Principles are general or absolute?

Questions about Objectivism
1

One thing I still haven’t grasped about principles:

Are they supposed to be a general guidance for life whereby you get the best results most of the time or are they absolutely right all-the time with no exceptions?

I have many things that come to mind that I feel are in my self-interest but principles say they are not. If I escape a “crime” my self-esteem is supposed to suffer but that is assuming that my emotional programming is set to those principles no?

some quick examples that come to mind are:

-downloading music(I haven’t become depressed, anxious or embarrased about life since downloading music so I don’t understand this whole self-esteem destroying thing)

-a bus driver giving you way too much change on a bus and not noticing and then you keep it.

I have trouble understanding why its not in my self-interest to do these things. Why should I not just set my emotional compass to be happy/okay with me doing anything that is in my self-interest(I understand they are not according to Objectivism but I can’t for the hell of me understand why - respecting property rights is reasonable, but why not just advocate it but not follow it yourself?).

also I have read about gyges ring:if it were in my possession, and with my current beliefs I would most definitely steal but I would have to get over emotional hurdles - and this is what I want to resolve/figure out. I’m still on the line of If I can get away with it why the hell not.

2

Are they supposed to be a general guidance for life whereby you get the best results most of the time or are they absolutely right all-the time with no exceptions?

Here are a couple of principles which I urge you to obey rigorously. 1: Gravity. 2: Eating cyanide will kill you. Even if you feel like acting contrary to these principles, your feelings about the matter won’t change the facts of reality. Here’s another principle. 3: Putting a bullet in your brain will kill you. I guess it is possible that acting contrary to principle 3 won’t absolutely kill you, I mean, some people do survive, although they are usually pretty messed up. I can’t go through every imaginable principle, but I think you can see the basic argument. Sometimes you can act contrary to rational principles and even survive, but why would you want to?

some quick examples that come to mind are:

-downloading music(I haven’t become depressed, anxious or embarrased about life since downloading music so I don’t understand this whole self-esteem destroying thing)

-a bus driver giving you way too much change on a bus and not noticing and then you keep it.

The claim about acting on principle is not that one becomes depressed when one decides to live as an animal. Yes, it is certainly possible for a man to renounce life as a man, and you can embrace contradictions easily by both pretending to be a man while acting like an animal. But your question – “Why should I not just…” and then it doesn’t matter what follows – just doesn’t mean anything. As an animal, the question of what you “should” do is senseless. The concept of “should” presupposes the concepts of virtue and value, which are meaningless to an animal.

3

One thing I still haven’t grasped about principles:

Are they supposed to be a general guidance for life whereby you get the best results most of the time or are they absolutely right all-the time with no exceptions?

They are right all the time with no exception. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a principle. I haven’t read Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, but in my own understanding a principle is something that unites many individual cases which differ from one another but have something in common, and a principle lays on concepts (which is an abstraction of several or many concretes).

Sometimes you can use a principle in a certain context which is implicit: for example: objects fall to the ground. Now obviously, this is true in the context of being on a planet with a mass bigger than the objects on it. So if you take this context under account, the principle is always true.

As for the second part of your post: An ethical principle does not talk about how a person would feel from doing an action (at least none that I’ve seen). How you would feel from a certain action belongs to the realm of psychology.

Objectivist ethics, to my understanding is built by a standard of your own life, and the purpose it is meant to achieve is your own happiness. “Happiness” does not mean a momentary feeling of joy, rather a deep, lasting feeling of being in love with yourself and with the world.

So do you think it is possible to achieve that feeling of absolute certainty in yourself and being in love with your own self by acting randomly, and then simply attempting to alter your feelings to give you a good feeling no matter what your actions are?

It’s not possible. Your emotions are built on your convictions. If you have no convictions, you won’t be able to feel anything (good or bad) about anything.

4

I am still trying to grasp this issue on a deeper level myself. However, I think I can offer a helpful supplement to the already good responses.

Are they supposed to be a general guidance for life whereby you get the best results most of the time or are they absolutely right all-the time with no exceptions?

