Dante

No. "to follow the rules of evolution" is not an attribute, it's a normative abstraction. If you try to identify facts of reality, you should use cognitive abstractions (answer the question "what is?"). After establishing what is man's nature, you may ask "what is good?" for men.

But you can't say man's nature is to consider this or that good. That is just begging the question, not building an argument on some facts of reality you've previously identified.

Man is a rational, volitional animal. That is his nature. He is an animal, but the essential attribute which differentiates him from all other animals is his rational capacity.

Nature and reality don't have the kind of rules you claim they have. There is no rule of nature telling us we should behave like animals.

If you want to ask why we are different from other animals, the answer to that question is: we just are. I could go into a long explanation on how it came to be that we are rational and other animals aren't, but that's not really relevant. The arbiter of whether a statement is correct or incorrect is reality. And, in reality, men are separated from other animals by a very important attribute, which allowed us to achieve so much more: rationality.

Your "underlying question" is loaded with a mistruth. Nature does not contain any rules telling us how we should behave. Nature just is, it does not speak in abstractions. It is up to us to decide how we should act, based on what is.

The essential way in which you should correct your thinking is this: when studying nature (including the nature of men), you must form cognitive abstractions, in answer to the question "what is?". Once you move past that, and are attempting to decide what type of morality will help guide men's choices to better achieve their fundamental goals in life, only then should you form normative abstractions, in answer to the question "what ought to be?" or "what is good?".

But you should not use normative abstractions to describe nature. Nature does not think, it does not choose, its actions are not good or evil. Nature just is.

This is foolish. 127 Hours is a movie dramatizing Aron Ralston's ordeal of becoming trapped in a remote canyon for days because he did not tell anyone where he was going. He would have died there if he had not summoned the will to first break and then amputate his own arm. That is a hard way to learn a lesson.

You wish!

They wrote mildly-worded letters.

So, unicellular organisms don't need a food source? Man, all those biologists really have it wrong...

Verificationism is dead and was never really alive in science. Science requires universal generalizations over many entities. You can't make a universal generalization and be a verificationist. Simple as that.

Well there are a number of Objectivists who have been published in philosophy journals in recent years. If you're talking about one of those topics, you could cite one of those. You definitely shouldn't act as though the ideas are completely new.

Yeah, I've definitely experienced that kind of a shutdown with the mention of her name or one of her novels. A lot of people have some hazy yet incredibly negative view of what kind of person she was and what she advocated, and respond with derision or disgust at anyone they come to think of as an "Ayn Rand person". Where to go from there depends on the context of the situation and discussion.

Marc K:

"Every living entity is vincible, there has never existed any other kind of living entity"

But we discuss here the artificial, man-made organism. Nothing at least in theory prohibits its creation. Observe that skyscrapers and space shuttles also never existed before .

"First of all, this entire reply is based on a stolen concept which I tried to point out to you earlier and your continued use of such really damages your credibility. To see your error define "pleasure" or "satisfaction" down to their roots, reduce them back to perception and you will see that you haven't a leg to stand on"

With pleasure. " Pleasure" is inherent perceptual mechanism on which the concept of "value" is based. In Ayn Rand's words " Now in what manner does human being discover the concept of "value"? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of "good or evil" in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensation of pleasure and pain...The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man's body, it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it..." (VOS;7 pb17)

If I'm guilty of the fallacy of stolen concept, then so is Ayn Rand. There are no roots of pleasure. On the contrary, pleasure-pain mechanism is the root of the concept of "value". Happiness which is pleasure of the sapient being " is that state of consciousness which proceeds from achievement of one values" (GS). True, a piece of bread may represent such a value, but also discovery of Crab Nebula or new metal.As you yourself observed, survival is not an issue anymore in industrial society, " most of us will survive without too much effort. But is that it? Is just surviving enough? Not for most of us. We want to LIVE. And what is truly LIVING? What are the indications of having a full life? When do you feel truly alive? What makes life worth living? HAPPINESS.

And this is exactly my point. Happiness, reason, productivity and self-esteem man could and should pursue without necessity to face life-death alternative.

I have argued once before in this thread why that type of proof (direct tie-in to life expectancy) is unnecessary in order to declare that certain actions and modes of living are contra to human well-being. I will attempt once more to spell it out, and to spell out the alternate method by which we can validate or invalidate Objectivist moral principles.

First of all, showing that people tend to live longer if they follow principle X is not the only valid method of demonstration of what furthers well-being, and in fact is often an untenable method for doing so. I think the best way to understand this is to draw an analogy to human health, which I also did last time. Here, I'll use the example of washing one's hands after going to the bathroom. Is this behavior physically healthy or unhealthy? Well, I don't know of any studies which examine the life expectancy of people who generally wash their hands after the toilet, and people who don't. Does this mean that my belief in the healthiness of this activity is unjustified?

