The Prerational and Premoral Choice to Live

Yes - somehow knew this was coming back to the ol' determinist crap...

Post 21

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 8:42am

It is of course not a metaphysical, but a scientific question.

One could argue that metaphysics is science, namely fundamental physics.

Sarah

Post 22

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 8:53am

Sarah:

One could argue that metaphysics is science, namely fundamental physics

No it isn't. Metaphysics is philosophy, physics, fundamental or not, is science.

Post 23

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 9:03am

Excuse me while I pull the trite define-the-word trick but... metaphysics studies the nature of reality. As with other areas of study, modern physics was once considered part of philosophy and then broke off into its own subject once people learned more about it and became further specialized.

Sarah

Post 24

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 9:34am

CS,

When I said metaphysical, I was merely talking about identifying "what is" as a starting point. Rand uses a philosophical hierarchy that I find extremely useful for organizing and formulating concepts.

Metaphysics - What is it?
Epistemology - How do I know it?
Ethics - What should I do about it?

Concepts must be built in that order to be rationally valid.

As she used the phrase "thinking in principles" to usually mean thinking morally, and really really really stressed this a lot, you find certain Objectivists mixing the hierarchy up, trying to impose "Ethics - What should I do about it?" BEFORE "Metaphysics - What is it?". They completely forget that you have to know what something is before you can know what to do about it.

In the choice thing, they forget that a biological capacity to choose has to exist BEFORE it can be exercised, so they talk in circles, even arriving at amazingly dumb formulations like non-conscious beings and body parts "choosing to live."

They stick fancy words on it like "determinism" and "prerational" and so forth, but on the premise level, it makes no sense whatsoever. If you take this manner of thinking to the logical end, you arrive at primacy of consciousness, i.e., the capacity to choose without having any physical organ holding the volitional faculty. Pure garbage and boneheadedness.

btw - Science is an outgrowth of metaphysics and comes after it, so they are not mutually exclusive areas. Thus recognizing a biological urge is both metaphysical (in the "What is it?" sense) and scientific (in the specific study of biology sense). You have to recognize that something exists before you can study it.

Michael

Edit - Thanks for the lemming info.

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 1/04, 9:35am)

Post 25

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 9:46am

Sarah:

Excuse me while I pull the trite define-the-word trick but... metaphysics studies the nature of reality. As with other areas of study, modern physics was once considered part of philosophy and then broke off into its own subject once people learned more about it and became further specialized.

Chemistry was once part of alchemy, astronomy of astrology. That's no reason to call alchemy or astrology sciences today. We are concerned with the current definition of science and philosophy, not with the history of these disciplines. Can you test your statements about the nature of reality, are they falsifiable? Then they're part of science, if not, not. Then they belong to philosophy.

Post 26

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 9:58am

Astrology is falsifiable. Is it a science?

Sarah

Post 27

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 10:55am

Sarah:

Astrology is falsifiable. Is it a science?

It's very bad science. So bad, that we usually say that it's no science at all. But it does make statements and predictions that can be tested, and therein lies an important difference with metaphysical statements that can't be proved at all (that aren't even false, as Pauli used to say). Falsifiability is no guarantee for good science, but without it there is no science.

Post 28

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 11:03am

Putting on my positivist hat for a moment...

Then what use is a metaphysical statement as you're describing it? What bearing does it have to reality if nothing metaphysical can be proved? Why not shed the word altogether under your definition?

Sarah

Post 29

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 11:29am

Sarah:

Then what use is a metaphysical statement as you're describing it? What bearing does it have to reality if nothing metaphysical can be proved?

None at all. It probably fulfills a psychological need (but not for me).

Post 30

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 12:57pm

Sarah wrote, "Astrology is falsifiable. Is it a science?" Dragon Fly replied,

It's very bad science. So bad, that we usually say that it's no science at all. But it does make statements and predictions that can be tested, and therein lies an important difference with metaphysical statements that can't be proved at all (that aren't even false, as Pauli used to say). Falsifiability is no guarantee for good science, but without it there is no science.

Question: Is the law of non-contradiction--that a thing cannot be both itself and not itself at the same time and in the same respect--a metaphysical statement? I'd say it is. Can it be tested? How would you test it? Produce a contradiction and then see if it conforms to reality? But contradictions are impossible; none can be produced even to be tested. Does that mean that the law of non-contradiction cannot be proved? There is a sense in which it cannot, because proof (as a process of inference) presupposes the law of non-contradiction. That does not mean, however, that the law of non-contradiction cannot be proved in the sense of established as true, or that it is of no intellectual value. One can establish its truth by recognizing that to deny it would render proof of any kind impossible and thereby invalidate all knowledge. So, while metaphysical statements cannot be verified or falsified in the same way that an empirically testable theory can, they can nevertheless be recognized as either true or false. Indeed, if they could not, then the very idea that an empirically testable theory must be falsifiable could not itself be verified or proven to be true.