First let me offer an analogy. While blocking your vision with a blindfold, you can dash across a busy highway without getting injured. Although you may be fortunate enough to survive this dangerous feat several times, it will not change the fact that you have engaged in action, which, if practiced consistently, puts you on a certain path of destruction.

I think disobeying life-advancing principles can be viewed in the same way. Although any individual violation of a principle might not harm you. If you consistently go against life-advancing principles, it will be detrimental to your physical, mental or financial well being. The extent of the danger positively correlates to the importance of the principle that you have disobeyed.

some quick examples that come to mind are:

-downloading music(I haven’t become depressed, anxious or embarrassed about life since downloading music so I don’t understand this whole self-esteem destroying thing)

-a bus driver giving you way too much change on a bus and not noticing and then you keep it.

These issues are certainly minor so the repercussions will be minor. When I address them, I will do so in the context that you are living in a civilization that generally protects property rights. The answers would be different in the context of a kleptocracy.

Well, if you engage in the former, you will act as one individual, in a very large crowd, who is gradually contributing to the dissolution of the music industry. Musicians cannot make a living as a musician if they cannot have their rights to their music protected. If you download music without the permission of the producer, you are violating the property rights of the artist who produced it, not to mention the companies who underwrote the production. If everybody did this, the music industry would probably never recover. The extent that individuals illegally access music on the internet is the extent that the music industry is harmed.

The reasoning as to why you should not walk away with more change from the bus driver than you think he would be willing to give to you is the same. Although the harm you do is minor, you are still initiating a small amount of force and you are still inflicting a minor amount of harm to the bus system.

I have read about gyges ring:if it were in my possession, and with my current beliefs I would most definitely steal but I would have to get over emotional hurdles - and this is what I want to resolve/figure out. I’m still on the line of If I can get away with it why the hell not.

The Gyges Ring is not well-grounded in reality so the thought experiment does not allow us to induce moral principles that are applicable in reality. Even if there was a mechanism to make you imperceptible for a given period of time, individuals would still notice their property missing and would eventually make the connection as to how you mysteriously accumulated all of this wealth.

Anyway, the question of “Why Should One Act on Principle?” is certainly non-trivial to answer. Leonard Peikoff has a lecture called this. You can check out the audio version on the registered users’ page on the Ayn Rand Institute’s website. I highly recommend it!

5

If everybody did this, the music industry would probably never recover. The extent that individuals illegally access music on the internet is the extent that the music industry is harmed.

DW, great post!

There is one item here that I think highlights a contradiction in airborne’s thinking. That is, that the assumption that the damage he causes is minor requires that everyone else (or nearly so) live by the proper principles which he espouses, while he gets the luxury of violating them. If in fact he advocated the same act in principle, and many people did it, the damages woud be much greater and he would maybe consider not advocating them.

I think prudent predators must be dishonest by nature. That is, they cannot actually want everyone else to practice what they do, else their predation is no longer prudent. Instead they must want everyone to continue to act on principle so that their predation becomes prudent. It is second handed in nature.

6

If everybody did this, the music industry would probably never recover.

Although I don’t disagree with your post, I disagree with this line of reasoning. You are essentially advancing the argument from the first formulation of Kant’s Categorical imperative.

7

Although I don’t disagree with your post, I disagree with this line of reasoning. You are essentially advancing the argument from the first formulation of Kant’s Categorical imperative.

This is in reference to my statement: “If everybody did this, the music industry would probably never recover.” (I)

I disagree. I did not make a Kantian argument from universalizability, which would typically ignore all context and does not use the actor’s life as the standard of value. However, I can see this confusion if statement (I) is isolated from the rest of the paragraph where it was originally stated.

My argument is more along the lines of downloading music without permission is an initiation of force against the producing artist as well as all other rights-holders of the music. Statement (I) was included just to continue to illustrate what could happen if individuals choose to engage in a seemingly minor moral fraction. It was not the crux of the argument.

8

It was an interesting observation that adrock made, but I’ll agree with DW.

The statement (paraphrase) “If everyone did it, the damamge would be great.” is true, and it is not necessarily lead directly to “and therefore, one should not do this on this basis.” which is arbitrary and the basis of the Categorical Imperative argument.