Clearly, not. In fact, that type of study is not the only way to demonstrate the health status of this behavior. Instead, I can point out the direct effects of failing to wash one's hands after the toilet. The most obvious and salient direct effect is the increased risk of contracting infectious diseases. Thus, if we can establish that infectious diseases are unhealthy, we can establish immediately that failing to wash up after taking a dump is also unhealthy.

It is of course true that ultimately, at the base of this chain of reasoning, we will have to tie something directly to life expectancy. However, this is not the same as claiming that we have to tie each and every step directly back to life expectancy. In fact, we do not.

Now, you do acknowledge that, in the case of morality, there are behaviors which undoubtedly further human life, and which if we fail to perform we will experience an increased risk of death and decreased life expectancy. Your failure comes in when you deny our ability to use these clear-cut cases to build a system of moral principles. We agree on the base, but that is not all there is.

Consider self-esteem. Is it an objective value, in the Objectivist sense? It would be extremely hard to try to quantify people's self-esteem and relate that directly to life expectancy. However, what we can do (very easily) is to conceptually examine the direct effects of low self-esteem vs. high self-esteem. First, we need the premise that human beings need to take conscious and deliberate actions in order to maintain and further their lives (an uncontroversial claim, I hope). We define self-esteem as the view that one's own mind is competent to think and that one is worthy of living (here, I am only validating the second part). From here, all we need is the proposition that one is more willing to take the actions necessary to sustain one's life if one believes oneself worthy of living. This chain of reasoning demonstrates the objective value of self-esteem.

Now, if you think the chain of reasoning supporting a certain Objectivist moral principle is faulty, then that would be another discussion. However, before one can even enter that debate, it first must be understood that this construction of a hierarchy of moral values and principles is a valid exercise in the first place.

But see, that's where the problem lies. Yes, perhaps the most common relevant definition of will is "determination to do something," but that is not what we are referring to when we say free will. We are trying to indicate the power to choose, and "will" by itself simply doesn't mean that to anyone.

For the most part he was posing ideas. The main thing he was asking and thinking about was this: Is love the love of someone or the love of something? This is an important question, and actually is probably important to describing the closest of relationships. This could be applied to the love of friends as well. Do you love the essence of a person, or some particular? I'm reminded of how Artistotle described the difference between friendships of pleasure and perfect friendships. As far as friendships of pleasure are concerned, that's pretty much enjoying some particular thing about a person rather than the essence of who they are as an individual. You can enjoy the intellect of a person, but that is not the same as loving the whole of a person, loving their essence. Derrida's initial question seems to involve that sort of idea. I would answer that [romantic in this context] love is the love of someone, to the extent that valuing the essence of a person promotes closeness better than valuing one or two particular features.

The problem comes in when Derrida suggests that anything about love is a person stuck in between the who and the what; "who" being the essence of a person, "what" being only some kind of particular. In a typical post-modernist way, Derrida is suggesting people are stuck between two separate ends, forever lost in between the two. He says that someone wants to be true to a person (to their fundamental being as an individual), and one also perceives that this someone isn't x or y. That may be an issue for someone conflicted in how to value another person, whether as a friend or romantically, but it does not follow from there that everyone is like that.

The solution to that problem is only an egoistic perspective, acknowledging what sort of person is good FOR you; that applies to friendships as well.

I have to say, I think that there's a small but not inconsequential false dichotomy here. Taking the bullet or not are not, realistically, my only options.

Would I take a bullet for the one I love? Absolutely. Would I do anything I could to make sure it wouldn't come to that, up to and including killing the other dude first? Even more absolutely. Anyone doing the former but not the latter has, by their actions, shown that they do not value their loved one as much as they claim to, which makes the act of taking the bullet self-sacrificial.

Have you have gleaned a proper answer from others here?

Hopefully you have justified and integrated the concept of Rights, particularly with help from the writings of Ayn Rand. If you have, then this is the only concept you need with respect to forming a proper government. The term "social contract" should be discarded as it is self-contradictory, a stolen concept and an anti-concept. There is no need for it once you understand Rights. The term "social contract" only serves to confuse.

Rights are an objective requirement of human life in society -- a proper government recognizes this fact. Once you understand Rights it doesn't matter whether anyone agrees with them or not, they may not by Right violate your Rights, even if they have the agreement of the rest of society to do so -- the worst they can do, by Right, is leave you alone.

The "initiation of physical force" is itself not a very clear line. It is not immediately clear, looking at any particular case, whether someone has initiated force or not. For example, what constitutes a threat and what does not is a very complex question (threats to initiate force being equivalent to the initiation of force itself). Here is an example thread that discusses this question. For another example, it can be very involved to discover whether or not intellectual property rights have been violated in any particular case. Questions of "how similar is too similar" must be answered contextually and therefore individually. While the initiation of physical force as a concept is very helpful and is correct in principle, those four words do not contain everything we'd ever need to know to determine when rights have been violated in any particular case.

