Ifat Glassman

Ah, and one more thing: values are not primary. Water are not good by themselves - they are only good for a plant when it needs them to survive.

Brian0918, I suggest you forget about properties, objects, arguments, and blah blah blah. Instead, just answer this: what is the meaning of "good"? If an object is "good" - what does it mean? Can a rock be "good"? What about intelligent life? Well, why can't a rock be "good" and intelligent life can? There is some implicit standard involved - what do you think it is? This guy would not say, for example, that piles of shit are "good" (regardless of its relation to any person). Well, why not? How does he decide that "intelligent life" is good regardless of an observer, but other things are not?

This post you linked by Burgess Laughlin is very good. He considers things very thoroughly and seriously and the result in this post is great.

It is relevant to the discussion because to some extent, he has a different concept of life than most of us here. And as long as you're talking to him, his concepts matter. Second point is that: If someone was not exposed to biology much, I can understand how he can rationally hold such a concept of life (that excludes plants). And because of that, he does not deserve a response of smashing-head-against-wall-can't-believe-how-stupid-you-are-for-not-getting-this. That's what I was trying to say and probably should have said in these words from the start if I thought of it better before posting.

I think he has a good point. At a small age, kids understand "life" not in the biological sense of metabolism, but in a sense of how animals act (that they feel hunger, etc'). So at a small age, if you're telling a child that trees are alive, it's much harder to explain how. It is natural for a child to assume, if you tell him that trees are alive, that they feel pain and hunger.

You are absolutely right - it is NOT self evident. In fact, to reach this conclusion requires a lot of observation of living organisms - man in particular. You have to look at all the fundamental aspects of man and explain how they serve his survival. Nothing can be further away from the obvious than this. Furthermore, I think you have a great approach questioning everything, and not accept things that are not fully clear to you. Dismissing complex things as "self evident" is anti-reason. So don't think for a moment that somehow because you don't find these questions trivial that you are inferior to those to who claim it is "self evident". If anything, it is the other way around. Second point I would like to make however, is that not "everything we are capable of enjoying refers to our survival" - at least, it depends what you mean by "everything". If by "everything" you mean the fundamental nature of man, what kind of entity he is, then the answer is yes. But if you look at a cognitively developed human being, then people can even bring themselves to enjoy pain which is obviously anti-life. So you have to be careful about defining your terms here. Here again you have to be careful by what you mean by "goal". Do you mean a chosen goal, or some metaphysical goal (the same way a plant is built to achieve a "goal" through its automatic functions)? In any case, here is the explanation I would give to your question: How do we know that metaphysically, we (as other living organisms) are built to maintain our existence? Well, we look at the way we are built. What does a man consist of? First let's look at the body - every function and organ in a man's body is designed to achieve one of two goals - either to serve our survival, or to serve our reproductiveness. To give some examples: blood circulation, heart, brain, legs, etc' etc' (you can think of the rest) they all work to keep the organism alive. some things like reproductive organs with all of man's sexual functions serve the goal of reproduction, but for now you can put this aside (ultimately, reproduction is what allows life, but since this is more complex, better not focus on that). Then let's look at our mind: We have senses, giving us information from the environment vital to our survival (for instance, we could have had the nice sonar system of dolphins, but since on land this does not serve our survival, we humans do not have it). What else? We have the ability to think in concepts: that allows us to deal with huge amount of concretes quickly and efficiently. We have the ability to automatize certain frequently used functions, like walking (obviously serves our survival by saving time). We have emotions: that give us quick estimation of how the environment serves our values (or is against them). Fear allows us to run away from danger quickly. Love motivates us to stick around someone whom we judge to be good, which means pro-our-values. Anger motivates us to rise against injustice and thus defend our values. And so on. So every fundamental aspect about how we humans are built ultimately serves our survival. (Now if all of this is self evident to someone then I bow down, it took me a long time to observe and understand all of this). You can go on and on analyzing the fundamental nature of man, but I think what you will find is that all of it ultimately serves our survival. One of the things that serve our survival is our emotions. Much like the pain-pleasure mechanism, our emotions "reward" us when we act toward maintaining our existence (without destroying the kind of entity that we are, since that will ultimately destroy our chances of survival). Therefore, the result of acting correctly to maintain our long-term existence as man is happiness (in all its forms). (which connects back to your first point "Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival").

