Choice - or not.

[Akilah]

Given that a choice is a concept before an action, that is, it is the predicate of action. But, what is a choice? I have worked out that, a choice is merely the result of judgment of what, amongst  alternatives, is right or wrong. The necessary result, is that, it is fundamental to human nature that he can only act on what he has judged right or wrong. Making the choice between the slice of pizza and ribeye steak is to say, "is the pizza right or is the steak right and the pizza wrong?"; Man cannot act out of morality - it is his nature to be morally perfect. 

Let me stress this, action is the result of judgment amongst alternatives; that is, choice, which is merely that precise judgment of those alternatives as right or wrong. Man cannot act outside of this judgment - it is the kind of identity he is, his nature. To choose, is to judge, and to act, is to choose. To act impulsively is to judge whims as right and planned action as wrong (choosing) and so on.

Necessarily, then, what is fundamentally wrong cannot possess any rationale as to why it is 'right' - that is, if an action is wrong, then there exists no contexts, no circumstances, no rationales as to why it is right for that specific context. Exempli gratia, if one has proclaimed that eating healthy foods is right and eating unhealthy foods is wrong, then, there exists no rationale to justify eating unhealthy foods (that is to say, a reason for why, granted a specific context, it is right to eat unhealthy food) - I am tempted to say, that, it is a stolen concept to answer otherwise, in that, when an object is fundamentally wrong, there cannot exist any pretexts for which it is right because it is already wrong.

The resulting, and rather exciting, conclusion is that mans nature is to be morally perfect; that is, he cannot act outside his judgments - so much for "man isn't perfect"; it is his job to be perfect.

*Note: I am looking for objections from my fellow objectivists, am I wrong? I want to know the truth*.

[softwareNerd]

10 minutes ago, Akilah said:

The resulting, and rather exciting, conclusion is that mans nature is to be morally perfect; that is, he cannot act outside his judgments - so much for "man isn't perfect"; it is his job to be perfect.

Why would this be exciting? What about the real world changes if I conceptualize it this way? 

To ask it another way: why should I be any more happy, relieved, excited etc. after reading your post? Is there an implication that impacts me/

Edited July 30, 2018 by softwareNerd

[Nicky]

17 hours ago, Akilah said:

To act impulsively is to judge whims as right and planned action as wrong (choosing) and so on. 

Acting impulsively and whimsically is not the same thing.

Impulsive simply means unplanned (you seem to be aware of this, since you're contrasting it with planned action). There's nothing wrong with impulsive action, per se. A person with rational values will have good impulses, and acting on them will usually lead to good results. Not always, of course, because impulsive actions can lead to mistakes, but allowing for the occasional mistake beats the alternative: being paralyzed in situations that surprise us...which is most situations, because the world is in constant motion, and if we want to be a part of it, we need to be able to make immediate choices, not just well planned ones. Also, never doing anything impulsive makes one a boring person.

Whimsical action is very different. A person who acts impulsively can have a set of carefully chosen values that inform their unplanned reactions, not to mention evaluate them after the fact and deal with the consequences whenever a mistake is made (usually, a simple apology does the job). A person who makes whimsical choices has no idea or concern as to whether they're right or wrong. They don't choose the values that inform their choices, and they certainly don't have the awareness to realize their mistakes and fix them.

[Nicky]

18 hours ago, Akilah said:

Exempli gratia, if one has proclaimed that eating healthy foods is right and eating unhealthy foods is wrong, then, there exists no rationale to justify eating unhealthy foods (that is to say, a reason for why, granted a specific context, it is right to eat unhealthy food).

Really? What if you're lost in the woods, and after several days of wandering the wilderness you stumble on an isolated cabin with massive amounts of donuts, and nothing else, in the fridge? What if you're in the middle of a famine in Africa, and a nice American billionaire decides to drop off a truckful of, you guessed it: donuts.

Guess what: the right thing to do, in either case, is enjoy some donuts. Why? Because words only have meaning in context. Deciding what food is and isn't healthy, without providing context, is foolish. If eating something makes you healthier than not eating it, it's healthy. Eating a donut will obviously make a starving person healthier than not eating it.

And that's an extreme example, there are far more mundane ones. What if you happen to have a very important deadline coming up in two days, at work, and the only way to meet it is to work two 16 hour days in a row? And the healthy food would take an hour+ to get (the healthy eatery is farther away, or that's how much it takes to buy the ingredients and cook them), while Mickey D's is right next door? What is the correct choice:

a. blowing the contract just so you can have three healthy meals a day, and a healthy amount (eight hours) of sleep.

b. meeting the deadline, and having the three healthy meals, but sacrificing thee hours of sleep

c. going hungry for 48 hours

d. making an exception, and eating some junk food

Pretty sure it's d., for most people. Not everyone, though. Even then, additional context can make a difference: for instance, if someone has a condition that requires a specific diet, then you gotta go with b. instead of d. And someone who practices fasting as a way of life (look it up, if you don't know about this), and is used to it, would find it easy enough to just not eat anything.  Because, again: context.

Edited July 31, 2018 by Nicky