ttime
-
Posts
62 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by ttime
-
-
Actually, I don't even see where the context is only legal. Can you point that out? Certainly the question doesn't set that context: "Is this the moral equivalent of rape?" At what point in Peikoff's reply did he switch the context to the legal?
At about 1:40. I'm actually no longer sure what is going on in the beginning with the use of the term 'moral', since his conclusion focuses solely on the legal aspect. I'll have to listen to it a couple more times.
-
Because the bit I quoted doesn't appear to fit that context.
How does it not fit a legal context? Why are you trying to change the context to a moral one?
And that is of no consequence?
Of course it's of consequence. But I'm saying that physical assault and rape, while being correlated, are two different phenomena. Someone who strangles someone or beats them up is guilty of that crime regardless of whether or not they committed rape at the same time.
-
That may be the case, though this bit doesn't fit: "that frees the man to have sex regardless of what she then says."
If he was simply explaining what the law should say, he should have said, "that frees the man from legal culpability, though not necessarily moral censure." His statement as it stands appears to give consent to men to continue on their way and force the woman to let him finish.
Why does he need to reestablish the context of his answer in the middle of it when the question was about a legal issue? Peikoff obviously considers rape to be immoral, so I don't see why it would be necessary for him to make such a statement.
Rape does not involve physical harm? Does a woman who is involved in non-consensual sex simply sit still, saying politely, "please stop"? No, she struggles to free herself, and any force preventing her from freeing herself is likely to cause physical harm.
Rape may involve physical harm. It also may not. State v Rusk is actually an excellent example of rape without any real physical harm; the harm was predominantly psychological.
-
It's important to maintain the context of his answer. I think it's pretty clear that he is talking about a legal context: that is, a woman should not be able to legally claim she has been the victim of rape when she declines at the last second after having presented a large amount of evidence that she did consent (if this were the case, it would be much too easy for women to claim that they had been raped arbitrarily in order to punish their former boyfriends or for some other reasons). Cases such as State v. Rusk (http://wings.buffalo.../web/mdrusk.htm) are evidence that it's not always easy to determine when rape has occurred, but it is very important to set strict limits on when rape can be claimed to have occurred, since it obviously can ruin a person's reputation.
Ninth Doctor/brian, notice that you completely changed the context by supposing examples where the woman was physically harmed. Physical abuse of that kind is illegal regardless of whether or not rape occurred.
Whether or not it would be immoral for a man to continue to have sex with a woman after she changed her mind about having sex in the middle of the process is not at issue, and is therefore not taken into consideration in Peikoff's answer.
Finally, regardless of whether you think Peikoff is correct, I advise anyone who thinks that consent can disappear "whenever the woman says so" should consider the implications of that view. That's something that a malicious woman could very easily take advantage of. So I think the broader context needs to be considered to establish whether or not consent is in fact present.
Tristan
- aequalsa, Prometheus98876 and Amaroq
-
3
-
I have been thinking about the concept of "love" for some time, and I would like to ask for your ideas on it. I love beauty, and I can fall in love with pretty much anything that reflects it, I think. Beauty attracts me.
My question is:
How does one fall in love? What is the experience really like? I guess I would like to know what your understanding of what love is. If you have fallen in love before (I think all of us might have at some point), how do you describe it, how do you put it into words? It is such a powerful emotion, that I think it cannot be expressed.
I also have hard time relating the concept of love to what Ayn Rand called "sense of life". I have read her books with great enjoyment, but I guess I do not know what the real life application of that would be like. If you have a relevant knowledge or experience to share, or give me any advice, or point me towards a direction so I can better understand "love", I would greatly appreciate it.
The following is my experience of it. But I should mention that I am relatively young and haven't been in that many relationships nor am I presenting this as a philosophic defense of a specific construal of the concept of love.
I am overcome with a desire to see her happy - but not just by any means. I want to see her happy in part by recognizing who I am and what I have achieved and deriving pleasure from that. I also experience a sense that when I am with her every aspect of my life has somehow been enhanced all at once. I think that's because I have someone with whom I feel I can share every triumph. This is also experienced I think in a form of "renewed strength" that I didn't have before, so to speak. There's a sense in which my motivation to succeed in my goals increases because everything seems more relevant and happiness seems more clearly possible in the moments I am with her - I suppose in a similar way whenever I experience great art.
-
But your emotional attachments to some individual (lets say) only exist as long as you do; it can't outlive its usefulness. The emotional attachment is useful in that you've formed it with someone who is good for your life and well-being. That attachment is to the person in general, and not just to them so long as you're around. The relationship is something more than a conscious trade of mutual values, some kind of mutual backscratching. It's a trader relationship in a much more metaphorical sense, in that you should only emotionally invest in someone who will be good for you in return, but the emotional investment itself isn't just in the aspects of the person that you can calculate will benefit you. You come to care about their well-being in general, and the rational thing to do at that point is to act on those values. Does that address your concern? It's definitely a tough question.
