RoR: Forum

The values we fill our lives with, bottom up, are chosen to accord with our understanding of what values are actually values. Some things are of value to an individual and will not be of value to others - I, for example, like foods that are spicier and foods that are sweeter than most people like.

And what we value changes as we mature and develop, and with our thinking. Values are informed and modified by our understanding, our circumstances, our focus, our capabilities, etc. The values I hold this year will influence values chosen next year. But there is always a set of values proper to all humans. Our understanding and acceptance of those must take precedence over values that are individual and not universal whenever we detect a conflict. Otherwise we lose the standard of value.

It really isn't accurate to say that we build from the bottom up and leave it at that. We build from the bottom up, but then we adjust our abstractions to be more appropriate to our new understanding and then we reintegrate to that abstraction. It is a circular process that goes on all of the time. And the objective, universal values are there waiting for us to grasp as we mature. Part of the process is examining emotional urges to see if they match our long-term interests. We examine conflicting premises to determine which are in our interest. We discard flawed 'values' and adopt new values.
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There are values that derive from our premises. In one sense every single thing subject to choice is derived from a premise. Sometimes the premise is explicit, sometimes it is implicit. When someone learns to masturbate they are certainly acting on a premise - the premise that is good to experience physical pleasure. That premise is modified as the person acquires new values - like the value inherent in privacy that comes after absorbing the social taboos involving public masturbation (more premises).

Ted, you wrote, "According to the premise theory of love, Branden should have been sexually attracted to Rand even if she were 80 and wheelchair bound. But his individual nature as a virile heterosexual middle aged male made him attracted to whom?" One could easily say that the premise theory of love is accurate, but that Rand would be applying it incorrectly to claim that Branden would not have a powerful attraction for values outside of the purely intellectual.

What premise makes the alcoholic desire alcohol? The premise is that it is better to numb a given state of emotional and physical discomfort than to avoid the negative aspects of alcohol abuse. The desire to numb a psychic pain - the desire to self-medicate - are pursued because of an unstated premise that lies behind each denial or evasion. Simple psychology here.

Here you appear to be throwing out the relationship between premises and values and justifying by saying that human nature is a floating abstraction. I think that you have severed value from human nature and left it subjective. "Rational animal" - the "rational" part requires choice and choice presumes premises. The "animal" part supplies biological urges and the requirement for action, but we have to choose to act, and how to act, and presumes some understanding of ourselves and our world as a context for acting. We integrate (and reintegrate) to form values and they do underlie our premises which do underlie our actions.
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Ted, you wrote, "I am making several related points. The first is that if a proper system of ethics for an entity has to be consistent with that entity's nature..."

The point that I am making is that ethics - to be objective and universal is based upon 'human nature' - man qua man IS the entity viewed ethically. How else do you derive an ethical standard?

Please give me an example of an ethical position that would differ for me, a straight male, versus the ethical position for a gay male - as per your proposed ethical system. A difference that I might agree or disagree with, as opposed to Rand (whose positions in this area were unfortunate and not in agreement with her more basic principles).

Post 21

Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 7:51pm

Ted -- pretty much everyone is descended from sociopathic mass murderers if you go back a few generations. Most kings, emperors, conquerors and other assorted "nobles" got to positions of prominence by killing anyone who got in the way, whereupon they used the stolen wealth from taxes and looting to spread their genes far and wide.

Genghis Khan was perhaps the most "successful" at this horrendous reproductive strategy, as you pointed out, but essentially all of humanity shares this capacity for violence due to shared ancestry from these prolific sociopaths.

Thus, we all share to some extent a genetic dark side, however well tamped down it is by civilizing influences, waiting to be unleashed by circumstances.

Anyone who has studied the Roman emperors may have noticed how quite a few of them started off enlightened and promising, but given absolute power, they quickly went bad. Only a handful wielded power with anything approaching grace and moderation.

From the wikipedia entry for Caligula: "There are few surviving sources on Caligula's reign, and although he is described as a noble and moderate ruler during the first two years of his rule, after this the sources focus upon his cruelty, extravagance, sexual perversity, and presenting him as an insane tyrant."

This is part of why I'm a borderline anarcho-capitalist -- I despair of any minarchist system of government staying that way for long, given the malign character of most anyone given political power for very long, and their relentless attempts to expand the powers of limited government originally bequeathed them.

If minarchism is to succeed, it needs to be designed to give so little power to any one person that they're incapable of doing much of anything -- and have that grant of power be very fleeting and temporary.

