Vladimir Berkov
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Posts posted by Vladimir Berkov
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Just looking at it from a purely philosophical view, how can one be attracted to a person in their young teens? Granted, there are girls who have all the requisite curves and such and are physically attractive and if you look at sex as a purely physical transaction, who cares? If merely "getting off" is the only criteria, why restrict oneselves to teens, or even human beings?
Well, for one thing sex to a large degree a physical act. And the mental component of sex has a lot to do with the physical component. I think you are lumping together "love" and "sex." Love requires a mental connection to the other person. Sex does not.
You don't need any mental connection to a person to be sexually attracted to them. There may be a "sense-of-life" about the person which may add to the attractiveness but it is usually just incidental. The physical body of the person is what is most important at first.
Also, consider how many adults are immature and frankly, idiots. Are you saying that you can't be a attracted to a 30-year-old woman until you have found out that she is, indeed, mentally mature as a 30-year-old?
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I think the major issue isn't the idea of an age limit, but rather where that limit should be set. For example, who can seriouly think that a 5 year old can consent to any sort of sexual activity? The idea is absurd.
But once you start moving past puberty, at 12, 13, 14, 15, that is where the problem area lies. You have girls and boys with a biological maturity and with biological drives towards sex, but the law says they cannot engage in sexual activity.
Personally I think we need to rationalize age limits for all sorts of activities in America. There is no good reason why 21 is the limit for alchohol, but 18 the limit for tobacco and voting, and 16 the limit for driving.
I would say that age limits for consentual non-dangerous-to-others activities like sex and tobacco should be lowered, whereas age limits for dangerous activities like driving should probably be raised. Firearms are in the middle. I would say 18 should be the max age limit to be consistant with the voting age and legal contract age, with other activities permitted to younger people.
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In ancient Greece, Democritus originated the idea that everything, including human action, is subject to mechanistic determinism, which is sometimes referred to as "billiard ball metaphysics" because everything would then be more or less a chain reaction caused by atoms bumping into each other. It was refuted by Aristotle, who defined causality in terms of the nature of the entities that act. Aristotle argued that human actions are "teleological," or goal oriented. Volition is a result of man's nature as a rational being. It is a causal process, by which a man focuses or unfocuses his attention on certain facts (that's the primary choice), and selects a course of action to obtain the goal he's set for himself.
The difference between human and non-human action is that, while humans act according to "final causation" (teleology), the material world opperates by "efficient causation" (every event is the result of antecedent causes). You could say, in a certain sense, humans act "because of the future" and inanimate nature acts "because of the past."
It has been a long time since I studied Aristotle, but I believe Aristotle's key distinction is between material objects and natural objects, not between natural objects and man. Aristotle believed that all natural things had a final cause. Aristotle would say that a bird or an insect was "for" something, for example. The difference between humans and animals is not a difference in causality but a difference in the type of soul each has. The human soul has additional capabilities in addition to those also possessed by animals and plants.
In short, the "proof" for the fact of human action being different from non-human action derives from the fact that only humans are capable of reasoning, and therefore making plans and setting goals. The fact that humans do this, can plainly be observed. And there is no reason to think, as Democritus (and his followers to this day) suggested, that this is merely "an illusion."This is merely descriptive, however. Making plans and setting goals are just types of actions which still may have a pre-determined causal history. From what I can tell, you are basically saying that non-determinism is "self-evident" which I think is very dangerous.
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The essential difference between human action and the action of physical objects is that humans have volition, whereby we escape from predetermination. That messes up any predictive theory of human action. No amount of compute power will allow you to negate volition, so we can never truly grasp future facts about human choice.
Is there any proof of why human action is different than non-human action however? Stating that humans aren't predetermined like physical objects because humans have volition seems rather circular. Volition is simply the state or capacity of not being predetermined, no?
Did Ayn Rand ever attempt to prove why human action isn't predetermined?
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Vladamir, do you think you have to give the product an honest try though? why or why not?
I would say giving it an honest try is not ethically required, although individuals may certainly choose to do so. This is because the offer doesn't require a honest try. The offeror has likely already calculated the percentage of people who will just "use" the offer to get the free goods and have no intention of being real customers, and still has decided to proceed with their offer.
Really, I think accepting the same offer over and over is a bit in bad taste though, it makes it look as if one is cheap.
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It seems to me the "free trial" ethical situations are nothing more than a bargain. The company is betting that overall, by giving away "freebies" they will get more customers. And customers are getting the TVs.
The fact that in your individual situation the deal seems more in your favor than the companies seems a little irrelevant. In a free trade both parties are supposed to gain something of value. By not requiring an extended subscription, the company is essentiall just gaining the value of advertising and more initial trials. Thus by accepting their offer and canceling, you really have given them just that.
If transactions were judged on the value of just the individual value of the exchange and rather than overall scheme of trade, buying "loss leader" products at stores would be a sort of theft.
