Sexuality

[HaloNoble6]

Well, Ayn Rand made a distinction between implicitly holding a concept and explicitly identifying it. She held that young children progress through implicit understandings of the basic axioms. Is it your view that implicitly holding a concept requires volition?

Edited December 21, 2005 by Felipe

[Hal]

Sorry, I'm not sure precisely what youre asking - I havent read IOE for a while and dont have a copy handy, so I cant check what you mean by 'implictly holding a concept'

I dont think that making mental groupings of objects, or learning how to use the associated words and speak a language requires volition. Nor does perceptual identification. But performing an analysis of ones concepts and explicitly defining them requires mental focus and hence an act of choice. I seem to recall AR discussing mental groupings in the appendix but I cant remember the details.

[HaloNoble6]

I will try to quote the relevant passage from OPAR some time tomorrow.

Edited December 21, 2005 by Felipe

[FeatherFall]

Sexual orientation refers to the gender(s) one seeks to find romantic relationships. Romantic love is an emotion, and emotions are physical manifestations of automatized value judgments.

Hal raises a good point: It is not clear what specific value judgments contribute to sexual orientation. But there is a method that will create clarity.

First, we need a rock-solid understanding of the definition of romantic love and its antecedent concepts. Then, we need an enormous list of all of the concrete examples of value judgments pertaining to all of romantic love's antecedent concepts. Then, we need to eliminate value judgments that do not pertain to romantic love. Finally, we need to sift through what is left and sort them into groups indicating male, female, and gender-neutral decisions. This, of course, is most useful as a tool for introspection.

Well, Ayn Rand made a distinction between implicitly holding a concept and explicitly identifying it. She held that young children progress through implicit understandings of the basic axioms. Is it your view that implicitly holding a concept requires volition?

The answer to this question applies to more values hierarchies than those involving sexual orientation. For this reason, I think the question deserves its own thread.