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"Man's life"? Or, "your life"?

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whYNOT

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5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Whew. You can do better.

I said several times, the attempt at holding both "one's life, one's highest value" AND one's life the "standard of value" creates a conflict. (mental and external)

I think I understand now, but please realize that you really need to work on your writing style. When you don't write well, people will misunderstand you. Maybe Grames understood, but he asked for examples, and if you gave some, that would have helped a lot. So, you can ignore the parts where I speak of a dichotomy.

In my second response, it looks like I misread something, you just wanted to say that holding one's life is the highest value is probably impossible if one's own life is held as the standard of value. But then the proceeding conversation became even more confusing because of very strange sentences like this: "And - then - if one *also* considers one's life as the highest value (true, and recognized by every O'ist)) this will clash with one's life as the standard of value."  You make it sound like holding one's life as the highest value is also a problem.

Yeah, your individual life is not the proper standard of value. Swig said originally that your reasoning about it was backwards (rationalism), even if the conclusion was correct. So in a way, it's not that what you said is wrong, but your reasoning about it isn't very clear so it sounds like you're arguing something that you aren't actually trying to argue.

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

This is bald assertion... not an argument.

You do not understand what the word “objective” means.

Yeah, that's metaphysics for you. Bald assertion. This is this. This is not that.

1.Man's life is the standard of value.

2. An individual's life is not an individual's standard of value.

I'd like to see your explanation of objective and objective value.

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8 hours ago, Eiuol said:

I think I understand now, but please realize that you really need to work on your writing style. When you don't write well, people will misunderstand you. Maybe Grames understood, but he asked for examples, and if you gave some, that would have helped a lot. So, you can ignore the parts where I speak of a dichotomy.

.

 

 

 

Glad that you got it. Why Grames understood early, despite "sty'e", is because he thinks in principles. Instances of an Objectivist here and there, misstating Rand's meaning are quite numerous. When I further saw that no one else made a correction, I inferred that the error is wide-spread. Examples of this would take a search into the forums I'm incapable of, and not really indicative of much. They were simply asserted, as matter-of-fact: e.g "The individual's life is his standard of value".

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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Yeah, that's metaphysics for you. Bald assertion. This is this. This is not that.

1.Man's life is the standard of value.

2. An individual's life is not an individual's standard of value.

I'd like to see your explanation of objective and objective value.

I’m not going to define anything for you, I’m looking for some independent thought.  The apple tree is a perfect example we could discuss but you continue to evade precisely because it would require independent thought on your part.

I am curious about your psycho epistemology and sense of life.  Is morality primarily and fundamentally individualistic and personal?  or contra is it something possessed and for a society or for any group or collection of people for that matter?

If you are unwilling or unable to think independently, no real discussion of any kind is possible.

 

One more hypothetical to add to the mix.  What if you were a brilliant botanist and geneticist and you were able to create a hybrid apple orange tree ... and you created only one.  Now suppose because of your brilliance you could from its unique genetic makeup predict and completely understand its requirements for life, some of which were similar to similar to apple trees others similar to orange trees and yet others new and similar to neither.  Now suppose you write your guide to action, recipe of care, standard practices manual, whatever you call it, for your gardener, using all your knowledge. 

In what way would your utterly unique owners manual for the actual care of this apple orange tree be subjective?

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

misstating Rand's meaning are quite numerous

I've seen it before, yes. But examples are still important if we want to concretize anything we say.

If someone thinks that their own life is the standard of value, I think it's usually because it can be difficult to make the conceptual step that an abstract and universal code can be unified with a particular life. 

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

is because he thinks in principles

it just gets annoying when I'm not the only person who thinks you have poor writing, and you don't bother to improve it. You use grammar inappropriately, you use punctuation inappropriately. Your transition words are absent when they should be there. Your attempts at clarification usually do the opposite.

3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Examples of this would take a search into the forums I'm incapable of

Anyone can search.

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5 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

 

I am curious about your psycho epistemology and sense of life.  Is morality primarily and fundamentally individualistic and personal?  or contra is it something possessed and for a society or for any group or collection of people for that matter?

