IAmMetaphysical

You are not interested in coming to an understanding, you never have been. Since what I say (might) be in contradiction to a position of Ayn Rand's you are unable to tkae me seriously. I will not be responding to or adressing you until you show that you are open to discussion and reason.

I mean that I did not claim it when I wrote the first post in question, but that is what I was doing. If you are going to play gotcha games, and not have any interest in gaining an understanding between us then their is no point in my continued discussion with you.

BD, you're obseesedd with accusing me of attacking strawmen. Please realize that when I make points, I am setting up context, I am referring the reader to a certain set of of knowledge in order to make what I say following that more illuminating. I did not out right claim that I was reformulating objectivist theory of rights, but neither did I claim that I was giving a more general principle. If you follow my argument you will see that the groundwork I lay is the more general theory of rights, and the passages following are their application to the specific sense of "public display." Your failure to see this, does not change the fact that I said it that way. Objectivist politics, i.e. theory of rights does not rest on the concept of property. Property is a derivation, not the foundation. I suggets you re-read the appropriate material to get a better sense of how the right of property is derived. I gave you an explanation above but apparently you have a hard time undertsanding me.

Thats the whole thing about it you see. Right are derived from principles about human nature, about human volition and the requirements of human life, not from abstracting away from instances we can "just know" are already rights violations. We find out what are violations by applying the principles, not the other way around; morality is not derived from induction from the experiences of moral people, you define moral people by their loyalty to already validated principles. Does this mean that moral principles are a rationalistic pie in the sky? No, the principles are derived from the inducted knowledge about the role of volition in the advancement of human life and its necessity for human flourishing. Moral principles must necessarily be separated from first hand induction from experience because of the nature of moral prescription, i.e. you can not discover what men should do by observing what they do do, to do so would be to obliterate the prescriptive purpose of moral principles, it would be like saying "you are right in doing what you are doing, because you are right, and you are doing it.". To derive an ''ought" from an ''is'' the ''is" must describe the nature of the end to which the moral prescription serves as the means, e.g. you ought to walk if you want to get across te street, you ought to stop breathing if you want to pass out, you ought to be independant if you want to live, you ought to have integrity if you want to live. The opposite approach says you ought to breathe if you want to be moral. Now that thats out of the way, if you are saying that the principles I layed out are inadequate because they don't get you to this instance where you think there is a rights violation, then I would ask you where you came up with that rights violation in the first place; that's where the charge of emotionalism comes in. I think(and may be wrong) that you "just feel" that touching someone's hair without their expressed permission is a violation of rights and thats why you maintain that it is. If I am wrong, then correct me and give your validation. I do think that my principles(which are just a reformulation of Objectivist principles to the specific context of "public displays") do cover the instance that you mention(If I remember it correctly), but there are more steps involved. It is important to keep in mind that when I defined the principle's applications I do so to the limited context in discussion and that they do apply in other contexts, but in other formulations taken from the inducted facts that my formulations were taken from but at a different angle. This is what I wrote as the basis, which is standard Objectivist politics. The part in bold is an important one. All of your criticicisms of my post have been centered around this idea that I am advocating this right to the mind, but not the body or to property. Man is a being of body and mind and without his body his mind would be useless, and the right to his mind is only derived because of its usefullness to the success of his bodily existence anyway. The right to the mind is a derivitive of the right to life, which for man means his bodily life, his physical existence. Man has a right to his life, because life is the standard of value, he thus has the right to sustain it, and he does so by means of his mind, and his work of his mind, and use of the products of that mind, one of which is his body. His body is sovreign, it is his first possession, and his most valuable. He cannot excercise his right to life without it; it is indispensible, just as indispensible as his mind is. A man owns his body, since it is the ultimate product of his labor, the final product which all other products serve as means, it is the culmination of all his work into the sum which is his physical existence, his life, which is the standard of value. The right to the ownership of his body means he has the right to set the terms of its use, and this is where your example comes in: nobody has the right to use another's body in a way that negates their excercise of life, in a way that counteracts their mind, against their will, without their consent. While carressing someone's hair does not restrict them from using their mind(in the present tense), it a violation of their right to the body's sovreignty, and their right to decide how it is to be used, in the same way as I have a right for you not to touch my car, and any use you may have of my car is by my permission.(I suspect that this might open up a whole new can of worms in regards to equivocation with the ""right not have one's perceptual faculty used" or "the right to not be involved in a sexual situation without one's consent," but Mrock is doing a good job with that, so I don't think it will be a problem, I actually expect to be dismissed offhand, but if it does come to it, I am ready to expand upon the above) You described my position as being a "conceptualisation theory of rights" but i have just shown that it can not, for man, be limited to just his mind, that is where the misunderstanding comes in to play. Man is a being of mind and body, and it is his body and his physical existence that endows him with the rght to his mind in the first place (because it is his tool of physical survival.) How in the hell is what I said in that quote a accusation of dogmatism?

