Critique of the Objectivist Ethics

[gurugeorge]

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

No, it's more like saying you can be a father and a man at the same time.

"An existent is thinking" does not contradict "existence is thinking" - especially not, considering that the existent's thinking has conditions that pervade existence.

A piece of existence is thinking - zoom out. You see the conditions that make that thinking possible, ultimately the whole being the way it is (along certain specific causal pathways, that we investigate scientifically) is the condition of that thought.

Zoom in too - you see similarly pervading conditions (e.g. chemical and biological conditions).

[gurugeorge]

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.

Indeed there is that precariousness, and there is all the honour due to reason as the bulwark against it.

If you wink out, all that's happened is that a bit of existence has stopped thinking, has stopped being conscious of itself.

[JeffS]

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.

So, we're born with knowledge about such things as gravity and cause and effect?

[gurugeorge]

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

No, I'm just saying that the Universe is obviously and self-evidently capable of abstract thought - through its parts.

One might call that which we are "God" in a sort of Spinozistic sense, I suppose - I don't have any objection to that concept of God, but because it's misleading (i.e. has nothing to do with the way people normally think of God, except if you look at it poetically) I don't use the word. I prefer "Nature", or "The Universe" or "Existence".

You're a mystic, you're not relying on observation or logic:

That just doesn't follow I'm afraid. Mysticism does not rely on revelation or some alternative source of cognition other than experience - it is thoroughly empirical. It is also logical. As a mystic, I believe it's possible to experience the simple implicit truth of our own "divinity" that I'm talking about; but as a philosopher, I believe it's also possible to arrive at an awareness of that truth (the truth of our "divinity") by rational means, by thinking about it logically. In fact, it's actually a bazillion times easier to see the truth of it via philosophy than it is to directly experience it.

The "absolute, bedrock truth", you claim, cannot be seen in everyday life, it requires "a philosophical process" to be revealed. You are describing revelation.

No, not revelation, a philosophical process, as I said - i.e. a process involving investigation of the context of thought, the development of a scientific understanding of the world, the investigation of necessary truth, etc., etc.

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.

I'm not denying the Law of Identity.

[gurugeorge]

So, we're born with knowledge about such things as gravity and cause and effect?

No, it's more like every fibre of our being expects there to be gravity, and expects things to have causes, expects certain spatial and temporal qualities (understands before and after), etc. (of course the actual list isn't fully settled, but something like this). We will immediately look for causes for things. In the first instance, our whole system is geared to positing causes for the perturbances it suffers in its sensory organs.

We also have certain inbuilt expectations about how our conspecifics will behave, e.g. an inbuilt tendency to shun "free-riders", etc., etc. (again, the list isn't settled yet).

[gurugeorge]

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

One might ask exactly the same thing of your arm. It's just that one case is intimate and detailed, the other sketchy.

I'm only vaguely aware of my feet. I'm even more vaguely aware of the pain in my Jupiter (by several orders of magnitude less detail and resolution) - via the pictures that recently came

Loads of bad stuff happens in my body without my being aware of it; otoh, I can become aware of it in analogous ways I can come to be aware of the pain in my Jupiter. I could hook up my nervous system so that I felt some arcane chemical imbalance in my body as a pain; I could hook myself up to Jupiter in such a way that I felt any perturbance of it by large satellites to be a pain.

Threads of causality, all the way - it's just that we don't know precisely what they are until we investigate them.

[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!

Here you are, clearly saying that the Universe (thing 1) managed the trick of thinking abstractly.

No, I'm just saying that the Universe is obviously and self-evidently capable of abstract thought - through its parts.

Here you are, clearly saying that a part of the Universe, and you mean a man (thing 2), is the thing which is thinking abstractly.

I'm not denying the Law of Identity.

Thing 1 and thing 2 are two logically separate things (a man and a Universe are not logical equivalents). I know we agree on that.

Let's apply the Law of Identity to these two things: If thing 1 is different from thing 2, then whatever attribute thing 2 has cannot be transferred onto thing 1, just because thing 2 is part of thing 1. Just because something that can think(a human being) is part of the Universe, it does not follow that the Universe can think. That is the Law of Identity.

Other examples:

1. My hair is black, my hair is part of me. It does not follow that I'm black.

2. A fish can swim. A fish is part of the lake. Does not follow that the lake can swim.

3. A man can think abstractly. A man is part of 'the human race'('the human race' as one entity, different from the concept 'human being'). Does not follow that the human race (one concrete entity) can think abstractly. Only an individual (any individual, meaning any concrete instance of the abstract concept human being) can do that, because only it has a brain.

So we're back at the beginning. Yesterday you said:

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.)

