dicktar

Just because it seems to me that no externalities or inner antecedent factors are impinging upon my mind's focus, it doesn't follow that there aren't any.

So it's ok that it is trivial to say "Action B was the result of Eddie's nature," but somehow it is profound--even revolutionary--to say that a golf club is able to move a ball because of the "natures" of the entities?

Why should we believe that almost all higher animals have instincts, but humans have none?

Actually, it is easier to condemn the drug addict from the position of rational self-interest (people should be do what is in their best interest, therefore you should not do drugs) than it is the serial killer. That's why the example interests me. I don't see any. What I don't understand is, from the Objectivist perspective, where the line is drawn between pleasurable experiences that are considered creative outlets, and pleasurable experiences that are "whims" or "self-flagellating" or experiences that I only think I'm enjoying? And wherever that line is drawn, why is it drawn there?

The million dollar question is whether it is plausible to believe that all that evaluation and envisioning and rational selection is "self-created" in a way that makes it immune to determined causation, or if, in fact, the conscious mental processes that seem deliberative are the end consequence of some set subconscious or physical patterns. If entities act (or react, I honestly don't see what difference it makes) according to their natures, then even the human act of deliberation will itself be a product of that nature--and I don't just mean the tendency of people to deliberate, I mean my ability and (even more importantly) my willingness to infer P from Q will also be determined by that nature. But no. What Rand wants to say is that reason takes place at a level over and above our individual natures, that we are able to and morally responsible for arriving at objective decisions, whatever our individual natures. It seems to me any argument along those lines, which also accepts her causal theory, is bound to commit us to some form of dualism.

I'm confused. If entities act according to their "nature," then how is more than one consequent action possible? If Eddie the Entity has Nature 1, and Nature 1 leads to Action B, now the action is out in the world and the effect is definitely in the realm of physics. The interesting part is the relationship between Eddie, 1, and B. If Nature 1 could, in principle, lead to Actions C, D, E, etc. rather than B, then specifying Eddie's "nature" as the cause of those actions is vacuous. (Obviously, Rand isn't a huge Leibniz fan, but I don't think she wants to reject the principle of sufficient reason.) If 1 only leads to a set number of outcomes, say "If Nature 1, then (B or C)" Eddie's possibilities still seem determined (perhaps drastically so, depending on what B and C mean). Probably, objectivists are willing to bite this second bullet and admit to some version of compatibilism--a move I approve of. But espousing compatibilism invites the question of just what concepts we are saying are compatible. In this case, free choice is compatible with our natures; but saying "an Entity is free to choice any option that it is within his nature to choose" tells us nothing unless we have some idea of what these "natures" are and how it is they determine the possible choices (and even then, it probably still tells us nothing).

"This, b.t.w., is not an instinct, it is a reflex." Can you explain that difference more clearly? Er...do you deny that all animals have instincts?

No means no.

My example of the "creative criminal" doesn't present the initiation of force as an alternative to reason. If I want money I have no right to, but hold up a bank to get the cash anyway, my brute force is a substitute for reason, and the objectivists (arguably) have solid ground for declaring that immoral. But my question is about the person who commits a crime simply for the experience of committing the crime--not as a misguided substitute for an argument, but as an act of (admittedly abhorrent) creativity. If someone stalks and kills a victim for the thrill of hunting another person, is our only reason for objecting to that act that it makes the killer dependent on another person for his joy? Really? Isn't that the same as objecting that a painter shouldn't paint because it makes him dependent on oils? On the other hand, is it the fact that the killer will live in fear of being caught that makes a joy killing wrong? What if he considers the possibility of being caught and is willing to accept it? How is that different than the choice Roark made when he decided to risk prison to blow up the buildings?

I've always been bewildered by Rand's refusal to admit that humans have instincts. Forget the baby falling off the cliff--a newborn put to his/her mother's breast will begin to suck. Objectivists accept that all animals have instincts. Objectivists accept that humans are animals. Therefore...

Thanks. Seems like a recurring problem.

