What we are

Metaphysics and Epistemology
1

Hi,

this question might seem odd to many, but I’m sure some of you will understand its significance and basic importance.

I have learned that objectivism is a philosophy dedicated to man’s life. Everything about objectivism is about man’s life, about achieving it.

And of course, such a philosophy can only be justified on one basis:

We (human beings) are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence. Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival.

This seems to be the common presumption among objectivists. But this their basic “fact”, which they seem to have accepted, doesn’t really feel trivial to me. I don’t know what objectivists are basing that on. Naturally, I understand that we have inbuild biological functions that support our life. But to base the aforementioned presumption solely on that isn’t very conclusive, not self-evident. I don’t see how we can NOT be functioning in a way that is meant to support either other things, a specific WAY of HOW we live or - at worst - nothing at all. I regard all these things as eventualities, as alternative explanation of what we are. Although I find the common presumption “we are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence” the most “likely”, based on certain biological evidence, but this doesn’t make that presumption immune against attacks. It is NOT conclusive knowledge, i.e. NOT self-evident.

To make it clear to you, let me show you an example of what I DO regard as self-evident:

Reason is our ONLY means of knowledge. To ask why is to accept it. He who asks “How do we know that” has already implicitly accepted that it is so, since he is obviously looking for a REASONable answer. Hence he already knows that reason IS his only means to knowledge. So this fact is self evident, conclusive.

Also, I would like to make clear, how I have understood the presumption of “We are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence.”

How would I identify my own existence or the existence of anyone else? That’s it, through my or his/her CONSCIOUSNESS, no matter the level of that consciousness (perceptual or conceptual). To LIVE, as I understand it, is to be CONSCIOUS, whether conscious of a blur or conscious of a concept. That is my idea of the meaning - I say MEANING, not neccessarily “proper way” or purpse - of life, my understanding of the concept. Mere biological “robotic” function without consciousness would’n be what I call a living being.

And furthermore, I would say that I enjoy a lot of things without directly seeing any relationship of that enjoyment to the preservation of my own existence. And yet I do enjoy them. This supports my view of “alternative goals” I have, if not “main goal” at least “additional goals”. And I also know I would be very frustrated without experiencing those things.

So, I am asking again: How do we know that our goal is to maintain our own existence, how do we know this as a “self-evident” fact?

Peikoff’s argumentation in OPAR goes like “you have already accepted that you want to live, you have already activated reason”. Well, I’d say “true” to the second, but still “why?” to the first. Why would a mere activation of reason be evidence of a goal of self-preservation? Any such claim would already make USE of that assumption. That is, if that “goal-directedness” to self-preservation was a precondition to the activation of reason, then yes - self-preservation IS our goal. Otherwise nothing can be said. We cannot just use a non-self-evident view to argue for the same.

Could anyone help? Maybe some eye-opener like the “reason as only means to knowledge” one?

Cheers :wink:

2

Our goal or purpose is not to maintain our lives. Objectivism is a “philosophy for living” so the ethics of objectivism presupposes that you have chosen to live. Life then becomes not the main goal, but rather the standard by which you judge your actions and values. It is axiomatic in this sense, that without having chosen to live, ethics and morality are pretty meaningless.

There have been a fair number of threads on “life as the standard of value” or some variation of that. I would recommend looking them up as they may clarify some things.

3

We (human beings) are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence.

This seems to be the common presumption among objectivists. But this their basic “fact”, which they seem to have accepted, doesn’t really feel trivial to me. I don’t know what objectivists are basing that on.

Actually, if you consider what you wrote here, you are making a presumptive statement in your second and third sentences, which is verified in the fourth sentence.

You don’t know what Objectivists are basing that on because you don’t know how thoughtfully (on an individual basis) they have considered the question at hand. The proper thing to do in that case would be to inquire rather than presume.

Also, as Aequalsa has pointed out, the premise of your confusion is off target. Objectivism doesn’t say that you ‘should choose life’ or that that choice is self-evident. Rather, it says that ‘IF you choose life, there are certain things you must do to live the life of a man according to his nature as a rational being’.

4

And furthermore, I would say that I enjoy a lot of things without directly seeing any relationship of that enjoyment to the preservation of my own existence. And yet I do enjoy them. This supports my view of “alternative goals” I have, if not “main goal” at least “additional goals”. And I also know I would be very frustrated without experiencing those things.

