Doug Morris

Why are you having lunch with these people?

You still haven't told us how this started. That might help.

I was trying to suggest starting with the fundamental argument about the nature of values and of life and the resulting relationship between them. I think with most people this would work better than a very general, abstract argument about the possibility of an objective morality. If you want to persuade someone who believes in primacy of consciousness, you probably need to start there. If you are dealing with someone who thinks Ayn Rand is horrible and depraved, there are two strategies. One is to delay mentioning her name. The other is to get at why they think so and address that.

I should have said "Objectivist metaethics" not "Objectivist morality". Sorry for the imprecision.

If something is objective, that does not guarantee people will see it, especially if they have been fed a big dose of opposed ideas. Evolution is objective, but a lot of people don't see it, including at least two of my teachers in public school.

I was talking about trying to reach the people Easy Truth was having trouble with. Where, exactly, are you drawing the line between framework and content?

Prime numbers don't have nearly as much room for confusion as objective morality. The most straightforward way to prove that there is such a thing as a prime number is to exhibit one, such as 31. There is only one objective morality, but there are infinitely many primes.

Thanks.

Could you unabbreviate PWNI for me please?

Were you arguing specifically for Objectivist morality? Or were you arguing the more general, abstract point of whether an objective morality can exist, without being very specific about what it is? The latter would make it harder to make your case and easier for them to misunderstand. Maybe it would help if you gave us more details about how the discussion started.

Or negative-sum.

People who claim there is conflict of interest often claim it comes from people having exactly the same interest. They want the same job, or the same lover, or the same whatever. Ayn Rand explained why this is not valid.

People with different diseases often need different treatments. People with different tastes get pleasure from different things. People in different climates have different clothing needs. These are differences in interests, but not conflicts of interests.

If some bizarre situation forced you to go live in either Iran or Russia as they currently are, how would you choose? The choice between Presidential candidates is similarly messy. It is in everyone's interests for the candidate to be elected who gives us the best chance of avoiding dictatorship and societal collapse until Ayn Rand's ideas become dominant. Two people can agree on that and still disagree about which candidate that is. This is not a conflict of interests; it is a disagreement about likelihoods and strategy.

As I recall, the full statement is "there are no conflicts of interests between rational men in a free society."

Normally it is in the interest of both drivers to avoid a collision.

IF reality were a zero sum game such that there HAD to be winners and losers, people could not trade. In any interaction, one person would have to be sacrificed to another. Different people would have conflicting interests and values. The concepts of rights and property would not work in such a world.

If a person is marooned on a desert island, the concept of rights does not apply, but it is very important for them to identify their interests.

What is your definition of "subjective" and "objective"?

Their plans conflict, but that does not mean their interests do. It is in the interests of both that there be an orderly way of choosing a course of action in the event of such a disagreement, rather than organizational paralysis or a disorderly decision process.

Any time an old physics is overthrown, it remains a good enough approximation for many situations. Newtonian physics, which was overthrown long ago, remains a good enough approximation for many situations. The physics which is currently being overthrown will remain a good enough approximation for many situations. It will take time to determine exactly what difference the new physics makes.

Everything has a background process. Gold's background process includes: Supernova explosions create gold and other heavy elements. Some of this gold has ended up in the earth. Humans find and mine the gold.

I certainly hope the prosecution presents some facts, at least eventually. Even if their factual case turns out to be weak, at least it would show some respect. Could the prosecution be starting out with feelings to appease political pressure?

or Crush, Crumble, and Chomp!

Why don't you watch all the Firefly excerpts I just posted and then tell me if any of them changed your mind? I wasn't trying to make a statement so much as present a possibly relevant datum. For now I think I'll leave Firefly on my back burner. Things which would be invalid in an attempt to understand the real world can be appropriate as literary devices. The date September 2 comes up repeatedly in Atlas Shrugged. In the real world such a coincidence of dates would not be worth considering, but it's legitimate as a literary device.