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Is it immoral to take out a student loan if you might die?

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BRG253

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"Long range" means, plain and simply, "the integrated whole".

I would dispute this interpretation. Long-range considerations in morality exist because man's rational faculty makes prediction, forward-looking, and the planning based on those possible.

To farm or manufacture or voyage or marry, man has to consider how his actions will turn out long-range. (As much as possible.) Otherwise he is subject to "shooting himself in the foot:" acting in the short-range in a way that will cost dearly in thge long-term.

Ideally, an individual has always been forward-looking, and his past matches the present and likely future. Hopefully, he has led a morally-instructed life that becomes an integrated whole. To achieve that integrated whole it is necessary to live by principles throughout, it is necessary to live long-range. But the specific meaning of "long-range" is not "the integrated whole."

Mindy

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Okay, I'll tell you what. Restate your claim about Objectivist ethics only being about "long life", and especially that part where you think Peikoff, or Rand, has provides some sanction for rejecting the Objectivist ethics when death is within 6 months. And be so kind as to provide actual quotes of what they said. I would like to understand at what point you believe that Objectivist ethics simply does not apply.

Your understanding of p. 214 is quite defective. Peikoff says, as I said, that man's principles must be based on the long range -- the full range of his life. At no point does he ever say "But ethics becomes irrelevant if that period is less than a year". You have twisted the expression "long range" to mean "some period that we would ordinarily understand as being 'a long time'," and that is clearly not what he means. You are the one being obtuse about the concept of "dying". Death is imminent when it approaches within some few minutes; it is not imminent when one has a disease that will kill them in a week, month or year. In that interim, you are still alive, and since you have chosen to live rather than end it immediately, ethics is relevant to what remain of your life. The same is true when you are 80 years old and have relatively few years left to live.

If you will direct your attention just a few lines further down, on p. 215, he states:

For any living organism, the course of action that survival demands is continuous, full-time, all-embracing. No action an organism takes is irrelevant to its existence. Every such action is either in accordance with what self-preservation requires or it is not; it is for the entity's life or against it.

It is clear that he is speaking of the entire range of man's life. Long-range means all of his life. Quoting Rand, he states:

"Man's life is a continuous whole: for good or evil, every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all the days behind him." Man can and must know not merely tomorrow's requirements or this season's, but every identifiable factor that affects his survival. He can assess not merely the proximate, but also the remote consequences of his choices.

"Long range" means, plain and simply, "the integrated whole".

Respond to Mindy for the latter points, I agree with her.

Restatement: As one approaches death, one has less and less to plan long term, so ethical principles, which I see as ways to think about living in the long term, become less and less relevant.

There isn't a giant gap where ethics become irrelevant. Ethics can definitely provide you with some advice for a 6 month period, however ethics will have less to say about a 6 month period than lets say, a 30 year period or a 50 year period (where ethics is immensely important).

There are some qualifications. First of are the obvious applications of "ethics" that just about everyone follows. If someone had absolutely no rationality, integrity, purpose, honesty, or justice, they would most likely die very quickly. Most people do have these virtues to a certain degree. I don't see this as an objection to my point about ethical principles not being relevant in decision making as the major long term applications of ethical principles as one approaches death.

We are talking about what ethical principles are for, or at the very least, what is required for ethical principles. As I quoted earlier Peikoff pointed out that for one to be ethical, one needs to engage in long term thinking, with principles. If as the period of time gets smaller, then these sorts of principles start loosing their practical justification of providing people with a means of gaining value.

As an example, "Since you want to live, you shouldn't do x because it will hurt you in the end for reason y". This type of statement can be true, however it would irrelevant if "in the end" will happen much later than the death of the person being given this information.

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If as the period of time gets smaller, then these sorts of principles start loosing their practical justification of providing people with a means of gaining value.

