Richard_Halley

It is worked out so that there are upsides and downsides to all actions. This limits the amount of bias there can be. Still it can hardly be viewed as completely accurate. The biggest gripe I have is that if one builds a "world benchmark" economy, one's citizens are starving in the streets.

It is only a purely linguistic matter if you apply no definition to the word "person". I said there would be a discussion about the morality, not that this evidence would be reason to reject abortion outright. And I did not say anything about conciousness, I said "rational faculty." No. A pregnant woman has a right to kill any clump of cells growing on her she desires. The only time it is even arguable that this is not the case is when that clump of cells has a rational faculty. However, in deciding on having sexual relations with a woman who is clear in their refusal to abort, a man is telling that woman that you support that decision, and thus, it would be immoral to leave her for sticking to it.

Note that the only sigificance of what the dogs were bred for is that they probably wouldn't make very good tasting food. Not that it is somehow immoral to eat them.

Rand publicly stated her opinions on homosexuality only once that I am aware of. It is reported that she usually showed much lighter views on the subject and even had homosexual friends. I will reread that essay in VOS and get back to you on that.

Arguing with others helps one strengthen ones own case in only one way... It forces one to put ones arguements into words. This often helps to integrate ones own concepts better than before.

Submission, in the way that Rand described it, was hardly comparable to that which religion advocates. Rand's submission is more to ones own passion, than to ones lover. This submission, it should be noted, seems to have been more an attribute of [her veiw of] the attraction to the ideal male form, than merely of women in general.

I will answer your questions, poohat, but don't make Ash yell at you again. Should the mother decide to have the child and the father dosen't want to, he may certianally leave. Than the mother may decide if she wants to have the child without him. I have an exception, if a man got involved with a woman who was opposed to abortion outright, and she got pregnant, morally, he would have to take care of the child. My reasoning here is that he made his choice to have a child when he got involved sexually with her. And as for late term abortions. Should the need arise for the parents to abort late, there is nothing morally wrong with that. This usually happens because of threats to the mothers physical health, but I can imagine other reasons for this kind of decision. However, should it be found that a fetus develops a rational faculty while still inside the womb, than there is to be discussion about when precisely it becomes a person. I say discussion because there are other factors to consider, such as the fetus/persons parasitical nature.

\ Yes, feldblum, no one is ignoring this. But there is also a physical aspect to romantic love. Unless you wish to argue (which you may do) that a rational person would be physically attracted to anyone with the right virtures, regardless of gender, than this is un important.

Sorry, no handy quotes. Too late here for handy quotes.

It helps us in that we have identified exactly what the various attractions are about. It simplifys our task down to figuring out where those attractions come from. Rand provides us with an interesting beginning regarding the attraction to the male form: Dominique Francon. Would you say your attraction is anything like hers?

Yeah, I think we hit the post button very near to the same time. I edited the last post so that the conversation would make sense to people who read it in the morning.

Essentially in the way that you described the female form... Look at the work of Michael Wilkinson. That is my answer. I think this does bring us slightly closer to understanding the differences.

I will accept that arguement on one condition. This is not the case if they ceased sexual relations when the ban came into effect. If they concieved the child before the ban there is no way it can be referred to as a choice.

Oh yes. I am not speaking of your values as representative of all of homosexuality, but rather as an example. I am using you as an example because you are here, because I figure that if there is a good reason to choose homosexuality, the Objectivist picked it. And given your last few posts, I shant be needing to reintroduce that as a possibility. (the post you quoted was not factoring the posts immediately before it, read the edit)

The symmetrical faces are of greater interests to the babies' concept forming faculty. Basically, there is more to be learned from them. As for the scientific studies: They do call for more investigation (which we here are not qualified to make). But the nature of this investigaion deals with the validity of the freewill itself, no less. As of now, unless I am mistaken, there is no proof. And besides... I am reluctant to believe scientists when it comes to issues this high the political ladder (figures don't lie, but liars figure).

Ok, Trey... I will consider this to be a fairly reasonable arguement, and worthy of consideration. And so I will refrain from insulting you further. But I still am not sure that this means it would be hard to change a sexual orientation if one's beleifs/values changed. I would like to retract my previous suggestion regarding your motivation, but reserve the right to reissue it should need be. Yes, your prospective mate's gender matters, but only because you have already chosen that gender as your preferred one. Since this discussion is about the nature of that choice, any arguement hinging on this fact is outside the realm of this dicussion. So long as you are speaking only of the prospective mate's gender here as well... my preceding statement may be viewed as repeated here. This is my primary concern in this discussion. I have no idea what specific values or kinds of values inspire somone to be homosexual. An understanding of these values is imperitive if I wish to make a rational judgement about the actions of homosexuals... And so we enter relevent topic... Trey has made it clear that the basis for his choice lies in the aesthetic values of the male body. Now, to answer our question, we must find out why. edit: I posted this before reading trey's last post and need to add this. It is clear that men and women are biologically compatable; the question we need to ask is are there legitimate reasons to reject that compatablity. Actually, in keeping with my arguement about freewill, this compatablity is next to meaningless, except in that it is an easy default for someone whos values don't drive him one way or the other.

