

I guess you aren't a troll.. Just read your introductory post. I apologize.

I would argue that empathy is a skill that takes time to develop. For example, it has been shown that people who read more fiction and about different peoples have an easier time putting themselves in otheres shoes. In this sense I see empathy being a skil lthat one can improve. I consider myself to be very empathetic, however none of my ethical decsiions are based solely on the fact that I am aware that someone else is suffering.

You seem to be saying that charity is what gives you the highest moral feeling. I take this to mean that you feel something like a mixture of pride and compassion when you do things like this. I have experienced the same emotion, and it is nice. However it is dangerous to be charitable to those who don't deserve it and when it would harm you. No reasonable person likes it when decent people suffer. So of course we act to end that. Of course it feels good when we end the suffering of decent people. In the end though I can't justify it all the time.

Charity is nice, but doing so to the point that you are harming yourself is hedonistic at best.

Edited by Hairnet
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No problem dude. I can assure you that I will say many things you disagree with, but I am here in good faith, not to troll.

I agree that expressions of empathy need to be conditional upon context... However, that doesn't stop me from feeling the initial pang. In my own life, this is the feeling I would describe as the most powerful... and one that is, in my opinion, amongst the highest emotional states I feel. Love and anger being contenders, but even then I feel like I control those more.

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So charity and a desire to help others isn't a high moral calling, but personal success and ambition is?
No, I wouldn't put it that way; but, do you think the reverse: i.e. that helping others is moral, but striving for personal success is not?
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No, I wouldn't put it that way; but, do you think the reverse: i.e. that helping others is moral, but striving for personal success is not?

Absolutely not. Striving for personal success is how you live a fulfilling life. I think alot of people confuse ambition and drive with ammorality and greed; I am not one of those people.

I want to be a personal success so I can help other people do the same. At the same time, I want to help other people so that I can be considered a personal success. That, to me, is one of the highest moral callings out there.

Edited by Justin Benner
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Feelings don't have to lead to action, nor should they. To see this passage (or the one in the Rearden thread) as problematic you have to suppose that they do or should. We can experience feelings and acknowledge them and want to understand them (as Galt and Rearden do in these cases) without acting out.

Branden took this distinction up somewhere in his writings, saying that one of Freud's bad influences was the belief that we either act on feelings or repress them, when these aren't in fact our only alternatives.

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I don't mean this personally, but I feel like that was a loaded question, and I am about to walk into an ambush. Perhaps you could start by defining greed, so that I can be sure we are talking about the same thing?

"a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed"

From the Webster dictionary. I am curious because I had a discussion with someone who claimed greed as evil the other day and I like to hear the reasoning behind such an assertion (not that you called it evil).

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"a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed"

From the Webster dictionary. I am curious because I had a discussion with someone who claimed greed as evil the other day and I like to hear the reasoning behind such an assertion (not that you called it evil).

I can't speak for someone else, but I'll take a stab at explaining it.

When your average person speaks of someone being "selfish," they don't mean the definition you've listed above. To them, the word also implies a sense of harm. So they aren't talking about you wanting more than you need, they are talking about you wanting that at the expense of someone else. It's the difference between the friend who wants it all, and the friend who gets it through nefarious means.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with selfishness, at least as far as it is a good description for "ego." Without the drive for more, we'd still be living in huts, and people would still be dumping their crap onto the streets, instead of into the oceans, like civilized people. But like all emotions, the key to a fulfilling life is moderation. When your selfishness becomes harmful, that is when a moral person draws the line.

Edited by Justin Benner
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I can't speak for someone else, but I'll take a stab at explaining it.

When your average person speaks of someone being "selfish," they don't mean the definition you've listed above. To them, the word also implies a sense of harm. So they aren't talking about you wanting more than you need, they are talking about you wanting that at the expense of someone else. It's the difference between the friend who wants it all, and the friend who gets it through nefarious means.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with selfishness, at least as far as it is a good description for "ego." Without the drive for more, we'd still be living in huts, and people would still be dumping their crap onto the streets, instead of into the oceans, like civilized people. But like all emotions, the key to a fulfilling life is moderation. When your selfishness becomes harmful, that is when a moral person draws the line.