Post 22

Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 8:42pm

Jim, well, no. According to case studies of sociopathic people there are organic causes for at least some instances of sociopathy. I offer no proof or claim that Genghis Khan was an organically determined clinical sociopath incapable of empathy. I just suggest it is plausible and a possibly stable evolutionary strategy depending on circumstances. Certainly the tendency of woman on welfare to prefer sex with thugs rather than committed father types is a modern analog.

I am glad to hear you describe yourself as a "border;line" "anarchocapitalist."

Steve, I did not say that the concept of human nature is necessarily a floating concept. But to use it as if it is full of enough content to provide all our own individual values is absurd. For example, if we did derive our values from our notion of human nature, how would it occur that certain people would derive the notion that they should be homosexuals. The concept human nature is like the concept health. One doesn't go to a doctor seeking universal health. The idea that one needs to develop a universal ethics either limits one to broad but vague principles, begging the question of individual values and where they come from or it leads to a one-size fits all straightjacket that all too many people seem to have found in the NBI days.

If you pay attention to my architectural analogy, it should be obvious that both bottom up and top down reasoning would be used. It is possible biologically to have conflicting values. For instance, you may very much have a sweet tooth (a tendency that doesn't result from a conscious premise) but may also realize consciously that you are prone to diabetes. Of course you would, based on a top down approach, then search for artificial sweeteners to satisfy one urge while protecting the value of your health. It would be absurd, however, to say that the knowledge that one is diabetic would actually make cake taste less appetizing, although it might arouse other emotions like shame or fear.

Values are just like concepts. The ultimate developmental origin of values is from our urges and pain-pleasure mechanisms. As we mature we develop more complex and long term values. From our higher values we can move downward by deduction to find implied lower values. For example, as children we enjoy comfort and mobility. Thus we come to despise ill health (a more abstract value). We learn that good health can be maintained by exercise and vaccinations. So we derive the more concrete values of jogging and an annual flu shot from our higher value of maintained health. But health became a value for us not from some derivation from life as a first principle, but from our childhood dislike of the restrictions and discomfort of illness.

We hear the notion of a happy life from others as we grow up. If we learn a proper system of ethics, we can use it to help integrate our passions (our pursuit of values) using ethical abstractions that depend upon the concept of man as a volitionally rational animal capable of joy. Babies don't have such notions. that level of mental development when you start to look for a capstone to complete the dome which is your hierarchy of values only comes about in early adulthood, if ever. But we start building the foundations of that dome with our earliest choices.

Post 23

Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 9:58pm

Coincidentally:

Can a Genetic Variation Boost Empathy and Reduce Stress?

One single difference in the human genome may play a role in behaviors such as empathizing and responding to stress. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on a single gene, called OXTR, which carries the design and production blueprint for cells scattered throughout the heart, uterus, spinal cord and brain that serve as docking stations for a chemical called oxytocin [Los Angeles Times]. Oxytocin is a chemical produced in the brain that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy when we interact with others in a nurturing or bonding way; it has also been shown to help mice stay calm when under stress.

Post 24

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 10:51am

Ted,

You are thowing out the standard for Objectivist Morality, and universal morality as such and proclaiming a "A proper, biologically sound theory of values..." Which you state, ...would have to take into account the genetically and environmentally influenced differences between individuals and also look at humans as the products of development."

Your accusation that Rand created a theory of value by taking adults and their desires as givens, is nonsense. You say that she starts with the apriori notion that our desires result from our premises.

Here is Rand, from Virtue of Selfishness: "In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between �is� and �ought.�

Now in what manner does a human being discover the concept of �value�? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of �good or evil� in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation.

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man�s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is."

Remember that her definition of a value is that which we act to gain and/or keep - try to find a value defined in that fashion that isn't related to a premise (consiously or subconciously held).

Those people who mistakenly think that they can trace back each single preference or desire to a universal standard by which it can be judged are in error. Those who in overreaction claim that there can be no single standard that applies to everyone are also wrong. We form all of our values on our own, and they need to match our chosen, univeral moral code - as per its standard for us to have any integrity and not be in conflict with ourselves. I like sweets and it is personal value, but it must not conflict with the broader universal value of my health.

Ted, you appear to have taken Rand's mistaken ideas on homosexuality and thrown out the ethical system as a whole rather than just the mistaken premises regarding homosexualtiy. Ethics would not get into describing valued traits or characteristics by gender, much less gender preferences. That would be an area for cultural analysis or psychology or biology - not ethics. Ethics is going to have a very limited number of universal prescriptions, just as a minarchist government is going to have a very limited number of restrictions. Rand's strength was philosophy and she didn't feel comfortable in psychology - for that reason she often did some form of analysis from within philosophy (ethics or aesthetics) that should have be done in psychology.