That's much clearer, thanks.
Tristan
-
The fundamental requirement of positive values is that they serve your life, meaning that the values that you choose and pursue should be beneficial to you on this earth. However, this does not necessitate an attitude of not caring what happens after you die. For example, if you have a romantic partner they should benefit your life (treat you well, make you happy, etc.), but it's perfectly rational that once you care about them and their well-being, you still care about their condition after you're gone. You should make your emotional investments in things and people that are good for you, but once you're invested it's natural and proper to care about the future of those things even after you're gone,
Allow me to take this a bit further and play devil's advocate for a moment. Why is it rational to care about what happens after you die? After all, you have no control over it one way or another, and you will not be there to experience the happiness or suffering that takes place in that time. Is it possible that it's a psychological aspect of humans that we have emotional attachments beyond when they are necessary or useful, and this would be an example of that?
Tristan
-
1. I'm not sure that it's always the case that heroin or meth is immediately addictive in the way that you imply. I think that might be the case with some people, but it depends on the dose of course and probably the person's constitution and predispositions. In any case, even if they were, that's not a reason to make those drugs illegal. It is a reason, I think, to make it illegal to sell them to minors, since we cannot assume that their rational faculties are fully developed such that they could make such a decision. You seem to imply that it is self-destructive for adults to take these drugs. I agree. It's also self-destructive (and irreversible) to buy a gun and shoot yourself in the face. Either way, though, the adult who did this act did so free from coercion by others, and politically speaking this is the only relevant factor.
2. I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is a violation of rights to mutilate one's child in such a way, regardless of the "justification" of religion or tradition. So, it is both immoral and should be illegal.
3. There may be reasons to abstain from eating meat that are entirely reasonable. Insofar as food preferences (within a range of course
) are morally optional, Objectivism has nothing to say about this. The important thing here is that animals don't have rights. Read "Man's Rights" by Ayn Rand for more clarification on whence rights come. That being said, in normal circumstances it makes sense, ceteris paribus, to minimize suffering, even in other animals. But naturally, minimizing pain to other animals can sometimes be at odds with human flourishing. In those cases it is obviously moral to go ahead and let the other animals suffer; humans are of much greater value to your life and other animals.4. There is no such clash. On the Objectivist view, volition consists of the primary choice to focus, so anything that affects secondary choices doesn't have anything to do with volition as such. Search elsewhere on the forums for more discussions on free will, there are some rather long ones.
5. I'll answer this question with another question: Why do you presume to make an employer's decision for him? By what right do you intend to exert force over employers in that way? Do you think that people have a "right" to a job? How can you reconcile that with the right to life and liberty? I believe your question and these questions are answered by a proper understanding of individual rights.
6. Since I think this question rests on a false conception of egoism, I suggest that you read Ayn Rand's collection of essays entitled "The Virtue of Selfishness". In actuality, there is no contradiction between being selfish and caring about others. Other people can and almost always do provide enormous value to our lives, not only in the form of friendships and romantic relationships, but economic relations as well. So, it can certainly be selfish to donate to charities to help others. The main point is that it isn't a primary virtue in the sense that giving to others isn't some sort of constant duty. Also, charities have nothing to do with the main defense of capitalism, which is rather based on the nature of man as a rational being. For more information on some of the implications of the Objectivist view of politics, read "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal".
7. The answer to all questions regarding negative externalities, such as the ones you mentioned, is based once again on the fundamental issue in politics: the protection of individual rights. To the extent that negative externalities damage individual property or individual lives, those producing them should be punished. The entire issue is solved with a proper and detailed application of property rights.
8. This isn't a question about Objectivism exactly, and different Objectivists may have different views on whether or not Iraq should have been invaded. One thing is clear, though: the government of the United States does not have an inherent duty to protect the lives of people living in other nations. It is of course moral if one can afford to do so to overthrow dictatorships and despotic regimes, because those regimes have basically given up their sovereignty by being unjust. My personal view is that the Iraq War wasn't a good idea because the net benefit to our country is less than the cost of the war. For more about duty, read "Causality Versus Duty" by Ayn Rand.
Tristan
-
The thread title instantly made me think of this song.
That was an interesting article. My main point of disagreement is with your claim that listening to the same song repeatedly causes it to lose meaning or makes it harder to appreciate the quality of it. There are songs, such as "Time" by Hans Zimmer, which I have listened to hundreds and hundreds of times and still I am amazed at how well produced it is, and how glorious it sounds.
