Easy Truth

The implication is that drug addiction is a situation where one's emotional mechanism is not attuned to survival anymore. And of course we are all born with some wants that we wish we did not want and vice versa, we wish we wanted something that we could not care less about.
The way you find out about the misalignment of emotions is when something hurts and you find out that you caused it because you wanted an unwantable. Its just that coming up with an ethics based on the interplay of emotions, reason, perception, sensation, and imagination is too overwhelming, at least for me it is.
Furthermore, I know, based on experience, that my emotions are misaligned. Therefore I feel safer (emotionally) using reason to guide me. Consequentialism with an ultimate end fits my bill.
Do you know anyone whose emotions are perfectly aligned to survival? As in they are attracted to eating only what is good for them, they want the right companion simply by an emotional reaction, they control the order of activities simply by emotion, they are on time simply by feeling it, they don't want excesses that prevent important survival necessities (smoking, gambling, Netflix, video games, drugs, alcohol, and procrastination).
I think everyone's emotions are misaligned and an addictive drug is not the only cause.

There seem to be two kinds of evasion:
1.Not thinking
2.Thinking or thoughts that override the truth
For (1) How is anyone to know when they are not thinking? For (2) anxiety is one's friend because there is an implication that the truth is known but suppressed.
 

I don't think this is true.
I think it's an interesting notion, being "committed to evasion."
Someday -- and it's sooner now than ever -- I plan on opening up a topic to really try to explore evasion... but in the meantime, do we think it's true that people are committed to evasion? Were it so, how could any of us survive? We depend upon reason for survival itself (whether or not we account "survival," in any sense, the standard of value ). And so I think that we in the West, as elsewhere, must be open to reason to some certain extent. And if we manage marvels, like constructing skyscrapers, conquering disease, etc. -- and we do -- then that is all the more evidence that reason carries great sway among men.
And Objectivism, as truth, has literally everything worth valuing to offer. If we can get it right -- as we must attempt to do for ourselves, our own sakes, let alone proselytization -- then we have the formula for earthly happiness, inclusive of all values and virtues, including "fun."
I'm taking a bit of a flyer, and I'd rather discuss this in full when I do commit to a topic on evasion, but I suspect that it does not come out of nowhere, unmotivated. I suspect that it's something like a psychological defense mechanism... and as such, I think that there are means by which we may come to understand evasion, such that we could be more or less effective in communicating our message.
I don't think it's hopeless or fruitless. I think we can do better.

What is subjective and what is subjectivity (the thread title is about subjectivity) are closely related things, and everyone must engage in them and be aware of when to avoid the subjective and subjectivity when possible.  Subjectivism is a normative theory about what ought to be done in epistemology and ethics and so not everyone is a Subjectivist.  
The Ayn Rand Lexicon has an entry for Objectivity which includes the following passage "... no special revelations to privileged observers...".   There exists a perfectly ordinary and natural (as opposed to supernatural) category of observations which are only possible to certain privileged observers:  observing the contents of your own mind, including your emotions and perceptions.   You can yourself attempt to be objective about what you think and what you perceive even when alone, but when alone you don't have the problem of attempting to justify yourself or your conclusions to others; there is only one observer in that case.   
Include within the category of the subjective things that can only ever exist within the privacy of your own mind and ought to be there, and things which ought not be there but are because you are wrong about them existing, either because your reasoning is wrong or you are hallucinating them or are the victim of an illusion.

Rand did say that living is a choice throughout Galt's speech and in her essay "Causality Versus Duty" - a choice distinct from another type of choice, namely your choice of the goal that your moral action is meant to serve. 
To put it in context, Rand denied the existence of a self-preservation instinct in humans, instead calling it a 'desire to live', which she believed to not be automatic, and she mentiones that some people do not even have this desire, simply living because everybody else seems to do it. 
Rand was right that you don't need morality if you're dead. If you're alive but choose to die, then by definition you're a soon-to-be dead person. In that situation, you wouldn't need any morality anymore, you would need a suicide method. Wanting to be alive is the precondition of morality.
So, is living a choice? You could say that any person that is alive right now expresses his choice to live by the very fact of being alive and intending to take future action toward self-preservation. Every moment in which a man is alive is a testimony to his choice. The choice is expressed the moment a baby cries in order to signal to his mother that he's hungry or in distress.
But, can you make that choice consciously and volitionaly, and does the choice take place in a certain place and time? Not likely, unless you extend 'volitional choice' to mean: the volitional choice to obey or defy your natural self-preservation drive. In this sense, any conscious choice to live is simply a rationalization of a desire that people can't actually control (If they're sane).
(But unlike plants and other animals, humans have a distinct 'capability' to volitionaly kill themselves to reach higher, immortal levels of existence, and cults such as Heaven's Gate are the scary testimony to this).

