Ifat Glassman

Living according to one's nature guarantees to bring happiness, and any attempt to act against or not with accordance to your own nature will destroy your happiness. Happiness (throughout one's life) is the moral purpose of man according to Objectivism, and the only way to achieve it is by acting by your own nature; which means by using the standard of life by your own nature as the gauge for good or bad (for you). So this answers your question whether or not "life qua [personX] automatically the 'good life' or are some lives qua [personX] actually not good lives? " And again, it is circular to use 'the good life' as the standard of what is good/bad. Happiness (throughout one's life), and not 'the good life', are the moral purpose according to Objectivism. Happiness does not imply an evaluation of good/bad - it is a state of mind (and an emotion). 'Good life' however, are an evaluation, and therefore circular. Now, I don't understand your statement there; "Merely saying that the life you lead is the good life according to that which you value obfuscates any judgements on what you value and whether what you value is good to value or not." But it sounds like you're saying that it is not possible to reverse the standard and purpose (it is not possible to put your own happiness as the standard and by that to achieve the purpose of life according to your nature), with which I would agree. But really now, I don't like going off topic and this is getting real off-topic. So I suggest you take it someplace else FYI: I'm not interested in a further discussion about this topic, for now.

To continue my last post and provide the last essential element: So it is not that the 'good life' is the standard of value, or the purpose of living. It is life (qua man, or more specifically qua Matius or qua Ifat) that are the ultimate value. It is enjoyment which allows us to experience this value, and without enjoyment we would not be able to experience the value of life. If a person can no longer experience his life as a value, to fulfill or enjoy that value (but only to obtain/maintain it) then life can only be a value to him in the sense that life is a value for a plant. But since a man cannot turn into a plant (unless by brain damage), as long as his emotional mechanism exists, his emotions are his means of experiencing the value of life. If enjoyment is no longer possible - then experiencing the value of life is no longer possible, and any action to maintain his own existence can only be automatic, like a plant or a robot following some guidelines, but not experienced and fulfilled. This is why for us 'the good life' as you put it, is the only possible life. I believe what you mean is not "good" but "enjoyable". Life without enjoyment are life without experiencing its value - and not possible for a human.

To be clearer, the idea you explain here (that morality does not serve the maintenance of mechanical (or biological meaning of) life) is correct. However, the meaning you ascribe to the word "life" as used in Objectivism is wrong. "Life" in Objectivism does not mean "mechanical life" (or the biological meaning of the word, as in active metabolism and so on). "Man's life" in Objectivism means the full existence of a human, both physical and mental, which is why it is the ultimate value, and yet does not mean the preservation of his "mechanical" life. Ayn Rand, The Objectivist ethics, VoS: You cannot describe anything as good before you have a standard for judging good and bad, which is why you cannot make "the good life" the standard of the good - it is circular.

Matus, your post #108 is pretty confused regarding Objectivist ethics, in my opinion. I suggest you re-read the article "The Objectivist Ethics". As for the next post (#109), it looks like it contains some interesting questions, but gosh, it is long. For now I'll just answer the first paragraph: I acted against the new good value that I saw because it was still colliding with some old views, views that I begun to realize were incorrect. So changing the way I acted and pursuing the new value involve a process of learning the truth and becoming convinced of it. Think of the process Dagny (from AS) went through when learning that the people she saw around her had no desire to live. Until she learned enough about people and became convinced (which took time), her emotional reactions to events and her actions (the things she acted to gain/keep) did not change.

I am surprised to see myself writing this, but that was a very good post*, Thomas. However, you talked mainly what would make someone immoral in relation to introspection. Can you answer what would make someone moral in regard to introspection? What is the relation between introspection and happiness and selfishness? * It only had a small part I disagree with, but it is not relevant to this topic (referring to biobot).

That was an excellent explanation of virtues. Not sure what you are asking yourself here. Are you asking why am I asking all the questions I raised here, or something else? That was a good explanation too (with the example that followed).

