KevinD

That everyone is going to die someday is irrelevant to the question of whether anyone must necessarily perish today. True, before too long, we're all going to meet our maker — so what? The fact of eventual death is no moral criteron; if it were, there would be no reason for anyone to live morally under any circumstances. It's interesting to see so many people putting forth what amounts to a fatalist view of moral action. Reality never dictates that anyone must suffer and die; no one is obligated to "accept" a given situtation just because things happen to be that way. I have to wonder how some of you would put your views into practice, should you ever find yourself in a crisis where your own life or the life of someone you love was on the line. Would you hesitate to use a cell phone which is not yours to call for help — on the grounds that using somebody's minutes without permission violates property rights? Would you refuse to break a window and sieze medicine which could save my precious, irreplacable life — even though, I'm telling you now, I'd gladly repay the owner 10 times over and take whatever legal heat might follow? Just how far would you not go to save the lives of those you claim to be important to you? Do please spell out your answers to this in as specific detail as you can. I need to know which of you I must avoid befriending!

If you are faced with the option: either take some kind of action in a given circumstance or die, and you choose not to take the action, for all intents and purposes you have chosen to die. Call it what you will, my question is: Can morality ever require man to make this choice? I agree. But what is an emergency? Are emergencies only metaphysical events such as fires, floods, earthquakes — as DavidOdden and Grames have indicated? Is there such a thing as a personal emergency, one in which only one's own life is in danger, or the life of someone you care about? Does having a gun pressed into your back qualify as an emergency situation — at least for you the victim? Does morality end where a gun — or any other kind of real, objective threat to one's life — begins? One never has the right, per se, to steal somebody's property. However, in a crisis of life or death one cannot be concerned about respecting anybody else's rights. Assuming you are an otherwise moral person, morality will never force you to select non-existence over existence. If a morality is based on life, under extreme emergency circumstances one is justified in taking whatever actions are necessary in order to preserve it.

DavidOdden and Grames: Does morality ever require man to commit suicide? Your position is that adherence to moral principles means that we must sometimes refrain from acting to rescue the lives of those we love. Are we ever similarly obligated not to act to defend and protect our own lives?

Morality does not consist of out-of-context "rules" or commandments. The answer to this situation is the same as all other lifeboat-type scenarios: Morality cannot be said to apply in extreme emergency circumstances; whatever a person chooses to do under the threat of death (his own, or that of a loved one) is, in effect, moral. Under normal circumstances, theft is certainly immoral. But when the life of your husband, wife, child, friend is at stake, what else are you supposed to do? Stand by idly and recite "Thou Shalt Not Steal" to yourself as you watch the person die? Assuming that theft were the only issue at stake, any normal person would steal the medicine, administer it to the person they love, then report what they had done to the police and work to make restitution to those harmed by the action. The particular scenario under discussion adds another layer: the theft will not merely inconvenience another person, it will lead directly to their death. While this might make stealing the medicine much more unpleasant to do, it doesn't change the essential nature of the situation. You still have to take action to save the life of the one you love, and this action will cause significant harm/loss to someone else. Fortunately, most of us will never have to face decisions like this at any point in our lives. But the principle is the same: When the life of someone you love is at stake, you do whatever you can to save them. Other people be damned, "morality" be damned — and you worry about restitution, fallout and clean-up later.

If there's no free will, how could you ever become "convinced" of anything?

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond. Interesting to see the voting becoming more confident as the thread progresses! Please remember that I am asking for your personal impressions as to whether esthetics should be considered a full branch of philosophy, of equal importance and carrying equal weight as the others. Is there such a thing as a complete philosophic system without a theory of esthetics? Could one reasonably summarize Objectivism if he discussed only Objectivism's stance in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics, skipping its esthetic theory? At this stage, I'm primarly interested to hear from those who are even the least bit confused as to why esthetics is considered one of the five major branches of philosophy.