- Bill

Post 31

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 2:19pm

Bill,

You wrote, "Indeed, if they could not, then the very idea that an empirically testable theory must be falsifiable could not itself be verified or proven to be true."

Is there some way we can posit the falseness of Popper's existence?

//;-)

Michael

Post 32

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 2:46pm

Bill,
Great response. What say we leave Dragonfly to his metaphysical statements about science and go back to the point of this thread?

Right now I'm on Smith's side, but I'm not unwilling to be persuaded otherwise. I had a little difficulty following your arguments, but I thought this part was the most clear (and the easiest to argue against):

A choice presupposes a standard, which is an end or goal that the choice is intended to serve. One always chooses for a reason or a purpose. In that respect, one's choice is a means to an end. Insofar as the end is not an ultimate value, it can be evaluated by an end that is an ultimate value. In the case of Objectivism, a person's ultimate end or "standard of value" in this context is his highest moral purpose, namely his own happiness. It is for the sake of that end or goal that he "ought" to make his choices.

So, if the end is an ultimate value, it doesn't have anything by which it can be evaluated. Therefore, it is outside the realm of evaluation and is pre-moral. By saying that Objectivism chooses a person's happiness as his ultimate end, all you're doing is making being an Objectivist the ultimate end. You're saying "If you want to be an Objectivist, then you must choose your own happiness as your standard of value".

If I ask you why I should want to be an Objectivist, you might come up with a reason, but then that becomes the "ultimate end". If you want to terminate this, I think you have to have an ultimate end that is pre-moral.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 33

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 3:03pm

Glenn,

You mean to challenge my hijack?! En garde!

Sarah

Post 34

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 3:07pm

Sarah,
If I respond to you, then I'll be hijacking the thread! So, I'm not going to respond. But, if I did, I would say:
I'm afraid of sharp objects, so I prefer pistols at 50 paces.
Glenn

Post 35

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 3:13pm

Just to let everyone know the rules :

Anyone who hijacks one of my threads should understand that he or she is making the prerational choice to die. So please don't do it.

- Jason

Post 36

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 4:04pm

If I ask you why I should want to be an Objectivist, you might come up with a reason, but then that becomes the "ultimate end". If you want to terminate this, I think you have to have an ultimate end that is pre-moral.

I think that "ultimate" is that man is an end unto himself. As Rand says, he is not the means to the ends of another. I've never understood how from this premise people start to impose absolutes upon others as to what another individuals life should be. Another is an end unto themselves, and if they wish to literally end themselves, then I do not know how to pass judgement upon that. I don't necessarily agree that the decision to live is pre-rational, but I also would not posit the decision to intentionally cease to live as being some sort of unforgivable sin.

Post 37

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 7:44pm

I'm being confused by almost everyone. I can't tell which perspective you are considering in your arguments.

Perspective A: the living being who is choosing to live
Perspective B: the living being who isn't chosing to live, (either not making the choice, or has actually chose to die)

Please be clear from which living being's perspective you are discussing morality, otherwise I'm not going to be able to understand you.

I'd also like you to focus on either "not making the choice" or "has actually chose to die" through your entire argument.

Post 38

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 8:18pm

Jason,

I'm skipping all of the stuff ahead of me and going straight to your original question. As best I can.

Animals obviously "choose" to live. If you can define "choosing to live" as "performing actions which promote your life." Given that we come from animals I would think that the choice to live would be pre-rational. Or predetermined if you will. We wouldn't be here otherwise. A "logical choice" implies a value system which you wouldn't have if you didn't have some experience living in the first place.

As far as "there is nothing that logically necessitates the wish to live", we have our experience with our built in sensations "I'm hungry", "I'm cold", "That hurts", "That feels good", "I'm angry",... Along with the responses, I eat, I get warm, I move away from what's hurting me, I strike out at what makes me angry. These are just individual stimulus and response actions. At that level we are not saying "I want to live!" Only after our minds develope can we look at all of these things and subsume them under "actions that promote my well being, my happiness, my sense of self satisfaction, MY LIFE". Then we can make the rational choice to plan how best to promote our lives and our flourishing from then on. What I am saying is that with no experience of living you cannot choose to live through LOGIC alone, you have to have a "jump start" via your built in stimulus-responses.

Post 39

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 8:23pm