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Monday
October 10, 2005

Daily Linz 6 - A Duty to Live? by Lindsay Perigo

Peikoff’s answer to the question, “Why choose life?” reads to me like, “Because it’s there, so you must.” Mine would be, “There’s no intrinsic ‘why,’ short of a powerful biological urge which I’m free to accept or reject; there’s no a priori categorical imperative saying you must choose life—so find your own ‘why’ and speak for yourself." (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (88 messages)

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 8:14pm

You have my sympathy on this issue - know so well it is not a painless consequence when one takes one's life... but consider, for a moment, this - there are things which we can change, and things which we cannot, which we must accept as part of the unintended consequences of life [for you], be it an earthquake, or illness, or even a self taking of life... you grasped the essence of the father carrying on for the sake of the mother and child as being that of a form of slavery, of existing for the sake of another - the same is with any commitment, in the final analysis, for all commitments must be considered in contexts... the loss can be thought of as a risk of living, just as being hit by a devastating flood or quake... small comfort, agreed, and am not suggesting this in a final answering - just suggestions to answerings... hope it helps...

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 8:20pm

Hoy Jennifer,-

If one is devoted to life as the ultimate categorical imperative then self-termination is the ultimate malfunction to end all malfunctions. Nothing could be worse.
There are no amoral agents, only immoral ones.

Lindsay's point is that Peikoff's argument defending that reaction doesn't work. Sure, we can understand his reaction, but is it consistent with Objectivism?

I don't mean to explain Peikoff's argument but to defend it. That one is beyond morality's perview does not absolve him of moral judgement. Man is an ethical being by metaphysical edict, choose as he might to be amoral.

An amoral agent is the most immoral of agents. Could there be anyone more gone to hell than one who rejects life qua life? Men are subject to moral judgement even if they refuse to admit it. So Peikoff is right.

But, if we say that life is the standard of value, then there is no standard for valuing life, as that would make the argument circular

Yes. And unless you're the sort of person who can tolerate such nonsense (I am not) you need for life to be an end in itself. Being alive is its own reason that one ought to be alive. One has a duty to be what one is- this is not a disposition to be achieved passively but one we must consciously accept and submit to by choice.

Even to say "I value life" would be an odd version of concept-stealing.

I wouldn't say that because I don't believe in amoral choices.
The choice to submit to one's duty (duty: to fulfil one's function and live) is prior to morality but must never the less be evaluated in moral terms. No other framework can exist for evaluating man's choices, there is never anything amoral about man's business. So the language of 'value' is not out of place at all.

like the Nike logo. It's just honey-talk.

Eventually, ideas have to point to experience outside of themselves. Some questions inherently have gut-level, experiential answers. (What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Who's the love of your life?) Otherwise words and ideas would be floating abstractions, ideas referring to other ideas ad nauseam. We can still reason about those experiential reactions as we do any other aspect of reality, but we can't dismiss them as outside the realm of the intellect without making the intellect irrelevant to our experience.

I don't agree. I think there is a unity of values and ideas and feelings, a mappable hierarchy that is always relivent to our own experience. Furthermore, I say that Objectivists should be able to explicate all of their values, ideas and feelings from ice cream choices to romantic choices and I claim to be able to do it.

If it were otherwise your objection might stand.

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 8:34pm

Thank you, Robert. (I do want to add that I've dealt with this long ago, it's just a fact of life at this point. No sympathy sought, just hope this adds some insight into the topic.) This is one of those issues where the therapy culture would have one rehash over and over (which I did), but ultimately, you have to decide if it's even worth it and get on with living.

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 8:35pm

double post deleted
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 10/10, 8:39pm)

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 8:48pm

Excellent article Lindsay, I agree with all of it. I fully agree that men should be able to choose to end their lives, and others should be able to assist him with his consent-- no matter what state he is in.

Of course, the person doing the assisting would need to be very careful gathering evidence that the person requesting assistance is giving consent... so that he can defend himself in court on a charge of murder.

I sure as hell don't agree with the idea that choosing to live is a priori good and choosing otherwise is a priori bad.

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 9:42pm

Doesn't Peikoff (or anybody) remember John Galt saying that he would take his own life if Dagny fell into the hands of the enemy and was tortured?

That is morally justified suicide under Objectivism. Out of the horse's mouth.

(Gail Wyand's boredom playing "shall I, shall I not?" with a revolver is a bit more complicated.)

Hmmmmmm...

Another thought. Disagreeing with Peikoff?

Where the hell did Valliant, Casey, the hapless automobile passenger and company go?

Hmmmmmm...

Michael

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 11:07pm

I don't think one has a duty to live, and I don't think Peikoff is saying that one does. One does not have a duty to not be terrorists and ram jets into skyscrapers, either.

Because it's not about duty.

But, to be taken seriously as a player in the universe one has to rise above the kind of nihilism that even includes one's own needless annihilation. Remember, Peikoff is referring to one who would "throw away his life without cause." Nothing could be more nihilistic. He's making the specific point that you have to buy into the universe to even be on the moral map of Objectivists. You have no duty not to fall off the edge of that map, but you have no right or reason to claim a place on that map if you treat life as an arbitrary value.

If the basis of all value, life, is treated as an arbitrary value, than all value is arbitrary and no value is objective, even the objective basis of value itself, life. Life is the standard of morality, the basis by which we make all other evaluations, including the evaluation of whether suicide should be considered or the risking of one's life.

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 11:34pm

Good to see you, Casey.

Believe it or not, I agree with you.