Please take a moment to make your selection above, and post any comments you'd like to make relative to this topic in the thread. I'm looking for your personal reactions to this question, not the "Objectivist position" as such. No one will be chastised for their responses (at least not by me), so please answer with ruthless, soul-searching honesty. I'm asking this question in connection with a project I'm working on about esthetics, and would greatly appreciate hearing your responses. Thanks very much!

How does it logically follow that in a society such as you describe (i.e., one in which the government properly stays out of religion), that there would be no churches? Wouldn't people still have the right to worship as they choose?

All through my growing-up years, I poured carbonated beverages down my neck as though my life depended on it. Around the age of 20, I began to make massive changes in my diet, and became the hardcore fresh juice/purified water addict that I happily am today. A few years back, I had to dump out a half-full cup of cola somebody left in front of my building. Pouring it into the toilet, the smell coming off the stuff was so awful I had to turn my head away. You can majorly re-orient your tastebuds, if that's what you want to do. For you guzzlers, you can take comfort in this Onion news report: http://www.theonion.com/content/radio_news...y_of_soda_still

What kind of relationships does man require in order to survive? With which other men? Objectivism thoroughly addresses, examines and answers these vitally important questions. Have you never heard of the branch of philosophy called "politics"? Speak for yourself, brother!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_bi_ge/blind_money

Good god. The Vatican has descended from The Onion, straight into Weekly World News territory.

Eatcher heart out, Huckabee!! (From a campaign flyer distributed by the Obama campaign in Kentucky.)

No point in arguing with someone who's just a collection of molecules. How do you justify an interest in ethics, given that man is an automaton who cannot make choices?

This is the biggest news to come out of the Vatican since the Pope did away with limbo last year. You can be sure that an organization is officially obsolete, once its headlines start sounding like something you'd read in The Onion.

They certainly don't try to hide what they're all about, do they?

As with many things, there is a rational and an irrational sense in which one can speak about loyalty. If by loyalty you mean: adherence to reality, commitment to what one knows to be right, commitment toward one's own life and one's own chosen values — then I would say that loyalty is an extremely positive concept. If, however, you're talking about blindly following a person, movement or cause — the willingness to fight and die for one's country, for example, merely because said country happens to be where one resides — then loyalty becomes a very vicious idea, and has been responsible for no end of suffering throughout history. Note that one meaning of this term contradicts the other: to be loyal to one's values means that one will not accept (nor will one "stand up for") that which is foisted upon him by culture, family, etc. It means devotion, not to people, but to principles — principles which one understands in a first-hand way to be right, true, just. A thinking person is slavishly interested in facts. A dogmatist is primarily concerned with what other people think, and doesn't question the expectations that others have for him. Ultimately, the only kind of loyalty is loyalty to oneself and to the achievement of one's happiness. Anybody who manages to remain consistently "loyal" in that respect is a truly great person indeed.

As a postscript to the foregoing, contrast the interview with Kelley mentioned above with this one with Yaron Brook, done by the same organization on the same topic of Capitalism:

It's extremely unlikely that Kelley's errors are totally honest ones. Kelley at one time understood Objectivism well enough to be able to communicate it on a high scholarly level; today he associates with every piece of intellectual riffraff and trash that happens to float his way. Kelley's organization (The Atlas Society) is devoted to the anti-concept "tolerance," and takes the official position that Objectivism is not a firm philosophy authored by Ayn Rand, but is an "open system," re-writable by any random hooligan because he happens to feel like it. Whatever profound thinking Kelley once did in his life, he clearly isn't doing much of it anymore. Who knows what's going on inside of his head — and who really cares?

I have reviewed your test, Quin, and it seems there has been an error. Your actual IQ score is 145. We apologize for the mix-up; please carry on with your life as usual.