I can see where you're coming from, but consider the following three ideas: 1. we do have a lot in common with lower animals. And many things in humans are automatically "wired". Our emotional mechanisms are the same as animals', stuff like learning to walk and balance ourselves, automatic sensations, and more. However, just because we have a lot in common does not mean we must have everything in common. 2. According to your logic that due to evolution, we must have great similarity to our ancestors, we should have great difficulty explaining how lions have instinct, since they developed from fish who developed from single cell creatures, which do not have instincts (but different methods of survival), and therefore, they should be the same too. 3. The correct method to judge is primarily to observe reality. In this case, observe man. See what kind of animal he is. It can be beneficiary to use hypotheses to know what to look for, but not to use hypothesis as source of knowledge. I mean, given that lower animals have certain internal organs and given the genetic nature of evolution, it makes sense to suspect to find certain internal organs and systems (like blood circulation), but it does not make sense to say "they must be there because of the nature of evolution".

I think you're missing the point. You're so caught up in your theory of instinctual behavior in humans that you do not see the meaning of what people actually try to communicate with you because you interpret what they say according to your theory that human beings have instincts (which no one here agrees with). Text is kinda hard to read tones from, so I'll just add this is said in a nice tone. I'm trying to point out something helpful to you. Human beings do not have instinct at all, they do not have automatic knowledge. We have a bunch of reflexes, automatic sensations, and emotions that arise automatically as calculations based on our subconscious ideas. Why is this not an instinct? Because those ideas did not come to be in your mind from mother-earth. They are there because at some point in your life you put them there. Even the most simple example about food - the sensation of hunger alone needs to be learned to be associated with food. In other words, at some point as a baby and child you learned the connection between hunger and food. And as an adult, whenever you're hungry you immediately think of food. This association is not an instinct, but a result of previous learning. To explain more how emotions come from ideas; Humans obviously have automatic emotional mechanisms. We feel sad when we lose a value, we feel happy when we achieve a value, we feel angry at injustice. So far this is all automatic. But notice that different people feel emotions in response to different things. One man can see a dog and feel affection and another person can feel fear (whereas if it was an instinct all humans would react the same way). The reason for this is because people judge their environment differently. One man got bitten by a dog, and therefore fears dogs, another had a loyal pet-dog and is thus fond of dogs. So the emotion they feel, though calculated quickly and automatically, is based on their subconscious ideas (not on some instinct). So now to attend to your question: since a man does not have instincts, his only way of survival is to think and learn the nature of reality. If you have ever seen the show "Survivorman" on the Science channel, you'll see this clearly. Even to catch simple prey or build himself a shelter to make it through the night, the guy has to think so much and know so much, that it becomes clear how without reason it is practically impossible to survive. There is no instinct there to save him. Just pure thinking (and acting accordingly). Granted, after you have learned something, after investing some thought into it, it can become a habit. And then you don't need to think so much every time you do that action. But without that initial process of thinking and learning, you'd be lost. And in every day life, the amount of things we need to think about in order to succeed at a task is above what we have already automatized. So without being rational it is not possible to survive. Hope I was helpful. Good Luck.

I think you are ignoring the question "why does she choose so?". A single action can have several meanings. Without knowing the motivation behind it it's not always possible to judge if something was a sacrifice or not. In this case the mother could have wanted a baby for years, for her it is such a big value, and nothing else good enough exists in her life, that she prefers dying knowing her baby will live rather than live without her baby. In such a case it's not a sacrifice. But if she chose to give birth to the baby and die because she thinks it is her moral duty to sacrifice, and even though she can be happy without that baby in her life she still chooses to die - it is a sacrifice. Second point: When Ayn Rand says that the highest value is life for all living organisms, she is talking about a metaphysical level, about the most basic level of the nature of living organisms (including man). "Highest value" in this sense does not mean that someone has chosen their survival as the most important thing to them. It means that in nature, life acts to preserve itself- that all aspects of an organism serve a goal - continuation of life. So in this sense "life is the highest value". Hope it helped.

I don't know what kind of illusion your mind is going through to come to the conclusion that you are in control of what I am allowed or not allowed to do, but I find it sad and interesting as it demonstrates something about your method of thinking.

And to add to my last post (in relation to Sophia's last post) - When given more time and more information about someone, you judge them according to that. There is no obligation on your part to pursue that information - you are not morally obligated to learn everything about everyone. As a selfish being, you pursue information that is beneficiary to your life. But once you do have such information, you do not ignore it and attempt to act on how you feel. You do not ignore your emotions either and fake a behavior contrary to your emotions. You judge all the information you have and decide on an appropriate course of action, again keeping your emotions in sync with your knowledge and actions. In any case, Your guiding line is always the pursuit of your values. You do not have an obligation to actively grant to people what they "deserve" (that is a mistaken concept). Justice means that you recognize that people's character cannot be faked, and you do not attempt to fake your evaluation of them. By doing so, you grant them what they deserve from you. There is nothing more terrible than a person faking positive emotions for destruction of his self esteem. If someone does not feel genuine positive feelings toward someone, then using a smile as a social gesture is an act of faking.