OK, I thought of better questions to ask (directed at whoever wishes to give it a shot): Is it possible to be happy without introspection? What if you have some bad trait (for example, you discover that you hate your best friend for being more successful than you are) - is it to your best interest to understand why? Wouldn't that damage your self-esteem and thus make you less happy? David: OK, clear now. Actually, the purpose of morality is happiness. Happiness is the goal a person focuses on, that all other values must serve (like a new house, a lover, a career etc'). The standard for judging good or bad is one's life. This is a tough issue to grasp in Objectivism (just thinking out loud). Not sure what you mean by a "lively life" there. But other than that I agree with what you said so far. Next question then is to explain just how being more virtuous (and practicing virtues) can make a person more happy? If you can add an example to this answer it would be good as well.

No doubt it is a bad decision, but not sure if every bad decision is immoral. Why do you claim it is immoral? And why do you need to live a more virtuous life for? Is it an end in itself? Furthermore, how can introspection help you formulate a valid principle? Can you give an example and/or explain some more about it?

I don't understand what you mean by "good life" here. I never heard "good life" described as the standard of morality in Objectivism. I heard life described as the standard. Can you give an example here or explain it some more? My take on choosing actions is that you choose your values according to your ultimate value, and the method of getting them by the standard of morality. So if my purpose is happiness, I will choose those values that can make me happy. And the method of obtaining those values will be determined by the standard of morality which is my life (existence as a human being, both mental and physical). Furthermore, happiness is not the same as pleasure. Are you saying something different than this?

Hold on now, I don't think we should ignore it either. I was saying that we should not take the 'trend' as the cause. See, there is a difference between "women tend to be attracted to competent men" and "women are attracted to competent men because they are competent". The second does not follow the first. Statistics can suggest a connection, but not show causal relationship.

I am curious to get the input of members here for the following question: Is it moral to introspect? Is it immoral not to introspect? Why - to both answers of the above questions. What is the role of introspection in one's life? - What is it good for, what can it be used to achieve? Are there disadvantages to it?

If this is a principle in human psychology, it should work for all the people, all the time. But yet you have cases when someone is putting effort into something, and the more effort they put, the less they value that thing. If effort was causing people to value something, how can you explain cases such as these? Well, right, but you already say that one of them is higher value than the other. Can the amount of effort they require override this fact? I don't think so. If I value a cake more, but can only afford bread - is bread a higher value to me now because of this fact? Hmm... actually, I think so. I'll need to think about it some more. That wasn't my point. My point was that those reasons are the only reasons - it is not the perceivable effort in obtaining someone romantically which causes people to be more attracted, but reasons like the ones I've specified. Just because all of those reasons happen to also involve a necessity of more effort in "getting" someone romantically, does not make it a cause of the emotional reaction. I don't understand what you're trying to say by this. At first I thought you were saying that my impression was unsupported so I went around and searched the quotes which gave me such impression (that your method of induction in psychology is based on statistics). I did it by going over the thread and searching for the words "most people". I found so many of Kendall's posts containing those words, but none of yours. What I did find were the following: "The amount of effort put into something makes you value the outcome more. Of course there is always context but that is generally true of people." post #62 "People tend to value a thing less if it came easy because it did not "cost" them much." Post #65" "I find that in reality that is what human psychology tends to gravitate to..." Post #90 And none of them say "most people" though all seem to imply it in some way "generally true" etc. I don't feel like asking about each and every one of them atm. I prefer to continue with the discussion, and just debate over whatever disagreements we'll have next (if we will have them, which looks pretty probable).

