Critique of the Objectivist Ethics

[whYNOT]

George, I have been following most of your argumentation for days - even those parts that went right over my head! And very provocative it has been.

Finally I think I've got a fix on something that's been bothering me. I think that you do not seem to fully accept the One, the self, the ego, the sovereign individual; AND ITS TOTAL separation from the Universe, Nature, and the rest of mankind, present ,past, and future. Obviously within certain limits, but this is a Primary. Now, I can't believe that this is some sort of mental block on your part - you have demonstrated too much knowledge and intellect for that - but it seems that you have a basic premise born from a desire to seek an overview of Existence (which is the starting point we all share) that wants to make everything inclusive. (Which I for one don't share, nor I believe does Oism.)

This premise reveals itself in your statement: " The context of contexts is that one is oneself 'Universe', one is made of its substance, one is thoroughly embedded in it; this is just plain, scientific fact." Also previous references you made to the folklore of our ancestors. From this premise you have gone on to argue determinism, because it is a fact that we are composed of the same particles that exist in the Universe; 'innate connectivism' (my construct), since our knowledge has largely been passed down to us; morality, in order to find a brand of altruism/selfishness that makes all people interdependent, to some degree.

If I have over- simplified, or slightly mis-stated here, I apologise; but the fact remains, that you can not integrate the philosophy of Objectivism if you do not recognise and embrace this: although Nature forms us, we are not of Nature. Consciousness sets us apart from all else. You are a complete entity, the beginning and end. You and I are separate from all things, and all other life. Whatever science can show us about the universe, is a Secondary to this. Aloneness is a fact of our existence, also our glory -- everything in Objectivism harks back to this.

Almost every other philosophy - and certainly every religion - has tried to get around this. Why? I suppose because they feared, rather than celebrated our wonderful 'aloneness'.

I don't remember who said this, but there's a quote that goes something like - "Every year our nation has to absorb a few million barbarians into it .... the new-born children."

'Tabula rasa', indeed !

[D'kian]

I don't remember who said this, but there's a quote that goes something like - "Every year our nation has to absorb a few million barbarians into it .... the new-born children."

I think it was Thomas Sowell.

[Plasmatic]

Abstracts, unlike concretes, aren't real: they are large ammounts of concretes we group together, based on fundamentally similar attributes, to help us better understand the concrete world.

Careful Jake, concepts are mental existents. But I know what you meant !

[Plasmatic]

No, existence is primary in this philosophy too. All things exist; the Universe exists. This is observed: by whom is it observed? By a mind, housed in a body, housed in the Universe. The mind "belongs to" the body, and gets its start in the body, but it is also "belongs to" the Universe, and has no theoretical limits wrt what it can take in, what it can understand of existence, i.e. of itself. (Metaphysically, when one's individual mind is cognizing the Universe, that is the Universe cognizing the Universe, through one of its members. This is so close to us, and so monstrous, and for many so frightening, that we don't normally see it. We "blank out" our divinity, as it were. Please note, I am not talking here about some mystical sense of "Mind" (with a capital "M"). The mind I am speaking of here is the ordinary human mind mediated by physical brain-events: it is that ordinary mind that is also, metaphysically and implicitly, cosmic in import.)

A normal, healthy mind automatically outputs care and concern - it is a caring and concerning machine, it does things about things. The mind's output of care and concern is sometimes (and to an extent naturally) devoted to the survival of the body, to reproduction, and to its own perpetuation through time (and to sundry other things that may or may not be corollaries of these, e.g. to creation and production, to the perpetuation of certain ideas); but the mind can also take on the ever-loftier, and more complete points of view that are metaphysically implicit in it, whereupon its output of care and concern perforce spreads out through the whole (including, obviously, still the body and mind - nothing changes at that level, least of all does a "black hole" unworthy of care and concern suddenly appear at the centre as one's viewpoint becomes loftier). The process of seeing and caring about the context, of the context, of the context, of the context, is the "ladder"-like (or "dialectical", though that word is a minefield) progress of philosophy. The context of all contexts is that one is oneself Universe, one is made of its substance, one is thoroughly embedded in it; this is just plain, scientific fact. (Compare: a leaf is a leaf, but it is also tree, it is connected through and through with the rest of the tree. A wave is a wave, but it is also ocean, or deeper, water.)

