Unbearable life without lover

[kufa]

I apoligize if there has already been a thread on this, I couldn't find one.

Ayn Rand said it would not be sacrifice if one risked their life to save someone that one couldn't bear life without. I would be willing to risk my life for someone I love, but I am lost on the "couldn't bear life without" phrase. As much as I love my friends and family, life would still be bearable if I lost one of them. My happiness is affected by friends and such, but I can see values in the world without them. The only situation where I can see a mans life unbearable without their lover is if the lovers love the only value in his life. If ones happiness depends on someone else, isn't that a bit second hander?

I cannot understand this and if someone would clarify it would be great.

[Inspector]

As much as I love my friends and family, life would still be bearable if I lost one of them.

This is usually the case. Generally speaking, it is a romantic lover that is referred to by the statement "couldn't bear life without them" refers to.

The only situation where I can see a mans life unbearable without their lover is if the lovers love the only value in his life. If ones happiness depends on someone else, isn't that a bit second hander?

This is kind of a FAQ, but the answer is, "No, that is not an act of second-handedness." Second-handedness is the replacement of your judgment with the judgment of others. Romantic love, however, is valuing another person as an existential object, and in this case one that is unique, irreplaceable, and so valuable that it would be unbearable to lose so special and great of a value.

As an example of another value that is so important that life would be unbearable without it, consider freedom. Could you live a life of slavery? Many could not, and this is because that kind of life denies one the values of life that make it worth living.

[DavidV]

I also see a problem with Ayn Rand's wording. I agree that the idea that life is not worth living without someone is second-handed, but indirectly so. Romantic love requires the mutual recognition of values in others. You must have some self-directed values (such as your vocation) before you can love someone. That implies that you will still have those values even if that person dies. (I can see some exceptions where your mate is an integral part of your vocation, but that is the exception.)

I think that the above is obviously evident. How many people (including Ayn Rand herself) commit suicide when the love of their life dies? The people most capable of passionately loving someone are in fact the ones most capable of moving on with their life. It is the second-handers who tend to commit suicide when they can no longer gain the moral or material sanction they need.

This is not to say that it is immoral to risk one's life for someone. It may not be worth living as the kind of person who allows someone you love to die. This is because certain kinds of relationships carry an implicit agreement to take care of a loved one, such as parent has towards a child.

Edited November 28, 2006 by GreedyCapitalist

[Inspector]

I think that the above is obviously evident. How many people (including Ayn Rand herself) commit suicide when the love of their life dies?

That isn't obviously evident to me. There are many forms of suicide, not all of them immediate and flashy. I've seen and heard of people, including Ayn Rand, who were just never quite "the same" after the death of their love. Like their passion for life was diminished. This is, I repeat, not an act of second-handedness, simply because the value lost happens to be embodied in a human being.

[DavidV]

Well of course their passion for life has diminished. But that's very different from saying that life is not worth living. Furthermore, for those young enough to love again, that setback can be temporary.

[Inspector]

Well of course their passion for life has diminished. But that's very different from saying that life is not worth living.

It's really only a question of degree. I think it is certainly evidence that the idea in question is real, or at least plausible.

Furthermore, for those young enough to love again, that setback can be temporary.

Perhaps, but that's only a counterexample; one in which this phenomenon does not apply. It doesn't suggest that this idea is invalid.

[Bold Standard]

I also see a problem with Ayn Rand's wording.

Is this based on Ayn Rand's statement from "The Ethics of Emergencies"?

To illustrate this on the altruists' favorite example: the issue of saving a drowning person. If the person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one's own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it: only a lack of self-esteem could permit one to value one's life no higher than that of any random stranger. (And, conversely, if one is drowning, one cannot expect a stranger to risk his life for one's sake, remembering that one's life cannot be as valuable to him as his own.)

If the person to be saved is not a stranger, then the risk one should be willing to take is greater in proportion to the greatness of that person's value to oneself. If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one's own life to save him or her—for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable.

