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I only mean to suggest that what Haidt labeled "ex post facto" reasoning is deductive and delibertive, and in no sense inductive. In other words, ex post facto reasoning is deductive because it's only grabbing already known information to explain what the intuition is based on. Ex post facto reasoning in the context of justifying intuitions is still important because it will indicate what premises you do have. However, only with induction can you create a new intuition through "training". Induction allows for new knowledge, and is deliberative.

I'm not sure I know what you mean. I only intended to point out that anything argued depends upon specifying what the thing is being referred to.

The article is rife with problems in its claims about Rand, so I didn't even read all of it. I'm not sure if you're saying that Rand said people always value themselves, or that the article did, but that's not even true. In many cases she argued that some people don't value themselves much or at all, and that's what altruism is characterized by (selflessness).

If people "train" their intuitions, which I agree is possible if we speak of them in terms of automization, then there is no use calling reasoning an "exceptional space". There is something to be said of what Haidt says is ex post facto reasoning, and I say it's that such reasoning is deductive, meaning that by its nature, will not provide new knowledge. Deduction isn't supposed to do anything other than justify what you already know. If I deduce that Socrates is mortal, I take for granted that I already know Socrates is human. I don't need to reason out every time I think about that syllogism that Socrates is human. When it comes to acquiring new knowledge, though, only induction is capable of that. This is the space where reasoning creates a new intuition eventually, and reasoning can also indicate where in your previous conclusions that you've made a fallacious conclusion. I don't think Rand overestimates the role of reason in moral judgment, given that she does emphasize automatization in various contexts, especially with sense of life in art. She never tried to explain it like "you grab your premises, reason out to a conclusion, then judge if you like the painting." Intuition still fits under a subconscious process *like* emotion, so in this sense, conscious choices produce your intuition, and because of this relation, should *not* be ignored/evaded/supressed. Haidt for the most part talks about what intuitions do, not how they're made. I suspect some people don't consider or realize that intuitions are representations of existing knowledge (well, it's my hypothesis that intuitions are representations of existing knowledge).

This would be true, if the things in question were human (i.e., possessing a rational faculty). But people eat all sorts of things, strange and otherwise, for a variety of reasons. You could say eating human flesh is like treating the previously-existing human as a side of beef and disrespectfully. But eating could also be a sign of appreciation by enjoying the flavor, much in the same way looking at a dead body in a box can be a sign of appreciation, too. In other words, "treating them like a side of beef" is a cultural thing. You probably don't expect it'd taste good, and it's definitely not the "in" thing to do, but your reasoning isn't a case for immorality as such. People actually eat human placentas, which pretty much works out the same way as eating human flesh in general would. Perhaps think of this as a parallel question: if your dog was killed by a car, would it be immoral to eat the dog? Would it be disrespectful to the value the dog provided to you for you to eat the dog?

From what I see on wikipedia, Kant never said that there is no emotional reaction towards beauty, and in fact said that there most definitely is. Since most of the discussion is about what Kant said about the sublime, I'm still wondering what he said about beauty. I understand Kant's *connections* to modern art as described, but that's different than what views he had about aesthetics, even if those views may be contradictory to what he said about epistemology.

I'm intrigued enough by the linked trailer to watch it. I remember a long time ago seeing a few minutes of it on TV, and I was perplexed why it seemed cool and interesting, yet no one really said anything positive about it. I'll have more to say once I do see it soon, as I intend.

