RationalEgoistSG

Your post, Gabriel, is filled with the mind-body dichotomy, context-dropping, a blatant misunderstanding of the philosophy of Objectivism, and pure subjectivism (as RadCap previously stated). First, the mind-body dichotomy. As you correctly stated, a human being is an integration of mind and body. However, you fail to grasp this principle correctly. I believe based on your post, that you mistake a human being as an integration of mind and body for a human being as being comprised of mind and body, as two separate realms with very little or no connection to each other. On numerous occasions throughout your post, you state that one can successfully achieve a physical value while completely ignoring the mental one. While you seem to imply that the "best" way of going about it is to satisfy both the mind and body, you still hold that one can succesfully achieve physical values (such as sex) while ignoring the mental values associated with them (such as romance). A human being IS able to attempt to divorce the mind from the body by attempting to achieve one while ignoring the other. However, this policy is not beneficial to one's own happiness and success. Thus, a human being would be able to engage in sexual intercourse without romance, however, ignoring a central tenet of one's own nature (an integration of mind and body) is not conducive to success. Secondly, this is completely wrong: I am not sure what living out one's nature is supposed to mean, however, you fail to make a critical distinction between physical survival and ultimate happiness (perhaps because of your mind-body dichotomy problems). Human beings, according to the Law of Identity, have an identity (their nature), and must act in a specific way in order to survive. But survival can vary in degree; one can enjoy a very good and prosperous survival (or it can be referred to as life) or one may have a quite meager and difficult survival. According to Objectivism, one should strive for the best survival possible (possible, in this context meaning, based on reality). Another term for "best survival possible, is happiness (which is very similar to Aristotle's eudaimonia, literally meaning, ultimate flourishing). As a human being must act in a specific way, based on his identity, in order to achieve a basic survival, so must he act in a specific way in order to achieve ultimate survival (happiness). This "specific way" of acting in order to achieve one's happiness refers to one's philosophy, and correspondingly, the actions that you take as the result of this philosophy. Again, you fail to make another distinction, this time, between one's philosophy and one's personal tastes. What is required in order to achieve one's ultimate happiness is the proper identification of reality and the proper principles guiding one's actions based on this observation of reality. Metaphysics and epistemology determine the first, ethics determines the second. Ethics defines the principles required for achieving one's ultimate happiness. However, ethics defines the principles behind the proper course of action, not the concrete course of action which must be taken. For example, ethics demonstrates that rationality is the primary virtue, but it does not demonstrate that all people should be philosophy professors. While one's personal tastes are based on one's philosophy, there is still the ability to choose many different paths of concrete action which adhere to the ethical principles required for achieving one's own ultimate happiness. In regards to your comments about Rand's ideas on gender roles, a human male and a human female are DIFFERENT. A male and a female are DIFFERENT physically and therefore are correspodingly DIFFERENT mentally. That's all I have to say on that subject for the moment. Fourth, Hello, pure subjectivism. Re-read my seventh paragraph to understand why this statement of yours is nonsense. The rest of your post is nonsense, and I believe that my comments, as well as those of RadCap, properly address that nonsense. As my last comment, I'd like to say, that you seem to have a really poor understanding of Objectivism. Perhaps it would be beneficial for you to attempt to properly understand Objectivism before trying to do what you just did. I also think that based on your absolute lack of proper understanding of Objectivism, you should limit your questions and/or objections to a single subject at a time. You need to do a lot of studying of Objectivism, and quite a lot of checking of your premises.

Yes RadCap, I agree with your conclusion that the level of understanding necessary to make such a judgment does not exist yet today. However, I was merely wondering, IF homosexuality was based on choice, would it be immoral? I suppose however, that such speculation is not a good thing to do because any conclusion drawn would have to be based on the context of reality, context which we do not yet know at present. As to Gabriel's position, I agree with you RadCap that it is flawed, and I would like it discussed on another thread so that I may add my thoughts on it as well.

