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Why is life not intrinsically good?

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Eiuol

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Now you are making contrafactual statements. That is not how color works. The color red is NOT an intrinsic property of anything that exists, it is a relation between some thing with certain surface reflectance properties and a perceiver with certain responses to light. The fact of reality is that color is objective and not intrinsic. Perceptual relativity in color is an excellent example to illustrate how objectivity differs from intrinsicism.

Chapter 3 of David Kelley's book The Evidence of the Senses covers perceptual relativity and color in depth.

Subject-object analysis was not invented by Ayn Rand, and has been used for centuries now because it is correct. Not grasping this will be an obstacle to your further learning even if you drop Objectivism forever.

And here is that link I screwed up: Objectivity in Truth and the Good, taxonomy as aid to insight

Intrinsic properties of surface defines our perception of the object. If you ask how the atomic structure of tomato's surface really looks like to man the answer would be : it looks red. The vision perception is objective process which integrates object, medium ( light in this case) and human organs of perception ( eyes). Which one of these three components is subjective in your opinion?

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I wasn't asking about other living organisms, I was asking about myself. Are my values independent of my consciousness?

You choose your values, but in order to do so you have to be alive in the first place. Therefore, life itself is ultimate value. Your body acts in order to gain/keep its life independently of your consciousness. Your mind is dependent on your life, not other way around. Mind isn't value in itself, it is a tool of human survival.

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Intrinsic properties of surface defines our perception of the object. If you ask how the atomic structure of tomato's surface really looks like to man the answer would be : it looks red. The vision perception is objective process which integrates object, medium ( light in this case) and human organs of perception ( eyes). Which one of these three components is subjective in your opinion?

The reflectance properties belong to the object, the eyes belong to the subject, and the perceived color is the resulting relation between them. The relational or relative character of color vision does not make it subjective. The distinctive flaw in both subjectivism and intrinsicism is the neglect of the relationship between subject and object.

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The reflectance properties belong to the object, the eyes belong to the subject, and the perceived color is the resulting relation between them. The relational or relative character of color vision does not make it subjective. The distinctive flaw in both subjectivism and intrinsicism is the neglect of the relationship between subject and object.

If perception is not subjective,then it is objective which means it reflects objective reality as it is with all its intrinsic properties. Percepts are self-evident. I cannot see the point of disagreement.

Edited by Leonid
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If perception is not subjective,then it is objective which means it reflects objective reality as it is with all its intrinsic properties. Percepts are self-evident. I cannot see the point of disagreement.

"The concept 'objective' does not apply to sense perception. It would be a stolen concept to say, 'I see you now objectively.' Why not? Why can't I say that? Because there's no such thing as seeing you subjectively. I can't say, 'I'm seeing the words in front of me correctly.' Why not? Because there's not such thing as seeing them incorrectly. Sense perception is not objective because it can't be subjective. It's just sense perception. It's just the given. It's just contact with reality." Harry Binswanger, Free Will

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"The concept 'objective' does not apply to sense perception. It would be a stolen concept to say, 'I see you now objectively.' Why not? Why can't I say that? Because there's no such thing as seeing you subjectively. I can't say, 'I'm seeing the words in front of me correctly.' Why not? Because there's not such thing as seeing them incorrectly. Sense perception is not objective because it can't be subjective. It's just sense perception. It's just the given. It's just contact with reality." Harry Binswanger, Free Will

Binswanger's topic there is free will, and objectivity has as a prerequisite the ability to choose between better and worse methods of thinking. There is no choosing how the senses work so objective/intrinsic/subjective do not apply. With the single exception of choice, the relationships between subject and object in perceiving and knowing are the same so it is highly instructive to study perception. Naive realism is intrinsicism applied to perception, and the Kantian explanation of perception in terms of categories, innate ideas or prior experiences is essentially subjectivism.

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Can you point out which statements exactly did I ignore?