1. You are dropping the context there, resulting in an over-generalization of what I say. The context is pursuit of values which are unique to you (i.e. not like water or shelter, but stuff like friends, movies), when a course of action is chosen in a short duration of time. You meet someone, how should you act? And in this context, your emotions are your main indicator for the value that a new person is to you. Even in this context, I do not say "blindly trust your emotions". I say "make sure you can trust your emotions by validating them in the long term, and then act in harmony with your emotions" (again in the context of short decision time and a value which is unique for you). To illustrate the significance of using emotions in this manner (and not going against them), think of the way you choose what T.V. channel to watch. If you had to use reason, try to logically connect every possible show to life as the standard of value and then deciding based on that; you'd get lost, and lose all the fun. Your emotions in this case guide you to these values which are unique to you. If someone told you that you should not watch T.V. until you can prove how it is Objectively good for you, you'd probably tell them to piss off. Why should this be any different in pursuing a similar unique value - other people? There is no reason on earth why someone should set aside the way they feel about someone to put on a happy face until finishing their treatise on who the person in front of them is. So hopefully, this has answered the problem you raised about a treatment. Of course, in that case the context is different. The consequences of taking the treatment are different than consequences of not smiling at someone. You have more time to decide how to act. The value involved is not determined by who you are and therefore does not require the aid of emotions to indicate the value that this treatment is to you. In other words, the context is completely different. I have no idea what you are talking about here I read it twice. No idea.

You did not answer my question again, Sophia. I'm no longer seeking a discussion. Instead I will only present my ideas. _____________________________________________________________ As for justice: Justice means granting to others what they deserve - from you. Not what they "deserve" - there is no such thing as "deserve" without a second person. So following your personal values, you grant to someone what they deserve from you. You treat them according to your knowledge and the things you value, and how they fit it. This is why following your own hierarchy of personal values does not contradict the virtue of justice. It follows from being selfish. Being just is not a debt you owe to others - it is your way of being true to what you value and like (or dislike). Now if I were to follow your logic on what a rational, psychologically healthy, fully integrated man should do, I would find myself always nice to everybody. If I happen to dislike someone upon meeting them, I should follow the moral bill they present to me and be nice anyway, since I cannot immediately identify any flaw, I should assume the best, ignore whatever feelings I may have, and make myself a servant to the virtue of justice (don't want to give a man what he doesn't deserve... it's very important, more important than my own emotions). While not failing to be nice to them, I shall search for my mistake/psychological problem. After all, benevolent feeling should be my reaction, and yet here I am disliking someone/being bored by them after just meeting them. After a while, the rational, psychologically healthy, fully integrated individual learns to repress any negative reaction to strangers he might have, and keep up a nice attitude which his emotions do not support, feeling like a fake without realizing why. The correct approach is to act toward people according to your knowledge of them, and the value that they are to you. What people deserve from you is dictated by the value that they are to you. If upon first encounter, you dislike someone, there is no reason on earth why you should go against your emotions and be nice to them. Their emotions are not an obligation for you or a primary concern. As a selfish man, you are primarily concerned with what you want to give, not with what someone else deserves to get. Your actions are an investment in your values, not a debt to be paid to society. As a selfish man, you want to make sure you do not act on whim. You make sure that your emotional reactions indeed reflect your values (and that your values are correctly chosen to serve your well being), and so you act in harmony with your emotions. Never faking a smile (or faking dislike). Each man has his own methods and ability to learn about others he meets, and his own hierarchy of values, and so different people can selfishly desire different interactions with people. Someone can be indifferent to most people he meets (like Howard Roark who was bored by most people), and someone can understand and value people differently and desire a more affectionate interaction. For a selfish, rational man, there is no single way of interacting with people that is correct. The only correct way is by him being selfish and rational.

Here you are talking about a complete question mark. And here you are not - you are talking about a person someone meets face to face and interacts with. You are equivocating the two. Also, this sentence shows again, that there is no reference to one's own personal values. Someone else's moral character is like a bill served to someone to which they must adhere. Other people are X,Y,Z, therefore, by the grace of that, they deserve to get X,Y,Z from you, and from anyone else, and this is what you must pursue, if you are to be just. This is a wrong view of the virtue of justice. It seems to me that this is your view. Is it? Indifference or dislike toward (some or most) actual people someone meets cannot be right or wrong without reference to that person's own personal values, knowledge that they have about those people, and who those people are. This is all repetitive. you must have said this same thing 3 times by now, without any progress in our discussion from your side whatsoever. Not sure there is a point to continue, but I'll stick around a bit more (until your next post) to decide.