Hernan, have you read about his social intuitionist model of moral judgment? (You can read about it here: http://www.nd.edu/~wcarbona/Haidt%202001.pdf) That gets into more particulars about what he believes intuitions are, and how people often use them. For the most part, Haidt isn't making any explicit moral claims. If you aren't familiar with the model, I'll explain it: (1) An eliciting situation (like being asked if incest between two consenting siblings is moral) brings about an intuition. (2) The intuition produces a judgment, absent any deliberate reasoning. (3) The individual justifies the intuition like a lawyer defending a client, which Haidt labels ex post facto reasoning. In other words, Haidt is saying that reasoning does not produce judgments, only justifications after the fact. From here, (4) your reasoning affects the intuitions of others. He also gives some caveats that reasoning (private deliberation) can alter intuitions, but only someone with the level of expertise as a philosopher can do this. Also heavy reflection may affect judgments. But I don't think Haidt explains well enough what allows private deliberation to work at all, which if evaluated further, may weaken Haidt's claims, making his model closer to how people often don't think about how an intuition originated. Post #10 by Hairnet is a good explanation of how I suspect intuitions originate (I was thinking about posting my explanation, but Hairnet covered it all). Perhaps we can rely on intuitions for some decisions, provided our prior reasoning is good. In some sense, intuitions are just automatizations of knowledge. If your knowledge is wrong, your intuition will always be wrong. When to trust an intuition is a good question, but really that has to do with knowing when to suspect you need to reject old ideas, or expand current ones. By the way, since reading more and discussing Haidt a lot in my philosophy class, I've taken the viewpoint that intuitions are not emotions. Intuitions have a relationship between emotion and reason, but is itself a unique process that is different from both.

I know that Kant's epistemology is pretty bad, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the case his aesthetic beliefs follow from that (sort of directed at Thomas). It would be a quite complex argument that Kant is responsible for things like Dadaism. As far as I've read, Kant's aesethetic ideas are a lot more tenable than his epistemological ones. Probably ideas that are contradictory to his epistemological beliefs, though. The link between modern art and Kant seems on the face of it a lot weaker than his connection to post-modernist philosophy or philosphers like Hegel. Sure, epistemological beliefs do affect aesthetic ones, but compartmentalization is possible. Aristotle's epistemology regarding concept formation is pretty bad in the sense you perceive the essence in something, but you don't throw out everything he ever said about ethics because of that. Just talking about Kant's epistemological beliefs doesn't get much of anywhere in evaluating his aesthetic beliefs.

I do not think there was any dispute that sometimes, choices must be made without precise knowledge, even if more time was available you could come up with a better choice. The dispute is over if any value could be optional, based on the idea that any circumstance only objectively has one good choice that will further your life. Tara Smith is talking about values though, not choices specifically. There may be a best choice (or effort at a best choice) when considering a course of action, but it's basically optional which value you pursue at that moment. Two values can be equal in a value hierarchy. Whichever you choose at this moment does not reflect on your valuation of the other necessarily. Both values further your life equally, and maybe even choosing one actually leads to all values involved being furthered, too. In other words, in my Harry and Sarah example, is choosing to see Harry an indication that my choice is because Sarah is less valuable? I'm saying that as long as I see both of them this month, it won't matter which I choose in terms of value hierarchy, but if I choose based on what movie comes out next week, that only indicates that there is a relationship between time with Sarah and certain movies as a common value. There is a right choice indeed (the movie isn't out until the week after), but would choosing to see Harry this weekend before I see Sarah mean Harry is more important to furthering my life than Sarah?