Is homosexuality immoral, moral, or not open to the realm of choice? I think the critical question is whether or not one's sexual orientation is chosen by the individual or it is something biological which the individual can not control. What do you think? ------------- The Rational Egoist

Yes, I think Geraldo really stacked the deck against Schwartz, and completely ignored everything he was there to talk about. --------------------- The Rational Egoist http://rationalegoist.rationalmind.net

I see a lot of problems with that, namely, creating a government established ideology and forbidding those who do not follow it to enter the country. In America, you are free to have whatever opinion you want, as bad as it may be, as long as you do not violate the rights of others. Forbidding people who have "bad" ideologies into the country would be a gross violation of individual rights. Also, whose standard would this good ideology be based on? Your position in this issue seems to me to be in grand violation of the principle of individual rights. In a free society, an individual is innocent until proven guilty, and they are guilty only when they ACT on certain bad ideas by violating the rights of others. When we start to throw people in jail and exclude people from coming here becuase of their ideas, we will have become a totalitarian state. As undesirable as it may be to have people such as welfare hunters and religious fundamentalists in our country, it is NOT the place of government to decide who is "desirable" and who is "undesirable." In a free society, those people that you speak of looking for a free lunch would certainly not find it. It is only in the mixed economy that we live in today where such people have the ability to be parasites on others through the government. Also, a person's profession has absolutely NOTHING to do with the the proper purpose of a government: the protection of individual rights. Should the government accept certain professions and not others depending on the economic conditions of the country? That is statism my friend. As to disease, the treatment of disease in our country should be a COMPLETELY PRIVATE endeavor. You really need to check your premises in this issue Gabriel. What you advocated in your last post has a lot of collectivst and statist elements to it.

Agreed, especially with the fact that all individuals should be assumed innocent before proven guilty.

Stories like that anger me as well. Instead of those Cubans being able to escape a brutal dictatorship, we have sent them back to a murderous regime which will most likely either put them in jail, torture, or execute them. Another possible line of reasoning among those who support restrictions on immigration could be that the government wants to restrict the flow of potential criminals coming from countries which have a much larger criminal population. Many conservatives argue for example that there are countless numbers of criminals entering into the United States illegaly who are then committing crimes. These conservatives argue that if we clamp down on illegal immigration, we will prevent the number of criminals entering the United States, and thus, reduce crime in the United States. This seems to be a complicated issue. While there does seem to be some merit to this argument, there are also major problems with it as well. The major problem comes from those conservatives who want to severely restrict immigration from certain countries, not based on the individual criminal records of every immigration applicant but rather certain statistics about the population of the country from which the applicant is coming from, such as crime rate, poverty level, etc. This is clearly a violation of individual rights, in the sense that it assumes an individual is guilty until proven innocent based on the fact that they come from a certain country with a high crime rate. This being said however, I think it would be reasonable for the government to put certain conditions on legal immigration into our country. Unlike what many modern conservatives want to do however, these conditions would have to be based on an objective line of reasoning, rather than the personal moralities of government officials. An example of such a possible condition could deal with every individual's prior criminal record. If a given individual has committed a certain number of misdemeanor crimes or committed a felony, perhaps they would either not be able to enter our country or or there would be some amount of restriction on it. (Keep in mind this is just a potential example, if objective conditions on immigration are even possible). Some problems I forsee with such a policy would be that it would require a large government agency to oversee such policies, and the country from which an applicant comes from might not have an objective law court system, therefore, its judgments would be invalid and not be useful to these immigration conditions. While the argument that we should keep immigrants out of our country because of their stealing jobs is ridiculous, I would see it as important for our government to attempt to keep criminals out of our country. However, at what point would doing so be considered assuming an individual guilty before proven innocent?