Newborns have that context. You would just need to ask if the choice to live is a choice actually pre-volitional. I have no reason to say newborns lack volition, though. Or just ask if life is a given start to all people, thus "choosing" a given makes no sense, as if this is true, all people reach for life by nature, by teleology. I have no reason to call life a given start.  

Sorry; I didn't mean the quantity of people, either.
A group of people is only some number of individuals. How they should behave, as a group, depends on how each of them should act in isolation (not that they'll necessarily be identical but that one must be based on the other).
 
You are right on several counts (notably the relation between my ideas on "flourishing" and on socialization) and I do push for "social awareness", in my own way, and only in that very specific way.
There's a point at which "social awareness" would cease to be healthy, benevolent coexistence and turn into second-handedness (trying to think through another brain, see through their eyes and do whatever you think they'd most approve of); beyond that point human beings stop being helpful or uplifting for each other's lives and gradually become codependent and monstrous.
Trying to define the ultimate standard and purpose of ethics in social terms will prevent you from being able to define that cutoff point.
 
Now, if you think it's just a separate but also important issue, then you're right. It probably belongs in another thread, but if you feel like making it and we can continue this subject over there.
 
---
 
Also, on rat brains and flourishing, I found this to be extremely helpful:
 

I saw these quotes in Tara Smith's book, she integrates both interpretations when it comes to measurement and standard:
She also differentiates a feeling of flourishing vs. the fact of it. The metaphysical vs. the psychological/experimental. 

Of course. The document to which I've been referring can be found here, and the quotes I've provided starting on p.73 (under the heading Flourishing and Survival).

Moral psychology just refers to the part of psychology that influences philosophy. Things like free will, the nature of choice, emotion, consciousness, etc.
Yes that's kind of a huge part of Rand's novels is the interplay between the characters' emotions and their consciously held thoughts and premises. An example would be Dagny and Dominique at the end, once they had integrated correct premises with their emotions. Another is the character of Rearden, who is disgusted with his family, but supports them anyway out of conscious conviction. His emotions give him correct knowledge, but he can't act on it until he smoothes out the contradicting premises he held, then he acts on it by bucking their mooching advances. Another example is when Dominique tells Wynand to fire Toohey, Rand has her openly say that she doesn't know why she wants him gone (yet), just that she hates him. She even says "it'll take years for me to understand" (around p. 499-500 in my version.) 
Another supporting quote for my claim is in VOS (p.27) when Rand says emotions are estimates of what can be "for or against" you, and says they are "lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss." There is a scene towards the end of AS when Dagny even says she can "surrender her consciousness" and that her emotions are like a "voice telling her by means of a feeling" (AS p.674.) 
I think what Rand means to say is that emotions are inert by themselves, and so you'd have to trace them to the experiences that programmed them, but once one did, if they stem from rational thoughts, they can help take part in cognition and guide action. Aristotle more plainly sees emotional disposition as evidence of a virtuous character. While Rand officially held otherwise, I think her fiction seems to hold the more Aristotelian view. Her descriptions of the fully integrated hero/heroines are ones where their stated thoughts and emotional dispositions are aligned and both working "for" their wellbeing.

In ordinary everyday existence, the choice to live or not to live doesn't usually come up explicitly. It is not as if we wake up each morning and make an explicit choice to live or die, we get up and go through our morning routine. However, I think this would be the choice to live one's life and to pursue the day and the values of the day. In some extreme cases, however, the choice is explicit. If one suffers some horrible illness and cannot enjoy one's life one can say, "I'd rather die than go through this." In fact, people do say that, though without full seriousness for getting things like a very bad case of the flu, for example, or surviving the death of a loved one that is so painful one doesn't know how to go on living with that pain uppermost in one's mind.

