Highest Value

[Jake_Ellison]

"A value is a something one needs, of a given importance, in order to achieve a purpose."

This begs the question. "[O]f a given importance" is a relative term. My original question (in essence) was can someone give a higher value to the life of another and still be rational? Making their purpose not their own survival but the survival of someone else their highest value.

I agree, values are relative to the their importance to the purpose. Absolutely. However, you do not give these values a grade, depending on their importance, you merely identify their importance (rationally, hopefully), in relation to(relative to) your goal. As far as changing the ultimate purpose from it being your own life, my answer is twofold:

1. Objectivism doesn't speak to how to go about doing that. Nor have I ever heard of anyone else who did, and stayed alive to tell the tale.

2. The nature of a human being doesn't allow for that: Ayn Rand holds that man not only "ought to be" an ethical creature, but in fact "is" one. Man cannot exist by negating all of these values: "...the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life."(Ayn Rand)

In conclusion, such are the facts of reality, that what you're suggesting cannot be done. For details, read "The Virtue of Selfishness", I can't go into this any further now.(it would require me to re-read the book, which I don't have time for now)

Oh, I just saw Zip's link. I guess we are in agreement, according to the first paragraph of that article. Relinquishing one's values-as Ayn Rand describes them- means choosing death.

Moral perfection is the total relinquishment of your survival instincts. It is the relinquishment of self. People who sacrifice their lives for others have therefore engaged in moral perfection. In other words, a conscious decision to totally relinquish self or your survival instincts which resulted in your death would be an “absolute” of this principle. This is exemplified by Jesus’ willingness to die for others.

For some reason, the author of that article chose death, but apparently now he doesn't have the courage to go through with it. To answer your question about rationality, I'd say no, the explanation he gives for his choice is not a rational one, since it bears no relation to reality: Jesus did not die for others. He was killed by roman cops, because he piped up.(even if the story were to be believed)

Since he is clearly unable to go through with his choice to sacrifice his life, but continues to hold on to his beliefs, the author of that article is continuously evading the reality of his own nature: as a result, I see a lot of moral anguish and unhappiness in his future.

This is rather circular. You are supporting a belief that the highest value must be your life by saying that if you're dead you no longer have choices. Nevertheless, the act of saving another human by sacrificing you life is a choice. The question is, again, is that an irrational choice form an objectivist standpoint?

That depends on the reason why you are making that choice. If you reach a rational conclusion that your life could not go on without that person, than choosing death is perfectly rational, and not a sacrifice, because you're all out of options anyway: there are no values or purpose to live by anymore.

However, if that is not the case, and you're sacrificing yourself for a product of imagination, like God, or a Socialist Utopia, then you're acting against your nature: you are evading reality. That is by definition irrational.

At the moment one decides to die for another the purpose is to save another. There's no paradox in that. And I'm pretty sure at that moment the value was shifted from one's survival to the survival of another.

Values presupposes choices. There aren't any alternatives, death is the only choice (either now, or months later, when life is meaningless without your loved one), so there are no values.

I think your main problem, at this point, is that you don't fully understand the psychological implications of values, the role of emotions and the subconscious in denying or attaining them etc., and as a result you can't appreciate the consequences of trying to replace them all at once.

Try this:Edwin Locke: Objectivist Perspective on Psychology

Edited December 30, 2008 by Jake_Ellison

[amosknows]

Now I know where you are coming from. http://www.amosknows.com/2008/on-moral-perfection/

Believe it or not, I have a lot of beliefs (many) similar to Objectivism. I am here to have my beliefs challenged by learning from you - the only way for me to do that is to fully understand what I might think are some shortcomings of Objectivism from your point of view. I am not challenging your beliefs, I am simply questioning the substance of the philosophy.

If you could keep your responses substantive than I could possibly learn your point of view.

Judgmental posts like this aren't helping. Intolerance of beliefs is not only a sure way to alienate potential converts, it's a barricade to the truth.

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it" - Ayn Rand

[hunterrose]

If a truck was coming down the road high speed and you needed to jump in front of that truck and die to save [your children], and you had three minutes to decide, would you jump and die? If you did this I believe the value of your life is actually secondary to the value of their lives.

I wouldn't say that. Does dining at Burger King mean a religionist ultimately puts eating food over doing god's will? If not, then what's the difference?

[amosknows]

I SAID:

If a truck was coming down the road high speed and you needed to jump in front of that truck and die to save [your children], and you had three minutes to decide, would you jump and die? If you did this I believe the value of your life is actually secondary to the value of their lives.

YOUS AID: I wouldn't say that. Does dining at Burger King mean a religionist ultimately puts eating food over doing god's will? If not, then what's the difference?

I don't' understand the comparison. I'm not sure what "god's will" is. Nor how you are defining it. Are you trying to suggest it's is "god's will" that people don't eat? If you are than your statement might make some sense. But even then, I certainly don't think eating in lieu of an intangible value (god's will) is the same thing as consciously sacrificing your life for a tangible value (the life for another). In fact, depending on how you define "god's will", there may not even be a relationship such that your statement makes any sense.

I wonder how you brought god in to a philosophical discussion involving conscious choice? But I suspect inert prejudice is the inciting factor. That and the fact that you don't' really have a substantive answer. Nevertheless, I think you're trying to say that the parent's highest value in my example can be your life and you can still sacrifice your life for your children. Just like a religious person could eat and still leave god's will's as their highest value. If that's the case, your comparison is at worst, undefined and nonsensical and your conclusion at best Paradoxical.

