Lukas Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 1. Is it possible to justify a state of permanent unhappiness? If yes, how can this done? If no, why not? 2. Is it possible to justify a state of permanent happiness? If yes, how can this done? If no, why not? Regards Lukas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurgessLau Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I have three questions, first, for clarification. (1) What is your purpose in asking these questions? Knowing the answer might help me and others determine the context. (2) What do you mean by "justify"? (Why would anyone need to "justify" facts, including the fact that someone is unhappy or happy at a given time?) (3) When you say "permanent," do you mean "without hope of change" or "without a desire for change" or something else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I'm not sure it's possible to be permanently happy. Your emotions change with the situation you're in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurgessLau Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Is happiness an emotion -- or a state of mind? It is a "state of consciousness," Ayn Rand notes -- rightly I think, based on introspection over the last several decades of my life. Happiness is akin to an emotion in the sense that it arises, roughly speaking, from an evaluation, but the evaluation is a very long term one, not as in emotions, which come and go very quickly. For more: "Happiness" in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, pp. 198-200. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lukas Posted April 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 (edited) Lets assume a hypothetical situation where a person ends up in a situation where there are only two alternatives to be chosen among. The first alternative is a state of permanent happiness and the second alternative is at state of permanent unhappiness. After the choice has been made there is no return and the state will be everlasting. I will try to clarify the states below: 1. The state of permanent happiness is associated with complete satisfaction and permanent happiness for everyone. It’s a optimal state for everyone. Everything is perfect and it can not be better. 2. The state of permanent unhappiness is associated with complete unsatisfaction and permanent unhappiness for everyone. It’s the worst state for everyone. Everything is imperfect and it can not be worse. Is it possible in a rational way to justify one of these states more than the other? I think it is very hard or even impossible to justify a choice of the second alternative, and I have never heard any arguments for such state. If it’s true that is impossible to justify a choice of the second alternative then one conclusion is that the objective moral right choice is the first alternative and the objective moral wrong choice is the second alternative. If this conclusion is correct then the mystery of the objective moral is solved. But I assume I have made some kind of mistake in my conclusion. If you find it speak out So my purpose with this thread is to find the objective core of the moral. Edited April 30, 2006 by Lukas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spano Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 Lukas, are you familiar with the works of Ayn Rand? I ask because you speak of the "mystery of the objective moral", which I take to mean the objective basis of morality -- which was in fact proved by Ayn Rand. I'd suggest reading her book The Virtue of Selfishness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lukas Posted April 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I have only read some basic things about Ayn Rand and her moral views. I would appreciate if you would give me a small summary of the views she has that applies to this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurgessLau Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I have only read some basic things about Ayn Rand and her moral views. I would appreciate if you would give me a small summary of the views she has that applies to this thread. The problem with asking others to summarize her views is that you will not find out what Ayn Rand held to be true. You will only hear a variety of interpretations by others. Why not go to the source -- her own writings? Also, when I inquired about your purpose in asking the questions in post 1, I meant your personal purpose in asking. How do your questions fit into your life? Are you, for example, facing a dilemma in trying to decide whether pursuing happiness is even possible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aequalsa Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I have only read some basic things about Ayn Rand and her moral views. I would appreciate if you would give me a small summary of the views she has that applies to this thread. In a nutshell, I don't think the question is a proper one. You provide 2 alternatives, neither of which is technically possible. Happiness and unhappiness are the emotional results of actions taken. To say you are only happy or unhappy with no possibility of changing would imply that you no longer possess free will. You can not enjoy the results of action if you can't choose them. Happiness and unhappiness are percievable things which are linked to your actions and act as a guide to inform you as to which actions are more proper for you to take. Neither happiness nor unhappiness is possible without freewill and freewill guarantees you won't 'always' be happy because you can't always choose correctly because you are not omnicient. Ayn Rands philosophy is intended to be used in this world. I don't know of anything she has to say that woould bear directly on your question, for that reason. I will say that she does not believe in omnicience and that she does believe in free will and causation. I hope that helps a bit. Best regards, Gordon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunterrose Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 I think it is very hard or even impossible to justify a choice of the second alternative [unhappiness], and I have never heard any arguments for such state. If it’s true that is impossible to justify a choice of the second alternative then one conclusion is that the objective moral right choice is the first alternative [happiness] and the objective moral wrong choice is the second alternative. If this conclusion is correct then the mystery of the objective moral is solved. But