 

There's something one takes for granted on an Objectivist forum, that the distinction between an abstraction (man's life) and the concrete (an individual life) will be grasped. That one makes the conceptual connection from one to the other.

*Of course* one's morality is individualistic and real to one, as one's life and being is real and concrete; arbitrarily throwing in "fundamentally" and your comments raises the doubt you know what metaphysical fundamentality means.

"Man's life" = Fundamental to man and man's existence, according to the nature of his consciousness (consciousness, too, has identity) and the nature of existence.

That's my (independent) assessment of the phrase, open to criticism.

Therefore - fundamental to ALL men and all individuals. 

You, otoh, think that "morality" relates to either the individual or the group of people and society. (Even implying altruism...). So you pose a false dichotomy in your question. I suggest the social conception of "men" and "society" stems from universalism rather than a proper metaphysics of man.

Before you irrelevantly get down to anyone's "psycho-epistemology and sense of life" you need to understand the abstractions involved here. I have been accurate to Objectivism, I think, but I don't see you being critical of Rand's "sense of life" in her ethics conception.

Where do you believe Rand has her ethics wrong? More likely, where do you think you've misinterpreted her? I'll give it again: "The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the STANDARD of value--and HIS OWN LIFE as the ETHICAL PURPOSE of every individual man". (AR's italics).

Edited by whYNOT
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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I've seen it before, yes. But examples are still important if we want to concretize anything we say.

If someone thinks that their own life is the standard of value, I think it's usually because it can be difficult to make the conceptual step that an abstract and universal code can be unified with a particular life. 

it just gets annoying when I'm not the only person who thinks you have poor writing, and you don't bother to improve it. You use grammar inappropriately, you use punctuation inappropriately. Your transition words are absent when they should be there. Your attempts at clarification usually do the opposite.

Anyone can search.

I don't need to search for previous examples of that erroneous interpretation. You are seeing them here.

And it's increasingly clear that I have been quite well understood. The reactions demonstrate this.  

Thank you for the writing advice. You always did worry too much about style over substance. 

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5 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

 

 

One more hypothetical to add to the mix.  What if you were a brilliant botanist and geneticist and you were able to create a hybrid apple orange tree ... and you created only one.  Now suppose because of your brilliance you could from its unique genetic makeup predict and completely understand its requirements for life, some of which were similar to similar to apple trees others similar to orange trees and yet others new and similar to neither.  Now suppose you write your guide to action, recipe of care, standard practices manual, whatever you call it, for your gardener, using all your knowledge. 

In what way would your utterly unique owners manual for the actual care of this apple orange tree be subjective?

This topic concerns "objective value" - derived from objective reality. *Which* value-system is the essential grounds for defining and creating a morality. I.E. Of value to whom?

(The three theories of value you should know). Your tree theory is fine as far as objective fact goes; apparently you think the O'ist ethical theory offends or contradicts the utter uniqueness of every individual (which he/she is). That's badly mistaken, and a metaphysical -> individual error again.

Further, you are seemingly confusing "personal" with "subjective". 

 

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30 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

This topic concerns "objective value" - derived from objective reality. *Which* value-system is the essential grounds for defining and creating a morality. I.E. Of value to whom?

(The three theories of value you should know). Your tree theory is fine as far as objective fact goes; apparently you think the O'ist ethical theory offends or contradicts the utter uniqueness of every individual (which he/she is). That's badly mistaken, and a metaphysical -> individual error again.

Further, you are seemingly confusing "personal" with "subjective". 

 

Lets stop trying to characterize each other and deal with my example using independent thought.   

What is inappropriate or subjective with using “this apple tree” or “this apple orange tree” and all the knowledge that comes with it, (please see my above examples) as the standard to use in its care?

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56 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

"Man's life" = Fundamental to man and man's existence, according to the nature of his consciousness (consciousness, too, has identity) and the nature of existence.

Man's life is his process of self-generated and self-sustaining action. You appear to be focusing on only one aspect of man, his existence, and dropping the context of his action. Man's life is not that which is fundamental to his existence, it's that which is his existence. A man acting to stay alive (to continue existing) is his life. Of course, a man can also act to end his life (to stop existing), which is his death. Therefore, each individual man must form a concept of his own life and death, and the actions which will produce either result. This is the sense in which his own life is his standard of value, and his own death is his standard of vice.