Just because I appear (to myself) to have freedom of choice between choosing McDonald's over Wendy's, or becoming an architect or becoming a drug dealer, it doesn't follow that I actually have such a choice. Subconscious desires and motives exist despite our inability to directly perceive them. Further, consider the flip-side of your position: should I consider every "directly observable fact" about my nature as metaphysically given? This is an interesting question for Rand's philosophy generally, because her answer seems different when we consider a person's love of vanilla ice cream vs. that persona's love of Beethoven. (ie, one is taken as a meaningless whim and the other as an indication of a person's worldview)

I'm curious to see how devoted Objectivists respond to this essay (or if they know of any systematic responses elsewhere). http://members.aol.com/kiekeben/rand.html The gist: Rand defines causation in terms of entities themselves acting on each other (not through some intermediary idea of action or force), and insists that cause and effect is an instantiation of the "nature" of entities acting on each other. But this would seem to commit Rand to some sort of determinism--since if bodies only act through their "natures," then it follows that there is no effect without a wholly natural cause. This seems to rule out any effect that isn't a necessary result of its cause. It is not clear how human volition turns out to be anything more. (Unless--as I recently pointed out to Kiekeben in private correspondence--we are willing to commit ourselves to different laws governing mental action than govern everyday causation. But this devotes us to some form of dualism, and is obviously non-Randian.)

David, Thanks for your consideration, and your reading recommendations. Can you tell me where I can find the specific objectivist argument for this principle (or can you summarize it)? BTW, this "serial killer" objection might seem capricious (since obviously I don’t really want to defend the morality of murder) but it is an important point, because it is this issue that primarily distinguishes Rand’s morality from Nietzsche’s. (ie Rand insists that man's creative impulse is properly restricted by his commitment to reason, while FN insists that whatever originates from man's true nature is beyond good/evil)

I was wondering if someone could provide an objectivist response to the following issue. Please stop me when I get something wrong, and explain why it is wrong. Rand derives her ethics from the need for survival--life/death is the "is" and we "ought" to want the things that promote life. Of course, "promoting life" turns out to cover a wide range of activities, including art and philosophy, since we need such things for our conceptual survival. And in fact, art turns out to be a broad term, including all of the things that serve our need to create--from poetry to running a railroad. Now, engaging in activities that endanger life are generally considered irrational (and morally wrong). However, there are obvious exceptions to this, again, made for cases in which conceptual survival might be at odds with physical survival. Howard Roark, for instance, is willing to risk prison to maintain the integrity of his art, and this choice is seen as rational and moral. So men choose (or perhaps discover) which activities they personally find life-promoting, and considered risks taken in the course of these activities are seen as rational. My question is this: many criminals, especially serial killers, take great joy in the act of committing their crimes for the sake of the crime. I'm not talking about those who commit crimes for the sake of personal gain, but rather those who find in their crimes a certain personal if not spiritual joy (as perverse and insane as it seems to us). What I want to know is, what in Rand's ethics specifically accounts for the fact that we find some actions inherently morally abhorrent? Certainly, she (and LP) dismiss such perverse pleasures as "whims," but many criminals consider their crimes carefully, and weigh the choice to entertain their fantasies at great length. If the considered opinion of such criminals is that murder or some other crime enhances their sense of life, and they weigh seriously the consequences of those actions, and decide the risk is worth the potential reward, what makes it wrong? Certainly, we all agree that murder, etc. IS wrong, and the fact that it is only for personal pleasure seems to make it more disgusting, rather than more appealing. Rand harshly condemns seeking pleasure simply for the sake of pleasure (eg drugs, wanton sex), but this, to me, is one of the cases in which her disapproval outstrips her argument, and she turns to name-calling rather than reasoning. In fact, it seems that there are some acts which are wrong no matter what impact they have on our personal conceptual lives. But Rand doesn't want to be a deontologist, she seems to want to frame all moral issues in terms of the survival edict. However, it seems to me that without some outside restrictions on what can be allowed as a moral choice with regard to our creative/artistic impulse (which, by definition, is linked to our fundamental survival instinct), the objectivists are at a loss to provide a reason why creative murder is wrong. And if there are outside restrictions, what are they? What makes them more important than the creative impulse?