I am not disputing that a man's character is a fact. Now are you going to answer my question?

OK, I think I see how what I said may seem so to you. You think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that what people deserve is out there in reality, in the person that they are. If someone is X,Y,Z then he deserves so and so, and every rational man should give him that, if he is to be just. Correct?

My answer lies in all the examples I gave in this thread. You made an abstract statement (fine by itself except it was over-generalized), then I pointed that it is an over-generalization by providing an example that does not fall into your generalization and asked you what you think about it. The replies you gave were again abstract generalizations (over-generalization). In every step you tried to establish causal relationship between abstract ideas (like the metaphysical nature of man and what is a rational man's proper way of valuing people). It treats "the rational man" as a unified entity (an over-generalization), ignoring that rational men can be very different and value people very differently (without breaching their rationality). And yet from that abstract image of a "rational man" you continue to the next abstract conclusion. So this is why I find it rationalistic. What's the big deal anyway? [ And while I'm making this post, I would like to correct one thing that I said. I said that I argue passionately because I respect you. But I over packaged the sentence. The truth is that I argue passionately because it reflects the value of the ideas to me. And I argue (or try to establish a discussion) because I respect you. But not both are because I respect you. ]

Getting your argument wrong, if I have, was not done on purpose. I do not need to misrepresent/invent something you say, there is nothing for me to gain from that. I don't see rationalism as an insult. It's a mistaken approach someone can take. Your entire argument, every single one was on a completely abstract level. In that sense - it provided no connection to reality. When I tried to reduce it to concrete cases, you did not reply to my questions. And I don't see anything I said that was disrespectful. If you want to discuss this more write me a PM.

I agree, but (like you said) we were talking about acting toward people one already does have some knowledge of, not a complete question mark. I don't see why you would get annoyed at me. What exactly was my "response" to you? Saying that I find your argument rationalistic? It's not an insult, it is my own impression, which I concluded was important to communicate so we can get somewhere if we are to continue this discussion. I respect you, which is the reason why I argue passionately. If I thought you were no good I would not have bothered at all (or would write something small to show errors that I find, but not to have a discussion). Another thing, is that I don't think you were trying to be "helpful". You had your own reason to reply to my messages and your own values or ideas to speak out for. For what it's worth, I'm sorry you feel bad, but I don't feel sorry for anything I've done. Anyway, if there will be a discussion it will be on some other time.

I'm going to try to start everything from the beginning tomorrow. I started by having motivation to have this discussion with you (yes, particularly with you), but right now, it just seems almost impossible. Every time I try to concretize the ideas by bringing examples, you stay with abstractions. Every time I ask about some particular situation, you go back to general thinking, which to me, look like rationalism ("human imperfections are not metaphysical, therefore human essence is good, therefore a rational man who sees that people are good treats them by what they deserve, which is the virtue of justice") this all looks rationalistic to me and with no connection to real people and real dayily situations. Also, along the last 2 pages I asked a lot of questions which you just ignored. Questions which for me were important for establishing common ground. So right now it all looks to me like blah blah blah, unrelated to anything I was trying to discuss, ideas are flying all around. I'll start it again tomorrow from scratch, probably in a different thread (since it's a different topic). If, in the future, you can give examples of real situations (or people) to illustrate your ideas, I would appreciate it.

No, and no. I did not bring up his ability as reason for perfection, and I did not say House is perfect. I said that scripters added things that make him non-perfect because perfection cannot be tolerated. Anyway, I am much more interested in discussing the idea of niceness<-->rationality. More specifically, how something must be wrong with someone who is not nice to most people. you did not reply to my previous post which was an attempt to discuss that. Someone could choose to communicate that aspect of themselves often as a way to find like-minded people, or out of interest in seeing how others respond to that aspect of them. Another option is that they want to encourage other people around them to "grow a spine". To illustrate what I mean by the last, House was playing pranks on Wilson and yet at the same time encouraged Wilson to "fight back". Wilson is normally a pleaser kind of guy, who takes whatever crap necessary from people to "smoothen things over". But with house, he fights back. House releases a more true, selfish side of Wilson. So House's emphasis of "independence" (it was worse than that, but never mind the exact description now) actually served a very selfish purpose for House. And even if producers are going to destroy the character completely (which looks like they are doing), it still holds true as a potentiality. For someone who insists of making sure you make the right judgement about people before deciding the worse about them, you sure exclude people who are not nice from that category. If they are not nice, you assume, it immediately means they are not rational, malevolent, second handers, Roark-imitators, or whatever other bad idea that could be out there. Well, if you put everything together from the show and try to integrate the character as if he was a real person, I can see how you would come to that conclusion. He is definitely not perfect. I was judging the character in a different way (only those things which were consistent and could be integrated). Anyway, I am more interested in the discussion about niceness<-->rationality. House for me, in this current discussion, is a tool to concretize some aspects of the subject. He is for reason, primarily. Also for human life (however this is another thing that cannot be integrated). If house just wanted a diagnosis so bad, he could have let the patients die and wait for dissection to confirm the cause of death. Instead, he risks his career, steps outside of a courtroom (risking jail) to save a patient's life. When he knew that a patient had a deadly tick, nobody, not the parents nor House's boss or anyone else allowed House to do a search. He could have waited for the kid to die, not risking a law-suit, and get his proof or a tick later. And this is not the only case when House has made such a choice. He consistently acts to save lives, not JUST to confirm his diagnosis.