One question; how would you enjoy these alternate ‘main’ goals without first preserving your life? Are these goals things that you could still enjoy without your life? Do you see the possibility that in order for you to value these goals, you must first have implicitly decided to live, after which you can enjoy these goals?

To put it another way, for example, let’s say your ‘main’ goal is to eat ice cream. Nothing in the world means more to you than to eat ice cream as expediently as possible. Would you therefore run across a freeway teeming with high speed motor vehicle traffic of such volume that it would likely involve your death or serious injury in order to get to your main goal of eating that ice cream? Or in another example, if you knew you could your most favorite ice cream at the expense of having a bullet put in your head following it’s consumption, would you still pursue that course of action to get your most favorite ice cream?

5

Geez, that sounds like a rather extreme form of the “ice cream headache.”

6

We (human beings) are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence. Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival.

There is so much more an Objectivist requires of his/her life than mere existence or survival. That is the problem, confusing those two concepts.

7

We (human beings) are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence.

To answer your question it is important to know why this statement isn’t accurate. It is true for plants and animals but it isn’t true for human beings. We (human beings) are things whose nature is such that in order to preserve our own existence, we must choose to do so.

You seem to have accepted that we are rational beings and a prerequisite of rationality is volition and the entire field of morality (what we should choose) is also dependent on being able to choose.

Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival.

RationalBiker has already given a good example of how you should think of the above and I would just reword it as such: everything we are capable of enjoying requires that we be alive in order to enjoy it. This isn’t even part of a philosophy, it is just a statement of fact, it is a truism.

How would I identify my own existence or the existence of anyone else? That’s it, through my or his/her CONSCIOUSNESS, no matter the level of that consciousness (perceptual or conceptual). To LIVE, as I understand it, is to be CONSCIOUS, whether conscious of a blur or conscious of a concept. That is my idea of the meaning - I say MEANING, not neccessarily “proper way” or purpse - of life, my understanding of the concept. Mere biological “robotic” function without consciousness would’n be what I call a living being.

When trying to discover what is true about man and how he should support his life, it is helpful to observe the similarities and differences with other living entities (which is how Ayn Rand did it). Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. So plants are alive but are not conscious. Animals have a perceptual consciousness and man has a conceptual consciousness. Plants and animals follow an automatic course of action. Man, in order to live, must discover and follow the proper course of action by choice. The knowledge we require in order to live is not provided to us automatically, we must use our reason in order to discover it.

So reason is not only:

Reason is our ONLY means of knowledge.

It is also our ONLY means of survival.

I have learned that objectivism is a philosophy dedicated to man’s life. Everything about objectivism is about man’s life, about achieving it.

This is true but you must discover what an Objectivist means by: “man’s life”.

He doesn’t just mean survival (although this is a requirement), he means proper survival, which means survival as a rational being, which means survival in accordance with our nature as a rational being. And as you have alluded to proper survival means being happy. And true happiness is accomplished only by living rationally, which entails staying alive, which entails acting rationally since this is our means of survival.

8

Our goal or purpose is not to maintain our lives. Objectivism is a “philosophy for living” so the ethics of objectivism presupposes that you have chosen to live. Life then becomes not the main goal, but rather the standard by which you judge your actions and values. It is axiomatic in this sense, that without having chosen to live, ethics and morality are pretty meaningless.

Hmm…but why would it be so senseless to ask “Why should I choose to live as opposed to pursuing other goals that might just implicate life without life per se being the object of desire?”

Actually, if you consider what you wrote here, you are making a presumptive statement in your second and third sentences, which is verified in the fourth sentence.

You don’t know what Objectivists are basing that on because you don’t know how thoughtfully (on an individual basis) they have considered the question at hand. The proper thing to do in that case would be to inquire rather than presume.

Also, as Aequalsa has pointed out, the premise of your confusion is off target. Objectivism doesn’t say that you ‘should choose life’ or that that choice is self-evident. Rather, it says that ‘IF you choose life, there are certain things you must do to live the life of a man according to his nature as a rational being’.

My question to aequalse is for you, too, then.