Ted, you say, "Rand's system, in order to avoid floating abstractions, has to view the notion of man as a volitionally rational being and the virtues derived therefrom as an ethical superstructure which in an adult serves as the integrating cap stone to the edifice which is his system of values." I'm completely thrown by this sentence and hardly know what to do with it. Rand is not in danger of engaging in floating abstractions because she starts with her conception of human nature, of those conditions necessary and proper for man as man. What she derives from this is an ethical system - but it is complete - if there is some sort of capstone, it is a principle not an adult - that is a weird metaphor you created where this structure made of principles is held up by an individual adult - I don't get it. And it is only a part of his system of values. Those principles and values are just the ones that are universal. The rest are his personal values which, hopefully, will be in accord with the universal values, and most will be at their base a universal value that has been fleshed out to hold personal details - customized if you will.

This capstone metaphor clearly means something to you, because you go on to say, "The type of structure one builds may be determined by the biological foundation one has and the early choices one makes long before one ever realizes that one has to place a capstone on the roof or it will fail." I find no foreign capstone that is needed to cap my moral structure - I just don't know how to interpret that. Does it mean that you have busily created your structure and you go to set the capstone and is this adult Randian hero that has been created by her with some of her imagined traits that were either from her mistaken premises, for that suited her personal value system (her tastes) and therefore it doesn't match you?

Post 25

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:56am

Steve, could you try restating my argument in what you see as its strongest form, in your own words? I don't think you have understood it.

Steve, do you deny that our held values are like our concepts, that ultimately they are built from the bottom up, by a developmental process? Do you deny, Steve, that children have values which arise from their animal natures? Do you hold that in so far as children have values, Steve, they result from the premises they have based upon what philosophy, such as existentialism, that they adopt?

Steve, you quote Rand to me (as if mere quotes restating an argument I have already said is flawed would make me change my mind) and say that Rand herself believed that consciousness of values arises from the pleasure/pain response. Are you saying, Steve, that Rand agrees with me? I don't think she does. I think she oversimplifies by speaking of pleasure and pain. (What, for instance, Steve, would count as "sexual pain"?) Rand speaks of our awareness of our values arising from our awareness of pleasure and pain. Where our awareness of our values comes from is a separate issue from where our values come from. Do you hold, Steve, that what causes pleasure and pain is determined by our "premises"?

You are fixed, Steve, on some bizarre notion of "Universal Morality." This sounds Platonic and Kantian, not Aristotelian or Objectivist, Steve. Morality, Steve, is a tool for the use of individuals, not an external standard up to which men have to live. The identification of virtues, Steve, provides a form, but not a substance to morality. Our values, Steve, are the substance of our personal ethical systems. Do you hold, Steve, that it is best for us to look to some external model when deciding what our highest values should be? Or do you agree with me, Steve, that if an individual wants to be happy he has to explore and experiment with his own self to decide whether he wants to be an artist or a scientist, to shack up with a gay lover, or to raise a family?

Do you assert, Steve, that if there were such a thing as a person biologically devoid of empathy, that he would simply be broken, an abomination according to Universal Morality, or do you hold like you did in the rational egoism poll, that even people such as these have a right to happiness, and that they should find a system of values that suits their natures?

You seem, Steve, to be treating Universal Morality as if it were some sort of simple closed system that applies equally to all people. I have said, Steve, that if you want to limit what you designate as ethics to the most basic virtues and obvious truths, such as that one cannot attempt to instantiate a contradiction, then that is fine. But I hold that values, not Categorical Imperatives are the substance of our practical moralities, and that what our values should be, Steve, depends on who we are as individuals, not on deduction from the concept of man as a rational animal. I hold that where Rand failed in her moralizing, she usually failed by applying some Universal Morality (reflecting her own personal preferences as if they were self-evidently universal) where she should have been looking at variation in the nature of individuals. Do you understand my point, Steve?

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/20, 12:00pm)

Post 26

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 2:04pm

Ted, you asked, "Steve, do you deny that our held values are like our concepts, that ultimately they are built from the bottom up, by a developmental process?"

