20 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:
I had noticed some dissing your ice cream example as unimportant. But even on a survivalist theory, pleasures can enhance one’s ability to function and hence be ethical.
Yes, I’m familiar with that line of reasoning. I’ve also seen happiness given the same treatment. I find it utterly foreign to my experience that happiness itself should be accounted a means to an end. All of the subsequent semantic shuffling of the cards (whether we wish to say that “man qua man,” or “survival as a man” somehow requires happiness – as though we’ve done more, in such a case, than relabel “flourishing” – or etc.) will not make more reasonable to me the idea that we pursue all that is positive in the world (of its nature), including happiness, as a means to continue to survive, rather than that we pursue survival so that we may continue to enjoy the fruits of living. It is utterly backwards.
20 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:
BTW, I’ve decided to abjure hypotheticals that are based on things that are not true, such as human omniscience. So, no more of this “I know for a certainty that…” Such hypotheticals assume that which is not real, so any conclusions drawn from them say nothing about reality.
Hypotheticals are always a fraught business*. Whether omniscience is required for “certainty” is another discussion (and actually, one we’ve had together), but if we take “certainty” as “a measure of confidence, with ‘certain’ being one extreme,” then we can reasonably posit a person or persons certain of something, yet not omniscient – can we not?
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* Here is a critique of Rand’s Robot along similar lines…
20 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:
Even in your example, not going to space could have the psychological effect of destroying the guy’s will to live and thereby shortening his life. Of course, you can contrive an example where the consequences of both alternatives are easily determinable. But you’d have to contrive it; life is almost never so clearly defined.
With respect to the proper contrivance of a hypothetical example, I think that the goal is to try to isolate important elements of some theory or proposal for the sake of testing it. Reality is so complex, however, and hypotheticals so unnaturally simplified of their nature (or even outlandish), that if one rejects the spirit of setting up such examples, there will always be sensible-sounding objections that can be raised.
In this case, for me, it is enough if we have a medical expert tell our man that going on this mission will take five years off of his life; and yes, not going to space could have some psychological effect which would shorten his life as much, or more, but we could have a psychologist proclaim that he does not expect it to be so. Perhaps it is even enough if our space cadet believes (i.e. is “certain” that) that, all else being equal, going on this mission will mean that he will live five fewer years, give or take.
It is within such a context that man must make a decision, after all, and it is for the sake of making such decisions (without omniscience) that we pursue ethics in the first place.
I hold that a survivalist should say that our man should not go to deep space; that it would be immoral, given the context of his knowledge. (Though I will note that, looking over StrictlyLogical’s subsequent replies, I don’t think he’s responded to my hypothetical as such.) In contrast, I say that it would be a moral decision. And if we can find a way to satisfy you as to the hypothetical’s parameters, Invictus, I would be interested in your answer, because while it is important to try to present our visions of ethics in the abstract, it is meaningful to try to determine the ways in which this would result in different choices, in reality. That’s where the rubber meets the road, after all, and if a person would advocate for a “survivalist ethics” in the abstract, but balks at some perceived consequence in reality (even a hypothetical one), then that might be a good reason to check his premises.
20 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:
(More to come.)c
Same here. 
I apologize for continuing to respond in dribs and drabs (is that an actual expression, or am I making it up…? what in the world is a “drib” and what is a “drab”?) – but I’ve been rather busy. I will respond more when I am able.