You should choose to live

[intrinsicist]

On 3/1/2017 at 9:55 AM, KyaryPamyu said:

Now, why does he desire them? If you answered, "because Man's life is the standard of moral value, and his own life is his moral purpose" you are ipso facto advocating intrinsicism.

But isn't this exactly true? Where do you think desires come from if not human nature?

[intrinsicist]

On 3/1/2017 at 9:55 AM, KyaryPamyu said:

you're turning the metaphysicaly given into a god, the way Spinoza did, then giving moral significance to your obedience to the metaphysicaly given.

But that's precisely what Ayn Rand defined morality to be in The Objectivist Ethics: is implies ought. Morality comes from your metaphysically-given nature, and moral significance comes precisely from your following that. To go against your nature is to violate exactly this fundamental principle, that is implies ought. This is why life is the ultimate standard of value in Objectivism.

[intrinsicist]

On 9/19/2017 at 12:40 PM, Easy Truth said:

"What about a life that is in fact not worth living?" 

See above "Positive values are possible despite suffering" and related sections.

[intrinsicist]

On 4/6/2017 at 7:55 PM, William O said:

I don't disagree that life extension research is a good thing and might be something useful to come around to once everything else has been taken care of, but it is simply wrong to say that it should be the central purpose of everyone's life.

You're right to call me on it; I need to flesh out a more comprehensive theory of positive ethics to justify this claim. I would still argue that my position here is largely correct. In the sense of having a so-called "central purpose in life", this is what I think it should be. There's more to positive ethics than this sense of a "central purpose in life", but it's still an important one, and I think it's properly related to life extension and the pursuit of physical immortality. I'll have to come back to this point.

[Eiuol]

11 hours ago, intrinsicist said:

whether you are conscious of the logical implications or not

How can a commitment be nonconscious? You probably should define what you mean by commitment.

This thread is three years old, so I don't remember if we covered that.