I was defining greed, not selfishness.

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Immediately following my quote in my OP:

"That night, at the Twentieth Century meeting, when I heard an unspeakable evil spoken in the tone of moral righteousness, I saw the key to it and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I went out to do it."

So, at the meeting, instead of killing the speaker, becoming a shooter, he became a striker.

Recall Chamberlain' s review of AS:"To the gas chamber, go!"

In rethinking this it's really not that far off the mark. Think about it.

In Galts speech he says go listeners "Perish with and in your own void."

The strike essentially created one giant gas chamber all they had to do was close the door of Atlantis behind them, and wait until those in the gas chamber had gassed themselves to death, wait until the "road was cleared", or rather until the air was cleared, wait until they had perished enough by their own code for the strikers to return to the world.

So Galts desire to kill a certain speaker wasn't the solution this was:

Create the chamber step safely outside of it, wait till enough perished and till the air was cleared.

And apparently it didn't take that long either, so not only was that his solution, but it was a brilliant one. He didn't have to take responsibility polity for any of their deaths like he would have if he'd of killed the speaker fulfilling his desire kill a man that said that.

So, the desire to kill a man that said that was th highest moral feeling, as my other quote stated before, then what kind of feeling did this give him?

Instead of killing the speaker he says "I will stop the motor of the world"

Read: I will create the gas chamber, your code will be the gas.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Mr. Ammo,

An alias assumed by the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. had the surname Galt. I hope the fantastical stretch of Rand and her fiction you have been making in this thread and your subsequent similar litany of threads in Ayn Rand Book Club is not a workup for some violence. What do you think of Peter’s response in #12 to your root post of this thread?

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Now, happiness is the highest moral purpose, can It be the highest moral feeling?

It can be... when doing what's morally right makes you happy because your actions are motivated by your love of goodness. Doing good is the ultimate selfish act because it makes you a better person, and there is nothing that works out more in favor of your own self interest than that.

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When your average person speaks of someone being "selfish," they don't mean the definition you've listed above. To them, the word also implies a sense of harm. So they aren't talking about you wanting more than you need, they are talking about you wanting that at the expense of someone else. It's the difference between the friend who wants it all, and the friend who gets it through nefarious means.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with selfishness, at least as far as it is a good description for "ego." Without the drive for more, we'd still be living in huts, and people would still be dumping their crap onto the streets, instead of into the oceans, like civilized people. But like all emotions, the key to a fulfilling life is moderation. When your selfishness becomes harmful, that is when a moral person draws the line.

I agree. (I was going to write 'hear hear' but googled it first for correct spelling, read a whole thread about how that's the same as 'hear ye hear ye,' thought that was too lame to write, and decided against it. But that's really what I mean.)

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I hope the fantastical stretch of Rand and her fiction you have been making in this thread and your subsequent similar litany of threads in Ayn Rand Book Club is not a workup for some violence.

What, pray tell, would even give you such an impression?

Edited by intellectualammo
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Why, haven't you been fixated of late on violence and thoughts of violence in Rand's fiction? And isn't ammo part of your pen name? And isn't your identity kept secret? And isn't the garb in your icon a lot of black, like our recent little mass murderers in America?

That is how vaporous your recent derogatory spins on Rand and her fiction.

.

.

Edited by Boydstun
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Why, haven't you been fixated of late on violence and thoughts of violence in Rand's fiction? And isn't ammo part of your pen name? And isn't your identity kept secret? And isn't the garb in your icon a lot of black, like our recent little mass murderers in America?

I knew your answer would have to be baseless, but now I know to the extent of its baselessness. The avatar is of a painting by Fabian Perez, btw.

Moving on.

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