[amosknows]

This is a mistaken conclusion -- you have misidentified his highest value, and BTW this is one of the reasons why I have suggested that you actually read Rand's writing. Such so-called sacrifice is a recognition that because of the metaphysically-given circumstances, it is no longer possible to pursue values. Life is not simply "pure existence", existence is identity. To live means to live as something. To live as a marine has a specific meaning. Unfortunately, what that means can render life absolutely thwarted by the facts. Turning tail and running in battle is not just "questionable", it is a complete repudiation of your life. When life is not possible, there is no issue of "what's the best choice". You can apply this to the spousal-risk question equally; see "The Ethics of Emergencies".

I'll take a look at your reference when I get a chance - thanks!

[Zip]

Believe it or not, I have a lot of beliefs (many) similar to Objectivism. I am here to have my beliefs challenged by learning from you - the only way for me to do that is to fully understand what I might think are some shortcomings of Objectivism from your point of view. I am not challenging your beliefs, I am simply questioning the substance of the philosophy.

If you could keep your responses substantive than I could possibly learn your point of view.

Judgmental posts like this aren't helping. Intolerance of beliefs is not only a sure way to alienate potential converts, it's a barricade to the truth.

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it" - Ayn Rand

You have misunderstood me. I need to know where you are coming from in order to better argue my points and to challenge your assumptions about Objectivism. It's a military maxim to "know your enemy" but I don't just use that ideal with enemies, I use it with everyone. Sometimes things/attitudes/actions that make no sense at first glance become perfectly sensible when a small piece of information is understood.

I literally wanted to know where you stood in your mind. I read your post about the welcome you received on that other O'ist site, you haven't been treated that way here and you won't be if you do not make a troll of yourself or refuse to have an open reasonable mind.

"the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error" J.S. Mill

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Now I know where you are coming from. http://www.amosknows.com/2008/on-moral-perfection/

From that website:

"In any attempt to guide yourself toward moral perfection you must therefore eliminate your own personal needs, wants and desires and begin to minimally think about how your actions are affecting other human beings. Most people operate in, or are tipped toward, their survival programming - allowing it to dominate their actions."

Objectivism rejects this view of morality entirely, and considers it to be evil. One's own life ought to be considered one's own highest value, and living for others means that one is a slave to them, which Objectivism rejects. It is your ideal of moral perfection that we reject; and it is your perspective of thinking like an altruist (living for others) that makes it difficult for you to understand why it is that the possibility of saving a value means that at times it is necessary to risk one's life to preserve it. In the case of someone running into a building to save a loved one, under Objectivism the motivation is not to live for that other person, but rather to live for oneself and to at least make the attempt to save the loved one for one's own personal pleasure of having that loved one in his life. He would not become a slave of the loved one, but he would willingly put his life in danger, if need be, to preserve that loved one.

However, as someone else has pointed out, Objectivism is not like the Law of Gravity that operates on everyone regardless of their choices. Being self-righteously selfish must be chosen as the moral ideal, it is not something that happens by natural law acting on the person. We reject self-sacrifice as an ideal fully and consciously, by our own choice -- the choice to live as a human being and not as someone else's chattel or slave.

[DavidOdden]

Judgmental posts like this aren't helping. Intolerance of beliefs is not only a sure way to alienate potential converts, it's a barricade to the truth.

To begin with, indiscriminate "helping" is a vice and not a virtue. In fact, judging is a virtuous action and tolerance of the intolerable is a vice. Your only rational defense would be that a judgment was in error, not that judgment is evil. Now looking at the content of what Zip said -- "Now I know where you are coming from" with a link to your bloggy thing -- there is no discernible judgment being pronounced. It is a statement of fact, and an actually accurate and helpful one to boot. It is actually useful to understand your epistemology and prior conduct (as exhibited on your blog), so that one can be aware of whatever false assumptions you are making, as well as getting a clue what your purpose is. For example, right upfront on the home page you say that "rational thought is simply the ability to turn off instinctual programming". But this is clearly false, since man does not have instinctual programming, so there is nothing to turn off. You seems to be conflating long-term evolutionary processes with actual facts about man, for example the long-term fact that man descended from a species of primate lacking a rational faculty, one that was an instinctual animal, but that does not imply that man has this same identity. It is thus very helpful to be able to know of these beliefs of yours, because that knowledge may reduce the factor.

In order to productively argue with you, a rational man needs to know what level of precision you employ in your epistemology.

[RationalBiker]

But I suspect inert prejudice is the inciting factor. That and the fact that you don't' really have a substantive answer.

You've divined that from a single two sentence post? And you have already concluded as FACT that he does not have a substantive answer? I have to wonder how much amosknows if his suspicions and "knowledge" come so easily with so little information. You started with a good argument against his response and then followed up with a bunch of unnecessary tripe based on very, very scant information.

You might consider looking a little more into this user's contributions to this site before assuming such a disconnected leap of judgment. After all, one could easily make a smaller leap of judgment by your response which suggests you are overly defensive that someone might be ridiculing religious beliefs.

In order to productively argue with you, a rational man needs to know what level of precision you employ in your epistemology.

Judging from his response to hunterrose, that level would be "not much".

[hunterrose]

I wonder how you brought god in to a philosophical discussion involving conscious choice? But I suspect inert prejudice is the inciting factor. That and the fact that you don't' really have a substantive answer.

Asking is better than assumptions. If you could keep your responses substantive then I could possibly learn from your point of view.