Good points, I revoke my statement about the purpose of the donation. Which leads me to say: So long as Peikoff gave proper consideration to creating a means by which to keep the manuscript on public display (i.e. considered creating the ARI's present facilitys), and found that that was unreasonable (most likely for financial reasons), than he was completely morally justified in making the donation. Even if he should have been more carefull about specifying exactly what he was donating.

Quite so, GC.

I meant very simply what I said... Ayn Rand made herself clear regarding what was a part of human nature and that everything else was freewill. To be more specific (I was refering to quotes I used in a previous post and thought this to be clear), human nature consists only of the fact that man has no automatic actions, and may only live by freewill. And what other species, without freewill, do is completely outside of the realm of this discussion. Psychology, yes. This is science by which we are to identify the values in question... As for biology, it is only a significant issue if you drop your agreement with the Objectivist concept of freewill. Again I am willing to hear arguements against freewill, but not from anyone claiming to be an Objectivist. And Lucent, I wonder what you suppose psycologists do. Also, doing exactly this (at least in some degree) is a neccessity in making a judgement about a person. Why someone does what they do is often more important than what they did, when considering ethics.

True, daniel... however, your donation to the public schools would be immoral if you could get a private school to agree to the same deal. Also consider that the primary issue here is the preservation of the manuscript. Having people read off the manuscript is of no value to Peikoff or to Objectivisim, seeing as people can get the book everywhere from their local book stores and librarys. However keeping the manuscript protected from, for instance, fire could prove to be very valueable 100 years down the road. Peikoff could have easily protected the manuscript using methods ranging from a small firesafe or safe-deposit box at a bank in Zurich... and left them under the protection of ARI upon his death. Surely they are more trustworthy to protect it than the government.

To clarify, it is not merely giving birth, but choosing to give birth that qualifys you to this responsibility. So if abortions are banned than you would not have a moral responsibility to take care of the child (though you may choose to anyway). As for this: You are not required to personally provide that care, but you are responible for its quality. So giving a child to a trusted individual or an adoption agency with trustworthy guidelines would be moral. However, giving him to a stranger or an untrusted agency would not. Does this make sense?

First of all Trey, Ayn Rand very clearly lays out what she includes as human nature and clearly states that all else is a result of freewill. So if you are going to start including other things in human nature, realize that you are argueing against freewill (and therefore Objectivism). To paraphrase Ayn Rand: There is no such thing as freewill with tendencies. Now that that is out of the way: I don't see any basis for this statement. If one of the key integrated concepts that makes up these values is changed, surely the person would begin to notice a contradiction and be compelled to fix it. If you give me evidence for your statement than I beg your forgiveness, but for now I will take the advice of Ellsworth Toohey: this looks like an attempt to abdicate resposibility for these values, which you should be defending. Here you are implying an ability for the gender to hinder the freewill. If gender decides what I will find romantically appealing, why doesn't decide what I will find aesthetically appealing, or what kind of car I will drive, sports I will like, or any other 1950's stlye sterotypes? This question is precisely the main issue here. And it depends on which values inspire someone to be homosexual (or hetrosexual). Whatever moral judgement passes on these values, one should pass on the sexual orientation associated with them. But since we have yet to identify these values it is impossible to pass moral judgement on them. Quite possibly... once again, it depends on the morality of the values in question. Only if there is no freewill. I am happy to hear any arguement regarding any of these things. But if you are going to throw out the freewill, please throw out the name Objectivist with it.

poohat: As RadCap said previously, the validation is metaphysical. As an example: I see something. This fact requires: Existence - I see something. Conciousness - I see something. i.e. I am aware of something. Identity - I see something. Hows that RadCap? I can't believe I read that wrong... I thought it was intended as an oxymoron: "Red"--"Cap" And you do know that you can hit alt-I for italics and alt-B for bold, right? (That is ctrl-I/ctrl-B in most word processers).

I looked it up, and it turns out that I was wrong... Peikoff had recovered from his immiedate heart problems when he made the decision. However, it was still a poor decision. He had already established ARI at the time and could have used it for the storage of the manuscript. And besides, even if it is not his primary purpose, the donation is supportive of the government organization. Would it not be wrong for me to donate books to the schools, even if I find myself in the unfortanate position of having to use them?

The same way you would change your culinary or aesthetic tastes... by changing your values. The question is: which values make one choose a given sexual preference.