In other threads on other forums, I have made the case that like the choice to focus one's mind or not, our fundamental choice, that this *is* the choice to live, since living rationally requires one to focus on the facts of reality with our full mind on the ready. However, in this type of case, one doesn't deliberate, because one cannot deliberate until one's mind is focused. So,like I said, the choice to focus or not or the choice to live or not comes before one will reason about anything. In Tara's view about rationality, it is always purpose driven, and she states that without purpose there is no rationality -- that one cannot focus on the facts of reality with one's full alertness without having some specific purpose in mind. I do think she is correct about this, that rationality has to do with effectiveness (taking the facts into account or not), though taking the facts into account requires a huge context that comes about due to what one wants to pursue -- i.e. purpose. Otherwise the facts are there but so what? She is saying is that we cannot have a purpose until we decide to live and to pursue our lives; and without purpose, there is no rationality. This is the fuller meaning of what she means by "pre-rational" -- there is not necessarily an explicit deliberation about the issue, and we are not taking the facts into account because we cannot do this until we are focused on living purposefully.

No, we wouldn't. Serious theologians argue with each other plenty - with the Bible as their standard of truth. And the Bible isn't too hot on the subject of atheism. A normal human being might adopt atheism in response to that, but a "monk" who could do so would not be.
 
Yes. See Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice by Nathaniel Branden.

This is not an illustration of the "expansion" of "survival", it is an identification of what that goal "survival" entails and implies.
The goal "Shelter" does not imply only a straw hut. If you live in Norway it at least implies insulation and a source of heat, if you live near a river or on flood plains it at least implies a raised floor, and if you live near a big bad wolf it at least implies a brick based structure.  And if cold, floods, and wolves are not impossible where you live, "shelter" implies all three.
Illustrating that short sighted people do not fully grasp all the implications and consequences implied by a simple premise (eg a binary goal in an incredibly complex context) does not implicate the simple premise as somehow deficient, it exemplifies just how deficient simple mindedness is.
imho

What you bring up is a very important point.
At this point in the thread, with all the information we have brought forward, it is almost irrefutable that when she says "life" she means "a life worth living".
We know that she does NOT mean "survival at any cost".
That implies that there is a minimum, that there is a boundary, a line that one "should not cross".
Once discovered, that is the line that differentiates a good life from a bad life.
For those who believe that flourishing is the ultimate end, then that line becomes the standard of the good or evil. So what constitutes or leads to a good life is good etc. That line would end up being the differentiator of good from evil, the crux of the ethics.
The problem with the interpretation of "a life worth living" is that life can be getting crumbs like welfare or a grand life with major achievements.
The concept of flourishing also has that problem, in that there a minimum flourishing necessary? Or is any amount of flourishing good?
We all agree that an ethics has to have an ultimate end (so that it is not utilitarian/aimless).
(oddly: the ethics of an ethics)
The concept "Life" is clear, objective, as in existence or non-existence.
For a man or living organism, death is, in fact, the objective minimum. Even in a life not worth living, a person can have hope. Hope is subjective and can make any kind of life worth living.
"Life" encompasses life vs. death, and happiness/flourishing. Happiness/flourishing is inevitably partially objective and partially subjective, which in total means subjective. 
It is most plausible that she did not use flourishing because it can never be totally objective.
The objective line drawn, within the "big picture", had to be life vs. death, survival.
With life vs. death, existence being the ultimate end, the line is clear.
Death does not have degrees, it either is or isn't.
The realm of economics, politics and even psychology require a clear line that differentiates right from wrong.
 

"
Well, since "utility" means usefulness, I think that Objectivism actually represents the only "Utilitarian philosophy".
 
"Utility" assumes some purpose to someone (just like "value").  The purpose of an irrational philosophy is analogous to that of an anesthetic; for its adherents it serves to distort their thoughts, numb their emotions and deaden their awareness of reality.
However, if one evaluates such philosophies even by that standard (their capacity to negate suffering, like an anesthetic), none of the dominant philosophies that have ever existed before have actually come close to achieving that goal because the only way to rid oneself of any knowledge of reality is to depart from it altogether.
If the 'goal' is an escape from pain then the only way to truly reach it is to die.
 
Since philosophies exist only in the minds of living people, who live in reality, a philosophy which affirms that- a philosophy for setting crooked thoughts straight, sharpening awareness and bringing reality into clear focus- is vastly more helpful for any of them, in any endeavor except suicide.
So I think Objectivism is the only real form of Utilitarianism.
 