Conversely, if a man is able to swim and to save his drowning wife, but becomes panicky, gives in to an unjustified, irrational fear and lets her drown, then spends his life in loneliness and misery—one would not call him "selfish"; one would condemn him morally for his treason to himself and to his own values, that is: his failure to fight for the preservation of a value crucial to his own happiness. Remember that values are that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and that one's own happiness has to be achieved by one's own effort. Since one's own happiness is the moral purpose of one's life, the man who fails to achieve it because of his own default, because of his failure to fight for it, is morally guilty.

If so, the issue in question is not merely whether life would be bearable without her, if you take the sentence in its full context, but whether life would be bearable without her, knowing that you could have saved her but chose to let her drown instead.

[Edit: Also, notice that she says "could be unbearable" not "couldn't bare life without," which leaves open that it could be bearable, but suggests that it would at least be difficult.]

Edited November 28, 2006 by Bold Standard

[DavidV]

I based my response on the paraphrasing in the original post, not Ayn Rand's words, so I see how her statement can be consistent with mine.

[Inspector]

If so, the issue in question is not merely whether life would be bearable without her, if you take the sentence in its full context, but whether life would be bearable without her, knowing that you could have saved her but chose to let her drown instead.

[Edit: Also, notice that she says "could be unbearable" not "couldn't bare life without," which leaves open that it could be bearable, but suggests that it would at least be difficult.]

Ayn Rand was normally very precise about her words. If she intended to say "that life without having acted to save the loved person could be unbearable," then I think she would have worded it that way.

[Bold Standard]

Ayn Rand was normally very precise about her words. If she intended to say "that life without having acted to save the loved person could be unbearable," then I think she would have worded it that way.

I don't think it's necessarily proper to make claims about what specific intentions motivated her to chose the words she did, since there's no way to prove it either way (for the record, I never said she intended to say that, and I don't think she did). But I could speculate that maybe she worded it that way to emphasize that it's the loss of the value that would primarily be the source of misery in that situation, however in the context she clearly (clear to me, anway) identifies that the loss of self-esteem resulting from the failure to act would significantly contribute to the despair.

In fact, if she worded the sentence to say "life without having acted to save the loved person could be unbearable," I think it would be a little circular. Why would failing to save the person be a disvalue unless the person was a value who's loss would be painful to begin with? I think she says "could be unbearable" to emphasize the fact that the loss of the person would not necessarily be unbearable, but only under certain circumstances--such as the one she describes, in which the husband could have saved her but chickens out.

Also, if she'd said "life without having acted to save the loved person could be unbearable," it might confuse the reader into thinking she's suggesting that risking one's life for another is a moral duty on which self esteem intrinsically depends, which is actually part of the position she's arguing against in that paragraph.

[Bold Standard]

This is, I repeat, not an act of second-handedness, simply because the value lost happens to be embodied in a human being.

I do agree with you that it's not necessarily second handed if you love someone so much that life without them would be unbearable, in contexts besides the one in the example, though. There is the example of [censored--possible spoiler] telling Dagny he wouldn't want to live if she were killed by the villains. In that case, it wouldn't be because of guilt, and wouldn't be second handed for his life to be unbearable.

Edited November 28, 2006 by Bold Standard

[Inspector]

I don't think it's necessarily proper to make claims about what specific intentions motivated her to chose the words she did, since there's no way to prove it either way (for the record, I never said she intended to say that, and I don't think she did).

I agree that such speculation is tricky at best. But I think it is fairly clear that she meant for the failure to act to be a possible contributor to life not being worth living, but is definitely saying it is possible for life to not be worth living after such a loss, even if it wasn't your fault.

In fact, if she worded the sentence to say "life without having acted to save the loved person could be unbearable," I think it would be a little circular.

As a point of curiosity, why is that circular? Did I word it badly?

[Inspector]

I do agree with you that it's not necessarily second handed if you love someone so much that life without them would be unbearable, in contexts besides the one in the example, though. There is the example of [censored--possible spoiler] telling Dagny he wouldn't want to live if she were killed by the villains. In that case, it wouldn't be because of guilt, and wouldn't be second handed for his life to be unbearable.

Right. Second-handedness is basing one's self-esteem on the opinion of others, or replacing one's judgment with that of others. This isn't anything like that; it's valuing an existant that just so happens to be another person.