I have undergone some serious changes myself in my core values, but never has it occurred because of some action. Even if I continued to act in a way that was against the new good value that I saw, whatever followed the wrong action only showed me that I was wrong. The change always happened because of better understanding of the issue. My mind is not as dumb as to "see" how my body behaves and then from that somehow change my core values. "Hmm... I'm doing well on diet, this means being lean is a value to me". err... what? And to tie this to the topic of the thread - It is not rational to find higher value in someone just because you've been a long time together. Higher psychological visibility, higher intimacy, mutual fun memories - can increase the value of the relationship. But not the action of choosing to stay with that person or the time invested. It is always something that time allows that causes increase of value, but never the time itself. consider this example: Do you know how some people have the idea that if they paid for a movie, and it turns out to be bad, then they would maximize their enjoyment by staying and watching it anyway? They're thinking: "but I already invested so much in coming here and paying for this movie, better try to extract every bit of enjoyment I can out of this". But of course, you can't make the movie better by deciding to stay and invest even more, which is why they end up loosing more of their time and opportunity to use it for fun stuff. Likewise, the very fact you have already invested a lot in a relationship cannot make it a higher value (Like my example demonstrate, it can only rob you of higher values, like spending your time on something else, like a nice restaurant instead of the crappy movie). Your example with dieting will show my point in an excellent way. People fail at dieting because they fail to resolve the psychological problem that causes them to want to eat more. This is why, even with strong will the extra fat always goes back to the usual "point of equilibrium" or to the person's natural state of being. (Some cases people gain extra weight because of other reasons, not psychological, but I'm not talking about those cases). The self control and actions by themselves are not enough for a permanent solution to obesity. This is reducing the symptoms without curing the disease. The disease stays, which is why extra weight always comes back. Same thing if you are in "danger" of falling in love with women other than your wife - you stay away from them (go on diet), but the fundamental reason why your subconscious indicates different values than the chosen one is unchanged, which is why the "danger" always exists.

Sophia, there is something wrong with your method of induction of psychology. You are using your observations of most people to conclude about of man's nature (his/her psychology). The right way to learn psychology is to understand the relation of cause and effect, and to be able to connect pieces of ideas together to explain the behavior. Without that you are using statistics as a method of establishing cause and effect in psychology. Here is an example: Most people tend to want someone more the more they appear to be "hard to get". Now this could come from several different reasons. If you ignore those different reasons, and just make a link directly between observable results (statistics) you would make a wrong conclusion. It would be wrong to conclude that "man's psychology is such that they are attracted to those who are 'hard to get'" based on statistics only. The correct method is to identify the chains of cause and effect. What if most people are attracted to 'hard to get' because of personal insecurity? If this was so, then the reason for attraction was not rooted in appreciating something that requires more effort, but in something completely different. A lot of people are attracted to 'hard to get' type because they mistakenly consider it to be a sign of independence, or because they have low self esteem, so they view someone who does not give them the time of day as admirable. I, on the other hand, cannot stand the kind of prick who would put up an act like that. It shows a deep level of second handedness and insecurity. You can't conclude that it's "man's nature to want to climb ladders" by walking by a construction site. Obviously, there are further steps along the way to understand the behavior of climbing on ladders. The example is silly but I hope it shows my point.

LOL! This was a good one. If your article assumes that "one's long-term romantic partner is his #1 value" why does it offer an advice to stay away from intimate relationships with other people? When someone is my #1 value, the option of spending time with someone else doesn't even come to my mind, so it is not an issue in the first place. Just as I don't need advice on how to avoid beating up my partner, I view such advice about other intimate relationships as useless. The fact that you bothered writing an article about it shows that it is an issue for you. My post was mainly a criticism of your article, not presentation of my own position. So I don't see what position of mine you can disagree with. For a serious discussion, I suggest you quote my/other's words.

