Easy Truth

Yes, but you can cause many things that you did not intend. Things which if you thought long and hard, you could have seen but you had to pick and choose what you would pay attention to. Every time that you look to the left, you don't see what is to your right. But your experience is "I choose to look to the left", not "I choose to NOT look to the right" (even though it happened -objectively, and someone correctly could say that you did). Both are true but "your experience" is only one of them, that you looked to your left. In this case, you have not drawn the wrong conclusion from sense data. It is based on a chosen perspective, a paradigm. In other words, we forget that we are the actor sometimes. Even though we are (objectively), we can be oblivious to it (experience). By the way, similar to the desire to "survive/be alive". We always are doing it without knowing it. We always value survival without knowing it.

I notice that morality can be seen as the code that guides you vs. a the attribute of "right" vs. "wrong". One can separate "right" vs. "wrong" from life. A missile can hit the target in many right ways and fail in many wrong ways. When a person realizes that "I could die if I do life the wrong way", it can have a powerful emotional response in the listener. I have noticed that that the (life and death) argument is weak (unimpactful) when arguing the morality of rights. But it has a strong emotional impact when used in personal morality context. Personal morality is what seems to be unfamiliar to people. I noticed it recently, having a discussion with a progressive, I said: "Do you realize that chopping your hand off is immoral?" He said, why would that mean immoral, morality is always about the other guy. It is only relevant is a social context". Bottom line, I think that morality is usually not discussed in life an death terms and I think that is what is missing.

Yes, but is that "always" the experience?? I know that I am always the actor. That is not always "felt". I also know in fact that I am always "self-interested". ALWAYS! (I am one of those people who thinks "we are always selfish". Even having seen the article in the virtue of selfishness disputing that). Why is it that "experience" can seem to contradict objective reality?

Does that mean that "allowing" (a verb, an action) is, in fact, volitional (something you choose to do)? Psychologically it seems a very helpful way of seeing things. But to allow is to do nothing. It is not to act. It can be confusing to say that looking forward is a choice to NOT look behind you. Although it is true, one does not make that choice, or one does not have the "experience" of making that choice.

Okay so regarding DonAthos's example, are you saying that the Potential Astronaut has to know his nature first to make an ethical choice? Or that depending on his being good or bad (his nature) he will choose something? Don, are you also Stipulating that this person's passion is so strong that it is NOT malleable? Such an integrity of thoughts that he will not change his mind when it gets really hard? Would that mean that the highest ethical question/task be to "know thyself"? (know thy nature, who you really are)

I can only think of education and art as being reinforcement. I suppose research might apply too. Yaron Brook said something like what you said in one of his videos. Something to the effect that we have become fat and lazy and the eastern Europeans and Brazil have picked up the mantle. He said Chinese professors get it more than German ones. Do you see any other things that are reinforcements?

I think "the person who asks "Why?" and will not accept the usual excuses for his sacrifice" is a great step forward. Especially if everyone is of the same mindset. I assume that it is what happened with the American revolution, they said enough is enough. But ... We see that it eroded. Something was missing. Perhaps not enough people get it. I suspect you are not too happy about the South African Constitution. How has the Venezuela effect been avoided? Isn't it a manifestation of Altruism Morality?

Please elaborate. I assume you mean that it is in fact not a zero-sum game?

Then, flourishing is something that you know it when you see it. Everyone has examples of it but they all seem to relate to pleasure or to prevent pain. The pleasure-pain mechanism seems to be the standard of what is good. After all, they are geared to correspond to thriving or dying. So the means to achieving minimum pain and maximum pleasure is Virtue, in the long run with "return on investment" calculations?

When you say "invariably" it is like saying "if you are immortal, you would live forever". But nevertheless, it is interesting, this sounds like an argument for Virtue Ethics. As in ... practice the virtue of "continuing to live". Don't worry about the results but hopefully, you will live forever. The living forever becomes more of a direction, rather than a goal. In fact, I wonder if the core difference between virtue ethics and consequentialism is in fact that virtue is about direction rather the results that consequentialism requires. Although, one can argue that life as the direction is the result that one "should" achieve.

Looks like a contradiction to me.

Life (as a concept) is potentially a value. A value to some and not a value to others. It is like telling a farmer, I don't see any "inherent value" in fertile soil. Fertile soil can be dust in the house that has to be swept out. Fertile soil is not inherently valuable. Objectively it is. Some farmers see the truth and others don't. But what does a living organism do every moment of its life? It lives. It wants to flourish, but it has to live, it needed rather than wanted to live when it was alive. You may not find existence valuable, but something in you does. Something in you "willed" to live if you are alive. It caused you to live. It acted to "keep" your life (as in it was a value). That would be far more proof that it is "inherently valuable" even though you don't see the abstraction. Most people "experience" altruism as being "inherently valuable". Isn't there a difference between something feeling valuable and something is a value?

