Eiuol

Yes, I see what you mean. What I should say is that while form follows function is ideal, you should still aim to at least implicitly say something about yourself in the fact you are paying attention. Some may like to be consistent in their look, while I prefer to vary it. It is also important to recognize where you are going that day, because even though aesthetics are important, context will reveal what kind of aesthetic would be appropriate for yourself. It may have been a mistake, I think, to say aesthetic is the primary importance of clothing, it cannot be separated from its function. Neither form nor function is more important. However, I would say that mainly applies to designing. Aesthetic should be of top concern, not merely "is that jacket warm enough?" Yes, you probably should pick a jacket that is warm enough, but that doesn't mean you should brush its look aside as nothing more than a consequence. I like your post, Matua. I was thinking about explaining something like that in my first post, but I see you've described, from first-hand experience, how why I think it matters what you wear even when no one is there to look.

To what extent do you think the clothing one wears represents a one’s self-esteem? Is not caring about what one wears a sign of low self-esteem, room for the further growth of self-esteem, or neither? I think that ignoring clothing – to the extent that you still pay attention about whether or not it’s in good shape and clean, though – is absolutely a sign of low self-esteem. I am not suggesting that paying attention to one’s clothing is the end-all indicator of self-esteem (after all, some people do things out of second-handedness), but an extremely important one. It is absolutely important to acknowledge that what you wear is important in self-identity. In a metaphorical way, clothing is putting your body on each day. You choose each part, none of it is up to chance. You declare yourself to be a particular way and implicitly declare that you are worthy of that identity. Sure, anyone can have self-esteem without focusing on clothing, but can anyone really say “Yes, that person is the prime example of high self-esteem” of them? Personal aesthetics are important in one’s identity because it shows something about a person. It’s a concretization of one’s sense of self. Neglecting this aspect reveals a sort of “Why do I even need to declare my identity?” To put high value on style and clothing, then, is to put high value on oneself. Low value on style, similarly, is placing low value on oneself. A lot of this viewpoint I am presenting here is related to what I deem the purpose of clothing to primarily be: aesthetic. If my viewpoint on clothing were primarily utilitarian – keeping warm in winter, for example – then there is little relation to self-esteem. However, I would still say in the modern world, clothing’s primary purpose should be aesthetic because of how it can be used to declare self-identity. It is the most obvious and concrete way to show your particular sense of life. Any thoughts, and especially arguments against this, would be interesting.

This may prove to be an interesting article written by Sam Harris in regards to his TED talk shown in this thread: http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/ite...of_science3/P0/

If a person commits suicide, they have not chosen life. Thus life has no value to such an individual. Choosing life is a pre-rational and also pre-ethical, which is a big part of why life isn't intrinsically good. Morality's standard is life, but before anyone has chosen life, you can't say they should or should not choose life. Making this fundamental choice is what then allows you to say life is good and valuable, in addition to the fact that life is good for a particular person. Before that choice is made though, life cannot be evaluated as good or bad. Why people, as babies, tend to choose life in the first place before they have developed any values may be a difficult question to answer, though. I suppose it is because it's the easiest choice to make, as all your organs function whether you like it or not, in the sense that your heart beats whether or not you tell it to.

The point is, this is exactly why you can't say life is of intrinsic value. There is no value to life if one doesn't choose life.

The use of intrinsic in quotes is exactly my reason for making the topic. I knew there knew there was no such thing as an intrinsic value, but life seemed to be of intrinsic value. CapitalismForever's post clarified and resolved my issue. Life can only be good for a particular person. Life is not good for its own sake, and even though life actually is good for all people, it is good for a particular reason in relation to a particular kind of entity. Sure, life is the basis of morality, but it is still a basis that has relation to humans. To say that life is an intrinsic value would be say that life is valuable regardless of if there is anyone to even value life. If we were to analyze life separate from being human, it would not be possible to say either that life is good or even a value. It would be context dropping.