Michael

Monday, October 10, 2005 - 11:40pm

Wow.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 7:07am

Phil,

Consider another example: If you believe that it is morally and rationally optional whether or not to value life, then why can't one worship death and seek the death of all living things? Why wouldn't it moral for someone to be so consumed by hatred for himself and all life and so desirous of returning everyone to nothingness that he chose to construct a lethal virus with no cure and exterminate himself and the human race? And then one could not hear a peep of condemnation of him out of Objectivists on moral grounds? After all, the choice to live is morally optional, right?

If you see the contradictions in the above paragraph, you can see why the choice to live is *not* morally optional.

The choice to live is optional, the choice to take others with you against their will is not.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 7:17am

What if one were to say: I did not choose to be born. I was brought kicking and screaming into this world by force on the whim of others and without my permission. I consider it not a boon but a burden and so I reject it.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 8:10am

Robert asked:

What if one were to say: I did not choose to be born. I was brought kicking and screaming into this world by force on the whim of others and without my permission. I consider it not a boon but a burden and so I reject it.

I would answer using the famous words of comedian Jeff Wayne to his perpetually hypochondriac wife in It's OK To Be a White Male:

"Why don't you just die already? Why don't you just throw in the towel and call it a day?"

If you want to see a sudden burst of life-affirming health and energy like you have never seen, tell the complainer that! Listen to the album to hear how his wife reacted in that fashion.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 11:11am

> The choice to live is optional, the choice to take others with you against their will is not. [Robert D]

But the logic of my example is this: It is only if -you- choose to live that you morally must choose to not violate the rights of others, because rights follow from the choice to live. They are requirements for life, not just that of others but -your- life. On the other hand if you accept the idea of Linz and Tibor Machan that the *choice to die* is morally optional, then you are not morally or logically required to live by rational egoism, respect rights, not become a murderer, etc.

Why? Because the only reason against those rested on the opposite choice -to live- which you haven't made!

...Thank you for giving me just one more reason (a logical implication this time) why not choosing life (as always barring metaphysical emergencies, etc.) is *immoral*

> What if one were to say: I did not choose to be born. I was brought kicking and screaming into this world by force on the whim of others and without my permission. I consider it not a boon but a burden and so I reject it.

You can -say- whatever you want but it doesn't change the facts I laid out in post #6. By the way, "permission" would be a stolen concept in this statement. It is only when you have chosen to live that you can care about such very secondary issues as "permission". Moreover, the fact you misguidedly may "consider" it a burden is not relevant to the elemental fact that you are contradicting your nature if you choose not to live or live fully or on the level of creature you were born to be.

Like a tree that tore out its roots or a seagull that plucked out its wings or an eagle that clawed out its eyes. Or a horse that choose not to run but stood still and held its breath till it died out of resentment at the burden of having been born.

Yecch.

Phil

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 12:33pm

On the other hand, you'll live to be a hundred if you give up everything that would make you want to live to be a hundred.
(Edited by Casey Fahy on 10/11, 3:11pm)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 2:00pm

Phil,

On the other hand if you accept the idea of Linz and Tibor Machan that the *choice to die* is morally optional, then you are not morally or logically required to live by rational egoism, respect rights, not become a murderer, etc.

You are for as long as you take breath. After that, you are dead, no choice is possible.

But, even if you choose life you are not 'logically required' to live "morally". Ellsworth Toohey chooses life, a life of evil, yet he profits by it; leading, one would imagine, a comfortable life filled with reading, the arts, fine food, etc. What is Ellsworth Toohey's punishment, that Howard Roark does not think of him?

Do the actual Tooheys of the world go to the grave feeling remorse? I doubt it.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 5:07pm

Robert,

You've failed to fully engage the logic of my post.

Phil

(I won't take much time with your Objectivism 101 fallacy suggesting that Toohey is actually being 'selfish'. This has been discussed endlessly in Objectivist literature.)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 8:45pm

There is such a thing as "rational" suicide only within the context of life having been chosen as the supreme value. No circumstance arguing for or against suicide can even be evaluated outside of that context, Linz. Isn't the needless loss of life the tragedy of tragedies? Isn't life the context for and source of all manner of marvelous values -- indeed all values? These are all of the ... well, values, right? How would I go about considering the subject, Linz? It surely won't be a matter of ~ evaluation ~ that's for sure.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 10:24pm

One problem with doctor assisted suicide is a segue into murder, only, since it is state sanctioned, it isn't called murder. There you are in a hospital bed and you want to live, aside from the fact that you've been filled with drugs that impair your judgment, even your ability to speak, and a bunch of doctors decide for you that your life isn't worth living--and then it's "Good night, nurse!"

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 10/12, 5:43pm)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 10:47pm

Sorry you lost your father, Joe, and under such circumstances. Most suicides--I suspect most but don't know--are revenge driven and a quest for immortality in the minds of loved ones left behind. Do you remember that horrible suicide in Atlas Shrugged? When I first read that in 1963 I thought that the author couldn't have imagined that. Years later I learned that that had really happened to someone she knew. So we have suicide running the spectrum from absolute evil to a mere acceptance that life is too difficult and painful to bear any longer. There is no way to know where your father fell along that line,certainly be me, but what you had or have difficulty knowing is that YOU WERE OUT OF THE LOOP from your perspective, but not necessarily from your father's. His action sucked you in regardless and that is what you were/are trying to deal with. At the age of four you can't have many memories of your dad, and that is an especial shame. My dad died at the age of 83. He had a stroke at 67 and I spent 16 years taking care of him. If I hadn't I myself would have probably died 20 years ago for reasons I don't want to go into, but I have no complaints; I'm happy to be alive. I hope you are also. Find me someone whose life has been easy or "perfect" and you will find me an exception to the general rule of things or a dumb ass who never learned how to live except on the surface of things--or a very lucky person, to be sure. I think.

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 10/12, 5:40pm)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - 5:33am

Phil

Well poo poo to you too.