I think you're trying to say that the parent's highest value in my example can be your life and you can still sacrifice your life for your children. Just like a religious person could eat and still leave god's will's as their highest value. If that's the case, your comparison is at worst, undefined and nonsensical and your conclusion at best Paradoxical.

And yet you keep speaking of paradoxes without defining or making sense of what the supposed paradox is.

Why would a person whose highest value is his own life be acting in a "paradoxical" manner if he dies trying to save his children??

Namely, is any case of taking one's life similarly paradoxical? Or taking your kids to the hospital when you need the money to take care of your own health? Or going off to war?

Since you haven't stated from what principles you derive your paradox, it's thankless guesswork figuring out a relationship such that your paradox statement makes any sense.

You wouldn't know it, but a lot of strange folks come here with "an honest question." It's hard to know just how sincere they are, but the firebrands tend to give themselves away by not explaining their rationale and the way they react when they are asked questions.

At the moment one decides to die for another the purpose is to save another. There's no paradox in that. And I'm pretty sure at that moment the value was shifted from one's survival to the survival of another.

I don't think anyone who frequents this forum would agree with that. One's physical survival is only a subset of everything that encompasses one's life. Acting to keep any of those things that encompass one's life is not a shift in purpose.

Is it your belief that one's physical survival ought to trump everything else that in one's life, or is that rather your interpretation of Objectivism?

[Zip]

Is it your belief that one's physical survival ought to trump everything else that in one's life, or is that rather your interpretation of Objectivism?

Actually if you read from the link I provided he states, and therefore one would assume believes, that the complete and utter relinquishment of self, resulting in ones physical death aught to trump everything else in order for moral perfection to be reached.

[RationalBiker]

Is it your belief that one's physical survival ought to trump everything else that in one's life, or is that rather your interpretation of Objectivism?

I addressed this with him before and he appears to have ignored that post. Good luck.

[amosknows]

Asking is better than assumptions. If you could keep your responses substantive then I could possibly learn from your point of view.

And yet you keep speaking of paradoxes without defining or making sense of what the supposed paradox is.

Why would a person whose highest value is his own life be acting in a "paradoxical" manner if he dies trying to save his children??

Namely, is any case of taking one's life similarly paradoxical? Or taking your kids to the hospital when you need the money to take care of your own health? Or going off to war?

Since you haven't stated from what principles you derive your paradox, it's thankless guesswork figuring out a relationship such that your paradox statement makes any sense.

You wouldn't know it, but a lot of strange folks come here with "an honest question." It's hard to know just how sincere they are, but the firebrands tend to give themselves away by not explaining their rationale and the way they react when they are asked questions.

I don't think anyone who frequents this forum would agree with that. One's physical survival is only a subset of everything that encompasses one's life. Acting to keep any of those things that encompass one's life is not a shift in purpose.

Is it your belief that one's physical survival ought to trump everything else that in one's life, or is that rather your interpretation of Objectivism?

RECAP:

I am not trying to refute anything - I am asking objectivists to explain something to me. I gave the specific examples of the marine on the grenade and of a pregnant woman going in to a burning building to save a stranger - both are risking their survival and their lives (highest values) for something that should have no meaning (more so in the case of the pregnant woman who attempts to save a stranger).

I have asked repeatedly for someone to explain these scenarios in the context of objectivism. Numerous questions arise from either scenario. Are they irrational? Are they emotional? Is there highest value simply not their own life? If not than are they misguided? Are they not objectivists in any sense of the word - if not what are they? Don't they have their life as the highest value by default? If not, why not? For the life of me, an attempt to actually engage in some meaningful examination of these hypothetical scenarios.

I have even rephrased the question in a follow up post:

There was a marine who jumped on a grenade to save his fellow marines. Under your definition, his value was a need to save his fellow marines, of an importance greater than his own safety and survival, in order to save them (achieve a purpose). From an objectivist standpoint was his behavior insane? Irrational? Illogical? And if any of the foregoing, why?

No on has answered any of these questions.

SYNOPSIS OF ANSWERS:

(1) Multiple Posters: If I save my children this is actually selfish since I don't want to live without them (ignoring the fact that the marine dies and the pregnant woman dies for someone other than their children and the pregnant woman dies for someone whose life should have no value to her).

(2) The pregnant woman was ignorant of objectivism (ignoring the fact that we are discussing her behavior and the rational component of her behavior and not her beliefs).

(3) One can risk their life to pursue values (other people's lives) which are important to them (ignoring the fact that the pregnant woman doesn't know the person she is saving and could not value their life from a selfish point of view)

(4) It's not possible for someone to value the life of another more than their own (without further explanation of why someone would).

(5) We need to ask the marine what his motivation was (why do we need to ask the marine about his motivation to address his behavior in the context of objectivist beliefs?)

(6) You have misidentified the highest value of the marine (and I assume the pregnant woman). His highest value is "who he is" and that requires he act accordingly (I read "The Ethics of Emergencies" - very interesting. Thank you.)

(7) Objectivism is not an absolute but only something to "guide" one's behavior. And that people are then left to pick whether they want to be rational, emotional or something else (this is another one of those left turns - we went from examining the "highest vale" (survival) to the functionality of the philosophy itself among its supporters).

(8) Why do this? (A question asked of me in a part of the forum called "Questions about Objectivism")

Rand herself said:

"A rational man is guided by his thinking – by a process of Reason – not by his feelings and desires."