(One might be worried that it's "spreading itself thin"? In actual fact, the loftier one's vision, the more energy one has.)

I don't think so - the example is about a hypothetical choice in specific circumstances, that means for the person in that position, Rand recommends that he have regard to his self-interest only. It's true that in the abstract Objectivist morality is about man-qua-man, but what's good for man-qua-man is not what a given individual is supposed to be pursuing in any given set of concrete circumstances - s/he is supposed to be pursuing what's good for him or her.

Or is s/he? Well, that's part of the debate about whether Rand is consistent, I suppose.

[1]. There is nothing in the above quote that explains why one "ought" to care for "all". In fact you said it was "not "based on" observation ". This is what it means to not start with existence. You have accepted a premise and then looked for support/observed. This is why so many have massive abstractions built on no concrete referents.How are these "lofty" oughts "metaphysically implicit in" "the mind"?

[2]. "Holistic" nonsense consist of doing exactly what the above implies. Basically dissolving all "boundaries" or "limits" particularity,individuality, and ultimately therefore meaning and identity.This foundational assumption is why context is so evasive for those whom accept it. Context is the conceptual equivalent of the separate otherness of concrete entities. When one takes a concept the referents of which are "every individual existent " [universe] and then imputes it to a single entity one destroys the very function of abstraction making all meaning "condense into fog" Suffice to say "one" is equivalent to zero if there's nothing else. [ "if there was only one color could you see anything?"]

George I reccomend you spend time rereading on Rands idea of unit economy.

Edited July 21, 2009 by Plasmatic

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

(Thomas M. Miovas Jr. @ Jul 20 2009, 06:53 PM) ... given what Guru was saying in another thread he is against perception from the human perspective -- seeing with our eyes, hearing with our ears, etc. -- as if we have no direct connection to existence or to ourselves ...

That's fightin' talk Thomas - cite, please.

If it wasn't you, then I apologize. I've been literally flooded with email notification of replies, but I though you had said in another thread something along the lines of how can we ever be sure that we are observing what is out there, that saying we are aware of what is out there is a punt, not confirmation that we are observing existence the way it really is. I understood this as coming from the Kantian position that because we have a specific means of awareness that we can never be certain even of what we perceive as having anything to do with existence, except, perhaps, by some ineffable means of guessing that something must be going on, or we wouldn't be perceiving anything.

Perhaps you can clarify your position on this?

[bluey]

(1) and (2) are moral imperatives, the two together forming a whole - one must care for oneself and one must care for others, one must ensure as much as one reasonably can that one's actions' effects are beneficial to oneself and beneficial to others. (Again, "as much as one reasonably can" gives the condition, and the only genuine connection between "is" and "ought", the only way "is" shapes "ought", based on informational assymetry.)

Wait, stop here. What's the "reason" behind "as much as one reasonably can"? Is your morality an incomplete guideline, simply a suggestion? Why is there a point where your morality fails to inform your actions, after which you need some other "reason"? After your morality becomes "unreasonable" in a particular case, how do you know what to do then? In which cases is your morality "unreasonable" in your estimation, and why?

Please give me an example of how it is impossible to have a concern for others without ending up sacrificing to them (doesn't need to be specific, I just want to see the logic).

It's not that you can't have a concern for others without sacrificing for them. One way that people have concern for others without ending up with sacrifice is to be simply benevolent and leave it out of the whole ethical realm - this way they can be nice when it seems to accomplish something or drop it when it doesn't, without having to force their "niceness" on others for the sake of their soul, or the other person's "own good", or steal from third parties when they run out of stuff to give away, or simply feel like a bad person when they have to let someone down. If it's a moral imperative, though, then people have to insist on being their brother's keeper, because we all know that the purpose of moral imperatives is to give you a standard to live up to, a way of knowing whether you're good enough to live in the world. Otherwise, what's the "imperative"? Which is why that standard has to be consistent with the actual, real requirements of living in the world.

Why must other-concern inevitably "go bad"?

Again - it's not simple "other-concern", it's "other-concern" as a moral imperative. Please keep that distinction in mind in your future posts, I'd love to stop reiterating it now, but you seem to want to equivocate the two.

Pretend I'm from Missouri

Seriously, you're asserting this, but I'm not seeing any attempt at even a plausibility argument.

Again, why must other-concern inevitably "go bad"?