So what? Are all of your current values uninformed by conscious, explicit reasoning on positions taken by various philosophers? By itself the fact that our initial values are built from what we have at the time (baby, toddler, etc.) is meaningless - unless you wish to say that precludes in moderation as time goes by, unless you are saying that development is a continuing process that permits concept from the greater world to have an effect as part of our value formation.
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Then you asked, "Do you hold that in so far as children have values, Steve, they result from the premises they have based upon what philosophy, such as existentialism, that they adopt?" Is there something serious inside of what appears to be nothing more than sarcasm? Children act to gain and keep that which they value - isn't that true for a child as it is for an adult? Isn't there a premise (stated or unstated, conscious or subconscious held) that represents the act to gain or keep t the value? And even if the child has zero training of any sort in philosophy does not mean that someone who does couldn't fit some of those premises into a philosophical framework. But what does that have to do with anything?
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I quoted Rand to show that your understanding of her was false. You imply that she has no understanding of the developmental process values go through - infancy through adulthood. You imply that she sees no role for pain or pleasure that isn't a product of a premise. The quote shows that your understanding of her position is wrong. The quote dealt with learning the process of evaluation. From what I understand of your position, I'm sure that Rand would disagree with you.
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Ted, you wrote, "You are fixed, Steve, on some bizarre notion of 'Universal Morality.' This sounds Platonic and Kantian, not Aristotelian or Objectivist, Steve. Morality, Steve, is a tool for the use of individuals, not an external standard up to which men have to live."

Ted, universal morality means moral principles universal to all men. That, and no more. Universal rights, moral rights, and individual rights all mean the same exact thing. I know that you do NOT believe that you have a set of individual rights but no one else does - and that you have that set of rights by virtue of being a human. What is Platonic and Kantian about that? Morality is a tool for the use of all individuals, as individuals - our happiness is our purpose and our UNIVERSAL moral standard aids us in our moral purpose. You have run off into the deep end of moral anarchy if all is individual and nothing can be rationally derived as common to all.
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You asked, "...do you agree with me, Steve, that if an individual wants to be happy he has to explore and experiment with his own self to decide whether he wants to be an artist or a scientist, to shack up with a gay lover, or to raise a family?"

Yes, but is his decision in accord with his other values? Are there conflicts? If so, how does he resolve them? And if there is a conflict with a universally held value, then the personal value is the one set aside (for example, he wants to run of with a young lady that does not want to go, but he thinks he could force her and after a while she would come around to his way of thinking... He can't violate her rights). Or he examines his wanting to be an artist and brings a sharper focus and a greater degree of honesty and acknowledges that his motive is for what he imagines others would think and not his personal happiness - honesty, integrity and independence are universal.
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Ted, you wrote, "You seem, Steve, to be treating Universal Morality as if it were some sort of simple closed system that applies equally to all people." Simple? No. Closed system? No. Applies to all people? Yes. Individual rights are the best example. Don't they apply to everyone? They aren't closed in that we need to exercise considerable intelligence to apply them (e.g., what specifically would be the proper decrease in rights would be occasioned by someone working as a pickpocket? How do we resolve the issue of parents having control over their children's freedom?)
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You wrote, "Do you hold, Steve, that it is best for us to look to some external model when deciding what our highest values should be?" We must do our own reasoning, but yes, we should look to many external models when deciding what our highest values should be. Not for the exact form they will take, but to grasp the categories, the structure that we will then fill in. We see someone else's highest values reflected in their art. To the degree we share those values (in their general form) and share their place of importance in our hierarchy, then we respond emotionally. Our values resonate to being experienced externally. We are always evaluating - planning about specific, concretes in the future that will maximize our positive experiences in excess of alternative plans, and this is based upon our estimate of our emotional experience of our values.

Are you saying your highest values are so unrelated to anything in any art that you are an island in this regard? Are you saying that you share no values with others? That you believe that your individuality is such that there is no generalized form of those values that are commonly held?

My values, highest and least important, are mine. They belong to and were created by and are for ME. But I fully share many of them (in general form) with others - I'm talking about sharing all of the basic principles of Objectivism - including the moral principles. If this is that external model that you reject, then you'll have to tell me why and what you have instituted in its place.
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You asked, "Do you assert, Steve, that if there were such a thing as a person biologically devoid of empathy, that he would simply be broken, an abomination according to Universal Morality,..." That makes no sense to me. Would it make sense to have a diagnostic category for a person, that for whatever reason is missing the ability perceive and enjoy a large part of human existence that is cut off to them? Yes. Wouldn't any morality hold that it is better to have the capacity to empathize? I'd think so.

Then you went on to ask, "... or do you hold like you did in the rational egoism poll, that even people such as these have a right to happiness, and that they should find a system of values that suits their natures?" Yes, my universal moral code (Objectivism) holds that individuals have a right to pursue their happiness - which would include putting together a system of values that best suits who they are. And if they are smart, or lucky, they will choose values that don't contradict what reality says is of value to all men (e.g., reason, choice, happiness as one's proper goal).

Post 27

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 3:02pm

Great responses, Steve.