If I had very little left it would have been extremely important to me to live the whatever precious remaining I have left as the kind of human being I would be proud of. I would want to die with moral pride. Seems to me that you underestimate its value overall (I noticed you did not list it above along other virtues) and especially when life is limited. No value is higher than self-esteem - that fact is not affected by how much life you have left (I would argue the opposite - that it becomes more crucial when near the end of life)

It is easy to identify people who fully grasped Objectivism. They display "radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in values of both material and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself".

Edited by ~Sophia~
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If I had very little left it would have been extremely important to me to live the whatever precious remaining I have left as the kind of human being I would be proud of. I would want to die with moral pride. Seems to me that you underestimate its value overall (I noticed you did not list it above along other virtues) and especially when life is limited. No value is higher than self-esteem - that fact is not affected by how much life you have left (I would argue the opposite - that it becomes more crucial when near the end of life)

Well, I think this is one of those things that is a consequence of living a moral life already. I feel the same way.

An analogous concept is generosity/benevolence. Are those things virtues? Not really, taking those things as primaries won't cause you to live a better life, however virtuous people tend to be benevolent and generous people.

So yeah generous people will probably want to set things in order before they die, but this is a result of cultivating a certain psychology in my opinion, not something you can take as a primary.

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but this is a result of cultivating a certain psychology in my opinion, not something you can take as a primary.

Happiness is impossible without moral pride. This is as "primary" as it can get. I am not this way because it fits "my psychology". You have reversed cause and effect. I am this way psychologically (I have pursued and earned that state) because it is a requirement of real happiness.

I would not want to live even a minute any other way.

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If you have a co-signer they will almost always inherit the obligation.

A minor aside but this is technically false. A co-signer inherits nothing in this case - a co-signer starts out with the obligation from day 1 and the death of the other person on the loan has no bearing upon that obligation.

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I wouldn't usually do this, but here's a podcast by Peikoff that I think is pretty close to supporting what Hairnet is saying. The psychological aspect of happiness does apply, but happiness isn't the purpose of ethics. The purpose of ethics is to help you survive and flourish.

link

One line from the podcast: "Ethics is not for the dying."

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The psychological aspect of happiness does apply, but happiness isn't the purpose of ethics. The purpose of ethics is to help you survive and flourish.

Happiness is the successful state of life and it is the purpose of ethics.

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.
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If I had very little left it would have been extremely important to me to live the whatever precious remaining I have left as the kind of human being I would be proud of. I would want to die with moral pride. Seems to me that you underestimate its value overall (I noticed you did not list it above along other virtues) and especially when life is limited. No value is higher than self-esteem - that fact is not affected by how much life you have left (I would argue the opposite - that it becomes more crucial when near the end of life)

It is easy to identify people who fully grasped Objectivism. They display "radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in values of both material and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself".

The question being debated is how morality, objectively, and on principle, applies to the sort of choices that remain to one when his death is predicted to be only months, etc., away. Your comment assumes an answer to that question, rather than proposing reasons why the question ought to be answered one way or the other.

So, for example, when you say, "I would want to die with moral pride," that is what everybody agrees on. But what that entails is the question we are trying to figure out.

Mindy

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Happiness is the successful state of life and it is the purpose of ethics.

At best you could say the purpose of ethics is to help figure out how to lead a flourishing life, which causes happiness. You cannot separate happiness from life, true, but if you are dying, the whole life part disappears. Since it then becomes unnecessary to think long-range, you may as well think *only* short-range. I'm not even sure if my happiness would be negatively affected if, a week before I knew I would die, I took a loan I wouldn't be able to repay before I died even if it was a lie that it could be repaid, since I could then be able to at least pursue what gives me the most pleasure. Remember, in this context the person is dying, so there isn't any reason to suggest hedonism is a bad option. At this point, any choice is completely amoral, similar to how suicide is neither moral nor immoral. I mean, why shouldn't I lie if it would be IMPOSSIBLE to get into trouble with the law? I'd be dead long before the repayment deadline.