I'm just going to have to ask you to read some Rand here, maybe OPAR would help. Since that is what this forum is about, after all - if you have a specific problem with her specific arguments, then we can go over that if we must. But I'm not going to reinvent the wheel or do all your research for you, I don't have the time. And again - not "other-concern", which generally comprises concepts like benevolence, love for family and friends, even focus on a client's needs, for example, as well as moral altruism. It is only moral altruism that is a problem - when you must be other-directed in your moral concerns, or otherwise evaluate yourself as "bad".

Of course you can, and indeed ought to, not just have a desire to see, but actually see that your son or daughter as particular individuals are well-fed and happy - that's implicit in the idea that you should wish to see everyone well-fed and happy, and that you should ensure your actions are as beneficial as you can make them! (Of course, in their cases, you will likely have a strong innate drive to do so, which makes it much easier - it's not like you have to remind yourself; same as you don't have to remind yourself in your own case, and nor do you have to remind yourself in the case of the rest of your family and your friends, of whom you likely have between 20-30 )

You're so full of crap though. I know that I feel a desire that my family be fed and happy, and I know that I could care less about most other people. So clearly it is not the case that I feel that desire for my family only as an extension of my desire for absolutely everyone to be fed and happy - in fact it's the opposite; that I think it would be cool if everyone everywhere were well fed and happy, simply because my family and I are doing fine and I've got leftover goodwill. So unless you're going to tell me that I don't know what I think, I think that conclusively puts the lie to your little "everyone automatically wants the best for everyone and sees no distinction between themselves as an individual and the rest of the universe unless they are taught to" line.

[JeffS]

*sigh* Those two passages are in different contexts - "innate" in reference to biology, "intrinsic" in reference to philosophy. Something that is intrinsic isn't necessarily innate, the terms have different (although somewhat related) meanings in different contexts, intrinsic is the broader term, although "innate" is sometimes used as a synonym for "instrinsic".

We have some innate knowledge, but it is abstract (i.e. it is realised as a patchwork of apriori elements in thought). (But to check this out, you will have to check out the sorts of books I've referenced. Please do not give me babies again: remember, baby cognition is not a sufficient guide to adult cognition, and innate tendencies can lie dormant until triggered by environmental factors or learning.)

It has always amazed me that people can be so willfully evasive about reality. It honestly scares me. It makes me feel like I'm conversing with lunatics. If they can contradict themselves so readily, and so blatantly, there simply is no end to what they may do.

You wrote: "In objective reality, knowledge isn't intrinsic, since the world doesn't somehow magically reach into our craniums to make our estimates of what's objectively the case valid, and since people only have their own subjective estimates of what's objectively the case to go on, their expressed, acted-on interests do indeed sometimes clash."

Assuming you're not redefining any of those words, the idea you are conveying with this statement is that knowledge is not something humans are born with. "Knowledge isn't intrinsic;" it isn't "an innate, necessary characteristic" of humans.

You then wrote (and have been maintaining from the start): "[Definitions] (1) and (2) are the "bootleg" or "common sense" definitions, sustained by our innate sense of morality inherited from our small-band, hunter-gatherer ancestry."

Assuming you're not redefining any of those words, the idea you are conveying with this statement (and your appeal to the authors you listed confirms this) is that knowledge - a moral code, which requires knowledge about reality - is "innate," or "existing at birth."

These are contradictory statements, and no amount of spinning is going to get you out of that.

So, again, which is it? Are we born with knowledge, or not born with knowledge?

Edited July 21, 2009 by JeffS

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

That's fightin' talk Thomas - cite, please.

I can only be brief here, but in the "Gap between identity and identification" thread you said:

But the certainty we posses is merely about the form of the identity (the structure of logical implications - "analytic" truth). We possess no certainty that the object dubbed X is an X. The existential claim is a posit, a punt, a bet. Formally, logically, it always has the status of a conjecture.

We aren't supposed to cross post quotes from one thread to another, because it is confusing, but your metaphysics and your epistemology is what leads you to want to take the "omniscient point of view" as the standard. Whereas Objectivist can be validated by anyone willing to take a first-hand look at reality and think about it using his own mind and his own ego-centric position. No need for the "ultimate" point of view.

[gurugeorge]

it requires the Universe to be capable of abstract thought.