9

One question; how would you enjoy these alternate ‘main’ goals without first preserving your life? Are these goals things that you could still enjoy without your life? Do you see the possibility that in order for you to value these goals, you must first have implicitly decided to live, after which you can enjoy these goals?

Well, yes, of course, but, as someone here has pointed out, this is just a truism. There may be cases in which you pursue a goal that might cause you to exist in a shorter time span, but you still feel happier that way. So it might look like you are partly going “against life”, but you cannot explain why you still desire that goal other than saying that you would be frustrated otherwise. And even staying frustrated could mean that you are still living longer but unhappier. Hence life per se cannot look like an all-wise choice in general, but must be extended to “happy life”. And with “happy life” being the goal, there would be no way of really saying that Mother Teresa was “unhappy”, since there would be no way of defining “happiness”, it is left to the subject to decide what that means. If you take “happiness” to mean “successful achievement of life”, you are just on the old track of pursuing life per se again, with the aforementioned problematics.

To put it another way, for example, let’s say your ‘main’ goal is to eat ice cream. Nothing in the world means more to you than to eat ice cream as expediently as possible. Would you therefore run across a freeway teeming with high speed motor vehicle traffic of such volume that it would likely involve your death or serious injury in order to get to your main goal of eating that ice cream? Or in another example, if you knew you could your most favorite ice cream at the expense of having a bullet put in your head following it’s consumption, would you still pursue that course of action to get your most favorite ice cream?

Yes, if you take eating ice cream to be just a symbol of a big goal in your example.

10

To answer your question it is important to know why this statement isn’t accurate. It is true for plants and animals but it isn’t true for human beings. We (human beings) are things whose nature is such that in order to preserve our own existence, we must choose to do so.

You seem to have accepted that we are rational beings and a prerequisite of rationality is volition and the entire field of morality (what we should choose) is also dependent on being able to choose.

You could join aequalsa in answering my question to him then.

RationalBiker has already given a good example of how you should think of the above and I would just reword it as such: everything we are capable of enjoying requires that we be alive in order to enjoy it. This isn’t even part of a philosophy, it is just a statement of fact, it is a truism.

Right, only a truism, that’s the thing. And you might sacrifice some lifetime in order to enjoy that goal. Life may have numerous shades of gray, you can quantify life. For example, you could reduce your life by about 10% by allowing some bodypart of yours to be destroyed due to an unfortunate situation. And you might live only 90% of maximum life in order to enjoy certain things. You might decide to do this, although this might seem irrational by the standard of achieving life.

When trying to discover what is true about man and how he should support his life, it is helpful to observe the similarities and differences with other living entities (which is how Ayn Rand did it). Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. So plants are alive but are not conscious. Animals have a perceptual consciousness and man has a conceptual consciousness. Plants and animals follow an automatic course of action. Man, in order to live, must discover and follow the proper course of action by choice. The knowledge we require in order to live is not provided to us automatically, we must use our reason in order to discover it.

This is true but you must discover what an Objectivist means by: “man’s life”.

He doesn’t just mean survival (although this is a requirement), he means proper survival, which means survival as a rational being, which means survival in accordance with our nature as a rational being. And as you have alluded to proper survival means being happy. And true happiness is accomplished only by living rationally, which entails staying alive, which entails acting rationally since this is our means of survival.

Well what if you are trying to achieve what some might call an irrational goal by rational means? If I know I enjoy achieving a specific goal without being able to explain that desire but still knowing I could never feel content having lived without it, I think that’s when objectivists would call that goal “irrational”. I could and would try to achieve that goal by rational means, since reason is the best aid at achieving goals.

11

Well, yes, of course, but, as someone here has pointed out, this is just a truism. There may be cases in which you pursue a goal that might cause you to exist in a shorter time span, but you still feel happier that way. So it might look like you are partly going “against life”, but you cannot explain why you still desire that goal other than saying that you would be frustrated otherwise. And even staying frustrated could mean that you are still living longer but unhappier. Hence life per se cannot look like an all-wise choice in general, but must be extended to “happy life”. And with “happy life” being the goal, there would be no way of really saying that Mother Teresa was “unhappy”, since there would be no way of defining “happiness”, it is left to the subject to decide what that means. If you take “happiness” to mean “successful achievement of life”, you are just on the old track of pursuing life per se again, with the aforementioned problematics.

