Why Live In The First Place?

[Felix]

... keeping it tied to that initial choice is what makes it objective.

I agree. But if that initial choice is arbitrary, doesn't that make all the rest that is tied to it arbitrary, too? You can always argue with "That's just because of your arbitrary choice to value life in the first place."

How do you answer that?

[softwareNerd]

You can always argue with "That's just because of your arbitrary choice to value life in the first place." How do you answer that?

Who could make that argument unhypocritically, unless they were dead.

[Felix]

The funny thing is, that all this means that philosophy cannot answer the questions:

"Why live?" and "What is the meaning of life?"

[B. Royce]

The funny thing is, that all this means that philosophy cannot answer the questions:

"Why live?" and "What is the meaning of life?"

Life does not exist. What exists are individual living things. The meaning of your life is what you have chosen, and will chose, what to do and what to make of it. Once you leave the stratospheric no man's land of floating abstractions, you will find questions like this much easier to answer.

That should read "what to do_ with_".

[Felix]

Life does not exist. What exists are individual living things. The meaning of your life is what you have chosen, and will chose, what to do and what to make of it. Once you leave the stratospheric no man's land of floating abstractions, you will find questions like this much easier to answer.

That should read "what to do_ with_".

Do you actually want to tell me that you found the meaning of life?

[softwareNerd]

A few times, Christians have asked me how I can be an atheist. Wouldn't that mean that life has no meaning? Fundamentally, the Christian is using a different concept from me. To him, the "meaning of life" is something that explains why life was created. In that sense, life has no meaning. The meaning, to a Christian, is why he was created, and therefore what he must continue to pursue.

Rationally, one has to drop the supernatural element. Then, the meaning is why one chooses to stay alive. Sometimes, people decide that their life has becomes meaningless, and people should have the right to terminate their life in such case.

[DavidOdden]

Life does not exist. What exists are individual living things.

What do you mean by "exist"? Are you conflating "entity" and "existent"?

[DavidOdden]

I think it's inaccurate to refer to existence vs. non-existence as a choice, and that it's more correct to call it an alternative, as Peikoff did in OPAR. He also says that the fundamental choice is to think or not to think. It may seem like splitting hairs, but I actually think it's an important distinction.

Well, see AS 931 "It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death", and then OPAR 208: "'Alternative' does not necessarily imply choice; it means that the entity is confronted by two possible results: either it acts successfully, gaining the object it seeks, or it does not (and thus fails to gain the object)." Man makes choices when he recognises alternatives: any choice implies an alternative. So I think it is accurate to say that man must make a choice between thinking or not thinking, existing or not existing. Rand sees living as the fundamental moral choice (AS 936): "My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live." The key here, which eluded me before (thanks for bringing this point into focus) is that the fundamental moral choice is the choice to live. The choice itself cannot be made by using logic and recognition of fact, but you nevertheless must chose. Chosing to exist presuppose choice, which is a particular kind of thinking.

[dondigitalia]

Life does not exist. What exists are individual living things. The meaning of your life is what you have chosen, and will chose, what to do and what to make of it. Once you leave the stratospheric no man's land of floating abstractions, you will find questions like this much easier to answer.

I think you're making a slight mistake here. Life does exist, as an characteristic of certain things.

Do you actually want to tell me that you found the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is all of the goal-directed actions of all living organisms. The particular actions one might take to give his own life meaning are highly optional--the meaning of your life is all the goal-directed actions you take, which really means: all the values you act to gain and/or keep.

This really isn't a difficult question once you put it into the perspective of Objectivism.

I agree. But if that initial choice is arbitrary, doesn't that make all the rest that is tied to it arbitrary, too? You can always argue with "That's just because of your arbitrary choice to value life in the first place."

How do you answer that?

I'd say, "That's right. And you must have chosen it too, or else you couldn't even ask the question of why to chose it."

A few times, Christians have asked me how I can be an atheist. Wouldn't that mean that life has no meaning?

I have a very good answer to this, which I've used a number of times:

You look around at the world and think it's not enough, so you have a God to give your life meaning. I look around at the world and think how great it is I that I get to be here; all this is the meaning.