For man to live qua man, these specific courses of action require cognitive, rational thinking, an understanding of context, an understanding of reality. Sometimes that reality dictates that for a specific man in a specific context, his life no longer has value to him. According to Objectivism, the concept value subsumes the idea "of value to whom and for what purpose". Even though you included that in your quote, you are conveniently divorcing that part of Objectivism from your argument. The concept "value" is entirely dependent upon an entity capable of conceptual thinking, not simply automated life processes.

(snip)

Observe that you bolded a quote which in no way establishs your "intrinsic" argument, neither by itself, nor with the whole of the other parts of the quote you provided. The fact that life (more specifically, cognitive rational life) must exist as a prerequisite to value establishes only that, the existence of value, not its quantative measurement, not that life has "intrinsic value".

Objectivism is a philosophy for man. Objectivism is not a philosophy for plants, trees, or other "living" things. As such, when Rand defined "value" she did so within the context of the philosophy of men - conscious, rational beings. My argument is that "value" (and consequently "valuation") DOES require consciousness. The concept "value" is important in terms of Objectivism because it distinguishes between things we (man, not plants) should (as in choice, not automated processes) do or should not do based on "to whom (not what) and for what purpose". The concept "value" is immaterial to a plant as the plant has not choice, not decisions to make, no purposes or goals to pursue. That a plant has automated processes does not establish that the plant or any part of the plant is making a "valuation" of anything. Thus, all your examples of a thing other than man "valuing" simply because it has life-sustaining processes is non-sequitur to anything Objectivism. Objectivism is a philosophy for man.

The essence of life is an action to gain and keep life itself, value therefore is intinsic to life. As long as people alive, untill the last breath and heart beat their bodies pursuit life, independently of their consciousness, contrary to their choice to negate life.

This is wrong because man's automated processes do not determine his purposes or goals. Man's mind determines his purposes and goals and his values. When a rational man no longer values his life, when a rational man values death instead of life, that demonstrates how there is not intrinsic value to his life. He need not be dead yet for this value to be gone.

I would highly recommend you read Viable Values by Tara Smith. She deals with the idea of "intrinsic value". While I typically try to make my own arguments rather than quote sections of books, there are two parts of her book that I am going to quote in line with my argument that you are trying to apply Objectivism where is doesn't belong. As I said before, life IS what make value possible, but the existence of life (or it's processes) does not determine what the value is, intrinsic or otherwise.

As for the subtitle, life is the root of morality insofar as the alternative of life or death is what makes the phenomenon of value possible. Correspondingly, life makes morality-guidance for the achievement of values-necessary. Life is the reward of morality insofar as a person's own life is the proper end of moral action. A person should be moral for the sake of maintaining and enhancing his own existence
. - Viable Values, Tara Smith, pg. 9

Well, this might lead one to believe that life should be pursued under all circumstances, that life is good in and of itself (intrinsically valuable). But wait... she goes further later on in the book;

Some might suspect that if values' end were life itself, suicide would be prohibited; but if the end is flourishing, suicide can be allowed because a person might not like his particular quality of life. The "broader" aim of flourishing, in other words, affords room to reject some lives as insufficiently desirable. This is not my basis for recognizing the permissibility of suicide, however, since I have rejected the idea that life and flourishing pose distinct alternatives.

Rather, the reason that suicide can be morally allowed is that life is not intrinsically valuable. Life is not to be maintained at any cost, like it or not. A life-based code is not a sentence to live, saddling people with the obligation to endure, however painful the circumstances. Life is the standard of value and source of moral obligation if it is a person's goal, but it is up to the individual to embrace that goal. Nor is it the case that if life is a person's goal, it must interminably remain his goal nor that, once chosen, life may never be unchosen. The only alternative to abiding by a life-based code of values is death, but that is the real alternative that suicide offers.