Ed

Post 28

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 5:50pm

So, if I get you right, Steve, you agree with basically everything I have said? I assume you also agree that where Rand went wrong, such as in her theory of sexuality, it was because she was using a top-down rationalistic approach? I would very much like you to quote to me where Rand said that one's hierarchy of values is developed from the bottom up by integration as one matures in a way parallel to one's conceptual development.

Ed, Steve certainly didn't say that girl's sociopathy is based on her reading of Sartre.

Post 29

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 7:26pm

Ted, I am in complete disagreement with you.

I don't think you understand what Rand achieved in logically deriving 'should' from 'is' in her description of man's life qua man as the standard of life. She provided a rational basis for morality and common standards allowing a full range of individual differences.

You, on the other hand, have broken the connection between human nature and ethics. The result is subjectivism of some sort, or some yet to be announced Ted-Keer-Standard of morality. You mention 'biology' but you haven't explained how you derive a standard for moral values. You just give hints that genetic differences will in some fashion result in different values.
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I can't imagine what you are thinking to want a non-universal moral code? You WANT the equivalent of cultural relativism in the world of morality? One standard of morality is as good as another? Or, some kind of moral anarchy - that is, let's not have any standard?
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Values are on a spectrum from those that are mine only - unique to me - all the way to those that are values common to all humans, because they are humans.

There is a big difference between personal values I choose, and universal values I recognize. They are both required. Homemade ice cream is a personal value, that is fine as long as it isn't pursued to an extreme that would harm me, and as long as it doesn't conflict with universal moral values, like good health. Both the personal value and the larger value - properly integrated - are needed.
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You conflate the bottom-up personal development of an individual's code of values, with the top-down hierarchy of knowledge - as if the two weren't both required but different aspects of how we are able to make evaluations.
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Rand was totally right in the basic principles and only wrong in very few areas in her understanding of biological facts and wrong in a few instances in the degree to which she attempted to extrapolate from aesthetic properties into character traits. But your jump from these to throwing out the standard of morality is absurd. Frankly, I was shocked to read what you thought Rand's mental processes were (post #15). We've had this discussion before and I conclude that you have a blind spot in this area. I don't think you even recognize how far you are from Objectivism.

Post 30

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 9:00pm

Ted: " According to case studies of sociopathic people there are organic causes for at least some instances of sociopathy. I offer no proof or claim that Genghis Khan was an organically determined clinical sociopath incapable of empathy. I just suggest it is plausible and a possibly stable evolutionary strategy depending on circumstances. Certainly the tendency of woman on welfare to prefer sex with thugs rather than committed father types is a modern analog."

Interestingly, History Channel is showing, as of this writing, a documentary on Caligula, and compares him to Caeser and Genghis Khan on a scale of killers, with the range being from "psychopathic killers" to "goal-directed killers."

Post 31

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 9:01pm

Steve, please. Where have I said that I want to throw out the standard of morality, advocate the equivalent of cultural relativity in morality, or any such nonsense? I have said I accept the Objectivist virtues. I accept the happy life according to one's nature as the individual's highest value. I accept that there is a value hierarchy. I accept that what is actually good, what is necessary to actually achieve the happy life depends upon a person's nature, not upon his druthers.

What I differ with Rand on is my insistence that all a person's values arise from the bottom up, just as does his knowledge. (BTW, you said: "You conflate the bottom-up personal development of an individual's code of values, with the top-down hierarchy of knowledge - as if the two weren't both required but different aspects of how we are able to make evaluations" which is both apparently a misuse of the word conflate, since I do not confuse knowledge and values, and a mistake, since you also say that knowledge is "top down," which is not my view or the Objectivist view.)

I say that no substantial value derives by deduction from the top down.

Just as the axiomatic concepts are formal, and we do not derive our knowledge of the physical world from the axioms (the axioms serve to integrate, but not to fill our minds) we do not derive our lifelong passions (friendship, art, career, family, romance, hobbies) from an abstract belief that life is good, but from integrating our childish pursuits into coherent adult values.

The substance of our joyful lives emerges from action consistent with our individual organic natures.

There are such things as "means" values. If one values health, for instance, one can reason downward that one must exercise and eat well and accept proper medical treatment. One deduces that one should go to the doctor when one is ill. But the desire to be healthy, like I said in a post above, is based not on an abstract respect for "healthy living" but on a desire to be potent and to be comfortable in pursuit of more psychologically prior values. Children know that being sick is bad long before they know what death is.