The key here, which eluded me before (thanks for bringing this point into focus) is that the fundamental moral choice is the choice to live. The choice itself cannot be made by using logic and recognition of fact, but you nevertheless must chose. Chosing to exist presuppose choice, which is a particular kind of thinking.

I'm confused as to what you mean by a "particular kind of thinking."

What you said, though, (even though I think I disagree) gave me an additional level of understanding of my own views on this. I said before that, in the initial choice to think, one is simultaneously adopting life as the standard of value (why think, if it isn't to live?). Then later, I said that I could almost agree to calling them the same choice. I'm much more ready to call them the same choice now that you have put forth the idea of "moral choice." Metaphysically, the referents of the choice are the same--that initial act of coming into focus for the first time--but conceptually, like so many other concepts, they are the same thing, viewed from a different perspective. The choice to live is the choice to think, viewed from a moral perspective.

Edited February 4, 2006 by dondigitalia

[Felix]

The key here, which eluded me before (thanks for bringing this point into focus) is that the fundamental moral choice is the choice to live. The choice itself cannot be made by using logic and recognition of fact, but you nevertheless must chose. Chosing to exist presuppose choice, which is a particular kind of thinking.

If it can't be made by logic or recognition of fact, how is it moral? I thought it was pre-moral.

The funny thing is that the very quote you mentioned got me started on this in the first place.

Edited February 4, 2006 by Felix

[FeatherFall]

If it can't be made by logic or recognition of fact, how is it moral? I thought it was pre-moral.

The funny thing is that the very quote you mentioned got me started on this in the first place.

I don't think that anything living beings do can be "pre-moral." Living beings are by their nature valuing beings. Try this question: Should I or shouldn't I value?

This question is even more basic than, "should I live or not?" But words like should and shouldn't presuppose a value standard. You simply cannot answer a question that involves a value judgment without a value standard. It's impossible.

The question then becomes, what should the value standard be? And as I said before, no values are possible without life. So, the standard is life. Therefore, the answer to the question of the thread is emphatically, "Yes!"

My point is, answering with a "no" to the life question involves a contradiction. It's not an arbitrary choice.

-edited for clarity

Edited February 5, 2006 by FeatherFall

[dondigitalia]

I don't think that anything living beings do can be "pre-moral." Living beings are by their nature valuing beings. Try this question: Should I or shouldn't I value?

So you would morally judge the non-volitional actions of living beings such as bacteria, plants, fish, dogs, apes, and children who have not yet started to use their conceptual faculty?

My point is, answering with a "no" to the life question involves a contradiction. It's not an arbitrary choice.

-edited for clarity

And now we're back to begging the question. A "no" answer does involve a contradiction, but using that to validate the life-standard presupposes that you are already acting on the life standard, since the only reason to avoid a contradiction is if one chooses to live. Remember, reason is a value according to some existing standard--the life-standard.

Edit to add: To nip any further question-begging attempts to rationally justify choosing to live, I'll point out that any rational justification involves the use of reason, which assumes that one already holds life as the standard of value. Therefore, the intial choice cannot involve an act of reason, and must be arbitrary. Any rational justification for the choice must be done in hindsight, just as we can only know that the intial choice was arbitrary in hindsight.

Edited February 5, 2006 by dondigitalia

[DavidOdden]

If it can't be made by logic or recognition of fact, how is it moral? I thought it was pre-moral.

It's moral in the sense that it's the choice which defines morality. Morality pertains to evaluating choices, with respect to that fundamental choice. You apply logic to knowledge of reality, and evaluate a choice in terms of whether it works towards that goal. The goal itself is thus above evaluation: it is the standard for evaluation of all other choices.

[RussK]

This initial choice that is being spoken of is not a moral choice, and I can't see why it has anything to do with Objectivist ethics. While different from the cognition of lower animals, this 'first choice' (the first decision to focus) is probably an automatic action, and animalist in that sense. Once one posesses a developed rational faculty, only then can one actually 'choose life'. Once they have reached this stage, their life and its quality depend on the extent in which they choose life.

Why a child chooses life (automatically) is has no weight.