Objectivism defines happiness as a state of consciousness which proceeds from having achieved one’s values. I can’t imagine that there’s another definition(if you have one, please challenge this definition first, because everything else rests on it): if you’re not morally satisfied with your actions, you feel guilt, not happiness, even if those actions have landed you in a Thai whorehouse where you’re body feels pleasure from the combination of opiates and massages it is being subjected to.

That’s just another “truism”(by that I mean something that is true-simply because that is how human beings are):

But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.--Ayn Rand(Galt's Speech)

And yes, the achievement of happiness is one’s highest moral purpose(happy life is the goal). I can tell that Mother Theresa was unhappy, because she wrote that she was unhappy. I could’ve told her she’s going to be unhappy before, because she chose as her standard of values the teachings of a philosophy of death: she cannot be happy until she achieves her highest values, and those values are impossible to achieve while still alive (and trying to stay that way), because there are still things she hasn’t sacrificed.

Objectivist ethics is the science of choosing one’s proper values, the only ones which make it possible to achieve happiness.( Precisely because they keep you alive first, and happy only then. Any other system would kill you, or at least not tell you how to stay alive while in the process of achieving happiness. In which case to what use is such a system? You need a different(higher one), which does both. )

P.S. In my opinion there is no way for you to understand (and then accept or reject, based on full understanding instead of some degree of whim combined with understanding) Objectivist philosophy, by just discussing it on a forum. If you wish to give it a fair hearing, you’re going to have to go ahead and read Atlas Shrugged. (while at the same time checking out definitions at the Ayn Rand lexicon website, modern applications and interpretations of her philosophy at the ARI website, hanging out on this forum for fun or company, etc.)

By “understanding” I don’t mean becoming a philosopher, I just mean understanding on a level a human being needs to understand, if he wishes to apply it correctly in his life.(or reject it, in full awareness of what he is rejecting)

12

Hmm…but why would it be so senseless to ask “Why should I choose to live as opposed to pursuing other goals that might just implicate life without life per se being the object of desire?”

It’s not senseless to ask. It’s just that it would be a personal, context based answer that you would receive. Objectivism as a philosophy does not hold an opinion on whether or not you should choose to live. You might, for example, be in so much pain that death was preferable. Objectivist ethics is a methodology for “gaining and keeping” values. Usually achieving your values requires you to be alive.

13

Hmm…but why would it be so senseless to ask “Why should I choose to live as opposed to pursuing other goals that might just implicate life without life per se being the object of desire?”

I don’t know that it’s senseless to ask that question. However, it is senseless to ask that question in the context of how it relates to Objectivism because Objectivism addresses what man should do IF he chooses life as a man as his ultimate goal. This is a forum devoted to the discussion of Objectivism, not of (insert any philosophy here). So if you ask the question if man can value something greater than his life, the answer can be “yes”, but it has nothing to do with the discussion of Objectivism.

Also, Objectivism does not define (man’s) life as simply the chronological amount of time you can stay on this side of the dirt. Life is not morgue avoidance. So yes, sometimes one does do things that may risk the longevity of one’s life to varying degrees so that one can maintain a quality of life that makes it worth sticking around for. That does not mean that one has necessarily chosen (insert value here) as a higher value than his life.

To put this in another way, it is similar to asking the question, “Can a person be a Christian if they don’t believe in Christ?”

14

I don’t know that it’s senseless to ask that question. However, it is senseless to ask that question in the context of how it relates to Objectivism because Objectivism addresses what man should do IF he chooses life as a man as his ultimate goal. This is a forum devoted to the discussion of Objectivism, not of (insert any philosophy here). So if you ask the question if man can value something greater than his life, the answer can be “yes”, but it has nothing to do with the discussion of Objectivism.

OK.

Also, Objectivism does not define (man’s) life as simply the chronological amount of time you can stay on this side of the dirt. Life is not morgue avoidance. So yes, sometimes one does do things that may risk the longevity of one’s life to varying degrees so that one can maintain a quality of life that makes it worth sticking around for. That does not mean that one has necessarily chosen (insert value here) as a higher value than his life.

To put this in another way, it is similar to asking the question, “Can a person be a Christian if they don’t believe in Christ?”