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Back to basics. You guys need some revision, from page one:

"The first question that has to answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any system of ethics, is: Why does man need any values at all -- and why?

"Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all--and why?

"Is the concept of *value*, of "good or evil" an arbitrary human invention, unrelated to, underived from and unsupported by any facts of reality--or is it based on a *metaphysical fact, on an unalterable condition of man's existence? (I use the word "metaphysical" to mean: that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence)." p,1 The Objectivist Ethics.

Etc.

Right up to and beyond: "...holds man's life as the standard of value..."

If there are sensible objections to Rand's justification, fine, I will be glad to hear. If there's agreement, then we agree on the basics, and can dive a little deeper. But we all should know the basics first, not garbled versions from secondary sources, or subjective reproductions that look good. "Independence" means not much, when one has subjective 'standards' of egoism. 

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Man's life is his process of self-generated and self-sustaining action. You appear to be focusing on only one aspect of man, his existence, and dropping the context of his action. Man's life is not that which is fundamental to his existence, it's that which is his existence. A man acting to stay alive (to continue existing) is his life. Of course, a man can also act to 

Yes yes. LIFE. Do I have to repeat goal-directed action, self-generated, etc, etc, in every post? You can read it higher up. 

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2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

This is the sense in which his own life is his standard of value, and his own death is his standard of vice.

I mean, I don't disagree with your criticism here as far as whyNot's reasoning about the topic (a quote battle isn't helping anyone).

But wouldn't this here be an example of trying to fit a bad phrasing to a fine concept? If you talk about an abstraction, you can't be talking about literally your own life. The only thing that can have a life is a specific entity. Yeah, you abstract from your own life (to do otherwise is rationalism usually), but you can't apply your own life as a standard to other people. In some sense, you could be the standard, to the extent that you are trying to take into account your individual differences. The problem with that is when we talk about standards, we are looking for what applies across all entities of a specific class. The word 'standard' would not be precise here.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Eiuol said:

The problem with that is when we talk about standards, we are looking for what applies across all entities of a specific class. The word 'standard' would not be precise here.

Earlier you referenced Peikoff's principle of two definitions, which he applied to the concept of value. I suspect that a similar principle applies to the concept of standard of value. In order to reach the narrower idea of a pro-life standard, you must begin with the broader set of standards, which includes all particular things and ideas by which you've evaluated your goals and actions. Consider this #2 definition of standard:

1037543873_Screenshot_20191020-2001472.thumb.png.d1f5972baf9ac891f53e39f6caff274f.png

I just pulled it from Google, but I think it is accurate. A standard doesn't have to be an abstraction. It can also be a real thing, i.e., your particular life. And since your life is an end in itself, it makes sense for it to be your concrete, metaphysical standard of value, the thing by which you should evaluate your actions. This doesn't mean that it should replace an abstract, moral standard. The two should be in harmony, otherwise you have a problem.

This is a difficult idea to explain. I'll work on a more comprehensive statement, but I too want to avoid a "quote-battle" with Whynot, and I worry that's what it'll turn into if I start analyzing Rand in more detail. Instead, I would very much like to see Whynot fully address SL's "apple tree" example and your Peikoff reference to the principle of two definitions.

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18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

I mean, I don't disagree with your criticism here as far as whyNot's reasoning about the topic (a quote battle isn't helping anyone).

But wouldn't this here be an example of trying to fit a bad phrasing to a fine concept? If you talk about an abstraction, you can't be talking about literally your own life. The only thing that can have a life is a specific entity. Yeah, you abstract from your own life (to do otherwise is rationalism usually), but you can't apply your own life as a standard to other people. In some sense, you could be the standard, to the extent that you are trying to take into account your individual differences. The problem with that is when we talk about standards, we are looking for what applies across all entities of a specific class. The word 'standard' would not be precise here.