- Viable Values, Tara Smith, pgs. 143-144. Edited by RationalBiker
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Objectivism is a philosophy for man. Objectivism is not a philosophy for plants, trees, or other "living" things. As such, when Rand defined "value" she did so within the context of the philosophy of men - conscious, rational beings. My argument is that "value" (and consequently "valuation") DOES require consciousness. The concept "value" is important in terms of Objectivism because it distinguishes between things we (man, not plants) should (as in choice, not automated processes) do or should not do based on "to whom (not what) and for what purpose". The concept "value" is immaterial to a plant as the plant has not choice, not decisions to make, no purposes or goals to pursue. That a plant has automated processes does not establish that the plant or any part of the plant is making a "valuation" of anything. Thus, all your examples of a thing other than man "valuing" simply because it has life-sustaining processes is non-sequitur to anything Objectivism. Objectivism is a philosophy for man.

I think a distinction need be drawn between man and every other organism. We need one concept for any goal of goal-directed action, whether consciously pursued or not, and another concept for chosen goals. Insofar as you argue that the word "value" in Objectivism refers only to the second, I think that is demonstrably incorrect. For example,

"A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions.... An organism that possesses only the faculty of sensation is guided by the pleasure/pain mechanism of its body, that is: by an automatic knowledge and an automatic code of value... an animal has no choice in the standard of value directing its actions: its senses provide it with an automatic code of values, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil, what benefits or endangers its life." --The Objectivist Ethics

Thus, when you say, "The concept "value" is important in terms of Objectivism because it distinguishes between things we (man, not plants) should (as in choice, not automated processes) do or should not do..." I agree very strongly with the importance of this distinction; but if you look at Rand's text, she has chosen "value" to name the concept which subsumes automatic and volitional goal-directed action. The name for the concept which excludes automatic values is "moral value."

I agree that Objectivism is a philosophy for man, because only man needs philosophy or ethics at all. This is because he is the only organism which depends on moral values as well as automatic values to survive:

"The automatic values produced by the sensory-perceptual mechanism of its consciousness are sufficient to guide an animal, but are not sufficient for man." --The Objectivist Ethics

And incidentally Leonid, this is why I do not agree with your argument: the automatic values which a man's body pursues are not enough to keep him alive. My digestive system won't keep me alive if I don't eat. Yes, man can never shut off the bodily processes which are automatically oriented towards sustaining his life; but that's not the point. He doesn't need to shut them off. It is sufficient for him to withdraw his conscious pursuit of values, and he will soon perish. This is why man needs a code of ethics in the first place.

Yes, the phenomenon of life inherently implies goal-directed action, but Rand was not attacking this idea when she attacked the philosophical concept of "intrinsic value." Intrinsic value in this debate refers to the separation of value from valuer. More accurate than saying that the value of life is intrinsic to the phenomenon of life is saying that life (a self-sustaining phenomenon) implies the existence of goal-pursuit (self-sustaining actions). Seems to me you're debating Rand's wording more than her ideas.

Edited by Dante
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Insofar as you argue that the word "value" in Objectivism refers only to the second, I think that is demonstrably incorrect.

Then perhaps I'm the one at odds with Objectivism then. I don't see plants or trees valuing anything. I don't see their automated processes as "acting" either.

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Then perhaps I'm the one at odds with Objectivism then. I don't see plants or trees valuing anything. I don't see their automated processes as "acting" either.

From my notes on Greg Salmieri's "Ayn Rand's Concept of Valuing":

In the incomplete work "Moral Basis of Individualism" life and free will together motivate the need for a code of values.

Life is the standard and establishes the need for values.

Free will establishes the need for a code.

Atlas Shrugged goes deeper via her idea of "values for weeds".

formerly a value was defined as "that which one seeks to gain or keep" thus inherently of consciousness and excluding plants.

new definition "that which one acts to gain or keep"

Rand made this change while writing Galt's speech

Valuing is what living things do and what living consists of in its moment-by-moment activity.

Ayn Rand's villains are in an real sense not living because they are not valuing. This is NOT a metaphor. Blood and breath continue but those are subsystems, parts not a whole person so long as a central integrating purpose is absent.