9

My argument is more along the lines of downloading music without permission is an initiation of force against the producing artist as well as all other rights-holders of the music. Statement (I) was included just to continue to illustrate what could happen if individuals choose to engage in a seemingly minor moral fraction. It was not the crux of the argument.

Gotcha. I agree. I don’t like downloading music without permission either. I just often hear many people (in real life and sometimes on this forum) say things like “Well if everybody did it…” and it immediately grabs my attention. But I understand that it is not your argument, so we are clear.

But this conversation brings about a good topic for discussion which I have often thought about. That is, there are many ethical decisions such as the ones airborne is coping with in which the standard of one’s life is ambiguous at first. This is due to the fact that the benefit one receives from them is a.) more abstract and therefore more difficult to grasp, and b.) not necessarily immediate; in fact, it could be extremely long range.

It seems glaringly obvious at first: If I am going to die tomorrow, then why should I return the change to the bus lady? Or a more reasonable situation: If I am planning on quitting a job in a month to pursue higher aspirations, why do I still need to do certain mundane tasks that are not absolutely pertinent for me to retain my job for the next four weeks? I know a great deal of individuals who think like this, and justify some of their actions accordingly (I used to work at a job with a high-turnover rate).

I think the answer involves one’s values. The aim of an individual should not be simply to profit or benefit from every action he or she performs, within the immediate range of the moment (esentially hedonism). Rather, an individual’s aim should be the rational pursuit of values, in the order from most important to least important. I would say somewhere within this reasoning lies to answer to airborne’s quandry, but I am still working out exactly how one would word it.

10

Here is one simple question that anyone can ask when in this position. “Is it mine by right?”. If the answer is not an instant “yes”, you should ask whose it is, and why you are taking it. “Why” is a difficult question to answer, since it is often an open invitation to rationalization.

11

I think you raised some interesting points, adrock.

But this conversation brings about a good topic for discussion which I have often thought about. That is, there are many ethical decisions such as the ones airborne is coping with in which the standard of one’s life is ambiguous at first. This is due to the fact that the benefit one receives from them is a.) more abstract and therefore more difficult to grasp, and b.) not necessarily immediate; in fact, it could be extremely long range.

I think you are missing the primary immediate gain: which is maintaining self esteem, and reinforcing your ideal co-existence with people.

The primary gain is hardly the long term financial benefit that could come from giving back the extra money.

The gain is being able to enjoy a ride in the bus while knowing you have earned the ride, and bought it from men who are productive and give good service.

However - think what is required from a person to be able to hold such thoughts regarding a bus ride, and to be able to enjoy a thought of fair trade among people. It is quite a lot.

First, they have to have clear enough integration of the immediate reality with their principles. For that, they need to focus and invest effort into thinking stuff through. They need to have benevolent people premise; you would not enjoy paying bad, lame people. Enjoyment from payment in a trade can only come if there is respect for people and for their creative ability.

If you hold that people are honest, with some bad exceptions, you’d enjoy trading with them fairly. If you choose to focus on those people who steal and lie as representing what you might expect from humanity, you would loose all motivation for fair trade.

If you choose to dedicate your life to interacting with honest people, and treat bad cases as exceptions, you’d be motivated to produce and trade fairly.

So the gain is psychological, and it is a matter of one’s premises, level of clarity and integration.

If you ever had a case when someone found something valuable you lost and gave it back to you, you must have experienced a unique kind of joy: a joy that doesn’t come just from getting the object back: but from getting evidence that human beings are decent, and that the world is a good place to live in.

Ask yourself (airborne) if you can feel the same joy while consciously holding the memory of keeping extra bus-change the day before.

It would collide, wouldn’t it? something will tarnish that joy. Auch, it’s your damaged self-confidence.

It seems glaringly obvious at first: If I am going to die tomorrow, then why should I return the change to the bus lady?

The surprising answer is that for a man who holds moral, integrated views, in a society of good people - the reward would be enjoyment.