 

 

The whole thing starts wrong with not applying the law of identity to man. With the premise that consciousness and one's own mind do not also have specific identity. The very first of which is its autonomy. Staying with just that single attribute, autonomy dictates that one can *only* be mind-independent.

In dismissal of the "is/ought dichotomy", a man must act according to, and to the extent of his nature, using all his attributes: rationality, reason, free will, especially.

From the identification of the attributes of "man" given to us by an objective metaphysician is how most individuals arrived at identifying one's own capacities. Few ever could achieve that by introspection and induction, nor a lifetime of observation of individual men.

That outlines the necessity of a metaphysics, in this case the absolute reality of "man" and man's life. Switching to value - again, the all fits the one. What is one's and one's life-value is anything but arbitrary, subjective, intrinsic. Individual value - explicitly - comes about by one recognizing the "standard of value" (man's life) - to repeat, based upon the identity of those capacities man has. This abstract principle is nothing to fret about in one's daily, general living and pursuit of values, as I see this.

E.g. "Am I - properly - living up to the standard of value, man's life?"

It 'only' needs to be grasped and acknowledged, (as with the abstraction "reality" denoting every instance of reality). When explicitly recognized, and at times, revisited, the subconscious mind admits and holds that as a guiding principle for one's value-choices . 

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18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

, but you can't apply your own life as a standard to other people.  

 

 

There are I think two tremendous errors and bad consequences of accepting "one's own life is the standard of value". One is the circular illogic of applying one's own standard of value to one's own *value". (And losing any standard). The other is applying one's life as the standard of value - to others. Which means one sets the benchmark of value by one's life for what other individual lives and their values, must match.

On one hand, an individual could end up in self-conflict, anxiety and confusion -  subconsciously knowing he's living in self-contradiction. On the other, one may turn to "Nietzschean egoism": whatever I say goes. Whatever I choose is good. A possible additional side-effect being second-handedness.

Hard to tell which is worse, they are both equally self-less outcomes.

Morally, they boil down to self-sacrifice -or- sacrifice of others.  

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23 hours ago, whYNOT said:

There are I think two tremendous errors and bad consequences of accepting "one's own life is the standard of value". One is the circular illogic of applying one's own standard of value to one's own *value". (And losing any standard). The other is applying one's life as the standard of value - to others. Which means one sets the benchmark of value by one's life for what other individual lives and their values, must match.

You don't lose your standard simply because your ultimate value (your own life) sets a standard by which you evaluate your actions as good or bad. If your actions result in you continuing to live and flourish, then you can evaluate them as good. If they result in you getting sick and declining in health, your actions are bad. Your life is an end in itself. If you're acting successfully then you are living your standard of value. Just because you've achieved your standard doesn't mean you don't have it anymore. You have your life until you die.

As far as applying your own life as the standard for other people, that's a straw man that I think comes from not appreciating the relational nature of values. If, in a particular sense, my life is my standard of value, then it's not going to be your particular or general standard, because my particular values (including my own life) relate to me, not you. (Only an abstract or general standard can apply to everyone.) If my life is of value to you, it's not in the same way as its value to me. It's not your ultimate value or standard, but it is mine.

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

You don't lose your standard simply because your ultimate value (your own life) sets a standard by which you evaluate your actions as good or bad. If your actions result in you continuing to live and flourish, then you can evaluate them as good. If they result in you getting sick and declining in health, your actions are bad. Your life is an end in itself. If you're acting successfully then you are living your standard of value. Just because you've achieved your standard doesn't mean you don't have it anymore. You have your life until you die.

I like your post.

But note, setting your own life as the standard by which you evaluate actions does not necessitate any "trial and error" which this paragraph might imply to some on a first reading.

Nor does it require the abandonment of conceptualization and abstract knowledge.  You can evaluate any potential action based on what you know, namely the likelihood of outcomes based on your nature (i.e. all you know about what it is to be a man and all the possibilities and potentialities that entails), without ever having to wait for any specifically personal "results" from a personally tried action (trial and error).  One can know whether a potential action is "good" by the application of principles and knowledge of what you are and keeping context.