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The topic is life and value, not man's life qua man. There is no argument about the concept of value which is obviously belongs to the realm of human cognition. I'm talking here about value itself. As Ayn Rand observed "It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.” (“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 15.). Note that Ayn Rand doesn't speak here about human life in particular. Her position implies that value is intrinsic to any life. "Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action. Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible... let me stress that 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.” (Ibid, 17). So life is a value in itself, exists as a part of reality which is independent of consciousness and therefore value is intrinsic property of life. That doesn't mean separation of value from valuer. It means that every living being is a valuer. The owl's life is good for owl. The fact that humans also may benefit from owl's existence is irrelevant. It is important to recognize the fact that valuation is an essence of life because this process represents ontological basis for human consciousness as well. The addition of free will and conceptual faculty doesn't change the fact that mind is a human tool for valuation and survival, not the end in itself. Only human life is. The usage of mind as a tool of life destruction would be contradiction in terms. Suicide is morally justified only when man's life qua man already doesn't have any value.

Edited by Leonid
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"The concept 'objective' does not apply to sense perception. It would be a stolen concept to say, 'I see you now objectively.' Why not? Why can't I say that? Because there's no such thing as seeing you subjectively. I can't say, 'I'm seeing the words in front of me correctly.' Why not? Because there's not such thing as seeing them incorrectly. Sense perception is not objective because it can't be subjective. It's just sense perception. It's just the given. It's just contact with reality." Harry Binswanger, Free Will

In Objectivism "objective" means that what pertains to reality. Percepts are self-evident and present reality objectively, as it is, with all its intrinsic properties. To say “I see you now objectively" would mean that I see you not as an illusion, delusion or Kantian phenomenal reflection of some unknown noumenal reality, but as an entity which exists in reality.

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Dante "And incidentally Leonid, this is why I do not agree with your argument: the automatic values which a man's body pursues are not enough to keep him alive. My digestive system won't keep me alive if I don't eat."

Let see: in order to make conscious decision not to eat you have to employ your mind, which means, to expand some energy which your digestive system has to provide to you in the first place. Your decision is an action based on certain valuation, in other words in order to make such a decision you have to be alive, which means your digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular, immune ,and all other systems have to be fully functional. Only in this condition you would be able to make such a strange decision as to kill yourself by starvation. If you imply that life has limitation and requires supply of essential elements to sustain itself, then observe that life by definition is a self-initiated goal orientated process which supplies them. Observe also that you have very limited conscious control over your essential vital functions. You cannot decide not to breathe, or to stop your heart beats. You may kill yourself, but even this action depends on the fact that you are alive.

Edited by Leonid
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So life is a value in itself

I see what you did there: you took Rand's statement that life is an end in itself, and replaced the word end with the word value, thus proving you're right. But you're wrong. "end in itself" is an idiom, which means "an entity existing for its own sake". "value in itself" is another idiom, with a very different meaning (often used in the phrase "knowledge is a value in itself"), which translates to "a thing with inherent value". Just because an existent exists for its own sake, that does not give it inherent value. There's no such thing as inherent value. There's objective value, but no inherent value.

If life was a value in itself, then killing would be a destruction of a value, in itself. And yet all I eat met its unfortunate end precisely to feed me. Its life doesn't seem all that valuable to me. On the contrary: its death is.

This might have come up in the thread already, but the claim that something is intrinsically good, or has intrinsic value is what Ayn Rand termed "the intrinsic theory of value". "Life is intrinsically good" means that all life is good, to those who believe this. Even when a life doesn't further your own ultimate goal, your own life, it is intrinsically good.

Similarly, wikipedia describes Intrinsicism as follows:

Intrinsicism is the belief that value is a non-relational characteristic of an object. This means that an object can be valuable or not, good or bad, without reference to who it is good or bad for, and without reference to the reason it is good or bad.