I have considered the arguments given in this thread and have decided (based on the level of certainty of my previous views of rights) that it is false, it seems to me that Ayn Rand agreed with you guys. I have not read the article and have stated as much, and in my first post about this I used "seems" and "might" to make the fact that I was unsure of Ayn Rand's disagreement with me, BlackDaimond thought that cowardly, you apparently missed it. I didn't continue to include "might" and "seem" as I assumed it was assumed that that was what I meant. Now, your above formulation is absolutely correct: it is "because I know she didn't throw around ideas lightly" that I give her more consideration than a bum on the street, NOT because I think she might possibly be more right than he. I know it might seem ironic to you for me to quote another person's formulations, but Tara Smith's chapter on Independence is a very good one. That is what I have been saying. I hope she has said it more clearly than I, but I think what I said was clear enough. BD has dismissed my stance as attacking a strawman, because he fails to see the implications of some of what you have said. I know that you are not saying that "Ayn Rand says it, makes it certainly right" you are saying that the fact that Ayn Rand said something means it deserves consideration. I agree there, but you have said that [paraphrasing]" an expert's opinion is evidence in favor of its truth." That is what I disagree with. I have considered the opposing arguments of this thread, at great length, and found them false. I have considered the quotes of Ayn Rand presented in this thread, and found them false, based on my knowledge of sex, of rights, and of force. My knowledge can be wrong, but I have no reason to believe that it is wrong. Ayn Rand disagreeing with me is not evidence that I may be wrong. I have not encountered a contradiction, so there is no need to check my premises any more than I do on a regular basis. To check my premises BECAUSE they (might)contradict Ayn Rand would be a great disrespect for my own mind, and I do not lack enough self-esteem to do so. I think you assume a lot about my appraoch to knowledge so I will let you in on it: I do give her respect, but respect does not mean ignoring the METAPHYSICAL fact that humans are fallible. And that goes both ways, I do not ignore the fact that I may be wrong either. The only respect I owe to her is to refrain from engaging in fallacy toward her, which I never have, and never will. Respect does not mean that I cannot disagree with her, nor does it mean that I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. I have given her much time in my thoughts about this (more fundamental issue), i.e. I have read the "About a woman president" essay more than three times, searching for an understanding, and have only found and strengthened my understanding of her mistake, in the issue of gender, and subsequently sex. I do not psychologize her and try to find the reason why she made that mistake, because it doesn't matter, her reason for doing it has no bearing on the truth of her view. I declare YOU certainly wrong, and all the other supporters of the opposing viewpoint in this thread. I prefaced my assessment with her as "might" and "seems" to reflect the fact that I am not sure what her position actually is. In regards to the "About a woman President" essay, and her view of gender, I declare she is certainly wrong. I have no choice in that regard, the evidence for me is incontravertable. She doesn't strike me as one either, but honest people can hold contradictions without knowing it, thats what ''making a mistake'' means. SUrely you're not saying that Ayn Rand never made a mistake?(sorry for the intimidation aspect of that question) I haven't read that article but I do understand the quotes provided here by others and I can say that those quotes can't be reconciled with REALITY, as I don't care whether or not it reconciles with Objectivism. Its important to note here that the two are mutually exclusive, metaphysically. Objectivism may be a very accurate (or in my view of what it is, a completely accurate) description of reality, but it is not reality. Also, to say "I can't reconcile this with reality" is to say "she's wrong!" As irreconsilabilty(sp?) with reality is the standard of falsity. Adequate consideration of an idea is not dependant on the amount of time spent on considering it, it is dependant on the nature of the consideration, the validly of the knowledge considered against, and the idea's relation to the perceptually self-evident. I have given those ideas that I have assigned the status of false more than adequate consideration, just because I disagree with someome smart doesn't mean I haven't considered it enough, if I am wrong, it may be because I made a mistake, not because I refuse to think. The truth is not found randomly, but neither is it found in the minds of others. A bum can be just as right as Ayn Rand(abstracting away from any particular statement). The only way FOR ME to find out whether or not something is true is to do my own thinking. And, in as much as Objectivism is an accurate representation of reality, it is a discovery, not an invention. I refer you to OPAR for a discussion about "possibly" true or "probably true" and that it does not mean "not impossible." In regards to knowledge, there are no statistical probabilities. To say that something is possibly true is to say that there is some, but not a lot, of evidence supporting its congruence with reality. I don't give equal focus, attention, or especially status to the opinion of bums and geniuses, in fact I give no status at all to a statement I have not assessed for myself. My focus and attention is not dependant on how true I think a proposition might be before I've assessed whether it is true or not, that would be impossible. My focus and attention is dependant on how much of an impact something will have on my life and how much sense it is making thus far. A genius stating something, does not endow it with sensibility. Try to abstract away here form particular instances and get to the principle. Ayn Rand saying "existence exists" is true and worthy of attention because it is true and has incredible affect on human lives, not because she said it, in fact she deserves attention because of her true statements, not her statements deserving attention because she said them. The problem then is in his uncertainty, not in his disagreement with a top expert. IF however, his uncertainty comes from the fact of disagreeing with the expert, then he is being second-handed. I believe I have, it is here.{edit} Although I don't think it was ignored because it (might) contradict Rand, I think it was ignored because of emotionalism and misunderstanding. No, not until I get an understanding of what a kidney is, how it serves my life, how it is malfunctioning, what the cure is, and how the cure works. Do you trust homeopathic experts with your health? Why or why not? I am completely serious, dismissing me does not serve your interests.