I assume I have made some kind of mistake in my conclusion. If you find it speak out Bah, don't assume you've made a mistake, at the least until someone point it out Your example seems a decent way of looking at the problem, but I'm not sure it solves the mystery as a whole. I don't know whether you would consider it a justification, but some people do pursue paths that they know will bring them considerable unhappiness - e.g. as a form of self-imposed penitence for real or imagined sins. To the extent that there is no justification for choosing unhappiness, that's not to say that a happy life is necessarily justified. It might be asked by someone whether unadultered happiness is merely the second-worst of all possible choices, and if some combination of happiness and unhappiness would be preferable to either pure quality. That said, I don't think it is impossible to find the objective core you seek, though whether it'll be attained within this thread is more questionable. Personally, I like working up from happiness to whatever is the objective core, though you have to, to the extent that it is not your intent, watch out for hedonism as a conclusion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 You have to start somewhere, so let's start with the observation that you have chosen living and have not rejected that choice (I assume) and thus life is your ultimate goal. It's a fact that you have to act and furthermore as a volitional being you can choose to take poison or to not take poison. You can evaluate your choices in terms of whether they work towards that goal. Life is more than simply "not being dead" -- as Tara Smith puts it, life is flourishing, that is, it is the state that living ideally results in. For a rational person, recognising that your actions are proper, given your ultimate goal -- living -- causes the emotion "happiness". Justification cannot exist detached from purpose, so you have to justify something in terms of a purpose. "Justifying happiness" is a bit odd because that suggests that happiness (or unhappiness) is itself the goal, whereas the ultimate goal actually has to be "life". What you need to justify, I would say, is your actions, and the justification is in terms of that goal of life. The bottom-line consequence is that if you love a particular painting in your house and you want to live, and you find yourself in the midst of a major fire in the house, then your choice to save your life at the expense of your painting should not make you unhappy, since you are alive and your alternative of saving the painting but dying would be contrary to your ultimate goal. So be happy that you didn't roast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted April 30, 2006 Report Share Posted April 30, 2006 If it’s true that is impossible to justify a choice of the second alternative then one conclusion is that the objective moral right choice is the first alternative and the objective moral wrong choice is the second alternative. If this conclusion is correct then the mystery of the objective moral is solved. It's a totally artificial situation, there's no way one person can make a choice that everyone else is to be happy ever after. And even if they could, how do you know those are the only two alternatives? What about a state of permanent indifference? And how can one refute the other options without already knowing the objective standard? And if everyone is permanently "happy" does the word even have any meaning any more? In general, I'm not sure artifical constructs like that are a way to prove things, its better to look out at the world and go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 Ayn Rands philosophy is intended to be used in this world.On a somewhat different note, I've seen this said many times and I think I've seen the original statement that causes this reaction. But it seems to me that this is often misunderstood as referring to "only on the planet Earth as we currently know it", which just seems wrong to me (for example, that would imply that Objectivist ethics could not be applied on an airplane or in orbit, or that Objectivist epistemology wouldn't be valid on the moon. It seems to me that specifics of Objectivism, to the extent that they have to do with consciousness, apply to man, wherever he is. Is(n't) that what you meant? Do you think Rand meant specifically "on this planet", implying irrelevance to the case of man on Mars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurgessLau Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 (edited) [...] this is often misunderstood as referring to "only on the planet Earth as we currently know it" [...] Can you point to examples here in ObjectivismOnline? The reason I ask is that I have been studying and discussing Objectivism for nearly 45 years, and I can't recall a single instance of such a bizarre misunderstanding. Edited May 1, 2006 by BurgessLau Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 Can you point to examples here in ObjectivismOnline?No, not at the moment. It's possible that this is a misunderstanding that I've seen elsewhere. I'll post any traceable references, if I find them. I understand why one might not run into such an intrepretation frequently, if one is cautious about the circles one travels in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aequalsa Posted May 1, 2006 Report Share Posted May 1, 2006 (edited) On a somewhat different note, I've seen this said many times and I think I've seen the original statement that causes this reaction. But it seems to me that this is often misunderstood as referring to "only on the planet Earth as we currently know it", which just seems wrong to me (for example, that would imply that Objectivist ethics could not be applied on an airplane or in orbit, or that Objectivist epistemology wouldn't be valid on the moon. It seems to me that specifics of Objectivism, to the extent that they have to do with consciousness, apply to man, wherever he is. Is(n't) that what you meant? Do you think Rand meant specifically "on this planet", implying irrelevance to the case of man on Mars? Hehe...Now that you mention it, I'm not sure. Never been to Mars myself....I wonder if gravity works there too?...hmmm For the record though, I meant world in the sense of 'universe' ie everything that exists. So in other words, I thought his question was outside of the realm of reality. Edited May 1, 2006 by aequalsa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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