But the Universe is self-evidentlycapable of abstract thought - there you are, thinking abstractly, here I am, thinking abstractly. The Universe has somehow managed the trick!

There is nothing here but Universe, the totality of existence; there's nothing else that could be having these abstract thoughts but existence, it's all existence, through and through. And existence is thinking, here, in you and me, right now. It's existence that is conscious, and aware of itself, not some other, strange thing, called "consciousness", that's separate from existence, and looking on at it, like a spectator seated outside existence.

In you, in me, what is has become conscious - perfectly ordinarily, in an everyday, human fashion. When an infant attains consciousness, that's a piece of existence attaining consciousness right there. Its jewel eyes are the eyes of existence, observing itself, intelligently.

Put it this way, if I say "I exist, and am conscious", that's just a first approximation, and it's begging the question of what the blazes an "I" might be. Really, at the bottom of the bottle is the conceptually even simpler "existence exists (as a specific thing), and is (at least here and now) conscious (of existence as a specific thing)". That's the absolute, bedrock truth, the context of all contexts, so simple and obvious that we don't notice it in our everyday lives; it's taken for granted in all our (realistic) thought; it takes a philosophical process to reveal it.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

But the Universe is self-evidently capable of abstract thought - there you are, thinking abstractly, here I am, thinking abstractly. The Universe has somehow managed the trick!

Actually, that's not true at all. It's not the universe that is conscious, it is only certain living beings, and only man is capable of abstract thought. And each human mind is individual and must think about existence on its own effort and focus and rationality. That's one reason Objectivism is ego-centric, or even human-centric -- because we are the living creatures that must think on our own without the help of the universe or of "instincts" or of "intuitions." Rationality is the primary virtue and each man is responsible for being rational or being irrational. Taken literally, the universe qua entity isn't even aware of us at all, since it doesn't have that capacity.

What I was getting at earlier is that if one does not think man is capable of certitude due to his perspective (having perception and consciousness and reason), then there would be no reason to take one's own perspective on anything, let alone morality. And I think wanting for that universal or omniscient perspective is one reason you do not accept the egoism-centered nature of Objectivism (the whole thing, not just the ethics). That opposite position is: Who am I to know?

[bluey]

And existence is thinking, here, in you and me ...

No, existants are thinking. That's like saying your whole house is on fire when you turn the stove on.

[whYNOT]

The greatest catastrophe possible is that the Universe disintegrates tomorrow. Or I keel over from a heart attack this afternoon.

To take the most extremely absurd egocentric viewpoint, the world has ended for me, one way or the other, so what's the difference? The most altruistic I could ever be, is to prefer the latter over the first, but ultimately, why should I care? Just as it did for the estimated 106 billion people that have ever lived, the world ends for me.

That's what existence and consciousness is to every one of us; a one-off, one at a time, thing. The Universe, in its implacable unconcern, exists - independently, and without purpose - and Man hangs on by the fingernails of his Reason and Purpose to a tiny piece of it.

This is a gloomy and dramatic picture it seems I've painted, (and it's not precisely on-topic as I'm wont to do), but it does give one an important perspective. And the more one thinks about it, especially from an O'ist stand-point, the more bloody marvellous it all actually becomes.

[Jake_Ellison]

But the Universe is self-evidentlycapable of abstract thought - there you are, thinking abstractly, here I am, thinking abstractly. The Universe has somehow managed the trick!

There is nothing here but Universe, the totality of existence; there's nothing else that could be having these abstract thoughts but existence, it's all existence, through and through. And existence is thinking, here, in you and me, right now. It's existence that is conscious, and aware of itself, not some other, strange thing, called "consciousness", that's separate from existence, and looking on at it, like a spectator seated outside existence.

In you, in me, what is has become conscious - perfectly ordinarily, in an everyday, human fashion. When an infant attains consciousness, that's a piece of existence attaining consciousness right there. Its jewel eyes are the eyes of existence, observing itself, intelligently.

Put it this way, if I say "I exist, and am conscious", that's just a first approximation, and it's begging the question of what the blazes an "I" might be. Really, at the bottom of the bottle is the conceptually even simpler "existence exists (as a specific thing), and is (at least here and now) conscious (of existence as a specific thing)". That's the absolute, bedrock truth, the context of all contexts, so simple and obvious that we don't notice it in our everyday lives; it's taken for granted in all our (realistic) thought; it takes a philosophical process to reveal it.