They should hire you to do treatments. Good ideas.

I have tried time and time again to explain how I am not advocating the complete dismissal of consideration toward Ayn Rand. I take what she says seriosuly because I know that she did not throw around ideas lightly, not because I think she is probably right on whatever she says. That means that I cannot treat what she said as my own knowledge, without first assessing it myself. To say that it is possibly true, or probably true, is a statement of knowledge. To state that it is a "problem" to be in disagreement with Ayn Rand is to say that my first-hand knowledge of reality and Ayn Rand's statements of her first-hand knowledge of reality represent a contradiction IN MY KNOWLEDGE. I have considered this argument very seriously and at great length, and revisit the debate over and over in my head. I do not blank it out, I have found it to be false. This is not anti-dogmatism as I am not rejecting considering it because I wish not to agree with her, I have considered it and continue to do so. Your implication of my dishonesty is uncalled for and without ground. What I do not do, is put my own first-hand experience of reality into doubt SIMPLY BECAUSE Ayn Rand disagreed with me. MY first-hand experience and understanding of reality is the standard of whether or not I consider something true or false or arbitrary, not the first-hand knowledge of others. THAT is independant thought. An expert's opinion qua opinion WITHOUT my first-hand understanding of the material of that opinion is worthless to me because it doesn't represent true knowledge on my behalf. Think about it for a sec, how could I know they were an expert unless I knew something about the thing they were an expert on? And if I knew that much, why couldn't I understand the material myself, after they have related it to my level of understanding? IF that then is the case and they have related it to my understanding, if it conflicts with my previously held knowledge of reality, why should I accept it? Why should I automatically throw out my previous understanding about reality and substitute theirs, without even understanding it myself? Do you prescribe such a sabotage of my mind? Why should I automatically assume that I am wrong and that they are right? What kind of lack of self-esteem would that reveal in me, if I was so easy to abandon the work of my mind in favor of another's? Now I am not saying that I think I am infallible and that I can't be wrong. Ayn Rand disagreeing with me is not evidence that I MIGHT be wrong, that evidence would have to come when I arrive at a contradiction within my own hierarchy of knowledge, not when my knowledge contradicts another's. Ayn Rand disagreeing with me is not even evidence that I COULD be wrong, that evidence is the fact that human free will is fallible. Are you recommending that my appraoch should instead be directed toward the expert and not toward reality? Should my appraoch be to assess the character and intelligence of the expert and then take whatever they say as gospel? Or by consideration do you mean that I should evaluate the statement and relate it to reality, and then doubt myself because I don't agree with the expert? What do you think I should do?

