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How to Morally Judge Amoral vs. Immoral Men

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StrictlyLogical

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On 10/23/2017 at 3:42 PM, Easy Truth said:

In a sense, being evil is doing something stupid, when you are NOT stupid.

Yes. Before discovering Rand I spent a few years as a LaVeyan Satanist. According to LaVey (who incidentally plagiarized Rand heavily) the cardinal sin anyone can commit is stupidity, which is very close to the Objectivist cardinal sin of irrationality (voluntary, self-inflicted stupidity).

As SL pointed out, material objects as such are neither good nor evil (many kinds of poison can current various diseases, in the proper dosages); as human beings, it's up to us not to be stupid.

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On 10/25/2017 at 6:05 AM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Yes. Before discovering Rand I spent a few years as a LaVeyan Satanist. According to LaVey (who incidentally plagiarized Rand heavily) the cardinal sin anyone can commit is stupidity, which is very close to the Objectivist cardinal sin of irrationality (voluntary, self-inflicted stupidity).

It is hard for me to understand because I have done many stupid things, many things I regret, but I don't recall any time that I actually chose to do what I would regret. It has always been due to some mistake. But it is only when I knew that it was wrong, that I changed my behavior. To separate the actions that I did by mistake as not being wrong, does not work as a survival mechanism. This is where actual consequence, (consequentialism) is necessary for survival.

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On 10/25/2017 at 6:05 AM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

As SL pointed out, material objects as such are neither good nor evil (many kinds of poison can current various diseases, in the proper dosages); as human beings, it's up to us not to be stupid.

What about the issue of the "trained mind", the Pavlovian response. You eat something, it gives you a painful allergic response. Next time you see it, it is bad, evil. Not intrinsically, perhaps subjectively. But I don't like these words to describe it because of the fact that it will give you an allergic response is an objective fact, it is real, it will happen. Yet it is not a value judgment that a person without an allergy would make. In terms of a standard of what is good for bad for you, it is bad. How does one separate the two perspectives?

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2 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Yet it is not a value judgment that a person without an allergy would make. In terms of a standard of what is good for bad for you, it is bad. How does one separate the two perspectives?

I'm all ethics-ed out at the moment, but this caught my eye.

Why would you suppose that there is any moral standard apart from what is good or bad for you? Imagine that we agreed upon such a standard; should any person act contrary to what is good for them, individually? Would we call that moral?

I don't anticipate I'll follow up on this -- 'cause as I say, I need a bit of recharge on these subjects -- but I wanted to leave it as food for thought.

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21 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Why would you suppose that there is any moral standard apart from what is good or bad for you? Imagine that we agreed upon such a standard; should any person act contrary to what is good for them, individually? Would we call that moral?

Objectively speaking, I don't recall being the center of the universe. I used to have that misunderstanding as a child.

As the center of the universe, I absolve you of all the guilt appropriate for someone shying away from discussing ethics. Go recharge.

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On 10/30/2017 at 12:19 AM, Easy Truth said:

... [It] is bad, evil. Not intrinsically, perhaps subjectively...

No; objectively. 

There's no such thing as truly intrinsic knowledge, unaffected by the mind which holds it (untouched by the associations, emotions, degrees of emphasis and every other messily subjective thing that all minds have). Neither is there such a thing as subjective knowledge which isn't somehow based on the facts of reality (even a belief in unicorns would be based on the facts that horses and horns do exist and the fact that the believer really, really wishes they were real); to be conscious at all is to be conscious of some thing. Since all knowledge (even a falsehood) is based on certain aspects of reality, as they appear to the observer, trying to separate the intrinsic from the subjective is a wild goose chase. 

In your example, it's an objective (and universal) truth that allergens are bad for those who are allergic to them. A belief that allergens can be good for the allergic, despite being based on whatever facts of reality, would represent an incorrect combination of those facts (and in all likelihood it'd also be irrational, since its self-contradiction is only a few mental steps away from being explicit).

There's a reason it's called "Objectivism"...

 

On 10/30/2017 at 12:14 AM, Easy Truth said:

In terms of a standard of what is good for bad for you, it is bad. How does one separate the two perspectives?

Intention. It's no different from how we separate manslaughter from murder.