Also, I think you might have mischaracterized "searching for shortcuts" as laziness. I don't think this is really laziness necessarily - it could certainly be accompanied by or motivated by laziness, but if someone is searching for shortcuts in order to do work more efficiently, that isn't laziness since being able to do work more efficiently means being able to do more work overall, or at least produce more value.
I thought you did a good job characterizing what you called the second kind of laziness, though.
Tristan
-
How to gain the use of violence? To know how to use violence in violence. As in, if someone attacks you, what is the best way to use violence against them in order to ensure your survival? Krav Maga? A pistol? A club? A karate class that you took when you were a child? Call a cop? What?
What is your most potent weapon in violence? Means just what it says. In what situation? In violence. As in, someone committing an act of violence on you and you have no choice but to use violence against on them -- or become a victim.
Only the minimum amount of force necessary to eradicate the threat should be used, otherwise you are just adding to the problem. So, all those different methods of violence can only be assessed as valid methods in context, and they should be judged by how effective they are in those contexts. For example, you don't use a pistol against a child who picked your pocket. But it might be proper to call the police in that circumstance.
In any case, if this discussion is shifting towards a discussion about what kinds of weapons to use in different situations, then it is no longer a discussion about Objectivism and probably shouldn't be in this part of the forum.
Tristan
-
You might find this somewhat helpful:
http://www.peikoff.com/2011/06/20/how-is-life-not-meaningless/
I think it's important to remember that the "purpose" or " meaning" of your life is not to be separated from what kind of being you are (a rational one) and the conditions in which you exist, and how you must act given those facts. You will find that to achieve long-term happiness, one needs to choose a productive purpose to pursue, because this will allow one to organize all of one's other values and give one's life a basic, solid structure.
A little more discussion on the above, here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/purpose.html
Finally, the source of values, which are the what gives rise to "meaning" in the context you are using it, is the fact that life is indeed conditional, and that death is possible. In other words, it is only to living beings that the concepts of purpose and meaning can apply (in the above sense, purpose only applies to humans, but other animals can have goals in the sense that they have needs that require action in order to be met). A rock or a drop of water or a dead tree branch cannot have values, there is no fundamental alternative that they are facing...their matter will continue to exist, but in different forms, whereas a bird or a bear or a human faces the alternative of existence or non-existence with each passing moment.
For discussion on that, read this: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics
I hope this helps.
Tristan
-
This type of thinking is not "rational" in the usual Objectivist sense of the term.
In certain contexts of knowledge, it can be rational to be a socialist. For example, imagine a man who lives in a feudal, mystic society and knows nothing about rational philosophy or politics. He somehow gets a copy of the works of Karl Marx and realizes that it is of a much higher caliber than the dogma he is taught at his church. Consequently, he is taken in by these arguments and becomes a Marxist. His behavior is rational up to this point. What is irrational is for him to evade the obvious problems that come with implementing these ideas (or attempting to explore their deeper implications, such as the absence of free will) and declare it a problem with reality rather than with his theory.
So, essentially, it is not irrational for a man to be a socialist at some stage of his intellectual development so long as he continues to engage with reality, which, of course, will lead him out of socialism.
I disagree with the validity of your example. It's not rational to "be taken in" by an argument just because it appears to be of a "higher caliber" than religious nonsense. That is basically emotionalism, if what you intended to say was that the man was greatly impressed by the arguments without understanding them. I do not think it is possible to be a true socialist who fully grasps the ideas involved while still being rational in that respect.
In any case, I want to add that I agree with your assessment of the contextual nature of rationality. One can be rational even in holding a mistaken belief at times given a specific context.
-
Additionally, when one sees the extraordinary mess and pain that individuals and entire societies endlessly repeat, the true culprit of anti-egoism starts becoming very clear. Rand, the ultimate egoist, had to be also an extremely caring person in my opinion - her brilliant mind could instantly access all that human tragedy, past, present, and future.
It's interesting that you seem to imply here that an egoist is not a caring person. Nothing could be further from the truth.
-
Any sense of altruism, though, is bad, even if it's not a sense of altruism to the fullest extent. Any and all Christians are altruistic to the extent they practice Christianity consistently, and egoistic to the extent they are capable of rationalizing their beliefs (I don't think I should put egoistic there, but I'm just pointing out that contradictory beliefs are easily possible).
I want to point out that rationalizing is definitely not egoistic or selfish because it only inhibits one's ability to reason properly and consistently.
-
As far as I understand, objectivism says that living according to altruism would not lead to personal happiness.
Do you think this can be countered by giving an example of a person that does believe in altrusim, but is happy? Or altruistic societies that are happy?
Or - this is a matter of principles, and no altruist _can_ be happy?