Its an agreement to recieve mail, not to obtain ownership of said mail. If someone sends you something you don't want to keep and disposing of it would produce a great loss to you, then it is their resonsibility to remove the package. Then, you can tell them that you do not wish to recieve mail from them and if they insist on doing so, legal recourse is justified.

I will answer this because I think your point about chess is a result of a misunderstanding and that you're open to reason. I know that no one is saying that Ayn Rand's intelligence is the only factor in deciding that a given statment is true or not. The specific thing I was responding to and what sparked this tangent was the comment made by Seeker who said that the simple fact that Ayn Rand believed something is a "problem", implying that that is in the fact the only factor in the formation of said problem, which implies that the fact that Ayn Rand believed something is evidence in favor of its truth. I do not advocate that people automatically dismiss anything that anyone says simply because they said it, that would be the flip side of what I am arguing against. Now, in terms of an "expert opinion" I do think it is proper to assume that an expert knows what he is talking about, and that his view is slight evidence of a given proposition's truth, as long as that view is a matter of perceptual self-evidency or closely tied to it. It is safe to assume that if someone says that they saw the sun rise this morning and there is no reason to believe they are lying, that they did in fact do so and that their statement is possibly, if not probably true. But, this is NOT because they are a smart person, it is because seeing the sun rise is an occurence that happens on the first level of epistemological awareness and as such is not subject to the possibility of human fallibility (barring instances of mistake in interpretation of sensory data, in which case the history of the person in question's history of mental wellbeing will come into play as he is making a claim about his sensory experience which in that case would be subject to skepticism.) In cases where the person is making a claim involving higher level integrations of data, the possibility of human fallibility is more likely and it is necessary to know more about the statement in order to assign a positive evaluation of the status of its truth. It is important here to realize that I am not saying that all statements have to be treated as false or arbitrary until proven true, any statment once made and understood can be evaluated based on its relation to the evaluator's prior hierarchy of knowledge. E.g. if Ayn Rand says "existence exists" that statement is absolutely true, but not because she is smart and she said it, but because it is an entirely accurate representation of how reality actually is and must be. That statement is as equally true as if a dirty bum said it. The person making the statement has no bearing on the validity of said statement. If Ayn Rand said that the world was flat, there would be no reason (in light of modern knowledge) to take her seriously, you understand this obviously in the case of Einstein. A statement of fact has to be taken as first -hand knowledge and scrutinzed by the same standards. The expert opinion is only as valid as the statement being made. It is not proper to regard a statement as arbitrary simply because someone else said it, that is not what I am advocating. A statement has to be judged by ITS merit, not by the merit of its espouser. In terms of expert opinion, that is how it should be viewed, as opinion, and opinion need not be dismissed as false without reason. To sum up: an expert's opinion is only as good as its relation to the perceptually self evident and as an opinion. When a chess expert states that a certain starting move is superior to others they are expressing a statement regarding a higher level of integration and as such deserves more consideration before being considered true, false or arbitrary. One must obtain more relevant information on the subject in order to form an opinion oneself, to do otherwise would be an act of faith. All first-hand knowledge, i.e. asessments of truth must be made based on first hand knowledge of the material at hand Back to the subject at hand to concretize this: The statement is: sex is something which must be hidden from the unconsenting.(basically) I am not saying that one should dismiss this statement as false or arbitrary WITHOUT considering it, quite the contrary. One should consider everything one encounters and weigh it with one's previous knowledge of reality and one's present knowledge, i.e. perceptual experience with reality. One should do this not because of where the statement comes from, i.e. who says it, but because all statements of fact have a bearing on one's knowledge and one's life. One should not dismiss a statement about reality simply because it comes from a bum, nor should they lend more credence to a statement simply because it was uttered by a genius. My contention with the above statement about sex stems from my understanding of sex and of rights and reality. The fact that Ayn Rand (might) disagree with me is not a problem for me. I do not dismiss her, but I do dismiss those things I consider false. I considered her argument and find the principle "the right to look and listen means the right not to see or hear" as being an equivocation. The fact that she engaged in said mistake does not alter my respect for her as I did not think she was infallible and making mistakes is not morally reprehensible. She is still the greatest human to ever live, in my opinion. I think what may have happened here is a misunderstanding of my position as saying that one should dismiss as false anything that is said by anyone else because they are someone other than oneself. My position is that the intellectual status of an expert is not evidence of its truth, or its falsity, or its arbitrariness, one must find out which category a statement falls into by first hand asessment of the statement involved. To subsitute this asessment with an asessment of the author of the statement is to substitute others for reality and become second-handed. IF you are saying that I should consider her statement because it regards an important part of human life, then I agree. If you are saying that I should consider it because Ayn Rand said it, then I disagree. I am curious to find out her opinion on a lot of things because I respect her mind, but that does not mean that I consider what she says as being closer to truth before I consider the matter for myself. Does that clear things up?