I think the answer involves one’s values. The aim of an individual should not be simply to profit or benefit from every action he or she performs, within the immediate range of the moment (essentially hedonism).

Small, further clarification: I do think that by acting fairly toward people, one can derive an immediate benefit.

I think DWs raised great point about why principles are important. Life and happiness require actions guided by rational standard. Random behavior won’t work.

But I think the point I am making here is the second half: a man uses principles to achieve happiness. Happiness, as a deep, fundamental emotion about living, can only come by living by integrated principles, in a comprehensible world.

Mere physical survival can be achieved in more than one way. More money can be made by deceit, too. But not happiness.

12

If I am going to die tomorrow, then why should I return the change to the bus lady?

If you are going to die tomorrow, what are you doing on a bus in the first place? A rented Ferrari should be the absolute minimum! :wink:

Also, if you have only a single day left of your existence qua man, why shorten it even more by stopping to act qua man today?

13

So the gain is psychological, and it is a matter of one’s premises, level of clarity and integration.

Great post, Ifat.

I’d like to drive this point, in particular, home a little more. Happiness, of the long-term rational variety, is not a simple closed set equation where you can plug in one input and get out happiness. Happiness is a complex emotion with heavy ties to philosophy, genetics, diet, habits, and circumstance. It is not useful to isolate one part of one factor in that psychological soup and try to draw a direct relationship to your happiness as man. It is complex and multifaceted, and over-simplification is not useful.

“More music is ‘better’ then less music as values go so every chance I get to acquire more music will make me happy?” As Ifat explains, this line of thought can only be achieved by poor premises, a lack of clarity, or lack of integration, but in all probability, all three. When you get more music for “free”, what is the cost? For starters, you sacrifice the principle of property rights. And in a small way you must acknowledge that you do not have a right to its corollary, your life…or happiness. Further, and more tangibly, you lose the ability to maintain eye contact without discomfort, with people who do not take the unearned. That’s no small thing. That discomfort is the internal realization that he is what you could have been but abdicated out of poor philosophical choice. Of course, that realization is not conscious. It’s just a small discomfort. But enough of a discomfort that you will prefer the company of other sorts of people. People more like you. People who realize that its ok to take little things which you did not earn. People you can trust…?

What happens after that minor evasion, is that when another minor issue comes up…say a copy of an upcoming test becomes available which allows you to cheat, then it suddenly becomes acceptable “because it really doesn’t hurt anyone else…much…unless they grade on a curve…*evade*…that won’t happen…” You also share it with your girlfriend who is taking the class…she’s probably OK with cheating thats why you chose her, she’s pragmatic…wait a minute…she’s been gone awhile…where is she? :wink: Later, because you didn’t need to study for the exam, you go out and party…forgetting about the paper due. “No worries though…those can be purchased online…or better yet, you can pressure your girlfriend into writing it for you…she owes you for that test anyways.”

I realize this may sound like a slippery slope, but it’s really not. Its actually a slow arduous downward spiral where each poor choice takes you another step deeper until you find yourself in a place where it no longer seems possible to climb your way back out. (sometimes called depression) Ideas become actions become habits become character becomes self-concept becomes joy or despair. It takes years but you can destroy your values incrementally with very small steps. I don’t recommend it.

14

Ask yourself (airborne) if you can feel the same joy while consciously holding the memory of keeping extra bus-change the day before.

It would collide, wouldn’t it?

yes sometimes. Most bus drivers are dickheads though so its okay.

:lol:

Thanks guys this has been helpful. It still has not completely “clicked” as such but I’m sure it will eventually.

15

It seems glaringly obvious at first: If I am going to die tomorrow, then why should I return the change to the bus lady?

This one is actually based on a hidden assumption, which allows one to form such questions. The assumption is “Why should I do X when I already achieved happiness?”

However, happiness cannot be acquired like an object, where once you got it, you go it.

Instead, happiness is a non-stop process where your goal is “good life.” The moment you stop working towards it is the moment when your happiness declines.

So, holding this context the assumption is actually “Why should I do X when I already did Y and Z yesterday which should keep me happy for today?” And that’s just not the nature of happiness.