I think this is essentially correct. I remember at an early age being struck by the incredible amount of "beseeching" that seriously religious people do. After a while, it apparently becomes an ingrained part of one's personality. I can't claim to understand why anyone would choose to view himself as a metaphysical invalid, eternally dependent upon the good graces of a supernatural being just to be able make it through the day. But I imagine that those who do so must have their reasons.

Since we're doing requests, a tune about the analytic-synthetic dichotomy would really hit the spot right now.

Anyone who wants to know what Ron Paul is really all about, needs look no further than the following blurb which he contributed to the book Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System by John W. Robbins: "John Robbins is as stalwart a defender of a free society as I have known. His love of freedom — religious, political, and economic — motivated him to write Without a Prayer, a brilliantly insightful analysis of Ayn Rand's influential philosophy. Without a Prayer deserves to be read by everyone who loves freedom — everyone who wants to advocate freedom with arguments that cannot be refuted. Robbins furnishes the indispensable ideas — the intellectual ammunition — required to defend freedom successfully." John Robbins is a Calvinist and Bible literalist; he calls Objectivism a "deadly poison," and his book is a 350-page attempt to discredit Ayn Rand while preaching the Gospel. Draw your own conclusions, folks.

Bear in mind that politics is a derivative science: it's the field of ethics applied to society. Libertarians desire a certain kind of social system — one which upholds "freedom" and "liberty" — while giving virtually no consideration to the moral-philosophical roots which make these concepts possible. In the Libertarian view, it doesn't matter how you've arrived at your political convictions; so long as you're in favor "limiting" the government (usually in some woozy, semi-undefined way), you're welcome to jump aboard their bandwagon. The Objectivist system of government, by contrast, makes a clear distinction between what men have a proper moral right to legislate, and what they do not. Objectivism holds that the use of force is improper, immoral, and has no place in any human relationship. This is demonstrably true; the use of force (or its corollary, fraud) results in actual, calamitous consequences for human beings in reality. In a free society, individuals may behave in as irrational a manner as they choose — even opting for total self-destruction, if that's their wish. But the moment a person crosses the line and begins to forcibly interfere with the lives of others, that's when a government has the right to step in and enact retribution against him. Objectivist politics does not exist to make anybody "good." (This is the meaning of the attempt to "legislate morality.") Objectivist politics defines basic principles of social conduct, the adherence to which makes possible the peaceful coexistence of men. In that sense, the Objectivist political system is not only not "amoral," it is the only fully moral system of government ever developed.

I strongly disagree. I think it's wrong ever to pander to vice or irrationality, to say nothing of what one consciously recognizes to be full-blown mental illness. A productive person takes pride in the fact that the values he creates are real and objective; they can be appreciated and enjoyed by discerning people with high standards. His purpose is never to serve others per se — but still, he can't help but feel very good about the fact that his efforts do make a positive impact on those who experience them. A productive person is a creator, not a destroyer; a trader, not a quick-buck artist. A rational cosmetic surgeon would want to consider himself to be an improver of people's looks — a long-range friend to those who seek him out for help — not merely some guy who can skillfully cut faces apart. Any cold-hearted M.D. with a scalpel can take advantage of Michael Jackson's neurosis, and agree to make him look worse than he already does. So it might add a few million to your bank account — what will you have earned? Certainly not self-respect. Certainly not professional status in your own eyes. Certainly not any result you'd ever care to show your clients. Certainly nothing but empty dollars and cents, paid to you by a very sad person, one who is probably coming to you out of a desperate attempt to fill his internal void — which value, incidentally, you will never be able to provide him with. On a related note, I believe it's an error ever to take on any kind of a job primarily for financial gain. Psychologically, it's totally wrong, and tends to lead to a kind of poverty mentality which amounts to the chronic feeling that there is "never enough". Work for love, work for the excitement and the experience of what you do; don't ever, to the very extent that you can help it, work specifically for money. One of the great secrets of truly wealthy people is that they don't chase paydays the way the poor and middle classes do; they do what is meaningful to them — they pursue their passions — and they allow money to follow them around relentlessly.