theestevearnold

Dearest Devil's Ad, AR's ethics is a practical theory. It's not either or. Only irrational theories can't be applied to reality. And without a way to validate the rights you call fairly straight forward, they can crumble to the first evil philosophy to proclaim the morality of rights baseless. What happens when a dictator insists that all property should belong to the state? Do you have an argument reducible to the axioms? Or do you say, "Everybody knows it's wrong to have to give your property to serve the "greater good."? The "self-evident truths" of the Declaration are still in dispute, & losing ground, because they never did the work needed to prove why rights are right. Those great men left the concept of rights undefended, because they failed to validate it. Miss Rand did.

Fake breasts are better in some ways, and worse in others. (I have had 5 lovers with implants.) The bad news: Silicon implants are too stiff; they don't feel as good to the touch, unless you have a fetish for kneading softballs. And Alfa is right: Depending on how the surgeon places them, a woman can lose sensitivity in the nipples and aereolas. And a shoddy doctor can cause the aereolas to stretch. (One of my lovers aereolas went from silver dollars to the circumfrence of a crop circle. She can't breastfeed. Another lover of mine had them taken out to breastfeed, then reinserted when her kid was done with breastfeeding. (She had saline, then opted for peanut oil implants, both of which are softer than silicon.) And the weight of the large ones causes them sag within a few years...this is tied to the good news: Implants provide firmness for a woman with saggy breasts (until they sag again from the weight). They can make a woman feel better about her body. They can make an exotic dancer earn more.

With a rational code of ethics, one doesn't use oneself as the standard for ethical evaluations. Determining whether ones rights are secure or in jeopardy is done by applying moral principles validated by a metaphysics based on objective reality. I asked an egoistic moral subjectivist why "looking inward" is a valid standard for ethical evaluations. She said, "Because I said so." That's the kind of morality that leads to robbery and bloodshed because somebody felt it was for a good cause.

Using oneself as a guide to formulating a code of ethics invites subjectivism. Using an objective metaphysics (especially one's observations of man's nature) is a proper guide to formulating a code of ethics.

Dearest Devil's Ad, There are a few men-of-faith on this site. I give you credit for being the only one who came on this forum to reconcile your faith-based understandings with Objectivism (a philosophy that calls faith and force the world's two greatest destroyers). You've shown that faith and Objectivism can only appear compatible when one, the other, or both are misrepresented or presented out of context.

Correction: I was wrong when I said the do unto others slogan is egoist moral subjectivism. I realized that since Matthew, as Yahweh's spokesman, declared it as divine law, it's just plain ol' moral subjectivism in its common mystic (spiritual) form. I concede, it could be applied to reality. BUT, only AFTER a man accepts a rational code of ethics.

Dearest Devil's Ad, I agree with your second part. I'm unclear as to the first. Are you saying that the do unto others slogan doesn't always apply? And it should only be used by people who understand a correct code of ethics? If so, I agree. & it needs a caveat.

You are right. Remaing alive is the precondition for values. But it's also the goal of all rational values. By that, I mean an objective standard by which to discern whether something is good or evil. The context of this is morality. Pleasure shouldn't be the standard by which to judge values. drug abuse is an example of where pleasure, instead of the furtherance of one's life, was the standard of value. The hedonists made a code of ethics based on that. And your life-support analogy is not an appropriate existence for a life of a man. There are many virtues required to live as a man.The following is part of Galt's speech in which he explains why self-esteem is necessary to remain alive as a man... "From his discovery that he has to make choices, man knows that his desperate need of self-esteem is a matter of life or death. He knows that he must know his own value to maintain his own life. He knows that he has to be right. To be wrong in person (to be evil), means to be unfit for existence. Every act of man's life has to be willed. The mere act of obtaining or eating his food implies that the person he preserves is worthy of being preserved. Every pleasure he seeks to enjoy implies the person who seeks it is worthy of finding enjoyment. He has no choice about his need of self-esteem. The only choice is the standard by which to guage it."

In Galt's Speech, he says happiness is the goal and the reward of life. Nicky was right when he said you oversimplified "remaining alive." Remaining alive, as a man in his proper, rational state (not merely on life-support), is what makes all the good things possible, & implies a desire to achieve them.

Devil's Ad, Do you misunderstand the subjectivist slogan? Do unto others as you want them to do unto you. What did the man want them to do unto him? He wanted them to kill him. If the man did unto others as he wanted done to him, he would've killed others. Regarding your validation of rights, I'm unclear as to what you're saying. Are you saying that rights are derived from the fact that man can choose to not excersize his rights? And I don't know if you're saying that "duty" is a concept that a moral being should accept or reject. I don't know if I agree because I don't understand what you're saying. I do know that do unto others is a shoddy substitute for an actual code of ethics based on reality.

Devil's Ad, You spoke of a right to commit suicide is part of the right to life. I agree. I know a man who walked out onto his porch with a rifle and pointed it at the cops, so they would kill him. He told me this, with the scar from a cops bullet smeared across his face (he lived). He wanted to be killed. Thank God he didn't follow the golden rule (he didn't shoot).