I disagree that the amount of effort I put into something makes me value it more. The amount of effort I put is a reflection of its value to me. In the case of pursuing a degree - it makes the degree easier to achieve after 2 years have gone by, but the value of the degree doesn't change: only the amount of effort you need to invest. In my case - I value my degree now much less than when I started it, 3.5 years ago (won't go into the reasons 'why'). But there is still some value to it, and now I only have 5 months to graduation - so it becomes easier to obtain it. See? So your example crumbles to dust It could be that way, but it doesn't have to be that way, and the way you put it it sounds like a general principle - which is why I disagree. Time in a relationship allows to get to know the other person much better. The value of the relationship (to me) is determined by my evaluation of the person. If I decide that someone lacks some fundamental trait which I require, all the amount of fun past experiences cannot change my evaluation of his value to my life. It is only if the person is perfect for me, that the positive experiences, memories, personal jokes etc' increase the fun that can be had from the relationship - which means it increases the value of the relationship. But it is not a rule that if you spent 50 years with someone that he/she is necessarily a higher value for you than all other possible mates. Personally speaking, if I spent a long time with someone, and then discovered someone else which I thought was better for me, I would not be able to stay with the lesser one in a romantic relationship. The presence of the other person would reflect a part of me which is not fulfilled in the current relationship and would make it very difficult to stay in it. All the amount of good memories, and mutual thoughts exchanged, experiences, etc' would not be able to balance the joy that can be had with the better match. In fact, I don't think it is ever possible to balance the joy you can have with someone who fits you better with the enjoyment of being with someone you know well and vice versa, but which is less of a match for you. And because of this, I could not bare staying with someone for which I am a second-best match. The fact that my boyfriend chooses me makes me proud. The fact I can bring him joy makes me proud. This pride will be lost if his emotions would not match his choice. If he preferred spending time with someone else, but chose to be with me despite that it would suck. I would not see it as a token of love or devotion - but of a sacrifice. Which bring me back to Dan's article. The point of even giving such advice (about developing intimacy with opposite sex friend) is only relevant if someone already has some desire to do so. If not - then such question would never be raised in the first place. So in what cases is this advice applicable at all? Only in those cases when someone is thinking "Hmm... going to Suzie's today for an intimate conversation could be fun. More fun than spending this afternoon with my wife. What should I do?". So in this case, following the advice means that a person acts against their emotions, and perhaps even against their judgement (in case the person has reason to believe Suzie is a better match). Acting against your emotions could be fine, if you know the emotion is a result of a problem you have. But making this action a rule as a method of solving the problem is bad (psychologically bad). The only thing it would achieve is an ability to avoid facing your own emotions and subconscious values. It would certainly not make your wife a higher value - your actions should be a result of how you value your wife, they cannot be the cause of her value to you. OK, this is long enough. I'll split my reply to another post.

Yes. The time you spend investing in something allows for other things which may increase the value of the objet/person/activity. But it is not the actual action of investing time, nor the time itself which increase the value. This is why the more you spend time doing something you dislike the more you start to hate it, and the more you get to know someone you admire, and discover more good things about them - the more you value them. In the first example the time you spent on something you dislike has taken increasingly more of your energy, it has caused an increasing feeling of dissatisfaction and more negative memories are associated with that thing. In the second example - time allowed you to gain more knowledge of the person - knowledge that the person is better than you initially thought - knowledge of more things you like about them - which increased their value. Had it been that with time you discovered bad things about them - the value and emotions would decrease. So I think this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that amount of time spent into something does not cause increased positive emotions towards something (not as a direct cause, and not as a general principle). OK, so now I'll move on to Sophia's post.

This boy is lame. That's a stupid attitude to have, and I can't find it funny, not even in a context of a joke. This test is like saying "let's see if you're smart: Where is Australia?" - What does the location of Australia have to do with ability to think?

I don't have time in following 2-3 days, but I'll reply to one point meanwhile: I was not talking about any population at all. I was talking about human beings' psychology which applies for every man (a generalization). You seem to be mixing two separate things: How many people would have the temptation to develop an intimate relationship outside of the relationship they consciously committed themselves to, and "what is the psychological state of someone who has the temptation of developing intimate relationships outside of the relationship they consciously committed themselves to". You cannot use numbers (percentage of population that exhibits behavior X) to answer the question of why (psychologically) they act X ? And my statement was answering the "why" and not the "how many". So while many of your arguments (that I've read in the other thread on same topic) rely on percentage of population, I don't see any relevance to the points I was making, which were about man's psychology.

And I think this addition to Dan Edge's article is even worse than Dan's. I think it demonstrates an unhealthy approach to emotions; which is to control and suppress them as means of gaining/keeping a value, and treating a certain chosen value as unquestionably good. Love is the only glue that can and should hold a relationship together. Actions should match the value and work to gain/keep it - not generate it (such a thing is not possible). You cannot make yourself love someone by choosing to spend all your time with them. This would be reversing cause and effect. The use of the word "fail" in this context implies some moral evaluation. What about the option of simply finding a better match? Why is such option a failure? Why is a person suppose to stick to one relationship as if his virtue depended on it? It doesn't sound like love, it sounds like fear of abandonment which could hold such a couple together, since there is temptation and desire to spend time away from one's partner. - which is viewed as an enemy to destroy and restrain, not as something to understand and analyze. Emotions are not your enemies. They provide information about your ideas and values - about who you are. This is a view towards emotions as something which a person is morally required to suppress, restrain, and eliminate. This is the opposite of introspection, this is the opposite of understanding oneself. This is treating one's own psychology as if it was the least important. As if a person can create/change his own psychology by choosing how to act. I'd hate to see how someone is able to pursue happiness (which is psychological) by having an approach to their emotions as something to destroy and control without understanding what and why it is what it is.

