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Merge: Rights, Life

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freefrag

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Our physiology is geared towards living.

Say what? Our physiology is geared towards life in the conditions on land on this planet. Even then, it's not geared towards enabling us to live in the depths of the Sahara or the frigid wastelands of the Antarctic. It is not physiology that provides man with a means of survival, it is the use of his rational faculty.

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What about the human drive for rightousness and selfjustification, the desire for "freedom of guilt" (with being guilty = having destroyed his means of survival)? Would that be an alternative?

Can't say I entirely understand what you're saying here Bobby, but IMO the assignment of the right to life is a basic fundamental of any meaningful and automatically objective ethical system/doctrine, ie, once we've decided that humans have the right to life, we then have to decide the implications of that and cater to those implications{the right to freedom and productiveness}.

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Say what?  Our physiology is geared towards life in the conditions on land on this planet.  Even then, it's not geared towards enabling us to live in the depths of the Sahara or the frigid wastelands of the Antarctic.  It is not physiology  that provides man with a means of survival, it is the use of his rational faculty.

Madam, telling me that I have to ecologically qualify my statements amongst this forum would seem redundant to me.

I said that our physiology is geared towards life, I didn't say anything about the intellectual quality of our life, ie, a child raised on a diet of food, exercise and minimal emotional/intellectual contact will still function physiologically, proving that we are geared towards living by virture of our physico/chemical properties.

Objectivism will maximize the totality of one's life.

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Hi Bobby,

all your questions and all the issues you raise have been adressed by professional Objectivist philosophers. The best among them is Dr. Leonard Peikoff. His book "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" is a systematic presentation of the philosophy this forum was created to discuss. It is difficult to discuss these ideas with someone who has next to no knowledge of what these ideas are (I didn't either before I actually read the books by Ayn Rand or Peikoff). So I suggest to you that you pick it up from amazon for a mere 13 USD, or used for 6 USD, please see:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

Dr. Peikoff has devoted his whole life to learning the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and Ayn Rand was also his teacher and mentor. This is now available for 6 USD - and your own effort in reading the book.

You seem to be genuinly interested in philosophy and Objectivism, so I suggest you buy and read the book. Ask yourself: What is your time worth? You can spend 1 year on this discussion forum trying to learn what we non-prosessional hobby-philosophers think about the various aspects of Objectivism, and still not learn as much as you could by reading this one book for say, one week. It is understanding and knowledge I gather you seek, not discussion for the sake of discussion. So, why not save your valuable time and go directly to the source? and avoid unnecessary confusions discussing with other non-professionals? It is difficult enough for us students of Objectivism to discuss ideas with each other, but at least we have, or some have, read the works that we talk about. But discussing them with someone who has not read them, is next to impossible, at least for me.

Then, later on we can talk about the nature of reason and emotion, their relationship and role in cognition (perhaps after you read the section on "Emotions as a Product of Ideas", in the chapter on "Reason" in the book referred to above?).

You will be surprised at the view Objectivism has on reason and emotion and I think you will be amply rewarded in reading this book. I know I was.

Edited by Harald
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Hi Bobby,

all your questions and all the issues you raise have been adressed by professional Objectivist philosophers...

Well, maybe you're right, maybe I should read some of Rand's philosophy first. But are you sure Peikhoff's book is the right one to start with? How about a book from Rand herself? How about "Philosophy - Who Needs It?"? Wouldn't that be better? Or should I be reading "Atlas Shrugged" at the same time?

[Removed excessive quoting. - GC]

Edited by GreedyCapitalist
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Well, maybe you're right, maybe I should read some of Rand's philosophy first. But are you sure Peikhoff's book is the right one to start with? How about a book from Rand herself? How about "Philosophy - Who Needs It?"? Wouldn't that be better? Or should I be reading "Atlas Shrugged" at the same time?

Right, reading Atlas first then the formal non-fiction and systematic presentation after that, makes sense.

Also, the people at ARI has given this some thought and provided a suggested reading list, see www.aynrand.org

Good reading, I sure enjoyed reading Atlas the first time and hoope you will too.

All the best,

Harald

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Bobby.

IMO, Ayn Rand, An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is a good start, especially as it's only 165 pages, which means you get a great overview{plus some hardcore explanations} which you could read over the weekend if you're keen enough.

I've just ordered OPAR, 500 pages, so that should do the trick, IOW, once you've got the basic principles, you shouldn't really need endless examples, you should be able to duplicate many of the analogies/examples that Rand created herself.

If you're a youngster, just ask your parents that you'd like them to buy you two popular philosophy books, I'm sure they won't object{hopefully, lol}.

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Done merging. There turned out to be fewer threads on this particular topic than I thought; almost all of the rights threads are about property instead, or some fine application of said rights that doesn't deserve to be smooged all in one thread.

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