I believe epistemologue is saying that more precisely, IF you know all the relevant details and have all the time in the world to decide, THEN there is only one moral choice to make. In that sense, according to epistemologue, uncertainty just means you didn't have time to figure out the right choice. You might not know at this moment about astrophysics, but given enough time, there is only one right answer to be discovered about any question in astrophysics. (The rest of the post is directed at epistemologue) I don't think it is true, though, that values can be treated in the same way. When speaking of achieving goals, life in particular, my idea is that sometimes, multiple values do achieve that end equally well. Even IF you can perform exact, exhaustive considerations of relevant costs and had plenty of time to decide, there are still equally good options. I did use a trivial example with ice cream before (or the blue pen or black pen distinction), whichever choice you make will help you achieve your goals, barring circumstances where there are essential differences that count. With trivial scenarios, there is nothing to be discovered that will make one choice more advantageous in the long run. Not all differences are worth considering. There are other examples besides trivial ones. I'll be moving towards the idea that some values are equal in a value hierarchy, making a choice constrained by time as opposed to strictly if a value is the one right choice to make based upon its importance. Importance does matter, I'm not saying otherwise, but it is possible to make choices that does not reflect upon a value hierarchy or a choice's furtherance to your life. This may apply to music: I can choose to listen to The Smiths or Silversun Pickups right now, but I actually don't really like one over the other. Keep in mind that Tara Smith's discussion is about optional values, not even precisely optional choices. I could still choose either band right now based upon not having enough time to listen to a particular album I'm thinking of, but in terms of value, they are equal. By choosing one, I'm not rejecting the other due to lesser valuation. I think the idea of optional values makes even more sense if you think about interpersonal relationships. To begin with, choosing to respond to your thread doesn't say anything about my value hierarchy per se. It doesn't mean I don't care about my friends because I'm responding here rather than talking to them, or that this post is more important than them. In a similar way, picking to spend time with one friend instead of the other (the Harry and Sarah choice) doesn't mean I care about one more than the other. The two may well be equal. You could go and argue that time is the essential differentiating factor, and since I can't pick both friends realistically speaking (suppose I couldn't take them both to that Thai restaurant), that my choice is based on who I value more. However, I can't think of a reason to say that I can make a choice without reference to value hierarchy. Either person can provide equal amounts life-furthering benefit, and by spending time with the other friend later, there isn't any kind of loss. If value is zero-sum, then sure, I'd see the limitation, but I know you don't believe that, so I'm not sure why you're saying equal valuation isn't possible. Perform all the utilitarian calculus you want in the Harry and Sarah choice, the net benefit to flourishing is the same for both choices.

"Emotions are not tools of cognition" is something to be careful about. The idea is that emotions by themselves won't provide you knowledge, but they are quite important to the process of self-discovery. If you feel glad, ask why. If you feel sad, ask why. If you don't know what it is that you feel, figure out a name for it. Also important is distinguishing thoughts about emotions from emotions. This is all important to critical thinking because you'll better be able to examine your thought process, which is what you seem to want to do better.

Post 135 links to the interview. I've not seen the video myself yet, though.

It explains in a sentence the reasoning. The reasoning does not include any mention of the Supreme Court. It would be arbitrary to suggest that Hsieh thinks the SC is the basis of her argument. You are misconstruing what is said. You may as well say [god determines our rights] in the brackets because Hsieh also didn't explicitly reject that premise even in her long write up. You probably don't think Hsieh believes that god determines who has rights, but hey, she didn't say she didn't! I have no issue with you questioning a conclusion, what I have issue with is you using an arbitrary idea, which is itself a methodology issue.

Ah, I'm speaking of psychological mindfulness which is influenced by meditation. Mindfulness is a lot like meditation and involves focusing on the present moment as a means to work on focus so that you don't get overwhelmed by emotions. Yes, thinking about ideas is important for dealing with your life and any issues, but it's also important to learn how to direct your focus in healthy ways rather than towards destructive coping mechanisms. As far as I've read, mindfulness is especially useful for anyone who feels overwhelmed by emotions, which would include the kind of anger you described. Mindfulness is more or less working out the choice to focus in healthy ways, practicing how to direct focus. This is a separate skill from figuring out premises that are problematic.

I was thinking about this briefly when the thread here first came up but resolved the question relatively quickly, so I'll mention my thoughts which may alter things for you. Strictly speaking, yes, the "rape" scene and the Peikoff quote are related, but only in the sense that the subject is consent in sex. But quickly the context becomes completely different, making conclusions from one not affecting the other much except by merely contrasting the scenarios. It would be bad methodology to abstract much about consent from The Fountainhead. To take what Roark did in The Fountainhead and presume *that* to be a good course of action to mimic is to say that as individuals, we can be justifiiably read a person as we wish. But no one exists in that kind of literary world where an author's plot construction and devices are part of a character's moral decision making. To start talking about real life scenarios, there is a lot more information to consider, especially that consent as discussed before was taking into account that there is probably clear intention to have sex, then that consent is retracted. This alone makes The Fountainhead mostly irrelevant to anyone's conclusions, or should be irrelevant. I don't think anything about Objectivism is ambivalent about the subject matter of consent in sex. You say "keeps on" getting paired with rape in two examples that I can tell: This Peikoff quote, and The Fountainhead. There isn't much connection. You mention the essay contest, but that's even mentioning that the scene is not the least bit shallow. There is a lot to think about, and even the question "was it rape" is totally relevant intuitively speaking. The event is notable and of course even Dominique suggests it was rape, so it's not unusual at all to evaluate her thoughts. Other than that, I don't know what else you mean.