Thanks. Your examples make the idea even clearer. Right. Like mrocktor said: " if you have a clear, objective, rational set of values you emotions should "fall in line" effortlessly". So first of all, do you agree that Dan's essay can only be used to give advice to those whose emotions are NOT in line with their set of values, and not to those whose emotions are in line? I disagree. My own experience shows that the more I do something unpleasant - the more I hate it. No amount of time spent into it can make me love it. Investing time into something can bring me pleasure if I like that thing - and more pleasure the more time I invest - but it does not make me love it more. I don't think this is a good approach. It's like treating a disease by reducing its symptoms (instead of curing it). Emotions are indicatives of who we are, our values and ideas. Just by controlling your actions and therefore reducing the amount of emotions you feel - you will not change who you are. That can only be changed by understanding your subconscious ideas through introspection. The question should not be "if you want certain emotions or not". Rather, once you understand the value which your emotions are responding to, you should then decide if you want the value or not, by rational, conscious analysis. A young man comes to a ministry. He confesses to the priest "father, I must confess. I am attracted to the dark side. I want to do evil deeds". Father says "my son, on the corner of 3rd street and south avenue there is a house for the elderly. Go there and spend 3 days helping old ladies. Then you will be cured". The young man spends 3 days helping old ladies, then comes back to the ministry. "Father, I feel that the dark side in me is arising. It has taken a specific target now - it hates old ladies."

I am currently reading the chapters of your book on the forum for Ayn Rand fans. You got me hooked - the book is great! I read it every night, and it's lots of fun. For whoever is interested: A description

Ayn Rand, "Patents and Copyrights," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 130 Read more from the Ayn Rand Lexicon

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this article (by Dan). I would sum up the advice the article gives as: "Don't develop a level of intimacy in relationships with the sex of your interest beyond a level that might endanger you to fall in love with them, which would endanger your chosen monogamous relationship" The weird thing is that the actions are taken as the primary here. As if controlling one's emotions through controlling one's actions is a way to maintain a value. This is weird, because emotions are suppose to be in sync with one's values (ideally). If you are in a state when you need to control or suppress or prevent some emotion to maintain a value - I would say there is something weird going on... some sort of internal-contradiction between chosen values and actual values, or something of this sort. The only way such a rule/principle (see quotes) would be needed is if one wants such level of intimacy (with an opposite-sex friend) in the first place. Otherwise, if one doesn't want it, there is no reason to consider whether or not to choose such an option. If one finds his/her current relationship the most exciting way to share a certain value, then there would not be a desire to develop intimacy with someone else to share that value in the first place, and then the question at hand would not be raised at all. So two options here: either one wants to develop intimacy with the "friend" because that is a more exciting way to share one's values, because that person is a better match (in which case - why stay with the current relationship - pursue the person which is more compatible for you, which brings you more happiness), or, second option - one has problems with the current relationship, which reduces the fun that could be gotten from sharing one's values. But even in this case, the option of getting the full possible excitement from the current (best-match) relationship is still a higher value than to get some of such excitement with a "friend" (OK match, but not the best), so emotions would be such that one prefers (emotionally) to invest time correcting the problem than to share one's values with the friend - and there would not be a desire to develop intimacy with the "friend", because it would mean choosing a long-term lesser value over a long-term higher value (the value being satisfaction and excitement from sharing one's values with someone). So in conclusion, I don't see any case in which it is a good idea to follow a formula of "don't develop high intimacy in opposite-sex friends, even if you want it." Instead, I would suggest to consider why one wants it, and to decide if it is a sacrifice or not.

Just a small but important comment: I've heard the word "objective" being used to describe a different concept than what you, mrocktor, is interpreting.