If the premise is that the only thing in the Universe capable of abstract thought is a human being made up of one living body and one functioning brain inside its skull (and I believe we agree on this), then: Outside of human beings, no one thing can logically be said to be capable of abstract thought. (because of the Law of Identity, which you are also in agreement with)

So who came up with those abstract fragments you mentioned, that are "embedded" into human beings.

Edited July 22, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[JeffS]

This is a concept formation problem of George's. For example: asserting one can have knowledge of abstracts before having knowledge of concretes; asserting that incorrect definitions of words are correct definitions; ascribing the attributes of one distinct entity to another entity simply by virtue of the former being contained within the latter's broad definition.

I asked the first question in the debate between Dr. Huemer and Dr. Ghate, which was, basically, "Dr. Huemer, you claim there is no sure path to knowledge, but that is a statement of knowledge. How did you arrive at it if there is no sure way to knowledge?" His (unsatisfactory) answer was, "I could be wrong." Which, of course, is also a statement about knowledge. His philosophy basically sets him into a loop of not knowing if he doesn't know he doesn't know what he doesn't know he doesn't know... It appears George has fallen into the same trap.

Do I have that right, Jake, Heather, Thomas?

I'm going to stop responding since it appears my line of questioning is already much more ably handled by you three, but I would like to know if I understand the fundamental problem.

[Grames]

Shouldn't this thread be in the debate forum since it isn't about Objectivism but rather gurugeorge vs. Objectivism? Debates can be illuminating, but gg's opinions are so idiosyncratic it is hard to see what general lessons can be drawn here.

[gurugeorge]

Here you are, clearly saying that the Universe (thing 1) managed the trick of thinking abstractly.

Here you are, clearly saying that a part of the Universe, and you mean a man (thing 2), is the thing which is thinking abstractly.

(Apologies for late response - been busy. I'll have to leave these conversations at this point.)

If I say "the tree is sucking up water through its roots", is that inappropriate because it's really only the roots that are sucking up water?

There are different part/whole logics, different ways in which parts can be related to wholes. When there are bonds of causal necessity involved (as there is with intelligent utterance, which depends on countless physical and chemical conditions), when you have an integrated system, it's not at all illegitimate to think of the whole as "doing" what the part is "doing".

[gurugeorge]

I asked the first question in the debate between Dr. Huemer and Dr. Ghate, which was, basically, "Dr. Huemer, you claim there is no sure path to knowledge, but that is a statement of knowledge. How did you arrive at it if there is no sure way to knowledge?" His (unsatisfactory) answer was, "I could be wrong." Which, of course, is also a statement about knowledge. His philosophy basically sets him into a loop of not knowing if he doesn't know he doesn't know what he doesn't know he doesn't know... It appears George has fallen into the same trap.

There is no loop, and no trap. It is perfectly logical and consistent to say, "I don't think there's any sure way to knowledge, but I could be wrong."

[SapereAude]

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.

Why must one?

Something rational and objective please.

I can see why one's actions should ideally not be overtly harmful to others, that is easy enough to argue.

But you cannot tell me that my actions must benefit others.

Surely it can't be expected that everyone benefit from my actions since one man's meat is another man's poison after all.

So who must benefit and who decides who must benefit?

..and who decides who gets to decide?

[bluey]

Why must one?

Something rational and objective please.

I can see why one's actions should ideally not be overtly harmful to others, that is easy enough to argue.

But you cannot tell me that my actions must benefit others.

Surely it can't be expected that everyone benefit from my actions since one man's meat is another man's poison after all.

So who must benefit and who decides who must benefit?

..and who decides who gets to decide?

George doesn't know. You just should, dammit. Because/when you can, apparently.

[Jake_Ellison]

(Apologies for late response - been busy. I'll have to leave these conversations at this point.)

If I say "the tree is sucking up water through its roots", is that inappropriate because it's really only the roots that are sucking up water?

There are different part/whole logics, different ways in which parts can be related to wholes. When there are bonds of causal necessity involved (as there is with intelligent utterance, which depends on countless physical and chemical conditions), when you have an integrated system, it's not at all illegitimate to think of the whole as "doing" what the part is "doing".

It is illegitimate to use the whole and the part interchangeably. If the whole is doing it, then the part isn't doing it. If the part is doing it, then the whole isn't doing it. My finger didn't type that "f" character in "finger", I did. The Universe didn't type that "f" character, I did.

When the whole is Everything (the Universe), and you decide to say it is doing everything, then the parts are doing nothing, the Law of Identity becomes meaningless: there is no longer a need to differentiate between things.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

So who must benefit and who decides who must benefit?

..and who decides who gets to decide?

I'll give guru george the benefit of the doubt here. Most of the time when someone says "society" or even just "someone else" must make decisions like this for the common good, they are trying to conceal the fact that ultimately some individual will actually make the decision, and are hoping to be that individual.