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What's an example of a necessary truth about the future, pertaining to man's will? It is a necessary truth that Nixon did resign as president, and a necesssary truth that GWB will die, but it is not a truth, necessary or otherwise, that Bush will resign as president. So without an example of what you're talking about, I don't see that this is a problem.
You can't really have any necessary truths about the future regarding mens choices simply due to the fact that men can't predict such future actions.
But if you hold that all truths are necessary, this lack of predictive power is a matter only of the extent of our current knowledge rather than an inherent unpredictability in the system.
As an example, consider an opaque box with one hole at the top to drop a marble into, and two holes at the bottom for the marble to exit. Before the marble is dropped in, you cannot say as a matter of truth which of the two holes the marble will exit from. But this is only because you can't see inside the box. If you open the box, you might discover that the way it is designed the marble will only ever exit from the left hole for example and that the choice of two exits was only an illusion.
If there is no difference between human action and physical objects (as would seem to be the case if all truths were necessary) then it is concievable that human actions could be predicted with similar certainty. One can imagine a super-super-computer with enough power and information to predict human action with a certainty bounded only by things such as the uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics.
This computer might tell us that it is a necessary truth, given the current preconditions, that GWB will resign.
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But might making all truths necessary truths essentially strip human beings of volition and free will?
Making human actions necessary seems to imply that choice is just an illusion and there is only one possible outcome from any given set of physical and mental preconditions.
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Since sexual desire is part of man's nature, how can a philosophy which attempts to build its moral foundations upon that nature ever deem the manifestation of that sexual desire immoral?
Men want sex, at least partly because humans are animals after all. Just as men need food, air, and such to sustain themselves, sex is a big natural desire.
Thus the proper question I think is not "whether any form of sex is immoral", but rather "what is the mean between the extremes?"
Certainly it is possible to imagine situations in sex comes to dominate one's desires to the detriment of their life, but that is the case with all other human desires. There is always the possibility for overindulgence.
Thus so long as it doesn't significantly impact one's other values in a negative way, what could possibly be the immorality or irrationality in masturbation?
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A key passage about Roark's mindset is in the very famous scene where Toohey asks Roark to tell him what he thinks of him. Roark's answer: "But I don't think of you."
I understand your point, and I think your analogy makes a lot of sense. I still don't understand that quote though. Why wouldn't Roark think about Toohey at some point even if it was only to understand his actions or philosophy as a means of self-defense?
For instance, I have thought about people such as Diane Fienstein, Hillary Clinton and the like, even though in many ways they have less relevance to me than Toohey did to Roark. But ignoring such people seems pointless and dangerous. It seems important to try to understand your intellectual enemies as a means of defending yourself against their ideology or actions.
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I am currently re-reading the Fountainhead, and I was wondering if anybody knew the answer to this question which has always puzzled me.
Why does Roark remain unconcerned and disinterested in the efforts of so many of the other characters to destroy his work and his career?
How can he sleep with a woman who openly is trying to destroy him, or accept a job from a Wynand who has sought to destroy his other jobs with his paper?
I can understand why Roark wouldn't care about Keating, because Keating poses no threat to him. But his calm and lack of concern about people like Dominique and Wynand seems unnatural and a bit strange. I am sure if someone was trying to destroy my career I would be likely be more than a bit irate at them, or at least concerned as to trying to counter or stop their efforts and save my career.
Is Roark's reaction something inherent in a true objectivist or is it just a quirk of his personality?
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Hello everybody,
I thought I might as well introduce myself here as my first post on the forum. A friend who is an objectivist recommended it as a good place to get more knowledge about the philosophy.
I have read Ayn Rand's major novels, such as the Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and We the Living as well as all (I think) of the shorter non-fiction books such as Virtue of Selfishness, Romantic Manifesto, etc. I am still new to thinking about the philosophy on a critical level and hopefully can learn from people who have studied it longer.
I am 23, have a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, and currently am attending law school there. One of my current interests is trying to apply some of Rand's ethical concepts to the study of Constitutional law.
Other interests I have are history, particularly that of the late 19th century through the 1940s. I collect 78rpm records, mainly dance music and jazz from the 20s and 30s. I also am a WWII reenactor and one of my impressions is a WWII soviet infantryman (my avatar.) I am also interested in dandyism, tailoring, and vintage fashion.
I look forward to participating in the forum!
An Attraction To Underage Girls/boys
in Ethics
Posted
If men and women are not genetically determined to like certain traits, aren't they at least genetically determined to like members of the opposite sex (in most cases)?
Of course, it seems strange to think that genetics would determine an individual man to like tall women, with a large bust, blonde hair and blue eyes and tanned skin, for example, doesn't it seem reasonable to think that basic attributes of attractiveness are partially caused by genetics?
For instance, people generally find people's faces most attractive when they are closest to "normal" in terms of symmetry, proportion, etc. Assymetry is less attractive, for instance.
When you look at cases on the individual level, the effect of such genetic programming might be overpowered by individual variations and preferences in sexual partners. But on the macro level the aggregate effect of these preferences can be better seen.