Why a rational person chooses life is a matter for them to decided, and they cannot escape it.

Neither of these choices affect Objectivist ethics.

[dondigitalia]

This initial choice that is being spoken of is not a moral choice, and I can't see why it has anything to do with Objectivist ethics.

The only thing it has to do with it is that the entire ethics assumes one has already made this choice; if someone were to choose the other way, and never come into focus, never take any volitional action, then the entire field of morality would be irrelevant to him.

Edited February 5, 2006 by dondigitalia

[RussK]

The only thing it has to do with it is that the entire ethics assumes one has already made this choice; if someone were to choose the other way, and never come into focus, never take any volitional action, then the entire field of morality would be irrelevant to him.

So, the entire Objectivist ethics assumes that one has already made the choice for life? If that is correct, then there is no need for Objectivist ethics in the first place. Which is obviously not the case.

The only thing Objectivist ethics assumes, in this context, is that one is living. It does not assume that one has chosen life, which can only be done on a rational level; and it must be done because at this point, man relies on his rational faculty for survival.

[dondigitalia]

So, the entire Objectivist ethics assumes that one has already made the choice for life? If that is correct, then there is no need for Objectivist ethics in the first place. Which is obviously not the case.

That is not obviously the case.

Because men do choose life, they need a morality to guide their actions. The Objectivist ethics is the correct morality for one who has chosen life.

The only thing Objectivist ethics assumes, in this context, is that one is living. It does not assume that one has chosen life, which can only be done on a rational level; and it must be done because at this point, man relies on his rational faculty for survival.

Chosing life is chosing to use the conceptual (rational) level of consciousness, therefore the actual choosing must occur before rational thought is possible. Using reason presupposes being in focus, which presupposes having made the fundamental choice. Any attempt to use reason to justify the choice involves a logical fallacy--it begs the question, i.e. it presupposes that which it is trying to prove, i.e. it assumes already having chosen to live in an attempt to rationally justify the choice to live. In effect, having chosen to live is the context of the Objectivist ethics. That is why, time and time again, you see a phrase along the lines of: "If one wishes to live, then..."

Which part of the above paragraph do you reject and why?

[Felix]

Should I or shouldn't I value?

This question is even more basic than, "should I live or not?" But words like should and shouldn't presuppose a value standard. You simply cannot answer a question that involves a value judgment without a value standard. It's impossible.

That was my point. Before you choose life as a standard, there is no should, because there is no standard.

That choice defines the basis of your morality, but it is itself made before such standards could possibly be applied. And by now I actually think that's a good thing. It gives you tremendous freedom. It gives you the freedom to choose what to live for.

[softwareNerd]

So, the entire Objectivist ethics assumes that one has already made the choice for life? If that is correct, then there is no need for Objectivist ethics in the first place. Which is obviously not the case.

Could you explain that?

In a previous post, you speak of a child choosing life automatically. Indeed, all religious people and other non-Objectivists also choose to be alive, and many consider suicide a sin. So, the choice to stay alive does not give you any automatic principles.

The difference is this: The religious person drills down to the root of his existence and finds insufficient real philosophical reason for being alive. The religious person might enjoy life, his work, his family, good food and so on. However, when he thinks about it in philosophical terms, he finds that he has to step back, outside reality, imagine a God and imagine that God must have created him for some purpose.

Philosophically, the Objectivist, looking for the meaning of life stops at the real choice. So, the Objectivist is not saying: "Ah! That is the choice I explicitly made", but "that is the fundamental choice in reality -- whether it is made implicitly or explicitly. That is the starting point. The choice to live is not an ethical choice, but rather "pre-ethics". The philosopher, finding that life is the basic alternative, asks: well, now what? How should I live? Ethics is the post-"life-choice" exploration to discover the most practical way for a human to live in the fullest sense of enjoying life.

[FeatherFall]

So you would morally judge the non-volitional actions of living beings such as bacteria, plants, fish, dogs, apes, and children who have not yet started to use their conceptual faculty?

Perhaps I don't understand the terms. We are using moral in the sense that it involves a choice and knowledge of the implications. But there is a value standard by which we can judge organisms and humans who have not yet come to fully understand morality, and it is the same standard.