Huh? You got all that from do unto others? "Ethical consistency" is what you wanna call aknowledging the right to life. Is there something new here besides that? I wanna see you prove that do unto others is a good slogan. I've proven it's egoistic moral subjectivism. On this site, I don't need to prove why that's evil because AR already did. My new idea was proving the do unto others slogan isn't even compatible with christianity.

The do unto others slogan is not compatible with Objectivist ethics because it's standard of the good is not objective reality, it's subjective whim. It's not even compatible with judeo-christian ethics because the decisions of morality are not made by the divine mandate of mystic subjectivism; morality is determined by each individual's egoistic subjectivism. It's a type of individualism, but not the right type.

Dearest Devil's Ad, You misinterpreted AR's use of "consistency" and "obligation." She used consistency on the metaphysical sense, referring to the law of identity. She used obligation in a metaphysical sense too, not referring to a type of moral duty.

If there was an ideal third party Radicals for Capitalism candidate running for president, & I knew he couldn't win, I'd still vote for him. Until then, if I abstain, or vote for semi-flawed libertarians, who don't stand a chance, I'm effectively increasing the worst candidate's chances. In staunchly red or blue states, voting for my favorite loser or a protest vote could be a good thing. In swing states, voting for the lesser of two evils is a vote against the greater evil. This sucks. I want a hero to come along. I haven't given up. Until then.......I vote Republican.

Devil's Ad, Do unto others doesn't imply any specific values other than what each individual actor likes done to him. Not everybody wants to live. There's no consistency, as if that was even a criteria for a validation of an ethical slogan. It's egoistic moral subjectivism. Establishing rights is based on objective reality.

AR proving the morality of not infringing on others' rights is not the same as do unto others. Before making the case for respecting the rights of others, AR had proven what rights are. Do unto others is a subjective alternative to a code of ethics based on objective standards. Anything goes, as long as I like having the same thing done to me. What if I'm a masochist? What if I like the comfort of a welfare state and I gain the power to implement it. Rights versus whim. Do unto others is: the good is whatever I feel is good.

I agree with your sentiment: I am an idealist, and supporting anything less than my ideals feels wrong. I'm trying to filter my feelings through logic because my feelings might be wrong. I would've voted for FDR if he ran against Hitler. But that doesn't imply that I've given up on my ideals.

Example: Obama and Romney promoted policies based on immoral principals. I voted for Romney because, overall, he was less evil. Defense: If I hadn't had voted for the lesser evil, my abstention would've increased the greater evil's percentage which, in effect, would've empowered him.

The continuation of my life (as a rational being) is my objective standard when I decide upon a course of action. Some men don't have an objective standard, or their standards are short-sited things like momentary pleasure, so they value things that could run contrary to what their nature requires for the furtherance of their existences. Happiness is my reward for using "remaining alive" as my objective standard when choosing values.

Enjoyment is my reward for remaining alive.

"I was drunk" is not a valid defense against any crime. The male didn't allege he was raped, so there's only one alleged victim. I recognize that it's difficult to discern if a potential (willing) sex partner has judgement so impaired that their consent is invalid. Unless it's my lover, I don't have sex with a person I've witnessed drinking a lot. I am not accusing anybody of rape. I am not dismissing it either. Rapists in prison are beaten up daily by the inmates. Most "check in" to "the hole" to escape the wraths of the convicts in gen. pop. (The guards are the ones who leak the confidential files' info, to thee inmates that disclose a sex offender's crime.) I've seen all this with my own eyes. And everybody is familiar with, when they get out, the sex offender registry they go on for life. This should be taken seriously.

By making life my ultimate goal, my standard of value and the top of my heirarchy of values, it becomes a determining factor when considering whether something is a value, and if so, where it belongs on my heirarchy. I ask myself, is music a value? Yes, because it fuels my consciousness to do the things necessary to remain alive. And as the type of enjoyment that's an end in itself, music makes life (the ultimate end in itself), worth living. Years ago, I enjoyed drugs. They were at the top of my heirarchy of values, because remaining alive wasn't my standard of values. Now it is. I'm clean. The desire to remain alive isn't automatic. I've met people who have no desire to live but lack the courage to kill themselves. Enjoyment isn't as vital as air, food, & water, when it comes to "remaining alive," but it is a part of it. A conceptual consciousness requires more than an animal's form of a life-support system to stay alive. I'm not trying to spin "remaining alive" to mean more than was meant. I want to prove that it must be a rational man's standard of value, & his ultimate goal, when judging values and non-values. That which furthers my life is good. The continuation of my life is my objective standard for discerning my heirarchy of values. Air, food and water are at the top. Music isn't far below them, because it motivates me to go on living.

Sorry Nicky, I wrecked your great statement. You solved the gentleman's misunderstanding when you told him he overimplified the meaning of remaining alive. You said it beautifully but he didn't grasp it. Let me try: "Remaining alive" is not just keeping my body on a life support machine. Life, the ultimate goal, includes all the lesser goals because it makes them possible.