If the highest substantial (i.e., life-content-providing) values an individual can hold are the ones I have mentioned above, romance, career, etc., then I think it is quite proper to say that each individual has to treat his own individual nature as a most important fact of his life. The homosexual must accept that his sexual orientation may mean that he will not have his own children. The Sociopath, the empath and the "Aspie" may all have very different career paths and needs for friendship and family and romance. Here, following Rand's example or theory of sex or the example of her heroes can be tragically self-destructive of happiness.

Again, this obsession with universal ethics is odd. We don't insist upon "universal medicine," and say that there are a few general medical principles, but that specific medicines and treatments are optional, or alternatively, that the same medicine is good for all. The doctor's main task in treating a patient is to develop a full description of him as an individual, to develop a case history and a diagnosis based on empirical facts, not a horoscope based on rationalistic preconceptions. That you see my criticism of the notion of "universal ethics" as personally threatening and reason for hysterical accusations that I want to overthrow Rand and set up some sort of relativist-subjectivist Studio 54 society makes me think that you see "universal ethics" not as a means to your own personal flourishing, but as a doctrine by which one keeps others in line. Why, if you don't understand what I am saying, don't you ask for clarification and examples rather than leaping to making absurd accusations that I, who think all children should be forced to study Latin, want to institute bedlam, Sodom and Gommorah, and - the Worship of the Whim?

Above, you say "so what?" and treat values as if, since they are optional, they are really unimportant so far as ethics goes. I don't think you really believe that values are unimportant. But in fact, you are treating values as if they are in effect accidents, just something as inconsequential as the shape of one's fingerprints. I think you are improperly limiting the proper scope of ethics to what applies to all men, and are also, to an extent, conflating ethics with politics. For instance, you say that a persons' personal choices are his business so long as they don't affect you. That is politics, not ethics. I am saying that a person's individual choices are the most important thing in the world; that since ethics is a tool for the individual to achieve happiness, there is no more important matter for ethics to address.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/20, 10:38pm)

Post 32

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 10:28pm

Ted, you wrote, "Where have I said that I want to throw out the standard of morality, advocate the equivalent of cultural relativity in morality, or any such nonsense? I have said I accept the Objectivist virtues. I accept the happy life according to one's nature as the individual's highest value."

The standard of morality is man's life qua man, it is an abstraction drawn from all men's lives - that is why it is common to all - universal. How else would anyone know that any value is an objective value shared by mankind. All of your references are to the individual. Since you make a point of discussing differences, like straight versus gay, you are advocating the moral equivalent of cultural relativity. You write, "I accept the happy life according to one's nature as the individual's highest value." The question is what do you mean by "one's" nature - the individual or some group, like all homosexuals, or all humans. For me, that has been the whole discussion that you are ducking or not getting.

You wrote, "I accept that what is actually good, what actually achieve the happy life depends upon a person's nature..." You are saying that what is good for that particular person, depends upon only on that particular person's nature - with NO reference to any other human being or human nature. That's just not workable.
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You wrote, "The Sociopath, the empath and the "Aspie" may all have very different career paths and needs for friendship and family and romance. Here, following Rand's example or the example of her heroes can be tragically self-destructive of happiness."

I think this is an absurd misreading of Rand. Wouldn't it be silly for a young woman to think that she had to work for a railroad? That would be a much too literal interpretation of what happiness requires. A person needs to understand their individual nature, but the standard, the primary values are already there - from being human. The chore that befalls each individual is figuring how to achieve those values given their individual circumstances.
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Universal ethics means no more than to say ethical principles apply to humans. Individual rights are ethical principles and they apply to all humans. Just as medical principles apply to humans. I do see universal ethics as important to my flourishing - politics flows out of ethics. Tell me how your non-universal individual rights work.
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You wrote, "Above, you say 'so what' and treat values as if, since they are optional, they are really unimportant so far as ethics goes."

What are you talking about? I did NOT use the phrase "so what" anywhere in this thread. I would never say that values are unimportant to ethics. I do not think that ethics is only limited to politics. I am limiting ethics to what is common to all men - in principle, but not in the particulars. Maybe that is where you get confused. For example, how integrity comes up for me will be different from how it comes up for another person, but it is an important principle for all of us. Please give me an example of an ethical principle that does not apply to all human beings.

Post 33

Friday, November 20, 2009 - 11:01pm

Steve, you used the words "so what?" in post 26, first line, first full paragraph. Please take stock, you are literally beside yourself. You are not addressing anything the substance of anything I have said, just characterizing it. Please stop acting as if my views are a personal threat, or a threat to Objectivism.

Re-read my last post, I think it's one of my best. Or, if the issue is too much, drop it and come back to it after a week.