Anyone here could have simply said the pregnant woman was begin emotional and therefore irrational by risking her life and her babies for the life of a stranger. That would have been a good starting place for some further discussion about why she would behave irrationally and (I believe) an intellectually truthful and acceptable answer.

Rand also said:

"Sacrifice" is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue"

"The rational principle of conduct is the exact opposite: always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one."

While ignoring the cause, and the severity of the sacrifice, this would have been an excellent answer. This could have lead to many other interesting questions - like was it moral therefore for the pregnant woman to let the burning stranger die? Why would she behave irrationally for 9of all people) a stranger? We may have actually had a worthwhile thread at that point.

Instead, of any of those answers, I have gotten an examination of (and questions about) my beliefs. My personal beliefs have nothing to do with answering questions and examining the meaning of "highest value" in the context of a hypothetical under the philosophy of ojectivism. Do you also want to know what color pants I am wearing? Perhaps what I like to eat? That examinations and those questions are intellectually dishonest.

TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS:

(1) It's a paradox from an objectivist point of view that a pregnant woman would die to save a stranger because her behavior would be in opposition to her highest and higher values. And when I say this I assume (quite logically) one of her higher values would not only be her life but the life of her baby. If that's the case - how would an objectivist explain her behavior (this has been one of my questions all along).

(2) My interpretation of objectivism is that humans should never sacrifice anything in lieu of their own individual survival. This would seem to suggest that the value of your life should not (perhaps) trump everything else, but certainly should trump the life of a stranger...

[amosknows]

From that website:

"In any attempt to guide yourself toward moral perfection you must therefore eliminate your own personal needs, wants and desires and begin to minimally think about how your actions are affecting other human beings. Most people operate in, or are tipped toward, their survival programming - allowing it to dominate their actions."

Objectivism rejects this view of morality entirely, and considers it to be evil. One's own life ought to be considered one's own highest value, and living for others means that one is a slave to them, which Objectivism rejects. It is your ideal of moral perfection that we reject; and it is your perspective of thinking like an altruist (living for others) that makes it difficult for you to understand why it is that the possibility of saving a value means that at times it is necessary to risk one's life to preserve it. In the case of someone running into a building to save a loved one, under Objectivism the motivation is not to live for that other person, but rather to live for oneself and to at least make the attempt to save the loved one for one's own personal pleasure of having that loved one in his life. He would not become a slave of the loved one, but he would willingly put his life in danger, if need be, to preserve that loved one.

However, as someone else has pointed out, Objectivism is not like the Law of Gravity that operates on everyone regardless of their choices. Being self-righteously selfish must be chosen as the moral ideal, it is not something that happens by natural law acting on the person. We reject self-sacrifice as an ideal fully and consciously, by our own choice -- the choice to live as a human being and not as someone else's chattel or slave.

I was clear on all the differences in various moral and ethical philosophies before you posted this. But then my question has never had anything to do with my beliefs and my inability to understand. Nor on your assumption (and ridiculous idea) that I "think like an altruist" (whatever than means). There are a lot of pizza makers who never eat pizza.

One of my questions was specifically what motivates a pregnant woman to run in to a burning building and forfeit her highest value (her life) and a seeming high value (the life of her baby) to save a stranger? Not a loved one (I understand the arguments concerning loved one) - a stranger. Any answer?

Also since you added a few caveats:

How does saving the stranger equate to "living for others" or make the pregnant woman a "slave" or "chattel" when she dies saving him?

How does the pregnant woman save an important "value" she may have when the value of the stranger should be so far down on her value hierarchy that his life shouldn't even matter? Or Why would she save him?

In your argument you seem to suggest that it's perfectly okay to sacrifice your highest value for a lesser value - Ayn Rand disagrees. Can you explain this?

If it's evil to sacrifice your life (your highest value) for another, is it therefore moral for the pregnant woman to watch the stranger burn to death if there is so much as a 1% chance that she will die?

If she nevertheless has some moral duty to act to a limit of risk (as "The Ethics Of Emergencies" seems to suggest), how can she determine the actual danger such that she can make a rational (and moral?) decision? What is the limit of risk that she should be guided by to make the decision of whether or not she should go in to the burning building? 2% risk? 4%? 50%? And, is such a thought process (in these or other circumstances) even possible?

[Ifat Glassman]

Question:

Is it possible for someone to values another life more than their own. By way of a specific example, their child. And, if they value the life of their child more than their own, wouldn't that make their highest value another life?

Some Examples:

Mother Sacrifices Herself For Unborn Baby

I think you are ignoring the question "why does she choose so?". A single action can have several meanings. Without knowing the motivation behind it it's not always possible to judge if something was a sacrifice or not.

In this case the mother could have wanted a baby for years, for her it is such a big value, and nothing else good enough exists in her life, that she prefers dying knowing her baby will live rather than live without her baby. In such a case it's not a sacrifice. But if she chose to give birth to the baby and die because she thinks it is her moral duty to sacrifice, and even though she can be happy without that baby in her life she still chooses to die - it is a sacrifice.

Second point: When Ayn Rand says that the highest value is life for all living organisms, she is talking about a metaphysical level, about the most basic level of the nature of living organisms (including man). "Highest value" in this sense does not mean that someone has chosen their survival as the most important thing to them. It means that in nature, life acts to preserve itself- that all aspects of an organism serve a goal - continuation of life. So in this sense "life is the highest value".

Hope it helped.