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3 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

But note, setting your own life as the standard by which you evaluate actions does not necessitate any "trial and error" which this paragraph might imply to some on a first reading.

I get the impression that "trial and error" is being misused here. I don't see why it should be set counter to evaluating potential actions based on your knowledge. The two processes go hand-in-hand. It's not like you perform trials for the sake of performing trials. You test out certain actions to see what works, then you store and logically build on that knowledge by advancing your trials to the next stages of development. Also, very early on you learn to be careful in this process so that you don't take wild risks with your life. So it's not as if the "trial and error" process represents some irrational disregard for one's standard of value.

4 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

One can know whether a potential action is "good" by the application of principles and knowledge of what you are and keeping context.

Sure, but what if you don't have the necessary knowledge to form the proper principle to apply to that potential action? You would need to somehow gain the knowledge, which might require performing trials and making errors.

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On 10/21/2019 at 11:57 AM, whYNOT said:

On the other, one may turn to "Nietzschean egoism": whatever I say goes.

I think this deserves some clarification. Nietzsche wouldn't even say there's a standard of value. It's not that whatever you say goes, but that by acknowledging that in his view there is no standard of value to apply across all people, we end up with completely different ways of thinking and action than the usual "good and bad". To him, saying your life as a standard of value would be subjugating yourself to some outside commandment or duty. At least, if you are what he calls new philosophers.

I'm not arguing for his view, though I am saying it helps support the idea that your individual life as a standard of value is mental gymnastics at best. 

9 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

You don't lose your standard simply because your ultimate value (your own life) sets a standard by which you evaluate your actions as good or bad. If your actions result in you continuing to live and flourish, then you can evaluate them as good.

Of course you would judge the actions within the context of your life as good or bad. But it doesn't mean you used your particular life to set a standard. It doesn't make sense to say that your ultimate value set a standard, because if the standard is objective, you wouldn't be using facts unique to you and your life. The unique facts about your life are information that you take into account (like your education when deciding what career to pursue). 

In other words, I think you're confusing conceptual development with using measurements. Yes, your life is a critical referent. But you form the abstraction of a standard by abstracting away your particular life. Your life is there, part of the concept. If you didn't abstract away your particular life, you wouldn't be able to apply any moral standards to other people objectively. At best, it sounds like you're trying to say that your life is your standard, because you have high standards for yourself, and you do it for your sake. But that's just a shallow understanding, and there is good reason that Rand never tried to speak about standards in this way. You are using it as definition 1, while Rand was using 2.

Your life isn't an abstraction. The closest thing to focusing only on that is how Max Stirner thinks of the ego. To him, he doesn't talk about oneself being something we just think about, or frame of mind, or life having some intrinsic worth. Rather, our lives, our ego, is that concrete thing. When we say 'I', he doesn't think of it as an abstraction, he sees it as a nameless thing that you can only refer to by pointing to it. The problem with this is that he doesn't think we could abstract from our lives to reach objective moral principles. He doesn't say this explicitly, but it is very clear when he spends a lot of time trying to refute the notion of an abstract self and life and therefore refute any way to apply abstract moral principles. But in fact, we can find abstract moral principles, because we can abstract away our individual lives. 

The two definition idea only applies to say that your individual life could be called a standard in the sense of 2, even if normatively it should not be. We are discussing the normative level, since I'm not disputing whether your life could be called a standard. Basically, my claim is that it is easy to dismantle your idea. Your life can't be applied as a standard to other people even if you tried, therefore, it can't be a standard in the normative sense.

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2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

I get the impression that "trial and error" is being misused here. I don't see why it should be set counter to evaluating potential actions based on your knowledge. The two processes go hand-in-hand. It's not like you perform trials for the sake of performing trials. You test out certain actions to see what works, then you store and logically build on that knowledge by advancing your trials to the next stages of development. Also, very early on you learn to be careful in this process so that you don't take wild risks with your life. So it's not as if the "trial and error" process represents some irrational disregard for one's standard of value.

Sure, but what if you don't have the necessary knowledge to form the proper principle to apply to that potential action? You would need to somehow gain the knowledge, which might require performing trials and making errors.