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At this point, any choice is completely amoral, similar to how suicide is neither moral nor immoral. I mean, why shouldn't I lie if it would be IMPOSSIBLE to get into trouble with the law? I'd be dead long before the repayment deadline.

Why shouldn't you lie in wait in a dark parking lot, drag a twelve year old into your van, tie them up in your basement raping them repeatedly as they scream for mercy then pour lighter fluid on them and toss a match?

I mean, if it makes you happy and it would be impossible to get into trouble with the law and any choice is now "completely" amoral.....?

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Happiness is impossible without moral pride. This is as "primary" as it can get. I am not this way because it fits "my psychology". You have reversed cause and effect. I am this way psychologically (I have pursued and earned that state) because it is a requirement of real happiness.

I would not want to live even a minute any other way.

I have not reversed anything. I have only pointed out constantly that the closer to one death gets the less and less morality can help you. You could be happy before you die however, provided that you have actively been engaging in projects and achieving values. Even if you hadn't achieved any values you may not be happy, but you would have self-esteem (Benevolent Universe Conviction as Peikoff called it).

So here we have a good example of someone who could benefit from morality while approaching death, people like you and I and such. However some Christian cancer patient who has been doing squat his whole life up til then... what are we supposed to tell them? I would tell them "Go do something that feels really good". Why? Because that is just about all they can get out of life any more.

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So, for example, when you say, "I would want to die with moral pride," that is what everybody agrees on. But what that entails is the question we are trying to figure out.

Mindy

Are you suggesting that a person could have moral pride even though they abandoned moral principles and became rights violating savage toward the end of their life?

Edited by ~Sophia~
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I have only pointed out constantly that the closer to one death gets the less and less morality can help you.

Help me do what? For as long as I am alive I ought to live qua man - the recipe for which is rational morality.

You could be happy before you die however, provided that you have actively been engaging in projects and achieving values. Even if you hadn't achieved any values you may not be happy, but you would have self-esteem (Benevolent Universe Conviction as Peikoff called it).

Benevolent Universe outlook is not the same as self esteem.

Also, I could not possibly die happy with myself and my life if I abandoned reality based moral principles.

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I would tell them "Go do something that feels really good".

One can achieve happiness (and true positive evaluation of one's life and self) only on the basis of rational values. Same can not be obtained through hedonism.

I would tell them to do something they could be proud of - something/anything meaningful.

Because that is just about all they can get out of life any more.

Well, I disagree.

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Help me do what? For as long as I am alive I ought to live qua man - the recipe for which is rational morality.

Help you survive (by survive I also mean to flourish). The context here is that death is imminent and there's nothing you can do about it, so you are in the process of dying rather than living. There would be no reason to necessarily act virtuous in a certain way if it won't affect you one bit in the last week of your life. It would not be wrong to continue to act the way you have been for decades, though you probably will have automatized your values to such a degree that you would feel sad or upset to do anything else. Nor would it be wrong to do anything else. Really if you were on the verge of death, you may as well kill yourself the preferred way, whether it be hedonism or euthanasia. I'm unsure if Hairnet is speaking of only the context of "in the process of dying" or of "near death because the person is 93 years old."

Edited by Eiuol
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Help you survive (by survive I also mean to flourish).

You can't be happy living like an animal. You can't have true self worth living like an animal. If you start acting like an animal toward the end of your life - those things are impossible.

There would be no reason to necessarily act virtuous in a certain way if it won't affect you one bit in the last week of your life.

It would affect the most important value there is - my self worth. Self evaluation is the last thing and probably the most important thing for anyone before they take their last breath.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Help me do what? For as long as I am alive I ought to live qua man - the recipe for which is rational morality.

Benevolent Universe outlook is not the same as self esteem.

Also, I could not possibly die happy with myself and my life if I abandoned reality based moral principles.