[bluey]

In this case the mother could have wanted a baby for years, for her it is such a big value, and nothing else good enough exists in her life, that she prefers dying knowing her baby will live rather than live without her baby. In such a case it's not a sacrifice. But if she chose to give birth to the baby and die because she thinks it is her moral duty to sacrifice, and even though she can be happy without that baby in her life she still chooses to die - it is a sacrifice.

I wonder about this. I saw Ayn Rand's appearance on Donahue (it's on youtube) that took place shortly after the death of her husband, where at the end the host mentions his death and she acknowledges that she's in pain and has lost her highest value, etc. I know that at other times she talked about how she would kill and even die for him, if it came to that. On the show, she says a couple of times something along the lines of "but I'll be okay" or "but it's alright, I'll grieve but I'll be fine". She also said that if she thought for a moment that there was the slightest chance that she could be with him again on the other side, she'd kill herself in a heartbeat (paraphrase) and that makes sense, but of course that would change the whole nature of dying and it would be a different scenario.

I think I know what she means and it leads me to question how you really could decide that someone else's life has a higher value to you than your own, as opposed to valuing them because you value yourself. For example my best friend and her husband have been trying to have a baby for a while and I know that when they eventually do, it will have that sort of value to my friend and she would already rather die than have anything happen to it (that will probably make more sense to the mothers out there than it does to me). But at the same time, whatever happens you know "it'll be okay", as long as the world you live in remains the same you'll have all the same, if perhaps "lesser" values that you had before the person was born or you met them and you were happy then, right? I guess my question is, if there was a person who had such a high value to you, how could you possibly decide that you'd rather die than lose that value knowing that, if you did lose them, you'd eventually be okay and life would go on? I mean, wouldn't just the fact that they existed in the world in the first place and that you'll always know it be ... not enough to make up for the loss, of course, but at least enough to tell you that you've grasped that value and that even their death couldn't really take it from you? I can only really understand it under circumstances where the alternative is that you lose them to evil and you'd rather die than watch your embodiment of all the good in the world be destroyed by the whim of lousy, slimy scum that doesn't deserve the time of day. That, I can see. But that isn't the same as dying so that your baby won't die of natural causes or destroying yourself in a futile effort against disease or wasting away after the death of a loved one. Is it?

[DavidOdden]

No on has answered any of these questions.

I have answered your question. It is one thing to not acknowledge the fact that your questions have been answered, but another to continue to deny that you have been given an answer.

[bluey]

Amos,

In rereading the entire thread I think my last post was a little off topic, or at least it didn't really attempt to answer your question. So I'm going to try to.

You're asking us to explain how, in a world that operates the way Ayn Rand described it and where Objectivist principles hold true (and therefore are true for everyone, whether they know it or not), examples like the pregnant woman and the marine can possibly happen. I mean, if people are rational beings and the rational thing to do is not sacrifice yourself for strangers, then isn't there something very strange about the fact that these examples can exist?

People are really answering your question when they say that Objectivist ethics don't shed any light whatsoever on these situations and that it's unreasonable of you to expect them to, but I think I can see where you're confused. Take the pregnant lady for example. What would motivate her to sacrifice herself and her children for a total stranger? The answer is, damned if I know but it sure wasn't Objectivism Ethics is a very different branch of philosophy than epistimology and with a very different purpose. If your epistimology (your conclusions about what the world is and how it works and what you are and how and whether you can know it) is screwy, then your ethics (your concrete, personal decisions about what your purpose is and how you'll acheive it - this can only follow from an epistimological foundation, for reasons that I think are somewhat obvious so I won't explain them unless I'm asked to) is bound to be screwy as well. How could it not be? If I were to guess, I'd say that the pregnant woman has some view of life that leads her believe that every individual human is of equal value, probably to God or possibly just intrinsically or something, and that she should value what God (or whatever) values and therefore view individual humans as fundamentally interchangeable, and tied in with those beliefs is usually the idea that humility is a virtue and self-sacrifice is heroic. And then she went and destroyed herself as a result of these beliefs and I would say that yes, her death was meaningless, evil and essentially tragic simply because her premises were false. You might ask how a supposedly rational being can hold such supposedly irrational premises. The answer is simply that she decided to. At some point in her life she decided to accept a particular view of the world and run with it, and maybe it really made sense to her in the sense that it explained well enough everything that she happened to be curious about, but it was still actually wrong and, if you've read enough Rand to understand her epistimology then you'll understand how it was wrong. Reality is only sort of obvious; people are the sorts of beings who can decide to do whatever they want, and if all you look at when you wonder about the world is people then you're not necessarily going to catch any reflection of reality in their actions. Unless you happen to run into some people who hold and act on rational premises, but if you'd done that you wouldn't be here.

Of course I have no way of actually knowing what motivated the woman to do that, that's just a guess based on the people I've known who would probably make a similar decision. Objectivist ethics can't explain why a non-Objectivist would act a certain way. However, Objectivist epistimology does explain how it's possible for a fundamentally rational being to hold fundamentally unrational beliefs and act on them: free will and no such thing as human instinct and all that jazz that's already been covered in this thread.

Hope that helps

[Zip]

RECAP:

I am not trying to refute anything - I am asking objectivists to explain something to me. I gave the specific examples of the marine on the grenade and of a pregnant woman going in to a burning building to save a stranger - both are risking their survival and their lives (highest values) for something that should have no meaning (more so in the case of the pregnant woman who attempts to save a stranger).

And you have been asked for the context. No one here can tell you why without the context of those actions.