Maybe my confusion comes from not understanding the difference between ethics and morality. Is morality applied to all life, whereas ethics is a specialized form of morality that is applied only to volitional beings? If that is the case, then I would judge the organisms you listed morally, but not ethically. I would only judge humans ethically when they fully understand morality.

And now we're back to begging the question. A "no" answer does involve a contradiction, but using that to validate the life-standard presupposes that you are already acting on the life standard, since the only reason to avoid a contradiction is if one chooses to live. Remember, reason is a value according to some existing standard--the life-standard.

Edit to add: To nip any further question-begging attempts to rationally justify choosing to live, I'll point out that any rational justification involves the use of reason, which assumes that one already holds life as the standard of value. Therefore, the initial choice cannot involve an act of reason, and must be arbitrary. Any rational justification for the choice must be done in hindsight, just as we can only know that the intial choice was arbitrary in hindsight.

At this point, I'm a little confused. Are we talking about the choice of whether or not to live, or the choice to set the focus of your mind for the first time? Regarding the later choice, I'd be willing to wager that a human being has to focus at some level, as a simple fact of its identity.

Isn't the choice to focus really the choice of how much to focus, and Isn't the choice to not focus completely impossible short of suicide?

That was my point. Before you choose life as a standard, there is no should, because there is no standard.

That choice defines the basis of your morality, but it is itself made before such standards could possibly be applied. And by now I actually think that's a good thing. It gives you tremendous freedom. It gives you the freedom to choose what to live for.

Life as the moral standard exists, whether or not it is acknowledged or chosen. The moment life is created, the standard has been imposed. Perhaps one needs to accept a standard before one's choices can be considered on an ethical level?

If I am using any terms incorrectly, I'd appreciate it if someone formally defined them in this thread, or linked me to another thread that offers a definition.

[Felix]

Life as the moral standard exists, whether or not it is acknowledged or chosen.

No. A moral standard has to be accepted. Life may exist apart from your acceptance, but it is not a moral standard automatically, because that acceptance has to be made by choice by a concious being. The laws of reality may exist apart from your acceptance, yes, but if that has any relevance to you is based on your pre-moral choice to value life in the first place.

[dondigitalia]

Perhaps I don't understand the terms. We are using moral in the sense that it involves a choice and knowledge of the implications. But there is a value standard by which we can judge organisms and humans who have not yet come to fully understand morality, and it is the same standard.

Yes, there is a value standard to judge those people. As I have explained before, taking any volitional action whatsoever implicitly supposes the life standard (for man). People may attempt to act on another standard, when they do this, they are holding two contradictory premises.

Maybe my confusion comes from not understanding the difference between ethics and morality. Is morality applied to all life, whereas ethics is a specialized form of morality that is applied only to volitional beings?

Personally, I use the terms interchangeably, depending on which sounds best in the sentence. Both are applicable only to volitional life.

Isn't the choice to focus really the choice of how much to focus, and Isn't the choice to not focus completely impossible short of suicide?

I think that literally everyone does focus, to some degree, at some point. But that doesn't change the fact that it happens volitionally. I haven't observed a great deal of children, but I would wager that not all of them start using the conceptual level of consciousness at the same age--in fact I'm sure of it. There are some weirdoes who don't start to talk until four or five, and as far as I know, that's the first real sign of conceptual activity.

Then, after that first time, the child has adopted life as the standard--implicitly. The big point is, that before that, they had no standard whatsoever, so they couldn't have judged by any means that it was good to do so. Invariably, the question of "good" leads back to: Good? By what standard? And before deciding to think, they have none.

I have been equating the choice to live, the choice to think, and volitional action, which may be confusing. I want to emphasize that, for man, they are all the exact same thing. The difference is one of perspective.

Life as the moral standard exists, whether or not it is acknowledged or chosen. The moment life is created, the standard has been imposed. Perhaps one needs to accept a standard before one's choices can be considered on an ethical level?

Well, of course it exists. If it didn't, nobody could adopt it. But that doesn't mean that everyone has to adopt it, even though they do.