You are, of course, correct; what most people refer to by that is fundamentally antithetical to O'ism.  I just think it's a worthwhile thing to point out.

In addition to what SN mentioned, that would also mean that there can't really be any moral "good"; just varying degrees of evil and various degrees of pain.  I prefer to think of ethics as a way to weigh and judge our desires, themselves; to see what's worth spending our finite lifespans in the pursuit of.
 
As for "qua man", man is a 'rational animal' because his primary means of survival is his mind.  If you stop thinking then you will die.
A man who doesn't live as "man qua man" is one who doesn't really want to be what he is; like a bird that wants to break its own wings.  He lives according to other peoples' decisions and thinks whatever other people think, because- while even that requires some amount of thought (if only to know what others think)- it allows him to survive on the least possible amount of it.
So living as "man qua man" means living as consciously as possible; looking with your own eyes and thinking with your own brain, making all of your own decisions for the purpose of optimizing your own longevity and prosperity.  It means to understand and embrace your own nature.
 
It's your 'proper estate'. 

If you put it that way, I would have to agree. But that assumes that the pleasure derived is not malleable.
The pain and pleasure in this context are going to be emotional pain or pleasure. That is based on your thoughts. If your thoughts change, your whole view of life can change and your emotions toward your goals can change too. Suddenly, your walking on ice when it was solid a moment ago.
With an objective standard to compare to, you don't have that problem. An objective concept can be counted on. I assume the new thread is trying to answer that question.

Hairnet, do you realise that there, in a nutshell, is the entire reason for rational egoism?
Not for the good times (only) but for the roller-coaster ride over a full lifetime?
I'm not coming down on you, since I believe I've experienced similar.
Maybe, we get too casual. Don't always concentrate our senses, and so lose perception of every little thing around. Then as a result our concepts could become to seem fragile and insignificant. Maybe we get caught in that difficault place between having a lot of knowledge, seeing clearly what's going on, and not yet knowing or seeing enough. Maybe, against the background of existence, our lives look puny, at times. "There is an enormous breach of continuity between nature and man's consciousness", Rand wrote.
I think that each person has to bridge that breach for him/herself by acquired virtues and rational egoism.
There is no 'purpose' for one's life, except the purpose one finds (as you know.) Nothing was 'meant to be', until you give it meaning.
Life is very, very long if lived in focus - long enough, actually. Whoever lived previously and whoever comes after us is not our fundamental concern, and must not be - apart from a mental hat-tip of respect and acknowledgment. You are here, now, and can choose.

I've been thinking about what I saw Helen Keller said: "Life is either a daring adventure
or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in reality."
Realising it came from someone deaf and blind gave me perpective. Hope it does you.

Okay, in the spirit of the OP's request, this is my two cents:
There is the psychological plane of existence, the experience of life, pain pleasure, happiness.
Then there is the epistemological plane, the abstraction of life, the concept of flourishing and the moral code.
And then the metaphysical plane, the organism, existence or nonexistence.
From the metaphysical plane, the main thing that I learned from Rand was that there was no "my reality" vs. "your reality". There was just reality and the search for the truth is honorable.
From the psychological/experiential plane:
Objectivism taught me that I have a right to my life. 
I understood that when someone calls me selfish "they want something". 
I learned to strive for greatness rather than strive to look great.
I found that if I held onto things that didn't make sense, if I went along for too long, I suddenly drowned in anxiety. I learned that living as a parasite can creep up on people. Objectivism gave me a path to follow to find my way back, to happiness. 
She awoke me to the existence of unearned guilt. I learn that when I have a sense of having achieved something, the pleasure was moral, it was good.
And of course, I learned that the good was not what religion said and what a majority believed did not mean wisdom.
Ultimately, with her attack on altruism, I learned that defining my boundaries, determining who I am and what I want was my fundamental responsibility and a never-ending task. She reminded me that the merging and melding with others, at the cost of my core self, was being dead before my time. And in the process, I have fought to hold on to who I am, to be myself.
And now, I am here to learn what I put aside for later.
 