By saying the Universe is capable of abstract thought, you are describing God.

You're a mystic, you're not relying on observation or logic: The "absolute, bedrock truth", you claim, cannot be seen in everyday life, it requires "a philosophical process" to be revealed. You are describing revelation.

Most of us are very familiar with your philosophy, and your philosophical process, from Church. What puzzles me is, why change the terms? Why "The Universe", and a "philosophical process", instead of God and revelation. Can you point out any fundamental differences between them?

But the Universe is self-evidentlycapable of abstract thought - there you are, thinking abstractly, here I am, thinking abstractly. The Universe has somehow managed the trick!

Thinking is a strong word for it. You are denying the Law of Identity, and without it, there is no Logic. Without Logic (though I don't speak greek), I'm pretty sure there is no thinking.

Edited July 22, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[D'kian]

But the Universe is self-evidentlycapable of abstract thought - there you are, thinking abstractly, here I am, thinking abstractly. The Universe has somehow managed the trick!

Oh, great. We got a Minbari in the forum...

[gurugeorge]

Inbuilt by whom? You haven't mentioned the mind that created these abstracts. In nature, there are no abstracts, only concretes, abstract facts have to be created by a conceptual consciousness capable of abstract thought. Abstracts, unlike concretes, aren't real: they are large ammounts of concretes we group together, based on fundamentally similar attributes, to help us better understand the concrete world.

Inbuilt by a process of evolution by natural selection. For example: bones and muscles "fit" or "expect" gravity and other physical attributes of the world; lungs "fit/expect" air; digestive systems "fit/expect" the chemical properties of the environment. To that I (and evolutionary psychology and modern cognitive science) add: our steering mechanisms also have a certain kind of "fit" to the world, an inbuilt bias or predisposition to "expect" the world to behave in certain ways, and they also have certain inbuilt predispositions to expect certain abstract qualities in the behaviour of their conspecifics, and these are connected with what we call "morality".

Our conscious, volitional, conceptual human knowledge is an advanced kind of "fitting/expecting" that's BUILT ON TOP OF those earlier mechanisms that dumbly evolved. That legacy tech gives us an already (fairly) secure base of understanding, knowledge at an abtract level, of space, time, causality.

Again: Jake, I'm sorry but I just don't have the time to dig up the knowledge - I don't have those books with me myself, I'd have to get a hold of them, and look again at the concrete examples that I've already integrated to come to my position. If you want one book to look at, I'd recommend Pinker's Blank Slate first, to get a general picture, then Wright's Moral Animal wrt morality specifically. Both those books have references to other relevant works, and to the science behind it all.

[gurugeorge]

Consciousness sets us apart from all else.

I don't agree. We exist and are conscious, we are existent consciousness and are conscious of existence.

[gurugeorge]

[1]. There is nothing in the above quote that explains why one "ought" to care for "all".

One ought to care for all because one is the all.

How are these "lofty" oughts "metaphysically implicit in" "the mind"?

Because it has to be true that you're already the all. Here's a comparison: in another thread I'm arguing about a "gap" between identity and identification, right? There, I'm saying every proposition we make has the logical status of conjecture; but I also say that that's not a bar to knowledge, we can still have knowledge.

Now, if we weren't already the all, that would be a bar to knowledge, of the kind that would shut us off from knowledge of anything.

Any knowledge claim is a knowledge claim by a piece of existence about a piece of existence. That intimate union is already implicitly there, in any judgement.

[2]. "Holistic" nonsense consist of doing exactly what the above implies. Basically dissolving all "boundaries" or "limits" particularity,individuality, and ultimately therefore meaning and identity.

No, everything is perfectly unique; yet everything is also one. (Compare: I am a father, I am also a man. The various pieces of gold jewellery in the world are all perfectly distinct, yet they are all gold. The waves in the ocean are all distinct, yet they are all water.)

I am not saying everything is a featureless gray goo called "existence"!

[gurugeorge]

If it wasn't you, then I apologize. I've been literally flooded with email notification of replies, but I though you had said in another thread something along the lines of how can we ever be sure that we are observing what is out there, that saying we are aware of what is out there is a punt, not confirmation that we are observing existence the way it really is. I understood this as coming from the Kantian position that because we have a specific means of awareness that we can never be certain even of what we perceive as having anything to do with existence, except, perhaps, by some ineffable means of guessing that something must be going on, or we wouldn't be perceiving anything.