Edited February 5, 2006 by dondigitalia

[softwareNerd]

I don't think it's possible for a child, even a young adolescent, to really accept "life is the standard" in explicit terms. A good young person would have a mix of moral premises that are something along the following lines:

• Life is fun
  
• Knowledge/learning is fun
  
• Creating is fun
  
• If one works, one can earn money to buy lots of good stuff
  
• Hurting others is bad
  
• ... etc.
  

Then, as the young person begins to understand philosophy, they are struck by this basic conflict: if life is fun and happiness is what I life for, then why should I not be doing drugs, robbing banks, etc. What is wrong with hedonism?

Objectivism says: hedonism is impractical.

[dondigitalia]

Then, as the young person begins to understand philosophy, they are struck by this basic conflict: if life is fun and happiness is what I life for, then why should I not be doing drugs, robbing banks, etc. What is wrong with hedonism?

And some people (a great many) never even reach that point.

[dark_unicorn]

As far as I understand the Objectivist Ethics, the choice to live is the fundamental choice. And once you accepted life as the ultimate standard, you have a measuring stick which helps you make choices in your life.

But all this seems to lack a foundation, because on which grounds do you make the choice to live in the first place? I value life because I just happen to value it, seems to be the answer. I don't feel right about that, because it makes the very basis of ethics, valuing life at all, subjective.

First, in the interest of being 100% forthcoming, I am not what you would classify as an Objectivist, so my answer will probably not fully coincide with what the established philosophy states. I guess you could qualify my philosophy as a mish-mash of Objectivism, Thomism, and the various Aristotilean philosophers of the enlightenment. The primary thing that would disqualify me as an Objectivist is my different view of metaphysics, which are more in line with Aristotle's philosophy than Ayn Rand's (though I have accepted Ayn Rand's epistemological interpretation of the nature of a metaphysical object (such as the "redness" of the color red)." Consequently, I am merely offering my opinion into the cougher of intellectual discussion, though it is obviously different from what others here will say.

The nature of man is obviously separate from that of any other object, that is the "law of identity". So in order to begin analyzing the choice "to live", we must understand "who" or "what" life we are speaking of. Both Objectivism and Aristotle agree man is an animal whose distinct feature is one possessing a rational faculty, ergo the ability to make choices based on analysis and synthesis. Implied in man's metaphysical existence is the propensity to think, and his free will begins with the ability to either think or not (Aquinas referred to it as Volition vs. Nolition).

However, in order for man to think, he must be alive. But in order for man to choose whether to live or die, he must first contemplate the choice, ergo he must think. Essentially the 2 go hand in hand, and the only way that they can come into conflict is if man does what is against his nature, not think. Since free will (in the words of Aquinas) is dependent upon a person being of a rational mind, it is surrendered when one does not think. This also means that the minute that you believe yourself not to be free, your thought process reverses itself, the ultimate consequence being the end of your humanity.

I have always believed that there is a strong belief between the despair of feeling determined and life thus being something you have no control over and the confusion that comes with not understanding the strong link that exists between thought and choice. When you have the power of moral clarity that comes with knowing yourself and why you desire to make the choices you make, despair is not something that ever enters into your thought process, because such things are dependent upon confusion.

In logical terms this would state the following.

1. Every moral choice is dependent upon thought.

2. Every thought implies a choice.

3. The choice to live is dependent upon your thoughts on life.

4. Your thoughts on life are dependent on the fact that you are alive.

Ultimately one of these 2 phenomena (choice and life) are determined by thought. Thought determines whether you have choice, and choice determines whether you will live to continue to think or to die and thus not to think again (and if you are an Atheist, this implies an end to your existence).

As a person who does believe in an afterlife, my speculations on it's nature are completely dependent upon my perception of material reality, for that is what all abstractions are dependent upon. Any concept of the immortal soul or God begins with individual thought, though obviously if both exist they would be independent of my thoughts, which mean that my speculation could be at error. But I do think that our choices are a determining factor of how such an existence would be for the soul.

P.S. - If you don't buy this afterlife stuff, feel free to disregard my last paragraph.