Mindfulness may prove to be a more useful term to look into.

"Intuition, on the other hand, is clearly much more malleable and adaptable. If we say intuition is simply that which we think without effort, then clearly it includes emotions but it is more than mere emotion." I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by malleable and adaptable, then. I dispute you saying that emotion falls under "that which we think without effort" since emotion isn't a form of thinking, but precisely a feeling, in addition to being a reaction. Words describe it, but the content of an emotion is without words. I'm saying that intuitions are without words but because they're involved most often with a reaction to what's correct, they're the easiest emotion to put words on. I can feel an intuition that a statue looks wrong, but putting that into words makes it a thought about intuition. There is another sense of intuition, though, that may be causing issue here. I can say "intuitively, to solve this puzzle, I need to put the block here", which is a thought and not an emotion in the least. However, it's a basic thought that didn't precede a thought I'm aware of, nor does it logically follow from a previous thought. What I'm suggesting is that intuition is the feeling that leads you to take an initial stab at solving a problem. I see no reason to call my puzzle solving sentence an intuition, though, since it's a thought like any other. The lexicon link to the section on emotion does mention emotion as a feeling (emotional intensity as part of forming the concept, to be specific), so it would not include a snap judgement that you need 10 weeks to complete a project.

Is it really context or fact dropping in an evaluation of an idea if other facts are apparently irrelevent? Not mentioning a fact doesn't mean disregarding a fact. It may take a lot more information to conclude that morale matters, or perhaps with more information you'd conclude that morale is irrelevent. Rationalism is about treating concepts apart from reality, where definitions and deduction is all that goes on, not just a wrong premise or wrong conclusion. You haven't really presented what about the facts you mention being important. I acknowledge that yes, morale can be boosted for some crazy terrorists if a mosque is built, but people get morale from many things. Can objective conclusions about rights even be made when you try to include "morale boosting" as a form of enabling some people to be more likely to violate rights? Giving money to a terrorist group directly leads to making it possible to violate rights, but giving morale doesn't really enable anything until the group gets funding. I'm not trying to argue just about the mosque, but I hope you see that there may be justification to not mention some facts. That's not disregarding as much as "okay, sure, it'll boost morale for some people. And?" A person may have a huge amount of morale, but I don't think it follows that they're a threat at that point. People need to act for a threat to be real. I don't have to be treating rights in a contextless way to say that something you claim to be relevent I think has no bearing on the case made at all. The problem may have nothing at all to do with methodology as much as it is more information is needed for one of the parties. Knowledge being a sort of spiral makes it so that even rational people have have identical information about a particular event, but have a tremendous difference in knowledge about psychology that can have bearing on conclusions.

I split previous 3 posts about aesthetics into this thread, since it's quite a distinct topic from the OP: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23118&pid=288957&st=0&#entry288957

Then it will be no problem for him to add caveats and whatever else to make his statement more clear in the first place. To say "Statements X, Y, Z logically lead to end A" doesn't mean that the speaker even believes A, just that the those statements lead to A. No one is ignoring his entire body of work, so I don't know where you get that from, since no one is saying anything like "he has no idea what Objectivism is".

Only if her aesthetic philosophy was connected in some notable way to another artist who in turn was influenced by Kant. For all I know there is at least something of value to be said of Kant's aesthetic philosophy, as opposed to his epistemology which from what I know really is unredeemable.