I have asked repeatedly for someone to explain these scenarios in the context of objectivism. Numerous questions arise from either scenario. Are they irrational? Are they emotional? Is there highest value simply not their own life? If not than are they misguided? Are they not objectivists in any sense of the word - if not what are they? Don't they have their life as the highest value by default? If not, why not? For the life of me, an attempt to actually engage in some meaningful examination of these hypothetical scenarios.

Meaningful examination is not possible without context.

Yesterday I stopped when I was walking and bent over for a moment and then continued walking... Discuss please!

I have even rephrased the question in a follow up post:

There was a marine who jumped on a grenade to save his fellow marines. Under your definition, his value was a need to save his fellow marines, of an importance greater than his own safety and survival, in order to save them (achieve a purpose). From an objectivist standpoint was his behavior insane? Irrational? Illogical? And if any of the foregoing, why?

No on has answered any of these questions.

Wrong, again,I answered that without knowing what the Marine was thinking I would be impossible to know "why" at best you would get useless speculation.

Just because you didn't like the answer doesn't mean one wasn't given.

LOL,

No on has answered any of these questions.

But the very next line is

SYNOPSIS OF ANSWERS:

Nope no answers at all

(1) Multiple Posters: If I save my children this is actually selfish since I don't want to live without them (ignoring the fact that the marine dies and the pregnant woman dies for someone other than their children and the pregnant woman dies for someone whose life should have no value to her).

I'd like to introduce you to a concept called the "example", children and spouses are examples of people whom we value enough to risk our own lives. Again, as I stated before no one MUST live by Objectivist ideals, they are a choice just like you can choose to live as a Deist or nhilist. You can (and many do) turn off your brain and sacrifice yourself, it doesn't make it right and it doesn't nullify Objectivism as a philosophy if you do.

(2) The pregnant woman was ignorant of objectivism (ignoring the fact that we are discussing her behavior and the rational component of her behavior and not her beliefs).

(3) One can risk their life to pursue values (other people's lives) which are important to them (ignoring the fact that the pregnant woman doesn't know the person she is saving and could not value their life from a selfish point of view)

Reason is a choice we make as human beings, the ultimate end of irrational action is death, that doesn't mean no one will choose to be irrational. The Woman may have been completely irrational or she may have had another reason for entering the building. Who knows, there's that pesky context thing again.

I know it'd be so much easier if we could just play along with your hypothetical game where you can control the situation and manipulate the situation to fit your conclusions but guess what, we are going to keep coming back to context.

(4) It's not possible for someone to value the life of another more than their own (without further explanation of why someone would).

This is incorrect, of course it is possible, but not to an Objectivist... Context. Why would someone? Again, why did I bend over while walking yesterday? Context.

(5) We need to ask the marine what his motivation was (why do we need to ask the marine about his motivation to address his behavior in the context of objectivist beliefs?)

Because Objectivist beliefs are not a commandment, this is not a religion every action and reaction must be viewed in the context of the situation. We could discuss another fuzzy hypothetical but IT DOESN'T MATTER A BIT WITHOUT CONTEXT!!!

(6) You have misidentified the highest value of the marine (and I assume the pregnant woman). His highest value is "who he is" and that requires he act accordingly (I read "The Ethics of Emergencies" - very interesting. Thank you.)

No! The Marine and the Pregnant woman are not interchangeable any more than you and I are! One might be acting rationally and one may not. Choice, context!

(7) Objectivism is not an absolute but only something to "guide" one's behavior. And that people are then left to pick whether they want to be rational, emotional or something else (this is another one of those left turns - we went from examining the "highest vale" (survival) to the functionality of the philosophy itself among its supporters).

You can choose to apply Objectivist ideals in your life or you can choose not to. There is no left turn here, the highest value of an Objectivist is his own life, but that does not mean that EVERYONE believes that or will abide by those ideals. Really, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

(8) Why do this? (A question asked of me in a part of the forum called "Questions about Objectivism")

Yes. Why use ill defined hypotheticals to try to get at Objectivist Ideals? I know the answer, the hypothetical is something you can manipulate, for every answer you are given you can modify the situation to create a circular or labyrinthine argument without end. It's a kind of intellectual dishonesty the people here have seen before, that is why your "questions" provoked more questions. Context.

TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS:

(1) It's a paradox from an objectivist point of view that a pregnant woman would die to save a stranger because her behavior would be in opposition to her highest and higher values.

It's not a paradox it is quite easily explained by the supposition that the woman was not an Objectivist and did not hold her own life, or the life of her fetus in higher regard than some stranger.

And when I say this I assume (quite logically) one of her higher values would not only be her life but the life of her baby. If that's the case - how would an objectivist explain her behavior (this has been one of my questions all along).

It's been explained all along. Choice! Context!

(2) My interpretation of objectivism is that humans should never sacrifice anything in lieu of their own individual survival. This would seem to suggest that the value of your life should not (perhaps) trump everything else, but certainly should trump the life of a stranger...

Objectivists do not view "survival" as being the same as "life". One might be able some day to survive as a disembodied brain, but that is not the same as living a "life" as a human being.

Is my life more important than that of a stranger? Of course. Would I take some risk to help a stranger? Well that depends on the context of the situation doesn't it

[fletch]

I think I know what she means and it leads me to question how you really could decide that someone else's life has a higher value to you than your own, as opposed to valuing them because you value yourself.

I used to think that...until I had children.