I have written as many words on this forum as Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged, you definitely have enough knowledge to see whether I am evul, yet you make the most bizarre accusations, as if my views and motives are unclear. Really, would you say such things about Bill Dwyer who denies free will as you do about me here? Your outrage is disproportionate. My theory is coherent, plausible, and no threat to mankind. I am not your enemy.

Post 34

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 9:12am

Ted, you write:

I am saying that a person's individual choices are the most important thing in the world; that since ethics is a tool for the individual to achieve happiness, there is no more important matter for ethics to address.

I sort of said something similar once.

While this quote (and yours) are chock-full of truth and relevance, they both leave a tension in my mind about taking the personal (the individual) to the extreme -- wherein subjectivity rears its philosophically-ugly head. So, in order to dispense with this metaphysical (i.e., undeniable) tension, I said something to balance it out.

In my comment to this last quote of mine, I introduced a new way of talking about old things: nontemporal hindsight (rationality & wisdom); and I distinguished it from what what many folks conflate it with: excellent foresight (intelligence). Existentialists allow for intelligence, but not rationality (or wisdom).

The tension which should be in your head, Ted (and please forgive me for strongly suggesting which concepts should be in your head; and how far they should have been integrated by you) -- the tension which seems apparent to me -- stems from contrasting your quote with this one (below) from Rand. It is aimed at the existentialist -- i.e., the uber-individual (if I may coin another term where needed):

... It is not a license �to do as he pleases� and it is not applicable to the altruists� image of a �selfish� brute nor to any man motivated by irrational emotions, feelings, urges, wishes or whims.

This is said as a warning against the kind of �Nietzschean egoists� who, in fact, are a product of the altruist morality and represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one�s own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one�s own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims . . . .

A similar type of error is committed by the man who declares that since man must be guided by his own independent judgment, any action he chooses to take is moral if he chooses it. One�s own independent judgment is the means by which one must choose one�s actions, but it is not a moral criterion nor a moral validation: only reference to a demonstrable principle can validate one�s choices.

The take-away message is that:

(1) morality isn't "doing what you want to" -- regardless of anything but your "naked" (individual) wants
(2) morality isn't about the mere "intention to benefit" -- something isn't automatically good simply because you meant it for your individual benefit
(3) that something isn't automatically moral or good because you used your individual judgment to choose it
(4) and that there's something more "universal" (something more "principled") than your personal wants, your merely-egoist intentions**, and your personal choices which validates morality

I wrote an essay about the undeniable moral tension between an individualism gone amock, and a "healthier" individualism. It's not about the positions of "uber-individualism" and "healthy individualism", it's about the inescapable tension (or chasm?) which one needs to get past in order to get the "healthier" side. Now, if you don't feel the tension -- if you don't see a problem with uber-individualism (as we can see from above that Rand did) -- then you're inconsistent with Objectivism.

Ed

**A most troubling phrase, due to the potential for altruists to take it and misuse it out of this context. I wavered on it's use, but thought that it was important enough to add (if I include this disclaimer) -- because it gets at the heart of the existentialist issue.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/21, 9:21am)

Post 35

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 10:12am

Thanks, Ed.

No where have I said that one can morally "do whatever one wants to do." One has to objectively identify one's nature and act on it. This may involve painful choices and it must involve soul-searching and Objectivity. And it should involve rational ethical advice based on an acceptance of what we can provisionally call "alternate natures."

For example, a homosexual who feels no attraction to women may want to get married because he likes children, he wants the prestige of being a married man, and he feels guilt inculcated by the traditionalism of his peers. Is it moral for him to get married, just because he wants to? Will he truly be happy? Will his wife? Will he cheat on her at airport mensrooms? Will such a choice lead to mental breakdown, divorce, disease and public humiliation? If he were to take the top down approach to human nature he might say that he is a man, men are masculine, and therefore he should be "normal" and his homosexual urges are not a relevant fact but an aberration from "universal morality." I think that's an all to common occurance that Objectivism can easily avoid.

Or consider a transsexual man who self-identifies as a woman. Should he undergo gender reasssignment surgery? What if the plastic surgeon warns him that contrary to his imagination he will look like the Cat Woman or Arnold Schwartzenegger in drag? Maybe he would be better off sublimating his sexuality externally, and becoming a dress maker or a makeup artist?

This is all very difficult because there is no pat dogmatic answer. That doesn't mean that there is no answer.