I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it psychology, though you are right in it not being a metaphysical explanation. It could be called sociology. You are specifically asking about one's state of mind, so of course it is necessary to gather some empirical observations of what sort of state of mind a sexually promiscuous person has. You can still use metaphysical facts to evaluate your results, though. Clearly promiscuous sex is related to pleasure, but why seek that pleasure in the first place? That may lead one to feel alienated, since they are attempting to disconnect mind and body. Seeking pleasure may satisfy someone physically, but what intellectual value is being fulfilled? Does pleasure serve any end other than itself? In fact, decision making based on pleasure does not use the mind at all. Knowing that there is no dichotomy between mind and body suggests that any time mind and body is separated causes frustration or alienation because one would be attempting to act against their nature as a rational being whose mind and body are one. That may be a preliminary answer for you, but keep in mind you specifically asked the state of mind a sexually promiscuous person. Is this explanation enough, or is there also something else that's going on which you have not discovered yet? It's certainly possible, since you are literally only looking at two people so far. That's the sort of thing to ask yourself.

The issue for me is: are we saying life is good because it is life, therefore it is intrinsically good? Again, I may be misapplying the word "intrinsic." Of course it is stupid to choose death, and it would not be possible to lead a moral course of action if one chooses death. Death is bad because it is death. I am not asking if there is an "ethics" of death - the closest thing is altruism after all - but rather, how is life not intrinsically good?

Life is the only proper standard of value, because living things are always faced with the alternatives of existence and nonexistence. Without life as a standard of value, there would be no way for an entity to act in regards to preserving its existence. Why, then, is it not proper to say life is intrinsically good? I understand that life is only the standard of value if one seeks life. However, isn't life good for all people in all circumstances, regardless of how it relates to an individual, because it is the only thing that enables a living entity to exist? The issue here may be my understanding of what it means for something to be intrinsically good. Since life is a characteristic all people have, I can still say the concept of life is wholly dependent upon a person - and that life is neither "sought for its own sake" nor "good in itself." It is good for a person. Is my reasoning sound here?

I think you'd just start with the faculty of reason, from there you attempt to use reason to survive. To survive, you will at some point discover what values are. Up until this point, I would suggest that you were never even able to act virtuous *because* you had no values.

The difference between a self and a mind is that a mind is more the faculty that chooses values, and a self is defined by the fact that one has chosen particular kinds of values. You aren't too wrapped up in self-awareness I think, but why would that make it seem like there are many folds of awareness? You are not distinguishing between two kinds of attributes. There is your mind and it directs your body. By saying "your," I only mean that you are a particular kind of entity which possesses a number of attributes. It is different than saying "your" house because having a house is not a characteristic of personhood. A house is a distinct entity from what you are and can be separated from you. The mind is inseparable from the body, and the body is inseparable from the mind.

I'm only pointing out that saying "my mind" is not as clear cut as you were making it out to be. You could still say "my mind" because it is one of your characteristics as a person, just like when you say "my height is X". There is not a separate entity that contains height.

The best way I can explain it is that a "self" is a characteristic and it is entirely what your mind is. You are your self, you only possess a self in the sense that you may possess a tall stature. In other words, you are your mind. There is no dichotomy between body and mind, because as a person, you are an integrated whole. Your mind is what makes up what you are as a particular kind of entity, namely, a person. A mind is an essential characteristic of being a person, and a mind apart from a body simply is not possible. There is not a separate entity which is apart from your body, such as a soul, that contains your mind. In other languages, people don't say "their mind" or "my mind".

Welcome. Careful when you use the word faith! It would probably be more accurate to say "the knowledge that each person has the ability to control their lives".

I never really understood that line, because in a dictatorship, I'm sure most people would be able to do nothing about it and could not have prevented it. Clearly some governments attain power through force, so I don't see how, in those cases, anyone would be responsible for that except those of the oppressive government and those who explicitly or implicitly support the government in question.

To expand on that a bit, virtues are the means in which one gains or keeps an objective value. Just because someone is virtuous does not mean any values are being shared. An engineer may value creating a certain structure, while a novelist may value creating stories. They are both looking to achieve different values, and to do so requires virtuous action. Certainly, admiring virtuous people is important, but virtue won't necessarily produce values you care about.