1) The principles help you gain the benefits of morality (Self-Esteem, rewarding sex life apparently, happiness). The less you are interested in those things, and the less you are able to achieve those things, there is less reason to invest time and energy in living life qua man.

2) I said Benevolent Universe Conviction, which is a more precise way of interpreting "self esteem". I take it to mean that someone basically understand that they are capable of living their life, of interacting with reality, they are not afraid of challenge or effort because it pays off.

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Are you suggesting that a person could have moral pride even though they abandoned moral principles and became rights violating savage toward the end of their life?

The context is this discussion, this thread. Everyone posting here agrees with the importance of morality. Exactly what consists in, in these specific conditions, is just what needs to be figured out.

When you say, "...even though they abandobned moral principles..." you are just assuming that the loan would be immoral. We are comparing reasons for believing that versus believing that it would be moral.

Mindy

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1) The principles help you gain the benefits of morality (Self-Esteem, rewarding sex life apparently, happiness). The less you are interested in those things, and the less you are able to achieve those things, there is less reason to invest time and energy in living life qua man.

Not caring about one's self esteem and happiness toward the end of life were not the stated conditions of the question. There is nothing to debate if that this the case.

I will just make a comment that not caring about one's self evaluation is not typically what people experience when they face death.

2) I said Benevolent Universe Conviction, which is a more precise way of interpreting "self esteem".

It is not. You are mixing two concepts.

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My take on end-of-life choices is this: You are acutely aware of who you "were," and what you stood for. You take pride in that, and spend your remaining time reviewing and celebrating yourself/your life/the joy you took in living.

In this state, it would be impossible not to be as you have struggled to be, and found deep satisfaction in being. To continue just as you have been, to value as you have valued, is the greatest affirmation of yourself and your life you could make. To betray that would be like killing yourself, and worse. It would be killing yourself from that moment on, and retroactively killing everything you had lived for...

So, the point about respecting your "whole life," is germane in this sense. There would be nothing you could buy, no indulgences, etc. that might compare to the importance of being true to your self, to the very end.

Mindy

Edited by Mindy
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When you say, "...even though they abandobned moral principles..." you are just assuming that the loan would be immoral. We are comparing reasons for believing that versus believing that it would be moral.

Mindy

The same principle would apply. Loan is just one possible concrete of many.

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Not caring about one's self esteem and happiness toward the end of life were not the stated conditions of the question. There is nothing to debate if that this the case.

I will just make a comment that not caring about one's self evaluation is not typically what people experience when they face death.

It is not. You are mixing two concepts.

1) You are not considering my earlier posts in conjunction with those. If someone who has not been moral (because they are not interested in being moral, gaining the benefits of morality), the closer to death that they get there is going to be a point where it is basically too late to try to be happy or get self esteem, because that stuff takes time and effort.

So if someone wants to die morally because that is how they have been and that makes them happy and all of that, fine, but that is only the case because of there already having been like that. If someone has been largely immoral all there life, and they were going to die in a short amount of time, there really isn't anything that morality can offer them, because they most likely not live long enough to receive the benefits of it.

Conversely, there are certain activities that are immoral, that have long term negative consequences, that would cease to be immoral because the long term consequences wouldn't be there any more.

2) Prove it.

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One can achieve happiness (and true positive evaluation of one's life and self) only on the basis of rational values. Same can not be obtained through hedonism.

I would tell them to do something they could be proud of - something/anything meaningful.

Well, I disagree.

I never said that pleasure seeking would make you happy.

If you have six months left to live, it is surely possible to do a few things that you can be proud of, but there are a few problems with this. One can't just start being moral all of the sudden, especially if they have already been immoral, a lot of making up for past damages has to be done. They are basically in the negative.

This reminds me of all of those silly movies where a man who has been nothing but bad for the whole movie "redeems" himself at the end by sacrificing his life or something else dramatic. I don't think a man in isolation out of the blue can just start gaining self esteem or being happy. It can be too late for people.

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