You should choose to live

Ethics
21

6 hours ago, epistemologue said:

If I understand correctly, you’re saying that in order for the standard of morality to apply to us, we must have reached a certain level of conceptual knowledge and conceptual thought. It’s only from there are our choices either morally right or wrong. So we must have already have made certain choices (e.g. to live) prior to any moral context. Right?

I don’t agree with your premises, but even granting this, is it not the case that, once you’ve entered the moral context, when confronted with the alternative to live or not, the moral thing to do is to choose to live? Even supposing the choice were necessarily made at a prior time in a pre-moral context in order to even enter the realm of morality, once you’re in the moral realm, isn’t that all the more reason why the choice is morally obligatory?

Seeing “why the choice is morally obligatory” brings to mind “The moral is the chosen, not the forced, the understood, not the obeyed.” A question that might be drawn from this: Does Rand state that the moral is the chosen, implying all the way down, and extending to all choices? If so, what grounds does Peikoff have for stating that the choice to live is exempt?

Clearly to me, the context is set from earlier positing that at each step of reasoning is subject to “the constant choice in answer to the question: True or False?—Right or Wrong?” Clearly she holds that the morality of reason is right and proper for man. In fact, she argued for it extensively.

Until a child reaches an “age of accountability” (and I’m not advocating Mormonism, but often myths are built around kernels of truth) is acting in a way to please mommy and daddy by not doing things they disapprove of and doing things they approve of the same as the discovery of right and wrong as it applies to human behavior? Even with the initial discovery that X is right and Y is wrong, does such a discovery firmly plant “life as the standard” of morality?

What happens when you reach the stage where you view which “theory of concepts” you embrace as a moral issue? It is. Again, it is the chosen. Rising to the political level, the principle of individual rights protects those in the wrong to be wrong . . . provided . . . they do not infringe on your rights. In an Objectivist society, does “morally obligatory” extend to passing legislation barring anything other than “life as the standard of morality”?

Or as Harry Binswanger reiterates often in his lectures “as opposed to what?”

Choosing 'life" as a standard of value—as opposed to what? Rand took great strides to indicate what the alternative to “life” amounted to.

22

On 2/20/2017 at 0:29 AM, epistemologue said:

Given this ethical foundation, there are a couple of important issues to derive: not only is the choice to live the most basic moral choice that one should make, but the choice to die (suicide), is the most immoral choice that one can make. And further, everyone should strive to live forever, through the pursuit of the scientific advancement of life extension, this should be one’s central purpose in life.

There is a non sequitur in the second part of this that no one has pointed out. Your argument goes like this:

  1. Man’s life is the central purpose of a moral person’s life.
  2. Pursuing life extension is the best way for everyone to achieve man’s life.
  3. Therefore, everyone should pursue life extension.

The non sequitur comes in in the second premise. The best way for most people to pursue man’s life is to focus on being productive and earning money in some legitimate fashion to keep themselves alive, as well as pursuing appropriate relationships with other people. Life extension research that may or may not even pan out is a distant second to paying bills and other concrete, practical concerns.

I don’t disagree that life extension research is a good thing and might be something useful to come around to once everything else has been taken care of, but it is simply wrong to say that it should be the central purpose of everyone’s life.

23

I was expecting someone to ask “What about a life that is in fact not worth living?” 

I believe I saw a lecture by Journo from ARI where he seemed to emphasize that well-being was the focus and not just life.

It is simpler to apply the idea that “my well-being” is the goal, rather than simply “my existing”. One has a more motivational effect than the other.

But from a broad view, the fundamental choice is to exist or not to. Non-existence is a concept that can’t be experienced. It is only a concept. A person who wants to commit suicide is after “relief”, from pain, looking for a sleep that has no dreaming involved.

I doubt if anyone would choose a purposeless absence of pleasure. Wouldn’t that be immoral?

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On 2/28/2017 at 5:13 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

Do you realize that by rejecting OPAR, specifically, by rejecting that the choice to live precedes morality

i.e. by rejecting " That choice itself, therefore, is not a moral choice; it precedes morality"

you are advocating an intrinsic morality and not an objective one?

Yes, I’ve come to agree with you. I am an intrinsicist, hence the name. However, I do disagree on the point about objectivity. I think only intrinsicism can be objective. Objectivism, whenever it consists in denying intrinsicist metaphysics, is not objective. Hence I go back and forth on whether my philosophy of intrinsicism is a fundamentally different philosophy, or merely a correction to what is in essence exactly the philosophy of Objectivism originally discovered by Ayn Rand.

25

On 2/28/2017 at 7:15 PM, Eiuol said:

The problem is if such a commitment can exist without any conscious awareness or volitional participation. If it can, then you are implicitly advocating innate commitments and attitudes that a person can’t help.

I’m simply saying that making any choice, taking any action, logically implies a commitment to life, and that’s whether you intend it or not, whether you are conscious of the logical implications or not. It is possible to proceed in a self-contradictory way without explicitly acknowledging it (see, “On moral condemnation” above), but there is still something inherently immoral in evading the responsibility of justifying your actions, if you are going to act at all.

26

On 3/1/2017 at 9:55 AM, KyaryPamyu said:

Now, why does he desire them? If you answered, “because Man’s life is the standard of moral value, and his own life is his moral purpose” you are ipso facto advocating intrinsicism.

But isn’t this exactly true? Where do you think desires come from if not human nature?

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On 3/1/2017 at 9:55 AM, KyaryPamyu said:

you’re turning the metaphysicaly given into a god, the way Spinoza did, then giving moral significance to your obedience to the metaphysicaly given.

But that’s precisely what Ayn Rand defined morality to be in The Objectivist Ethics: is implies ought. Morality comes from your metaphysically-given nature, and moral significance comes precisely from your following that. To go against your nature is to violate exactly this fundamental principle, that is implies ought. This is why life is the ultimate standard of value in Objectivism.

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On 9/19/2017 at 12:40 PM, Easy Truth said:

“What about a life that is in fact not worth living?” 

See above “Positive values are possible despite suffering” and related sections.

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On 4/6/2017 at 7:55 PM, William O said:

I don’t disagree that life extension research is a good thing and might be something useful to come around to once everything else has been taken care of, but it is simply wrong to say that it should be the central purpose of everyone’s life.

You’re right to call me on it; I need to flesh out a more comprehensive theory of positive ethics to justify this claim. I would still argue that my position here is largely correct. In the sense of having a so-called “central purpose in life”, this is what I think it should be. There’s more to positive ethics than this sense of a “central purpose in life”, but it’s still an important one, and I think it’s properly related to life extension and the pursuit of physical immortality. I’ll have to come back to this point.

30

11 hours ago, intrinsicist said:

whether you are conscious of the logical implications or not

How can a commitment be nonconscious? You probably should define what you mean by commitment.

This thread is three years old, so I don’t remember if we covered that.