But at the same time, whatever happens you know "it'll be okay", as long as the world you live in remains the same you'll have all the same, if perhaps "lesser" values that you had before the person was born or you met them and you were happy then, right? I guess my question is, if there was a person who had such a high value to you, how could you possibly decide that you'd rather die than lose that value knowing that, if you did lose them, you'd eventually be okay and life would go on? I mean, wouldn't just the fact that they existed in the world in the first place and that you'll always know it be ... not enough to make up for the loss, of course, but at least enough to tell you that you've grasped that value and that even their death couldn't really take it from you?

If your child is a lesser value, why would you put your life at risk to save him? That would be a sacrifice--you would be sacrificing your highest value, yourself, for a lesser value, your child. Sure, you value the child, but like you said, life goes on. At least, you are alive. Hell, you could always make more kids, but there is only one you. Unless, of course, you value the life of your child more than your own. In which case you would find the prospect of your child suffering so that you may not a moral abomination.

[bluey]

I used to think that...until I had children.

Yeah, I figure that might be part of my confusion.

If your child is a lesser value, why would you put your life at risk to save him? That would be a sacrifice--you would be sacrificing your highest value, yourself, for a lesser value, your child. Sure, you value the child, but like you said, life goes on. At least, you are alive. Hell, you could always make more kids, but there is only one you. Unless, of course, you value the life of your child more than your own. In which case you would find the prospect of your child suffering so that you may not a moral abomination.

I don't think that the value you see in your child would necessarily have to be a separate thing from the value you have in yourself. It wouldn't be a lesser value; it would be the same value - not just an equal value but in fact the very same value. Which is why you wouldn't ever allow your child to suffer so that you wouldn't; there would be no such possibility as your child suffering and you not suffering. So if it came down to a choice, of course you would choose to suffer if by doing so you would spare your child. But at the same time you're obviously not your child and it also doesn't make sense to say that your child living is just as good as you living. You know emperically that you could be happy without your child because of all the times before your child was born when you didn't have them and yet were happy. Of course you might feel that if you ever let anything happen to your child then you would be sort of killing off your own value in yourself or something. I guess I just don't really get it, and maybe children are a special case but apart from children I certainly don't understand how it makes sense to talk about valuing someone else's life more than your own life.

[Jake_Ellison]

I used to think that...until I had children.

If your child is a lesser value, why would you put your life at risk to save him? That would be a sacrifice--you would be sacrificing your highest value, yourself, for a lesser value, your child. Sure, you value the child, but like you said, life goes on. At least, you are alive. Hell, you could always make more kids, but there is only one you. Unless, of course, you value the life of your child more than your own. In which case you would find the prospect of your child suffering so that you may not a moral abomination.

The bottom line is this: in the context of your whole life (which is the only context in which values apply), your child is obviously a lesser value than your whole life, unless your child is your whole life (then he is an equal value). However, nothing is a bigger value than your life, because values exist only in the context of one individual's life. They don't exist in the context of a group(like your family), in which individual lives are assigned values depending on the importance of that individual to the group. In such a context you could discuss which life is more important (you or your child), but that's not what "values" mean, in Ayn Rand's view.

That (your second paragraph) then sounds like a rational argument against risking your life to save your child. I don't agree with it. Some have argued that life and survival aren't the same thing; others -I too- have said that survival is a primary choice you make, which is always required in order to achieve any purpose, and choosing death is the -sometimes rational- end of all values.

One rule that we should all agree to is to not apply the concept of values, except in the context of one individual's life, with that context's existence (the survival of that individual) being automatically the primary condition of the existence of the values. In other words, a child is a value to you only if you exist. Once you die, your world of values is over.

A statement such as "my child is a higher value to me than me" is a logical contradiction.

A statement such as "there are higher values than ourselves" is worse than that, since it leaves room for anything to be declared as the object of the value (the standard by which we judge values). While Ayn Rand defined my standard of values as "their importance to me", a statement which doesn't specify the object of the values as the individual himself allows for that object to be anything and anyone. (God, the President, etc.) If you were to build an ethical system on that, you'd end up with all sorts of unwanted consequences and conflicts of interest between individuals.

[amosknows]

Amos,

In rereading the entire thread I think my last post was a little off topic, or at least it didn't really attempt to answer your question. So I'm going to try to.

You're asking us to explain how, in a world that operates the way Ayn Rand described it and where Objectivist principles hold true (and therefore are true for everyone, whether they know it or not), examples like the pregnant woman and the marine can possibly happen. I mean, if people are rational beings and the rational thing to do is not sacrifice yourself for strangers, then isn't there something very strange about the fact that these examples can exist?