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Jake Ellison"I see what you did there: you took Rand's statement that life is an end in itself, and replaced the word end with the word value, thus proving you're right. But you're wrong. "end in itself" is an idiom, which means "an entity existing for its own sake". "value in itself" is another idiom, with a very different meaning (often used in the phrase "knowledge is a value in itself"), which translates to "a thing with inherent value". Just because an existent exists for its own sake, that does not give it inherent value. There's no such thing as inherent value. There's objective value, but no inherent value."

Although I'm not great fun of words' games I can play with you on your own terms. "End" means a goal or purpose. Value in Objectivism defined as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep" (“The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 15.) which is sine qua none of goal or purpose. In Objectivism "Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself: a value gained and kept by a constant process of action." (See above).Therefore the meaning of "end in itself" is identical to the meaning of “value in itself". Your substitution of the word "end" by the word “entity” is not warranted. "End in itself “doesn’t mean” "an entity exists for its own sake", but a goal or value which obtainable for its own sake. Life is the only such a value or goal. Life is a unique phenomenon which Objectivism defines as "value or end in itself". No other things like knowledge, money, freedom etc...could be defined as such, since values of all these things are reducible to the value of life. However the value of life is the only irreducible, primary value. That what makes it intrinsic property of life. This is essential difference of life's value from the values of all other things. Incidentally this doesn't mean that life is indestructible. On the contrary the destructibility of life makes it valuable.

Edited by Leonid
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Look in any dictionary.

According to Oxford Dictionary one of the definitions of " end" is " a purpose , aim". Therefore "end in itself " means purpose in itself, that which one acts to gain and/or keep, a value.

Edited by Leonid
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Please explain.

Its already been explained. Ad nauseum. I think your definitions are wrong. Please breifly define "intrinsic value", and breifly explain how it pertains to life, or anything else for that matter.

Intrinsic means property of reality which is independent of consciousness. Objective means exactly the same.

I suppose thats a forgivable definition if the discussion were about metaphysics, but its not. You defend you position here:

Epistemology deals with the question of awareness of value, not value itself. Since not all living things which value possess awareness, value is metaphysical and not epistemic concept. To claim the opposite is to accept the notion of primacy of consciousness. From metaphysical point of view intrinsic and objective is the same.

The reason this looks like primacy of consciousness to you, is because you seem to think that "value" is a metaphysical attribute of a living thing that will be taken away if your theory falls apart. Value is not some thing out there in reality, it takes a valuer. Its about a relationship between existence and consciousness. An active process. Are you saying value is a metaphysical part of a living thing, like "roseness", or "manness"? If so, then youre difficulty lies in youre understanding of the concept of objectivity. You want to make a distinction between metaphysics and epistemology when dealing with the concept of value but you shouldnt.

I'll paraphrase ITOE:

"The good is neither an attribute of things in themselves, nor a mans emotional states, rather, its an evaluation of the facts of reality, by mans consciousness, according to a rational standard of value" (that may not be exact) Value (any value) is about the nature of existence, and the nature of man, with his particular cognitive hardware, and his particular standard of value. Its not "roseness", or a particular "essence" of an organism. Do you believe in god?

j..

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JavR "The reason this looks like primacy of consciousness to you, is because you seem to think that "value" is a metaphysical attribute of a living thing that will be taken away if your theory falls apart. Value is not some thing out there in reality, it takes a valuer."

I think that value is a property which inherent to life.It seems that the main point of disagreement lies in your premise of valuer as conscious volitional being. But this is obviously incorrect. Every living thing, conscious or not acts in order to gain/keep values when the ultimate value is its own life. Therefore every organism is a valuer. It chooses its values without to be conscious or volitional. Lion will choose to hunt and eat springbok but it will ignore grass as source of nutrition. Springbok will eat grass and ignore meat even if it ready available to it. They both choose their values involuntary, their choice is preprogrammed. I don't believe in God and I don't think that acknowledge of the obvious fact that self-organized system which generates self-initiated goal-orientated actions is driven by teleological self-causation is mysticism. I don't believe in reductionism either.

Edited by Leonid
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