In many other threads, the question of who can and can not be properly called an Objectivist has come up numerous times. Also, it is a subject of heated debate between supporters of ARI and supporters of other "Objectivist" organizations such as TOC, SOLO, and others. Therefore, I'd think it appropriate that we discuss and clarify exactly who deserves to be referred to as an Objectivist, and who not. In my understanding, an Objectivist is a person who understands and agrees with the entire philosophy of Objectivism (the exact principles of which are dervied from the philosophical writings of Rand and those who now have the legal right to speak for her, such as Peikoff.) Being in agreement with all of the philosophical principles is different than being in agreement with all of Miss Rand's personal tastes (as GreedyCapitalist pointed out to me). I think it is wrong for a person to claim agreement with the "fundamentals of Objectivism," throw in some contradictory principles, and still refer to oneself as an Objectivist. For example, in my opinion, a person who claims to be an Objectivist and an anarchist, should not be referred to as an Objectivist because anarchism is clearly in contradiction with Objectivism. Also, Rand explicity stated, This being said, I do not consider myself at this time to be an Objectivist, but rather a student of Objectivsm. In order to agree with the entire philosophy, I believe that one must have a sufficient knowledge of the entire philosophy. Since I have not reached this stage as of yet, it would be improper to refer to myself as an Objectivist, despite the fact that I agree with everything that I have learned thus far. What are your thoughts? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Rational Egoist http://rationalegoist.rationalmind.net

Thank you RadCap.

I believe that the post was directed towards me. Thank you for the apt correction GC.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

RadCap, would you be able to tell me where you have received the information that you utilized in your post in this thread? I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to read such a source.

Prior to discovering Objectivism 2 years ago, I received fairly little physical exercise, and suffered physically as a result. I believe that I implicity scorned the body as inferior to the mind, and therefore concentrated much more on the mind. Now that I have grasped that an individual is not a mind nor a body but rather the integration of the two, I am attempting to greatly improve the physical aspect of my life. This being said, I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for increasing one's physical strength, nutrition, etc., in regards to methods of working out, valuable nutrition suggestions, increasing metabolism, increasing overall physical energy, etc. Having scorned the body as inferior to the mind for so long, I am a relative newcomer in this area so any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Are you implying that the existence of a government reduces the freedom of those men living under it? Perhaps my judgment of "highly irrational and moronic" was a bit much. It comes from my posting for so long with another anarchist, Don Galt. His problem was a complete lack of understanding of the concept of rights. According to his arguments, an individual has the right to do whatever they want at whim, and any other person interferring with that whim is initiating force against him. Example: an individual murders another individual who was living under government A. The murderer refuses to be punished by government A because he does not recognize the validity of government A, therefore, it is an initiation of force to punish the murderer. The fact is that an individual does not have the right to do whatever they want at whim. An individual does have the right to do what they want at whim, just so long as they do not violate the rights of other individuals. When they violate the rights of other individuals, it is the right of an objectively defined and controlled government to use retaliatory force against the violator of individual rights. A government, acting in such a way, is not "initiating force," but rather acting on the concept of protecting individual rights. You obviously seem to be more intelligent than Don Galt, but it seems crystal clear to me at this point why anarchism is completely wrong. I do not feel it necessary to demonstrate that here. However, if you would like to present me with arguments for why laissez-faire is wrong or impossible, or why anarchism is better, etc, I may or may not respond to them, depending on how intelligent they are.

Of course rational people discuss ideas. However, I would consider anyone who calls themselves an anarcho-Objectivist-constitutionalist to be highly irrational and moronic. I do not make this judgment merely because you disagree with the holy prophet of Rand, (that was sarcasm of course) but rather because of the many reasons that the ideas of anarchism are completely wrong. An Objectivist is a person who agrees completely with Miss Rand's ideas. That, by definition, does not mean that all of Miss Rand's ideas are right, but rather that you do not have the right to call yourself an Objectivist if you do not agree completely. This forum is for students of Objectivism and Objectivists to post ideas and ask questions. You on the other hand, are not an Objectivist, nor are you a student of Objectivism, hence my request for you not to post here, thank you.

You are an idiot. Do us all a favor, please don't post here.