People are really answering your question when they say that Objectivist ethics don't shed any light whatsoever on these situations and that it's unreasonable of you to expect them to, but I think I can see where you're confused. Take the pregnant lady for example. What would motivate her to sacrifice herself and her children for a total stranger? The answer is, damned if I know but it sure wasn't Objectivism Ethics is a very different branch of philosophy than epistimology and with a very different purpose. If your epistimology (your conclusions about what the world is and how it works and what you are and how and whether you can know it) is screwy, then your ethics (your concrete, personal decisions about what your purpose is and how you'll acheive it - this can only follow from an epistimological foundation, for reasons that I think are somewhat obvious so I won't explain them unless I'm asked to) is bound to be screwy as well. How could it not be? If I were to guess, I'd say that the pregnant woman has some view of life that leads her believe that every individual human is of equal value, probably to God or possibly just intrinsically or something, and that she should value what God (or whatever) values and therefore view individual humans as fundamentally interchangeable, and tied in with those beliefs is usually the idea that humility is a virtue and self-sacrifice is heroic. And then she went and destroyed herself as a result of these beliefs and I would say that yes, her death was meaningless, evil and essentially tragic simply because her premises were false. You might ask how a supposedly rational being can hold such supposedly irrational premises. The answer is simply that she decided to. At some point in her life she decided to accept a particular view of the world and run with it, and maybe it really made sense to her in the sense that it explained well enough everything that she happened to be curious about, but it was still actually wrong and, if you've read enough Rand to understand her epistimology then you'll understand how it was wrong. Reality is only sort of obvious; people are the sorts of beings who can decide to do whatever they want, and if all you look at when you wonder about the world is people then you're not necessarily going to catch any reflection of reality in their actions. Unless you happen to run into some people who hold and act on rational premises, but if you'd done that you wouldn't be here.

Of course I have no way of actually knowing what motivated the woman to do that, that's just a guess based on the people I've known who would probably make a similar decision. Objectivist ethics can't explain why a non-Objectivist would act a certain way. However, Objectivist epistimology does explain how it's possible for a fundamentally rational being to hold fundamentally unrational beliefs and act on them: free will and no such thing as human instinct and all that jazz that's already been covered in this thread.

Hope that helps

Nice post. I think your saying her beliefs skewed her values and made here decision irrational. But let's then assume she didn't act. And she stood outside the burning building, listening to the man's screams from within. She goes home and she feels terribly guilty. Is her guilt therefore also a by-product of her false beliefs? Would an objectivist EVER feel guilty about the dead fire victim or would that just be rationalized as something that was a moral choice. if they would feel guilty even thought they rationally concluded that their life was their highest value, in that case what is the root cause of guilt?

A prior poster somewhere once said that guilt and remorse were an indicator of whether a choice was moral or not. But really what you are saying is that for the pregnant woman who lets the man die and then feels guilty they are (as were her actions) the product of a false beliefs (?).

Finally, and most importantly (something I will try and make a separate post when I have some time), why would evolution toward survival produce such a result - that is to permit beliefs to influence behavior such that survival was actually jeopardized?

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

[amosknows]

And you have been asked for the context. No one here can tell you why without the context of those actions.

Meaningful examination is not possible without context.

Reason is a choice we make as human beings, the ultimate end of irrational action is death, that doesn't mean no one will choose to be irrational. The Woman may have been completely irrational or she may have had another reason for entering the building. Who knows, there's that pesky context thing again.

I know it'd be so much easier if we could just play along with your hypothetical game where you can control the situation and manipulate the situation to fit your conclusions but guess what, we are going to keep coming back to context.

This is incorrect, of course it is possible, but not to an Objectivist... Context. Why would someone? Again, why did I bend over while walking yesterday? Context.

Because Objectivist beliefs are not a commandment, this is not a religion every action and reaction must be viewed in the context of the situation. We could discuss another fuzzy hypothetical but IT DOESN'T MATTER A BIT WITHOUT CONTEXT!!!

No! The Marine and the Pregnant woman are not interchangeable any more than you and I are! One might be acting rationally and one may not. Choice, context!

You can choose to apply Objectivist ideals in your life or you can choose not to. There is no left turn here, the highest value of an Objectivist is his own life, but that does not mean that EVERYONE believes that or will abide by those ideals. Really, it's not a hard concept to grasp.

Yes. Why use ill defined hypotheticals to try to get at Objectivist Ideals? I know the answer, the hypothetical is something you can manipulate, for every answer you are given you can modify the situation to create a circular or labyrinthine argument without end. It's a kind of intellectual dishonesty the people here have seen before, that is why your "questions" provoked more questions. Context.

It's not a paradox it is quite easily explained by the supposition that the woman was not an Objectivist and did not hold her own life, or the life of her fetus in higher regard than some stranger.

It's been explained all along. Choice! Context!

Objectivists do not view "survival" as being the same as "life". One might be able some day to survive as a disembodied brain, but that is not the same as living a "life" as a human being.

Is my life more important than that of a stranger? Of course. Would I take some risk to help a stranger? Well that depends on the context of the situation doesn't it

There are many reasons you may have bent over yesterday, but none of them would intentionally put your life at risk. I fail to see how much more context you would require to give an answer to any of my questions. The building is on fire, the woman is pregnant, the man inside is a stranger: this is all the context anyone would otherwise require.

While objectivist beliefs are not a religion, survival is a inherent fact of being alive. To act contrary to survival (whether you believe your life is the highest value or not) must have some explanation. I'm just looking for the explanation of an honest Objectivist. There are many possibilities. One being irrational thought.

Please, give me one context in which an objectivst would risk his life for a stranger? That statement makes no sense because Rand believed that you can not rearrange your values. You are the highest value and there is no subordination beyond that.

I can accept that "the woman was not an Objectivist and did not hold her own life, or the life of her fetus in higher regard than some stranger". But then why - what could possibly cause a woman to disregard her natural survival and maternal instincts - was she simply crazy?

"

[amosknows]

Yeah, I figure that might be part of my confusion.

I don't think that the value you see in your child would necessarily have to be a separate thing from the value you have in yourself. It wouldn't be a lesser value; it would be the same value

Not an objectivist position from what I understand - there is no subordination or equality of the "highest value" in Rand's worldview. If you believe this than you're advocating something else.