I would suggest that no one is saying that Kant directly caused modern art, more that he had an indirect cause because of a profound impact on philosophy, which had an impact on philosophers like Hegel, which in turn influenced later aestheticians that are associated with "modern art", (and later on influenced post-modernist philosophy). In this sense, no one is saying that somebody like Rothko said "I read Kant all the time!" Rothko wouldn't even have to explicitly know anything about Kant. In this sense, I don't think anyone is psychologizing in the way you describe. Perhaps bad reasoning, but not psychologizing. However, from what I know, that's a result of Kant's epistemology and not strictly his aesthetic views. I've only read little about Kant's aesthetics, but it seemed more like a Platonic take to beauty (still rationalist, to be sure) than his own screwy epistemology. (This is getting offtopic enough to warrant a thread split perhaps)

By the very nature of perception, if you are looking at something, it cannot be impossible by the vary fact you are perceiving. You have to be literal though: you are seeing things exactly as they occur. If I see a rabbit pulled out of a hat, it is possible to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You may, if you are unaware of how magic works, say it was impossible, but once you think about it and explain what happens in terms of your knowledge, then you can explain why it is possible. So, you seem to be on the right track, just keep in mind that what occurs conceptually is a chosen and fallible process, yet still at root connected to perception. "Laws of nature" is a bit misleading, perhaps "law of reality" would make more sense for you. When talking about metaphysics (being qua being, existence as such), a distinction beyond that only refers to subdividing how reality operates. There are manmade laws (legal, virtual, etc), and what is generally meant as natural laws (F=MA, cells divide, etc), both of which are part of reality and all operate within the confines of reality. Even virtual structures have limitations and requirements based on hardware.

Optional among people is an acknowledgement that values can objectively vary due to any number of reasons, from genetics to general aesthetic preferences. Not all people will benefit from mountain climbing, while for others it is in line with their productivity and trained skills. Mountain climbing is the optional value here. This type of valuing does not reject objective values because all people have required values in order to pursue life on a more abstract level, with reason being one such value. I believe you agree on this, but optional still remains a valid distinction, since a person *can* forego mountain climbing and lead a moral life. For that mountain climber, supposing they're using a hierarchy of values, mountain climbing is morally obligatory in the sense that it's a better option than another. You are saying this as well: when a standard is involved, anyone can figure out with effort what the best choice is for their unique context. When a standard is involved, surely that provides a measure which makes one choice correct, and another wrong. We could stop here and say "optional for people" is subjective, since that would mean a standard is failing to indicate the one right choice to make. If our standard fails, then there is no way to even decide if values like reason are really better than others. Absolutely, standards indicate a right choice. Where, though, does that mean there is only *one* right choice? Smith herself is already saying that if a value will not advance one's life, that value ought to be rejected. Mountain climbing would not advance my life, so I reject that as a value. At the same time, does that mean there is only *one* right choice. Life is not a game of chess where there is *always* a one best move to make by the very nature of its deductive mechanics. In actuality, especially if we consider context of knowledge, there are at times multiple right values and choices. There isn't always a need (or possibility) of a precise utilitarian calculus. Some options may literally be the same, as in the trivial example of picking chocolate or vanilla ice cream when you like both equally. For me, these values are optional, but I may still have to choose in a particular moment in time which flavor I want, and decide to have chocolate today, vanilla next week. Personally, I usually pick both and combine them. Neither flavor is higher on my value hierarchy, even though in terms of a *temporal* hierarchy, the choice I make now comes first. If I choose to eat chocolate today, it doesn't mean I like vanilla less than chocolate. I think your disagreement comes down to if any two values can be equal on a value hierarchy. I point out a temporal hierarchy because that's what you seem to be using to reject Smith's "optional for people" idea. There is a distinction to be made from an conceptual hierarchy, though. It is an option to pick any of the values in a set, like among your however-many best friends you want to see. There may be no reason to pick Harry over Sarah this weekend, because you just need to see them both anytime this month. But you pick Harry for this weekend since the new movie that you know Sarah wants to see badly with you comes out next week. Or just invite both Harry and Sarah to the Thai restaurant you all like. The values (your best friends) aren't optional, but the particular value you pick at the time is completely optional. I do not think Smith is arguing that optional values qua values can be ignored completely.