People who wish to know and escape from ignorance generally seek knowledge and education.  “Somehow” is not any kind of barrier.  

Much is known and has been written about the nature of humans.  

Certainly we all learn from experience but education and instruction whether self directed or from parents or others who have more experience than you, is incredibly important... especially in the formative years.

I was not saying what you wrote was wrong only warning that some might misconstrue it.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Your life can't be applied as a standard to other people even if you tried, therefore, it can't be a standard in the normative sense.

I think MS does not care.  I think he knows and accepts the Objectivist Ethics has normative standards which could be used to judge other people ... contextually, but he is more or less talking about his own ethics which he does not need nor want to apply to anyone else... when he needs to judge others he can use Rand’s ethics.

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19 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Of course you would judge the actions within the context of your life as good or bad. But it doesn't mean you used your particular life to set a standard. It doesn't make sense to say that your ultimate value set a standard, because if the standard is objective, you wouldn't be using facts unique to you and your life. The unique facts about your life are information that you take into account (like your education when deciding what career to pursue). 

I'm not sure how you're using "objective" here. Why can't your own life be an objective standard? Your life exists no matter what you subjectively or faithfully believe about it.

Let's take a hypothetical. Say I'm a child with no knowledge of Rand or moral theories. My mommy tells me to look both ways before crossing the road. I understand that this rule is to help prevent getting hit by a car. Getting hit by a car is bad. People who get hit by cars get hurt. To avoid getting hurt myself, I'll look both ways before crossing a road. Here I have grasped an abstract moral principle and applied it to my own life.

The next day I play under a tree. I hear something, look up, and get smacked in the forehead by a falling pine cone. My head hurts. I'm bleeding a little. It occurs to me that playing under that pine tree can be dangerous. Going forward, I decide to avoid playing under that pine tree or to cover my head instead of looking up when I hear that sound. Also, I warn my brother to be careful under that pine tree. Here I have formed a rule based on my own life as the standard, and I recognized the rule's application for other people, since I'm not the only one who could be injured by falling pine cones.

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Why can't your own life be an objective standard?

To begin with, a standard can't just include one thing. You need something to compare it to. If you use your own individual life as a standard, you are admitting that you have nothing for comparison. At best, your standards would be arbitrary and conceptually invalid. Not even objective or subjective. Even if you came up with some philosophy like "objective hedonism", that only focuses on yourself, you would probably talk about life in general anyway. You would refer to the pleasure of certain actions, and the objective facts which lead to that pleasure arising. If you truly want to only focus on your life explicitly, that would mean you reject the concept of moral standards - if you want to be consistent about it.

The way I see it, you're trying to find a way to defend your use of "my life is a standard of value" instead of just saying it's bad phrasing. What you say is consistent with life as a standard of value, not your particular life. The only error is that you are insisting that your examples illustrate your life as a standard of value. They don't. Applying an abstract moral principle to your life is not taking your life as a standard of value. That's what we mean by life as a standard of value: it's an abstract principle and an abstract standard. The standard is applied to your life, and then you can recognize if that standard impacted your life.

1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Also, I warn my brother to be careful under that pine tree. Here I have formed a rule based on my own life as the standard, and I recognized the rule's application for other people, since I'm not the only one who could be injured by falling pine cones.

If your own life is standard of value there, by definition, the rule does not apply to other people. You would need a new rule. Or if the rule does apply to other people, you've already admitted that you aren't using your life as a standard of value. What you're describing is maybe a theory of moral development, but not moral theory itself.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

To begin with, a standard can't just include one thing. You need something to compare it to. If you use your own individual life as a standard, you are admitting that you have nothing for comparison.

Man is the entity. Life is his particular process of self-sustaining action. That process occurs over time and changes states. He therefore compares one state with another. One minute he is healthy, the next minute he's injured from a falling pine cone. His standard is not the injured state, but the healthy, uninjured state. He therefore takes action to return to and maintain a healthy condition and avoid the unhealthy one. Understanding life as a process is critical here. We aren't talking about a static thing that doesn't change and doesn't have memory and doesn't compare its existence now to its existence in the past--or even its imaginary existence in the future.

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