Choosing life

[aequalsa]

P. 933 onwards. I find that her method of presentation is particularly revealing of her philosophy. She starts with the most basic and axiomatic facts -- starting with the fact that existence exists, adding the fact of grasping that statement which implies that a being with perceptual consciousness exists. See especially p. 936: "My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these." The choice to live is not derived from something else.

But how do you know existence exists? Just kidding of course. I think you've got it. I haven't driven this point home well enough. Some things seem so basic that it is easy to gloss over them in conversation. Like taking it for granted that things exist.

Thanks for the help.

[adrock3215]

The choice to live is not derived from something else.

In better words: The choice to live is not derived.

[Marc K.]

The problem generally rotates around the non-existence of good and evil. That "good" in objectivism is pro-life and evil promotes death. He argues, essentially, that there are no objective grounds for choosing life as the standard of good and to designate life enhancing actions as "good" begs the question.

It sounds to me as if you first need to convince him that the concept "good" is objectively definable. That "the good" exists apart from human choice. That the very concept applies only to one class of entities and that it has no meaning apart from those entities. That inanimate matter faces no alternative in its existence, that is seeks no goals, that it cannot act for or against its existence and that therefore the concept doesn't apply to it.

Once you show him the proof that "the good" is a concept that exists in nature it should be much easier to convince him that it applies to humans as well.