Hmm…following that your comment, I have searched for and found the official definition of life in the Ayn Rand Lexicon: A process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. This gives rise to my following questions for understanding that definition:

What is the “self” in that definition? Is it consciousness or is it the biological entity, whether conscious or unconscious? One does have to realize that biological entities could possibly exist without the presence of consciousness in it, and that consiousness cannot be reduced to biological matter (you cannot give a physical description of matter to “understand” the meaning of consciousness), which gives rise to this question, doesn’t one?

I hope the “self” isn’t meant to be life, hence this would result in a circular definition.

Or does “self” maybe mean the PROCESS itself? Well, if so, it would have rather been “a self-sustaining process of…”…So maybe self = the ACTION?..Hmm…just considering this interpretation for the first time, gives room for some new thought…and thinking aloud:

How is the definition then different from just “Self-sustaining action”? Does the addition of “process of” simply serve the purpose of making it several pieces of action linked together, possibly even with chains of action running parallel, thus altogether forming a process, each piece of action in it somehow enabling its own respective continuence (i.e. self sustainance)? Wouldn’t this make each and every action of that process an end to itself?

I do realize that there is some non-automatic self-sustaining action going on that has proven to sustain the biological entity AND our (level of) consciousness. Those would involve the choice to eat food and actually eating food. Not only do these actions sustain our (level of) consciousness and the biological entity, they also, thereby, sustain the action itself: Eating food enables us to eat food in the future, since through foodm our bodily tools of eating food (teeth, throat etc.) survive.

The next thing would be to understand the motivation behind such a definition of life.

Well, I think this is getting closer…

15

Isn’t “self” a descriptor of the action? Surely one organism could be sustained purely by the actions of another (like the brain dead person kept “alive” by the application of an iron lung and fed through an IV) but that action is not self generated, I would also argue that it isn’t life as an Objectivist would see it, i.e. as a man.

16

Hmm…following that your comment, I have searched for and found the official definition of life in the Ayn Rand Lexicon: A process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. This gives rise to my following questions for understanding that definition:

What is the “self” in that definition? Is it consciousness or is it the biological entity, whether conscious or unconscious?

There is no self in that definition. There’s a self-generated, which has nothing to do with the psychological construct “Self” (neither Jung’s nor anyone else’s).

Self-generated means “made without the aid of an external agent”. It is an attribute of the entity.

17

There is no self in that definition. There’s a self-generated, which has nothing to do with the psychological construct “Self” (neither Jung’s nor anyone else’s).

Self-generated means “made without the aid of an external agent”. It is an attribute of the entity.

Nono, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I wasn’t thinking about Jung’s “Self”. I was initially assuming it refers to the biological entity in the context of "life of a biological entity is a process of self-sustaining action. I was probably wrongly connecting “self” to “biological entity” instead of “action”. Oh, you think it DOES refer to the biological entity?

18

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

  1. to self-pollinate.
19

The next thing would be to understand the motivation behind such a definition of life.

Regardless of the definition, Objectivism uses the same concept of life as every one else does. It’s the same concept a school-going child learns in biology class, when he distinguishes between living entities and non-living entities.

For instance, here’s an alternative attempt at a definition:

Life is a process that distinguishes organisms from non-living objects, such as non-life, and dead organisms. Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction, some can communicate and many can adapt to their environment through changes originating internally.

Another attempt, from a biology site says that living beings are characterized by the following processes: feeding, respiration, movement, excretion, growth, sensitivty and reproduction.

Regardless of the different definitions being used, they both refer to the same concept, and so does the definition used in the Objectivist text you quoted.

20

Regardless of the definition, Objectivism uses the same concept of life as every one else does. It’s the same concept a school-going child learns in biology class, when he distinguishes between living entities and non-living entities.

Hmm…I’m not so sure of that. Because life then, does not necessarily imply consciousness. I would say that even as a child, I would see that consciousness ought to be involved in a living being in order to call it “living”, otherwise it would just be a machine. That’s how, as a baby on a road, a child might think that it is safe, since the car’s can “see” her, and therefore make sure it will give way to the child, if necessary. It somehow thinks that the car is conscious. I think the presence of consciousness in a thing must somehow be implicit in a concept of life, otherwise we could reduce that thing to a machine.

And also, someone who intents to preserve his “life” could then theoretically end up foregoing the future existence of his consciousness, since that is not really a priority, since consciousness is not the identity of a life.