Evasion, Honest Errors, And Irrationality

[Hal]

An idea is inherently dishonest if it cannot be believed, when fully understood, because it is clearly inconsistent with everyone's experience of reality.  Thus anyone who advocates it in a seemingly coherent way must be a hypocrite and a liar.

Wasnt Ayn Rand good friends with a postitivist and a Marxist? Would she have classified them as hypocrits and liars?

[Proverb]

You may hold freinds for other reasons than the whole of their philosophy.

Thank you James for that clarification. That was exactly right.

[softwareNerd]

... the last lecture of Peikoff's Understanding Objectivism course for a more detailed treatment of inherently dishonest ideas.

Diana, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. For those who have not listened to the UO tapes, I add my strong recommendation to the ones that have been made elsewhere in the forum. Audio material is much more expensive than books, but -- within the genre of Objectivist audio-material -- UO would be my top-most choice.

In my mind, the archetype of an inherently evil idea is the idea that reality does not exist. Still, that does not mean everyone who supports such an idea is evil. From time to time, we've had people come to this forum and say that reality does not exist. Two examples I remember are members named AllenAtsea and ArvindIn. Both say "reality does not exist". However, if one finds their posts and compares them, one will find that AllenAtsea really appears to be saying: "I don't know how to prove that reality exists, so I have to assume it's just a belief that I have and that I cannot challenge someone who says it doesn't", while ArvindIn is saying "I've studied this a lot and read all the literature and only someone who is stupid would think that reality exists." Online posts are not the best way to judge a person's ethics. However, even with the limited information in this example (read the posts if you really want to understand) one can see that the two people are at different "levels of morality" as of the date of posting.

When it comes to judging the person rather than the idea, one has to take into account more than just the idea. One has to take into account their experience and information, their age (as a proxy for the previous), and their level of commitment to the idea.

To take a single example from the UO lecture: Dr. Peikoff mentions that many religious people are not evil, even though an Objectivist might wonder: how can anyone honestly believe in the existence of God.

[Xall]

Found nowhere better to post this, so here goes:

If someone were deliberately and consistently avoiding certain topics of conversation (religion most often comes to mind) for reasons stated such as "in my experience there is no point to discuss such matters", or "nothing good can come out of it", or "such discussions should be avoided and I refuse to consider the matter any more" etc., either as a result of mentioning the topics or a few lines of conversations exchanged that made them feel uneasy about their position, could this be considered evasion, and more so, moral cowardice?

[softwareNerd]

If someone were deliberately and consistently avoiding certain topics of conversation (religion most often comes to mind) for reasons stated such as "in my experience there is no point to discuss such matters", or "nothing good can come out of it", or "such discussions should be avoided and I refuse to consider the matter any more" etc., either as a result of mentioning the topics or a few lines of conversations exchanged that made them feel uneasy about their position, could this be considered evasion, and more so, moral cowardice?

It might mean that, but it might not. Personally, I know there are a few topics that I have discussed quite a bit over the years with various people, and most of the time I have no inclination to discuss them again. Of course if the other person was someone to whom I thought I owed some type of explanation -- even if just because of a friendship, it would be different. So, I think an important piece of additional information would be: what is the relationship between the two people in your example, and -- based on that relationship -- should the person do something more than refuse to discuss it.

Essentially, saying "I won't discuss this" is not the same as saying to oneself "I will refuse to think about this".

[Xall]

Well, the relationship is an old one, of friendship, and the conversation usually flows quite well, until certain topics are reached, where the above mentioned occurs.

The person usually has a good sense of life, but it appears in some areas, was cornered by early childhood's experiences and societal constraints.

[icosahedron]

Without knowing the reasons for your friends evasion of the discussion, it is impossible to infer whether he is evading in fact, in his mind, or not. However, the fact that he is evading the discussion is clearly a red flag, as you noted. While it is possible that evasion of the discussion is based on good, rational, reason; and it is further possible that he has a good, rational reason for not telling you the reason he is evading the discussion; it is far more likely that he is evading the topics in fact, i.e., in his mind.

If he won't discuss, and won't tell you a good reason why not, then you are stuck.

Maybe try getting him out of his usual state of mind and try for more intimate discussion then.

Sorry.

- ico