 

On 10/30/2017 at 12:14 AM, Easy Truth said:

It is hard for me to understand because I have done many stupid things, many things I regret, but I don't recall any time that I actually chose to do what I would regret. It has always been due to some mistake.

As admirable as that may be, each of us is still free to choose what we know we shouldn't at any time.

For example, one recent night I had a bottle of vodka before wandering around town, looking for a fight. I knew that I was jeopardizing the quality of the next morning's work, serious bodily injury and a multitude of lesser concerns. All night long I felt this nagging little thing in the back of my head which, if consciously examined, would've told me how stupid I was being - but I didn't examine it. I'd just gotten off the phone with my ex-wife and I wasn't in the mood to think; I wanted to break something.

That's all I mean by deliberate stupidity. At no point was I consciously trying to hurt myself, nor did I actually suffer any ill consequences (thankfully); that isn't necessary. All it took was for me to have all the information I'd need in order to know better, if I chose to stop and think about it, and to simply choose not to. 

It's not hard; in fact, it's one of the easiest things that there is. Doing all of the thinking it takes to know better (and then going forth and doing better), whenever you should know better, is what's hard.

If you've never done that before then that's amazing. Seriously, dude, that deserves some kind of medal or something. But each of us is still fully capable of doing it tomorrow if we allow ourselves to.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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5 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

That's all I mean by deliberate stupidity. At no point was I consciously trying to hurt myself, nor did I actually suffer any ill consequences (thankfully); that isn't necessary. All it took was for me to have all the information I'd need in order to know better, if I chose to stop and think about it, and to simply choose not to. 

1

"At no point was I consciously trying to hurt myself" is what I am emphasizing. And I would add that at no point in your current life, in this current moment are you trying to hurt your self. So I still have trouble imagining how a person would actually choose to be stupid. One could talk about "jackass videos" people trying bizarre things for thrills, but I tend to think that at the time (not in hindsight), they genuinely think that what they are NOT being stupid.

One might not have the time or tolerance to see all the possible consequences. Is that the source of the moral culpability?

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  • 2 years later...
On 2/27/2014 at 12:16 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

An amoral man is a man who has not consciously or subconsciously chosen life, not chosen to live.  He continues to live because he has not been able to bring about his end or he is apathetic to his lack of choice.  In either case he is amoral.  An immoral man is one who explicitly or at least implicitly chooses life, chooses to live, but either acts against principles which would be effective for his stated goal of life or acts in accordance with principles which actually detract from his stated goal of life, regardless of what principles he purports (to himself) to have adopted.

Any choice to be unconscious, meaning "being unconscious" may be immoral.
If while being unconscious, you commit a crime, you should be held responsible.

The only amoral action is when one had no choice to do otherwise.
If it was not their fault, it was amoral, therefore they are absolved.

Sometimes there is an underlying implication that if someone has not chosen life, they are "immoral" couched in "amoral".

Since any human action indicates a choice, one who is alive, has chosen to live, in fact is choosing to live.
The only evidence of a choice to "not live" is the action of death (not dying, but the instance of death).

The fact is that once you are alive, you are living, there is no choice, you are doing "living", and "living" is being done.
To be more precise, there is no conscious choice to start living.
Therefore there is no choice to live, it is automatic.
That heartbeat that happened almost now was not your choice.
It may be that the choice to live is both automatic and volitional.
This may also be more an area of psychology rather than philosophy.

The indication of the life choice, the choice to live, is that absence of the choice to die.
That means every moment that one is alive, a choice has been made.
Even if it may be an unconscious (subconscious) choice.
The choice has been made because ... you are alive.

And then, there is the choice to die.

Supposedly, when you choose to die, morality does not matter.
That is not true.

Morality is always applicable as long as you are consciously choosing.
Morality even applies if you are "unconscious" and will eventual be conscious again.
If you are going to be unconscious eternally, morality does not matter.

So, as long as you are alive, you are choosing to live.
While you are conscious, there is NO evidence of a choice to die.
It is only when you die, the instant that you die, that you "choose" to die.
It is not a sacrifice, it is a choice for a better value if the choice is conscious. (psychological theory of egoism)
Death is (a subjective) value at that moment.
If it is unconscious, it is an automatic choice, still a human choice (no one else is making the choice).
And yes, everything is amoral after that instantaneous choice ... because you are dead.

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