Okay, in the spirit of the OP's request, this is my two cents:
There is the psychological plane of existence, the experience of life, pain pleasure, happiness.
Then there is the epistemological plane, the abstraction of life, the concept of flourishing and the moral code.
And then the metaphysical plane, the organism, existence or nonexistence.
From the metaphysical plane, the main thing that I learned from Rand was that there was no "my reality" vs. "your reality". There was just reality and the search for the truth is honorable.
From the psychological/experiential plane:
Objectivism taught me that I have a right to my life. 
I understood that when someone calls me selfish "they want something". 
I learned to strive for greatness rather than strive to look great.
I found that if I held onto things that didn't make sense, if I went along for too long, I suddenly drowned in anxiety. I learned that living as a parasite can creep up on people. Objectivism gave me a path to follow to find my way back, to happiness. 
She awoke me to the existence of unearned guilt. I learn that when I have a sense of having achieved something, the pleasure was moral, it was good.
And of course, I learned that the good was not what religion said and what a majority believed did not mean wisdom.
Ultimately, with her attack on altruism, I learned that defining my boundaries, determining who I am and what I want was my fundamental responsibility and a never-ending task. She reminded me that the merging and melding with others, at the cost of my core self, was being dead before my time. And in the process, I have fought to hold on to who I am, to be myself.
And now, I am here to learn what I put aside for later.
 

Okay, in the spirit of the OP's request, this is my two cents:
There is the psychological plane of existence, the experience of life, pain pleasure, happiness.
Then there is the epistemological plane, the abstraction of life, the concept of flourishing and the moral code.
And then the metaphysical plane, the organism, existence or nonexistence.
From the metaphysical plane, the main thing that I learned from Rand was that there was no "my reality" vs. "your reality". There was just reality and the search for the truth is honorable.
From the psychological/experiential plane:
Objectivism taught me that I have a right to my life. 
I understood that when someone calls me selfish "they want something". 
I learned to strive for greatness rather than strive to look great.
I found that if I held onto things that didn't make sense, if I went along for too long, I suddenly drowned in anxiety. I learned that living as a parasite can creep up on people. Objectivism gave me a path to follow to find my way back, to happiness. 
She awoke me to the existence of unearned guilt. I learn that when I have a sense of having achieved something, the pleasure was moral, it was good.
And of course, I learned that the good was not what religion said and what a majority believed did not mean wisdom.
Ultimately, with her attack on altruism, I learned that defining my boundaries, determining who I am and what I want was my fundamental responsibility and a never-ending task. She reminded me that the merging and melding with others, at the cost of my core self, was being dead before my time. And in the process, I have fought to hold on to who I am, to be myself.
And now, I am here to learn what I put aside for later.
 

Since this is being discussed in many places and by many persons, I thought I'd start a new thread for discussion using some great free reference material:
The Objectivist Ethics
by Ayn Rand from the Virtue of Selfishness (VOS)
is free to read and listen to on aynrand.org
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page1
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page2
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page3
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page4
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page5
https://campus.aynrand.org/works/1961/01/01/the-objectivist-ethics/page6
 
Page one features a radio version read by Ayn herself, and a Q&A session of a separate radio program in which she answered questions on the subject.
 
Once we all have a chance to read and listen to the above as well as listen to the Q&A.   I'd like to open the floor with a few questions aimed at a critical analysis of her ethics:
Is the Objectivist ethics too "narrow" or "impoverished" due to its standard being man's survival qua man?  Would a man necessarily live a lesser life by its adoption? 
Are there any alternatives to the Objective ethics which also qualify as objective and are also absolutely based on the facts of reality?
Should one choose an ethics different from the Objectivist Ethics, and why? (based on what standard or reason)

I've only read the first 40 or so pages, even though I enjoyed his  "Trustee from the Toolroom" and "Town called Alice".
 
With death, I reckon it is the anticipation that causes the emotions. Personally, when I think about it, the part I don't look forward to is not death itself, but a possible few months or years of total senility near the end. I see no point in just hanging around in a wheelchair, with other people having to help me with simple tasks, and with me not even having the desire to focus even on the simplest type of TV program. Or, worse still, being senile enough to be imagining things, and having psychosis-like episodes (basically, slightly loony). Yet, even here, I realize that it is the anticipation more than the event. The person who has reached that state is often not even self-conscious of it and therefore not exactly as impacted emotionally as the people around him. So, perhaps even that slow dying is not too uncomfortable.
 
That leaves me with painful death: don't want that... because I'll know it is happening and feel the pain.

One thing about death: you can be sure you won't be sad when it happens . 

I'll bet that those who've stopped thinking at 30 weren't exactly the epitome of thoughtfulness before that age.