I think it is up to David Veksler(and the moderators) to decide whether or not what I say is appropriate or not for this forum. I have shown the greatest respect for Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff and Objectivism here. Where I have disagreed with Rand and Peikoff I have done so respectfully, never engaging in personal attacks nor anything else that can be construed as an attack on them. The fact of my disagreement is not disrespect, in fact, it is since I respect the principles that Ayn Rand discovered and/or formulated so greatly that I am independant enough to take what she says and subject it to the greatest amount of scrutiny. If you two can not see that point I am trying to make in regards to assigning the status of evidence of a claim's truth to the fact that someone smart made the claim with I have said already, then you never will. It is pointless for me to continue down that road.

Nobody has said that it makes them certainly true, I agree, but like I said:

Did I not say that I think her position is false(not arbitrary) AFTER considering it against the "already established fact about the nature of the human mind and of the principle of rights?" In regards to relegating it to the bin or the arbitrary I said this: I continued saying: Nothing about this is a dismissal, I expect an apology. No it is not. Evidence for a claim is dependant upon the facts of reality, not the facts about someone's consciousness. Nobody's character can serve as evidence of the truth of the views he espouses. Wishes don't change reality, prayers don't change reality, belief and the character of the believeer doesn't do so either.

I hated it as well. One dimensional characters, explicit altruism, package dealt selfishness, etc. The onyl saving grace was seeing venom in CG. Why did you love it sNerd?

Having a mailbox is an implicit agreement to recieve ANY AND ALL non-threatening packages. That is what a mailbox is for, for recieving packages, if you want to have conditions on what kind of packages you wish to receive, you have to write that on your mailbox. (I would argue that, like The Godfather, a dead (horse)head can be seen as a threat of violence objectively, btw) "Taking an idea seriously" means giving it a status along the continuum of "true." Let me elaborate. Ideas about reality fall into three categories: true, false, and arbitrary. If a view is in a corresponding relation to reality, it is true. If it is in contradiction to reality, it is false. If it has no relation to reality whatsoever, it is arbitrary. How much an idea stands in correspondence to reality, or contradiction to reality, or in no relation whatsoever to reality can be expressed with the concepts of "possible," "probable," and "definate/certain." Discovering how an idea stands in relation to reality and how much so is the task of reasoning, and this task is done on the basis of evidence and logic. Evidence is collected and evaluated and an assessment is made. The nature of the evidence determines the status of the relationship, i.e. whether it is true or false or arbitrary; the amount and proximity of that evidence to the perceptually self evident determines the level of certainty. (Note: "possible" does not mean "not impossible", i.e. for something to be possibly true, it does not merely have to be non-contradictory to the already established facts about reality. For something to be possibly true, there must be some evidence in support of its actually being true, not a lack of evidence of its being not-true. For a further discussion of this, I defer to Leonard Peikoff in OPAR.) So, to suggest that something is possibly true is to suggest that there is some positive evidence of it's being true although not enough to warrant an assignment of the label "definately true" or "probably true." To suggest that since Ayn Rand was a genius and an incredibly intelligent and rational person (which she was) is reason enough to take the positions she maintained as "possibly true" because she is the one who maintained them, is to give the simple fact that she maintained them the status of positive evidence of the truth of those positions. The sheer fact that she maintained a position has no bearing on the truthfullness of said position because her consciousness doesn't (nor does anyone else's) control reality. Any evidence in favor of her position is to be found in her arguments or from the facts of reality, i.e. the facts relevant to the position she held, not the fact that she was incredibly rational, or the fact that Inspector and Capitalism Forever vehemently disagree with me. Those facts are irrelevant and, if they were the only peices of evidence on which to judge her position, it would relegate that position to the realm of the arbitrary. However, since her position (seems to) stand in contradiction to already established fact about the nature of the human mind and the principle of rights, there is enough evidence (since the level of certainty of the truth which her position seems to contradict is high) to label her position as "highly probably false"(I only hesitate to say "definately false" because I have not read that essay and am not sure as to what her exact position is.)