Perhaps you can clarify your position on this?

Suppose, at court, the nightwatchman gives evidence - "I saw the accused entering the building at 7:00". He knows it was 7:00 because the LED display at the bottom of the CCTV picture said so - IOW he saw the accused entering via CCTV. (Perhaps he then went down in person to confront the guy.)

He saw the accused entering - we have no problem in granting this, even though he wasn't physically present seeing the guy with his own eyes.

But of course, we know from scientific investigation of how we cognize the world that even if he were to eyeball the accused in person, he's still seeing a "CCTV" of sorts - his brain is generating a symbol in its very own stuff, standing for something that IN OBJECTIVE REALITY may or may not exist outside him. But just because it's another kind of "picture" doesn't bar it from giving us access to truth and knowledge, any more than the fact the nightwatchman saw the accused via a CCTV screen means he somehow didn't see the accused.

There can be identity between what seems to be the case and what is the case. The trick is to find better and better ways of ensuring that identity in more and more cases (increasing knowledge).

[gurugeorge]

Actually, that's not true at all. It's not the universe that is conscious, it is only certain living beings,

And those living beings are connected by numerous causal threads to everything else. They could not exist as they are without their context of enabling conditions. They and their context form a greater system, and it is the larger system that's ultimately responsible for the thinking.

Volition is the last in the chain of enabling conditions that ultimately come from the whole shebang's being the way it is. (Not necessarily wholly in a deterministic way, of course.)

[D'kian]

And those living beings are connected by numerous causal threads to everything else.

So how's that pain in your Jupiter? Did you see what caused it?

[gurugeorge]

Wait, stop here. What's the "reason" behind "as much as one reasonably can"? Is your morality an incomplete guideline, simply a suggestion? Why is there a point where your morality fails to inform your actions, after which you need some other "reason"? After your morality becomes "unreasonable" in a particular case, how do you know what to do then? In which cases is your morality "unreasonable" in your estimation, and why?

Because "ought" implies "can". If you cannot adequately benefit others with targeted concrete action, if you can't ensure that a certain concrete action you do for them will have a beneficial effect on them (because you simply don't know enough about their individual positions), then it makes no sense to say that you ought to.

You can be exhorted to do only what you can do.

What you can do to benefit others, is to make sure your behaviour has a certain abstract rule-governedness that benefits others - e.g. you habitually don't lie, you habitually keep your promises, you habitually respect their rights, etc., etc. IOW, you don't know much about their specific situations, but you know that they are human beings, that they are self-steering, and that they've already got a good deal of knowledge and capability to look after themselves.

It's not that you can't have a concern for others without sacrificing for them. One way that people have concern for others without ending up with sacrifice is to be simply benevolent and leave it out of the whole ethical realm - this way they can be nice when it seems to accomplish something or drop it when it doesn't, without having to force their "niceness" on others for the sake of their soul, or the other person's "own good", or steal from third parties when they run out of stuff to give away, or simply feel like a bad person when they have to let someone down. If it's a moral imperative, though, then people have to insist on being their brother's keeper, because we all know that the purpose of moral imperatives is to give you a standard to live up to, a way of knowing whether you're good enough to live in the world. Otherwise, what's the "imperative"? Which is why that standard has to be consistent with the actual, real requirements of living in the world.

The moral imperative, remember is to be both your keeper and your brother's keeper - except that you cannot be your brother's keeper in a concrete sense, in the same sense that you can be your own (and your close family's and friends') keeper, because of informational assymetry. You don't know enough, your "help" would likely be misplaced, impudent, etc. However, the good will is (or rather ought to be) there: and the best way to manifest that good will is to follow abstract social rules that also enable them to fulfil their lives - i.e. to ensure that your actions have those abstract qualities of being "just", "law-abiding", "civil", etc., etc.

Again - it's not simple "other-concern", it's "other-concern" as a moral imperative. Please keep that distinction in mind in your future posts, I'd love to stop reiterating it now, but you seem to want to equivocate the two.