The method you'd be looking for is probably logic. In either case, if you have not read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, I would read that first.

Genetics would only determine your identity insofar as they mean you *must* do something in a particular way, such as how your body processes sugar. This falls under health issues as you said. Not necessarily health issues, but anything related to physical traits. These are things that cannot be changed due to your own volition and also affect how you need to live your life. Anything else about one's identity is chosen. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "social trait"? It comes across as collectivist-sounding and something of an anti-concept. Gender as a social trait may be a good way to think about it, and also makes me lean more towards gender being an unimportant concept. You only really need the concept of sex to help determine sexuality. Really the whole point is what does it *mean* to be a man or a woman? To me, being a man or woman wouldn't need to be much more than what your sexual parts are. Does it really matter much, though, what your sex on your birth certificate says? It doesn't even matter for the parents, beyond what's going to happen during puberty. Of course you shouldn't change things for social reasons - it's secondhanded - but that doesn't mean you cannot make the same changes for rational reasons. Relating that to transgenderism, I wonder about how people *identify* themselves as a particular sex. I would be inclined to say there is something in the brain the produces a certain "feeling" of being a certain sex. In this sense, gender may be a valid concept, but only as a sensation. Please note I'm not suggesting anyone is born with *knowledge* of being a certain sex, only that gender could be thought of as a sensation much like proprioception. Of course, that would require science to prove.

Gender roles are justified on a false basis of sexuality. They are not characteristics of a sex or sexuality. I cannot legitimately link concepts of gender roles to sexuality. Can you really tell me you know anything about the sexuality of a woman who likes working with cars? As I said before, I'm not even sure the concept of 'gender' is important, though of course the concept of 'sex' is. This is kind of a tangent here, I know, since this does not directly relate to any argument about transgenderism.

Since having the capacity of reason is an essential part of the concept of 'man,' anyone without that capacity wouldn't fall under the concept of 'man'. Part of what indicates if someone has the capacity of reason is if they can form concepts. Although a person who is severely retarded may be functioning at a suboptimal level, they still have the ability to form concepts. A case could be made that people in a permanently vegetative state no longer fall under the concept 'man' since they are no longer able to think and form concepts, so therefore they would have no rights. Just to be clear, the fact that something has no rights does not justify torturing or killing it.

I would say both of those ideas are based on tradition. That women tend to prefer powerful, capable men only suggests a long-held tradition. A man who likes sewing or a woman who likes cars suggests nothing about their sexuality. I sorta understand what you're getting at, but these are only traditions we're talking about.

"Working with tools" certainly is a gender role, and it is arbitrarily assigned to men. I do not see how that has any relation to sexuality. It might only relate in the sense of "it's something men tend to do," and since most men are heterosexual, those who follow a gender role tend to be heterosexual. But following such a role, or enjoying working with tools, would not be an indicator at all of what the sex someone is attracted to. I would say a gender role fundamentally depends on norms that are based on nothing more than tradition and stereotypes.

...I hope you meant that YES it would be illegal, and that of course the child has a rational faculty.

I actually cannot come up with what that "identity" would refer to. In my opinion, that suggests a distinction between the terms 'sex' and 'gender' is unnecessary, meaning that only the term 'sex' really tells you any useful information. "The reason why men and women are raised differently, i.e. given distinct gender roles -- why we ask if the baby is a boy or a girl -- depends primarily on the importance of sexuality in life." Given gender roles? What importance would a gender role even serve? A gender role has nothing to do with sexuality.

Although I imagine you've thought long and hard about deciding to major in these area specifically, you may want to give more consideration to how much you require a four year degree for your desired profession. I've been working towards a four year degree, but recently I've decided to change majors on such a level of difference that basically only my general education credits would transfer. I do know a bachelor's degree would provide a good way to find a job, but for my goals, I would only need an associate degree from my community college. And only really because I'm very inexperienced in my new field of interest.