No, just engaging in a genetic fallacy. Amount of thought, amount of past rationality of the thinker, amount of self-esteem one has about one's own mind does not make a given belief any more true.

These "problems" are not problems at all; Ayn Rand maintaining something does not make it any more true, nor does the fact that someone might vehemently disagree.

Barring continuous torture and mental illness, a person's psychology is always their own responsibility, not anyone else's. Any damages or assaults made upon it, is therefore on their hands. Why? Because man is a being of volitional consciousness.

That I give up, or that there's no hope?

Jesus Christ guys, I give up, there is no seriously no hope.

BD: I would dismiss it, but not for emotional reasons, but because I already understand with my mind why bestiality is not in one's self interest.

BD: So whim worship is okay, as long as you're an Objectivist?? Inspector: The difference between using your emotions and inducing from there and using induction to gain knowledge about reality is that when you induce using your emotions, you are only finding out about your emotions, i.e. you are gaining inductive knowledge about your emotional state and hierarchy, these conclusions may well be consistent with reality, or they may not be, but one does not figure that out unless one engages in actual rational induction or deduction from previously validated principles. E.g. If I took a bunch of situations regarding moral principles and, based on my emotional reactions and being raised a Catholic, decided that profit motive was obviously a vice, humility was obviously a virtue, and sex was obviously a sin, all I could learn about those emotional reactions to moral situations would be MY EMOTIONAL reactions to those situations. I could not form objective principles from those premises and not only because they are false. In another example if I do what BD suggests and given a pretty good implicit sense of life, decide that profit motive is a virtue along with productivity and rationality because it seems obvious to me and my emotions give me an affirmation of these feelings and then try to induce principles from that, all I am left with is a better understanding of my subconscious sense of life, not of the nature of reality. Emotions ARE NEVER TOOLS OF COGNITION, they are tools to let you know YOUR automatized evaluations of certain situations. THe meotion of fear tells you THAT you are afraid, not what you SHOULD be afraid of, the emotion of anger, tells you that you are mad, frsutrated, etc, not what you SHOULD be angry about. That is the role of emotions, not to give one a starting point in any rational endeavor to uncover the nature of reality, unless it the reality of your emotional state.

It's not induction! At least not induction about the principles regarding rights, but induction about YOUR feelings about what should be rights violations. Its a good way of finding out what you assume should be rights violations and why you feel that way, but it is never a good approach when trying to know reality. Emotions are not tools of cognition.

The last part is what you're missing, the first part is called rationalism. You do not just think of things that you feel are violations (accepting them as violations) while you are trying to fidn out and define the principle that defines them, its circular reasoning, begging the question. Its not induction when the source of your data is arbitrary whim.

A larger point is this: you can't derive principles of what should be rights violations by thinking of situations that you "just know" are rights violations and then find out what is similar amongst those situations, that's begging the question. The concept and principle of rights is derived from the nature of man and of value, it proscribes how men should act toward one another just as ethics procribes how a man should act to/for himself. The overiding principle in ethics is "life affirmation of the self", the oveririding principle in politics is "mind affirmation of others." Because in order for a man to be able to affirm his own life, he must first be free to do so; he must have others let his mind be free to function, i.e. to percieve, concieve, and choose his course of action. This is because man sustains his life by the use of his mind.

Since dead things carry disease, it can be seen as an attempt at assault, physical assault, not psychological. Thats why it may, in certain contexts, be a violation of rights. Other than that, if you want to send pornography to someone without their knowledge that is your right, and it is their right to throw it out and ostracise you, boycott you, whatever.