So long as you bear in mind that it's not "exclusive other concern"

You're so full of crap though. I know that I feel a desire that my family be fed and happy, and I know that I could care less about most other people. So clearly it is not the case that I feel that desire for my family only as an extension of my desire for absolutely everyone to be fed and happy - in fact it's the opposite; that I think it would be cool if everyone everywhere were well fed and happy, simply because my family and I are doing fine and I've got leftover goodwill. So unless you're going to tell me that I don't know what I think, I think that conclusively puts the lie to your little "everyone automatically wants the best for everyone and sees no distinction between themselves as an individual and the rest of the universe unless they are taught to" line.

If you really could care less about most other people, then one logical implication is that you would not feel any obligation to follow liberal rules of social conduct even when no-one's watching - if you found a purse abandoned in the empty railway carriage you entered, you would have absolutely no compunction about stealing the money.

There's a test for you, to see if you really don't care about other people.

OK, having said all that, I think I do understand your qualms, and I would answer it like this:-

Yes, there is a choice in morality. That choice is whether you want, for every entity that may be affected by your actions, including obviously yourself, for that effect to be beneficial, or at least not detrimental.

This is where morality "lives", rather in the choice of what Lenin succintly encapsulated by "kto-kogo" (who - whom?). All those cute "difficult" moral dilemmas are in a box: that box is "someone must benefit at the other's expense". IOW they are in the box of "zero-sumness". Moral questions are in this box because of 10,000 years of slave-training in religion-dominated cultures. But morality lives outside that box, in the imperative to increase non-zero-sumness in this Universe; to ensure that nobody need live at any other's expense, that all benefit, or at least none lose out by someone's benefit. (A bit like "Pareto-improvement" in economics.)

In a trope: in any situation where there are difficult choices to be made, the moral choice is precisely to endeavour to avoid anybody having to be sacrificed to anyone else. If that is impossible, if (for example) someone has to go or all die, then we are in the situation of "emergency ethics". But the decision under those circumstances is not made on the basis of moral criteria but purely in terms of cold pragmatism (e.g. to draw lots would be the ethical choice).

[gurugeorge]

[Duplicate post]

Edited July 22, 2009 by gurugeorge

[gurugeorge]

So, again, which is it? Are we born with knowledge, or not born with knowledge?

I've told you, we have knowledge, but it's of an abstract kind.

In the first context I am referring to the type of case where someone has something before them, and they have to identify it. There is nothing that gives specific innate knowledge of that kind.

The second context was talking about certain general abstracta (an expectation of space, time and causality, roughly, and then of some other axiomatic things in the area of morality, which all these posts are about) that I think are innate. They do not give specific, automatic or innate knowledge of anything in any concrete sense, they set general expectations, an overall frame of reference.

[gurugeorge]

Whereas Objectivist can be validated by anyone willing to take a first-hand look at reality and think about it using his own mind and his own ego-centric position. No need for the "ultimate" point of view.

Yes, and from that ordinary individual's position - you know you have made mistakes, right? That implies we don't always have the truth when we think we have.

IOW, we can be certain about how it seems to us, but we can't be certain that how it seems to us is how it is. That's not a bar to knowledge, and it's verifiable in one's own experience.

[gurugeorge]

Actually, that's not true at all. It's not the universe that is conscious, it is only certain living beings, and only man is capable of abstract thought.

But we are parts of existence that are conscious, not only are we parts of existence that are conscious, but our consciousness is dependent on conditions pervading the whole. We could not be conscious unless the whole thing were the way it is (not necessarily precisely, or in some determinate fashion - the effective causal chains still have to be traced).

You could not think, thinking would be impossible, unless certain conditions held throughout the whole. The whole is implicated in your every thought - its sticky fingers are all over your every thought, so to speak.

What I was getting at earlier is that if one does not think man is capable of certitude due to his perspective (having perception and consciousness and reason), then there would be no reason to take one's own perspective on anything, let alone morality.

This does not follow. What I need is to know, not to be certain. If I have certainty, well and good, but what I really need is knowledge itself.

And I think wanting for that universal or omniscient perspective is one reason you do not accept the egoism-centered nature of Objectivism (the whole thing, not just the ethics). That opposite position is: Who am I to know?

The metaphysical fact that existence is conscious in you and me has nothing to do with the concept of omniscience. Omniscience is an imagined limiting case, that's all.

It is not required, for a piece of existence to be the "emissary" (so to speak) of the whole of existence, that it also be omniscient. Why on earth should that be a necessary requirement?