Post 36

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 11:31am

Ted,

You insist that all of a person's values arise from the bottom up, just as their knowledge does. I'm not aware of Rand saying anything that contradicts this as the normal progression. But people can also change their beliefs, change what they hold to be true, and change what they value as time passes. Sometimes the changes are just normal maturing, but other times the changes are radical - and in that case would most likely be 'top-down.' For many people, reading Atlas Shrugged resulted in a top-down change for some values. every change can mean modifications to all things based upon the concept changed. In addition, top-down isn't just about the acquiring of a value, but about the examining of a value. We have conflicts and need to resolve them. We need to order, and at times, reorder our values. We go outside ourselves to compare our particulars to a standard, to a principle - and that is a more a top-down activity than a bottom up.
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You said, "... we do not derive our lifelong passions (friendship, art, career, family, romance, hobbies) from an abstract belief that life is good, but from integrating our childish pursuits into coherent adult values."

I don't think that is so. What happens is that we are fueled by a combination of a sense of life, self-esteem, and the drive arising from key values (e.g., to learn) that combine with the pleasure or excitement of the moment. This is what moves a child through their daily activities. It is the shaping of these prime drives (sense of life, self-esteem, and our greatest values) that result in the actuals of our lifelong passions. In this fashion life is much more a top-down pursuit and the daily results are the layering of a tiny change on all of the tiny changes from all the days before. It is reciprocal in that the net result of the processes we go through during the day are modifying, however slightly, those prime drivers. The heart of our motivational forces were not our childish pursuits but the more powerful motivations that were behind them... and it is no different for the adult. Rand clearly understood this given her respect for reaching old age with same sense of the heroic that one had as a child. We do derive our lifelong passions from our abstract belief that life is good (as long as that is understood as the stated premise representing our integrated key values - i.e., our sense of life).
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Ted, we have been reading each other's posts for a long time. You know that I don't think you are a personal threat, or my enemy, or evil, or being deceptive. But I am certain that your version of morality which is based upon something other than a concept of human nature (not the individual's nature, or his group's nature, but the nature of all humans) does indeed break the link between metaphysics and ethics and leave morality as bereft of a rational anchor as... as a Christian fundamentalist's concept of God-given rights leaves Capitalism adrift.

I believe that you are so enamored of your biological approach to morality that nothing I write will matter and that saddens me. My "outrage" - my shouting, if you will, was in hopes you would see the logical necessity of deriving the basis for morality from the concept of humans - plural, not singular - just as one would attempt to derive a medical principle in such a way that it held for all people, not just one. It is a complex and subtle abstraction that lots of people aren't going to be able to grasp but I know that you could... my irritation is that you won't.
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Regarding your last post, you said, "If he [a homosexual man] were to take the top down approach to human nature he might say that he is a man, men are masculine, and therefore he should be "normal" and his homosexual urges are not a relevant fact but an aberration from "universal morality." I think that's an all to common occurance that Objectivism can easily avoid."

That isn't Objectivist morality, that is a failure to grasp that males may be homosexual or heterosexual and that 'normal' in this context has nothing to do with 'moral' - why would you think that a universal morality would exclude part of human nature and still be universal? This "all to common occurrence" that you lay at the feet of Objectivism is not inherent in the philosophy but in the mistaken understanding of the principles.
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I'll drop this, as you suggest, not because the issue is too much, but because I'm not making headway.

Post 37

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 11:46am

"That isn't Objectivist morality, that is a failure to grasp that males may be homosexual or heterosexual and that 'normal' in this context has nothing to do with 'moral' - why would you think that a universal morality would exclude part of human nature and still be universal? This "all to common occurrence" that you lay at the feet of Objectivism is not inherent in the philosophy but in the mistaken understanding of the principles."

And Ayn Rand herself would surely never make that mistake...oh, wait:

"Because it involves psychological flaws, corruptions,
errors, or unfortunate premises, but there is a
psychological immorality at the root of homosexuality.
Therefore I regard it as immoral. But I do not believe
that the government has the right to prohibit it. It
is the privilege of any individual to use his sex life
in whichever way he wants it. That's his legal right,
provided he is not forcing it on anyone. And therefore
the idea that it's proper among consenting adults is
the proper formulation legally. Morally it is immoral,
and more than that, if you want my really sincere
opinion, it is disgusting."

Now, from what morality would Rand make this claim? The Objectivist morality. NOW ask if it's inherent in the philosophy, or if was Rand mistaken about the principles?

(Edited by Joe Maurone on 11/21, 12:28pm)

Post 38

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 1:45pm

Rand was mistaken in her application of the principles - she, like many people at that point in history, thought that homosexuality was psychological. Even if it were, that would not make sense of her statement. She was wrong.

You can choose to believe that she was right in all of this, or that she was wrong in her application of the principles - having a faulty understanding of homosexuality, or you can believe that Objectivist morality, at the root, is wrong - is it that last that you are choosing?

Post 39

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - 2:23pm