The "initiation of physical force" is itself not a very clear line. It is not immediately clear, looking at any particular case, whether someone has initiated force or not. For example, what constitutes a threat and what does not is a very complex question (threats to initiate force being equivalent to the initiation of force itself). Here is an example thread that discusses this question. For another example, it can be very involved to discover whether or not intellectual property rights have been violated in any particular case. Questions of "how similar is too similar" must be answered contextually and therefore individually. While the initiation of physical force as a concept is very helpful and is correct in principle, those four words do not contain everything we'd ever need to know to determine when rights have been violated in any particular case.

It is not reasonable to view the mature philosophy of Objectivism as merely an elaborate attempt of Rand's to fulfill a goal that her thirteen-year-old self wrote in her diary. Objectivism on its own terms gives reasons for rejecting belief in a deity, and also for believing in an objective ethics. Both of these views should be evaluated on their own merits.



Her atheism preceded her full philosophy chronologically, in terms of the evolution of her thought, but not structurally within that full philosophy. Atheism is not the founding premise structurally; it is a conclusion that arises out of more fundamental statements about existence.

That is not Objectivism. That is a life philosophy with some similarities to Objectivism. Objectivism is a well-defined philosophical system, and part of that system is the denial of any role for faith or the supernatural. Certainly religious people can have an admirable approach to life, from an Objectivist perspective, but that is not the same as adhering to the complete philosophy.

Actually, Rand wrote in her diary, when she was thirteen years old, that she wanted to be known as the greatest enemy of religion. So it's reasonable to think of Objectivism as her attempt to validate a philosophical system that has the ethical objectivity of religious belief without a god. Her atheism preceded her philosophical system.

So no, you can't be a religious Objectivist because atheism is the founding premise.

Your problem is with your definition of sacrifice. It is entirely unhelpful. According to this definition, every single action I take is a sacrifice, because every single action takes time and effort. In economics, the concept of the "opportunity cost" of an action refers to the next-best thing you could have done with the resources it took to take that action. The salient point here is, every single action or purchase has an opportunity cost. Thus, by your definition, every single action taken by everyone is a sacrifice. Can you see why this is an invalid and unhelpful definition?

Rand was very clear with her definition: giving up a greater value for a lesser one. This definition isolates a real and important phenomenon for study and discussion. I don't see why you'd want to redefine it in the way you have.

Just because "healthiness" is a common value, at least in the mainstream, does not mean everyone shares it.

Your problem is with your definition of sacrifice. It is entirely unhelpful. According to this definition, every single action I take is a sacrifice, because every single action takes time and effort. In economics, the concept of the "opportunity cost" of an action refers to the next-best thing you could have done with the resources it took to take that action. The salient point here is, every single action or purchase has an opportunity cost. Thus, by your definition, every single action taken by everyone is a sacrifice. Can you see why this is an invalid and unhelpful definition?

Rand was very clear with her definition: giving up a greater value for a lesser one. This definition isolates a real and important phenomenon for study and discussion. I don't see why you'd want to redefine it in the way you have.

This is not at all what Rand was saying. Let's pull that quote of hers up again:



Now notice what she says. The country has no national rights, which means that the dictator is not a legitimate form of government and has no right to rule. However, the individual people living under the government still have their own individual rights. Thus, it would be wildly immoral to come in and just start slaughtering everyone. What would be morally acceptable is coming in, deposing the dictatorship, and establishing a government which respects the rights of its citizens. Nowhere in there is there room for what the Spanish did, and the Spanish did not even attempt to establish something that Objectivism would view as legitimate.

Now, your other concern, about whether or not this avenue is the best way to bring change to a country, is very well taken. Oftentimes, deposing a dictator does not do anything for the freedom of the country's inhabitants. If the country's culture does not have the right philosophical currents, it is nearly an impossible task to instill a rights-respecting government. I agree with this statement of yours:



What is important to notice about Rand's stance here is this: freeing the citizens of a foreign country is not the primary reason for invading it. We need a government in order to protect our own rights. That is the sole purpose of government; to protect the rights of its citizens. To that end, the only time it is required of our government to invade another country is when that strategy serves to protect our rights as citizens. It's not primarily about the oppressed peoples, but about the threat their leaders pose to us. Thus, Rand's stance is not an edict to go out and spread freedom and individual rights wherever they are lacking, through invading other countries. That would be an altruistic endeavor. Rather, she is simply highlighting the fact that we are not wronging the dictators of a country if we do decide to invade it. They do not have the right to be dictators in the first place.

Your criticism of the practice of psychologizing would be much stronger without that last paragraph.

That wasn't 'taking government assistance' at all. It was theft recovery.

Funny how the people who earn too much is always one income bracket higher then the person complaining about capitalism.