Think of it this way: if you are happy, and the purpose of the moral code you have accepted is to harm yourself and sacrifice yourself for the sake of others' well-being, then you are not practicing your code correctly or consistently. Pursuing happiness is entirely selfish.
-
I suppose that depends on how skilled you are at thievery, how likely you are to get caught,etc. And even if repeated thievery isn't a good long-term strategy, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be in one's self interest to steal if you are almost certain to get away with it.
There is no getting away from reality.
-
Is it moral to violate a voluntarily signed contract if the individual immidiately submits himself to the punishment layed out in the contract for not following through on the obligations? Is it moral for an individual to violate a contract he voluntarily signed if he believes part of the contract is immoral?
The answer to the latter is probably yes, though a concrete example would be nice. The former question is basically unanswerable until you provide context. Remember that morality is not concerned with hypotheticals occurring in a vacuum; morality is about what actions you choose to take in your life and for what reasons you take them. It doesn't make sense to sign a contract and then immediately violate it afterward for no reason; something would presumably inspire someone to take such a course of action.
-
But since individuals hpossess different levels of knowledge, and it is rational to base our choices on knowledge, is it right to say that a choice which is moral for one individual is not necassarilly moral for another person in the same situation?
It's also important to remember that different people have different goals in their lives (and these could themselves all be equally moral), which is an important factor in determining how to act. Basically, the question (in very broad terms) that each person must ask themselves before making a choice is "Is this a sacrifice, or a profit?". It doesn't make sense to draw from this, as your friend did, that morality is not absolute. Morality is merely contextual, and to divorce it from context is to divorce it from reality.
-
Yeah, weak foundationalism is a pretty jarring epistemology to someone steeped in classical foundationalism. "What?? You mean to say that all knowledge doesn't reduce tidily to self evident axioms?? You mean to say that there is no simple way to settle disagreements??" Yes. Yes, I do.
I realize you think this, but I am asking you, that if you claim that people are justified in believing things just because things seem that way to them, then why are you even arguing about anything? Are you trying to change the way things "seem" to us? But even if you were, if we already have a way of interpreting what you say according to what "seems" to be true, what makes you think you could get a point across?
The referents for justification would be the beliefs that seem true. It's easy.
Okay, then give me the standard by which a belief can be said to "seem true".
-
Then, on weak foundationalism, you would be justified in believing that weak foundationalism is false. I see no problem here.
The problem is precisely that if there is no criterion by which one is justified with respect to propositions other than what things seem like to certain people, it just brings us back to our original point of disagreement with no real way of being sure whether or not our beliefs have anything to do with reality and to what degree. If you reject the possibility of certain knowledge entirely, then that is another issue, but I am assuming that this is not the case.
Simply put: that epistemological view essentially says, you are justified in believing something if you think that you are justified. And this means that we have no real referent for the concept of justification; i.e., it is meaningless.
-
Finally, I'd point out that science arose within a Christian context.
Aristotle brought about the first philosophic foundations necessary for science to succeed with his views of causality and identity. And he was not Christian.
-
Therefore we have to back off from this epistemology. I suggest that it is more reasonable to adopt weak foundationalism, on which a claim can rationally be accepted under less stringent criteria than those which Rand laid down. For example, Swinburne's weak foundationalism suggests that a belief can rationally be accepted if it simply seems true to the agent. On Swinburne's epistemology, we then weave together these beliefs which seem true into worldviews as best we can as the evidence comes in.
And if I held the belief that weak foundationalism was wrong because it seemed to not be true, what then? Such an "epistemology" leads us nowhere.
-
"Time" by Hans Zimmer is amazing, it's on the Inception soundtrack. It really captures my sense of life. It sounds like something that should go with Atlas Shrugged.
-
Would it be proper for, for example, throwing out the current administration using force and, in its place, have a non-elected Objectivist "dictator" that would not violate the rights of anyone?
This scenario is nonsensical. A non-elected leader has already violated rights; if he was not elected, I assume you mean he took power by force. And why would an Objectivist want to be a dictator? As 2046 said, the system of government itself would contradict his political principles. Anyway, we are not yet at the stage where it is proper to throw out the current government by force; however, that may be proper at some later stage if it develops into a full dictatorship where it is literally impossible to live a rational life.
Checking Premises . ORG Statements and My Position
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted
Diana, I was wondering, why do you continue to respond to Thomas Miovas's injudicious remarks about your views and statements? Is it because you think that to fail to do so would be to imply that what he is saying is accurate? But surely you don't think that is true - and yet I can't imagine Thomas having much sway over would-be followers of your blog either. Why isn't the right thing to do in this case to completely ignore him? You have yourself just said that he is dishonest, so why does he or his thread still warrant your attention?