But that is exactly the assumption I was challenging, that the choice is rational and nice or malevolent and not-nice. I am saying there is no basis for such an assumption that if someone is not nice then necessarily they have a malevolent view toward humanity. Not necessarily - it could be a result of a generalization, either true or false. But I was actually discussing someone responding to people one sees (when I was talking about myself). Also, unfriendly is not the same as a jerk. I see a jerk as someone who deliberately tries to humiliate people, and this is, of course, not the behavior I am defending. Can you explain what you mean by a jerk? If you consider House to be a jerk, I would say you consider anyone who says things that hurt others as a jerk. (please correct me on this or confirm) The question is not how much effort it takes, but what is the personal value that it gives the one who acts in this or that way, and how well their behavior expresses their personal values. If someone is bored by most people one meets, there is no reason on earth why one should congratulate them with smiles and "how are you doing" greetings. What do you think? What is "the correct view of human existence" [in the context of being a value] anyway? People have different value for different people according to who they are. Someone more intelligent, for example, may find much less value in most people then someone with less intelligent (to throw an example). There is no single way one should value human beings. For you, the fact that they have a job (or whatever other values) is more important than other things. For me, their approach to thinking and dealing with the truth is what is most important. I see a face like this - And I am sick to my stomach. I don't care if this guy also has a job, a wife, kids he likes. With that kind of face (and the lack of thinking this face reveals) all other good things are insignificant to my hierarchy of values. Maybe you have a different hierarchy of values, and you have a genuine reason to be nice to such a guy. But not for me, and it doesn't make me any less rational than you. For purposes of fast interaction based on first impression - their face determines my evaluation of how they relate to my values (or their worth to me), and as a result, if I would want to be nice or to avoid conversation, or to be un-nice. Thanks for taking my example out of its context and assuming something like this about my psychology. Not everyone who is not nice (or even un-nice) necessarily takes such approach. Why should I not trust my impression from their face? You make it sound like a sin to think badly of someone, unless you have done a full scale investigation. That's a false approach. A person should act based on what they feel toward people. On the long-term, they should validate that their emotions are an appropriate reaction to their values, but on the short-term, there is no reason why someone would not act on their emotions. I am not a robot to serve the "standard of objective morality". I am a person, and I will act toward people with reflection of the value that they are to me. I think this is the proper application of Objectivist ethics, and not what you propose. Addition after editting: My answer is not a confirmation that "the value that people are to me" means: how entertaining they happen to be for me. I hope I made clear enough in the rest of the post what I mean by the "value that people are to someone", and that you can see that I do not mean some random entertainment. I have not replied to everything - I tried to keep it down to essentials. I hope it will not grow out of proportions again. The most important part is valuing human beings according to one's personal hierarchy of values. Second is some clarification as to what you mean by "jerk" and by "nice".

His perfection was not based on his ability. It was based on him being independent, not in need for other people's opinion or approval for his self esteem - all of that backed up by a rational mind. That is what makes him a threat (and a perfection). On top of that, he did what he did well and with confidence. I don't think most people hate those of ability, I think the opposite is true. Series that show ability are very popular.

Yes, but the episode was sooooo bad. It destroyed the character for me by taking away the one thing that mattered the most about House - his approach to his work. This episode reduced his dedication to some weird intellectual obsession, with no regard to human life as a value or to moral judgement (which he seems to pronounce so well in the rest of the series). My enjoyment of the character survived the hookers, but I'm not sure it can survive this. Also the next episode shows him as whiny and weak. I don't know how they managed to wipe out so much in only 3 episodes, but they have. The show is going downhill fast.