In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of “life or death,” but as an issue of “happiness or suffering.” Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss. But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments. “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 27

Don, are you equating experience with truth? One can eat ice cream without knowing or be wondering about the consequences. There is no conflict, there is pure happiness. No guilt. Then one hears about the science and knows that one could possibly loose a month of life. Emotionally, that has an impact for some and not for other based on their biology, some have the ice cream gene and some don't. So the truth that the experience implies, is relative. There is also the "experience of life" without attention to causal links. Any experience in life, although self-evident, does not necessarily guide you to the truth. Something feels good does not mean that it is in fact good. You may be accepting the assessment of a group, or tradition, or a sensation or emotion. Granted, sometimes, they are good and true. But should good be determined deductively or inductively or simply be the experience? Isn't that the fundamental ethical question? When you are freezing to death, I hear that you experience euphoria and want to sleep which leads to death. My understanding is that the conceptual hierarchy is what should determine the good.

The word altruism now is frequently confused with benevolence by people who have no Objectivism background. I sure would like to be "independent" of that. The opposite of putting yourself last is putting yourself first. So it should be "self interested" or "selfish" in the way she meant it. And rational selfishness, inevitably will indicate that others are valuable, that life is easier and more enjoyable when they are around or traded with. In some ways there is a need for others in one's life. So I would think of inter-dependence as a more rational way of being. Independence implies a complete separation like a hermit. I don't think it is usually the best option available.

"The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself. But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting “man’s life” as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. " Virtue of Selfisheness (p.25) I assume happiness is equivalent to flourishing.

We all agree that it can't be reduced to any traditional versions of consequentialist philosophies. (utilitarianism, pragmatism, etc.) But Objectivist Ethics can be developed from the ground up based on and in terms of anticipated "consequences" based on causality. The consequence of life vs. death is at the center of the ethics. In that sense the argument that it is Consequentialist is valid. At a minimum, it is "primarily" Consequentialist. Even the Objectivist theory of good and virtues are based on the anticipated consequence of life or death, existence or nonexistence.

But there are some major differences. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and instruction. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/aristotle/section8.rhtml "Man writes Ayn Rand, “has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice.”" OPAR (p. 214). "“Value” is that which one acts to gain and keep, “virtue” is the action by which one gains and keeps it." For the New Intellectual, 121 Her definition does not limit virtue to be a disposition, a tendency or habit, but an action. Values can change, therefore virtues change with them. I also notice a tinge of replacing volition, as in virtue is a habit that happens automatically. It seems like Aristotelean virtue is sort of eternal rather than case by case basis, based on consequence to human life, not a consequence to human nature.

Then why don't we do them? (If they are in our nature)

This is a learning exercise for me. I have thought that Objectivism is in fact consequentialist. But I am examining that maybe I was wrong.

Very good point. That makes it impossible for virtue ethics to be what Objectivist ethics is. But there is a problem with the next statement. You were already alive when you were introduced to morality. It was not morality that made it possible. You may have to define morality.

An ongoing process is an action. I would agree that it is also a state of being. And yes, being "actionless" means "no life", death. Life is like a spinning wheel. When it spins, there is action, there is life. When the spinning stops, it is dead. From a consequentialist perspective, the ultimate end is the spinning, the motion, the action. Life, "an end" can be looked at as a static state (existing), but the static state is an abstraction of motion, of change, of action. (as an aside ... Implying that "being" is, in fact, an action). But consequentialism requires a destination, an end. Doesn't it?

That is true. But it is also true that you can have a life where rationality is not chosen as "the way of life". As in, there is a rational life and there is an irrational life. A virtuous life vs. a non-virtuous life. This is thinking in terms of material causation or constituent means. One can argue that a table is caused by its legs. You can say that is not true, but in terms of material causation, it is true. I suspect that that is the core of the argument that "flourishing" is "constituted of virtue".

2046 brings up a relevant point. Objectivism cannot be solely consequentialist because of a flaw of consequentialism. "When you reach the goal of being alive, do you stop?" I will attempt an argument: Rationality can be argued as being a type of life. That when one becomes rational, one is superimposing the rational life on top of their life. Sort of mixing an ingredient, a constituent. Adding salt is an instrumental means, but "salt in the food" is a consistent means that makes it salty. Life is already an action when one looks at ethics and virtues. Morality is for the living, not the dead. So, ultimately, the value of morality is that it improves living. Then Objectivism at its core becomes about self-improvement, improvement of one's life. Virtue is an ingredient that modifies, life, the already active process in order to act differently. It is not creating life, it is modifying it, changing its constituents. Before the virtue is inserted in life, it is instrumental, after it is inserted, it is a part of life. Then there is a strong case that Objectivist ethics is a hybrid of the two. One cannot make a case that it is NOT consequentialist. Like a ball that is color red and blue, it is not fundamentally a red ball. I think that I assumed wrong that 2046 thinks that Objectivist ethics is Virtue ethics because he argues a combination. I don't know why he did not correct me.

Okay, you have the talent and the passion and this is educational with some Objectivist principles. But one question still remains. How do kids/parents make the connection to Objectivism, or does that matter? And you took up the challenge and actually "did something". I can't help but respect that. Now, between what you have and a TV or other media version, you either can do all aspects alone or you need a team. You also need perseverance. Is this the limit of your contribution or will you be willing to do more? Sometimes public domain is good and sometimes fewer people want to join your venture. You might be able to create a crowdfunding campaign to fill in the gaps. Maybe you may need a topic solely dedicated to this. You know best. Time will tell, but in 3 years, people will look at your post and they may ask you, did you do it or not. If you did it, then maybe Objectivist can find ways to spread the word by repeating this type of thing.