Sure no problem John. My name is Steve, you can refer to me as that. How much of Objectivism have you read so far? OPAR might be a little advanced if it is early in your Objectivist readings, or in general readings of philosophy as well. I had to read the first few chapters several times before I even began to understand them well, hehe. And thanks for the plug, I'm glad that you like my blog.

Hehe, thanks for the correction, you're right about that, theDude.

I will repeat my post here, because your crap, Don Galt, is spewed everywhere. Your problem, Don Galt, is that you do not have an accurate idea of what rights are. You seem to have the idea that a person has the right to do whatever they want to do, and can only be punished for an action if they agree to the validity of that punishment. You believe that an initiation of force is forcing someone to do something that they don't want to do. A person kills another, and that person must agree to the punishment system set up by the government of the victim in order to be justly punished. In a free society, a person can refuse to pay for the services of the government, but they can not refuse to suffer the consequences of violating another person's rights! A proper government has the legal use of force because, and only because, it is placed under objective control. The retaliatory use of force is only right when it is placed under objective control. A person does not have the right to "defend themself," in the sense that they do not have the right to kill everyone on their street whom they suspect of stealing their wallet. Your ideas are ridiculous. Please don't post here anymore.

Your problem, Don Galt, is that you do not have an accurate idea of what rights are. You seem to have the idea that a person has the right to do whatever they want to do, and can only be punished for an action if they agree to the validity of that punishment. A person kills another, and that person must agree to the punishment system set up by the government of the victim in order to be justly punished. In a free society, a person can refuse to pay for the services of the government, but they can not refuse to suffer the consequences of violating another person's rights! A proper government has the legal use of force because, and only because, it is placed under objective control. The retaliatory use of force is only right when it is placed under objective control. A person does not have the right to "defend themself," in the sense that they do not have the right to kill everyone on their street whom they suspect of stealing their wallet. Your ideas are ridiculous. Please don't post here.

Well until then, check out http://www.peikoff.com/opar/home.htm if you haven't already. That site gives at least a sampling of OPAR. Also, I recommend checking out this site: http://importanceofphilosophy.com/ I can't say for sure if it gets everything about Objectivism right, but it is a pretty good site nonetheless.

Most people do not conceptually identify that as their attitude on life. Very few people actually know that what they are doing is wishing that an A will become a non-A somehow. If you really look at things, the attitude is quite prevalent. The only people who come even close to conceptually identifying that A is non-A are philosophers, specifically, of the Hegelian/Kantian variety. (In fact, Hegel was the one who came up with a "new" system of logic, called "dialectic" logic, which is based on the notion that existence is full of numerous contradictions, and A is non-A.)

Principles are formed by subsuming a number of particularls (concretes) into an integrated sum. Principles can either be false (irrational or not based on the proper line of reasoning) or they can be true (rational). One can either choose to conceptually identify all of one's principles, or one can choose to act like a sponge, taking everything in and having one's principles (or lack thereof) be a collection of contradictions. Have you read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff? I may have asked you this before, I can't remember. I believe that reading this book, along with Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand would help to answer a lot of your questions.

I think you have things a bit confused on how great thinkers such as Aristotle and Rand came to such high abstract concepts. A common fallacy in philosophy today is that the higher the abstraction, the "less connection to reality" it has. This is completely untrue. In order to formulate an abstract concept, one needs an extreme amount of attachment "of the context of one's life and individual preferences/experiences/particularities." In fact, the higher the abstraction, "the more connection to reality" it has because it subsumes more particulars. However, you may have meant something else by this. You may have meant how does one eliminate potential subjectivity from one's thinking and achieve such a high level of objectivity. To answer that, I refer you to Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand.

Have you read Atlas Shrugged? If so, read it again. The fundamental principle behind wilfully choosing to evade reality is the premise that a wish can make A into non-A. I believe that this premise, that a wish can make A into non-A, is based on the primacy of consciousness mentality. For more on the primacy of consciousness mentality vs. the primacy of existence mentality I refer you too Chapter 1 of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.