An altruism question

Folks...

I had to write this immediately given that I am reading the most horrible essay by a guy named Singer. He is talking about something he calls "The Moral Equivalent of Murder". This, he is saying, is when I kill someone every time I go to Starbucks, buy a T.V., or buy anything that isn't necessary to my staying alive. I think I just encountered the altruist you've all been talking about...

Post 21

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 6:15pm

Peter Singer?....... he's the rant who wrote Animal Liberation many years ago....

.http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/singermag.html

Post 22

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 6:37pm

Oh, it's GOT to be this guy here: http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/singermag.html

Peter Singer, Super Vegan. He's a nut bar.

Isn't it disgusting? Some of the ideas out there are just so whacked!

Seriously, how in the world does anyone make an argument like this sound appealing??

Post 23

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 7:58pm

Peter Singer is the Ellsworth Toohey of academia. For example, his Animal Liberation employs a utilitarian calculus, based on feelings, to weigh the claims of animals against people.

Yes, Audrey, Peter Singer is altruism's Poster Boy.

Post 24

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 8:06pm

Robert B., I know that you will be pleased when I say to you "I get that."

;-)

Ed
[halfway through The Fountainhead]

Post 25

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - 8:51pm

Animal Liberation is what ye get when ye not distinguish between sentiency and sapiancy, or - as in his case - declare sapiancy of little importance....

Post 26

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 1:47am

Peter Singer is one of the academics that the Center for Inquiry (CFI) uses for their secular inquiry methods. Pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty is another. You can see a sampling of their mixed list at

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/about/research-education.html

A woman at their Florida chapter in Tampa asked me via e-mail why I would not pay dues and join their organization. I pointed to Peter Singer and explained why.

Unfortunately, the CFI appears to grow by leaps and bounds in comparison to Objectivist organizations. One has to wonder what kind of people finance them except that pseudo-capitalist billionaires like George Soros answer that question.

I recently watched the video "Religion and Morality" by ARI speaker Dr. Onkar Ghate in which he notes that such baseless nonsense from notable secularists has driven masses of people back into the hands of religion looking for reliable absolutism.

I sincerely hope that the development of PROPEL(TM) and its listing in directories of Freethought organizations will change this trend.

Post 27

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 1:01pm

It would be overkill to sanction every post on this thread, but they are all true. Singer is a regular talking-head on PBS. The creep often has interestingly titled books, so I sometimes unknowingly pick them up off the bookstore shelf. When I see his name, I sometimes drop the book in shock, politely ask an attendant to reshelf it, and go wash my hands compulsively.

Ted Keer

[edited for clarity and effect]
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 3/15, 8:42pm)

Post 28

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 4:15pm

Peter Singer is to philosophy what Ted Rall is to cartoons.

Anyway, Ed T.: You get a sanction for being a good boy and listening closely to your bedtime story.

Robert M: You're dead on.

Luke: Perhaps the secular humanist groups get more funding and members because what they require by way of shared agreement -- just a few premises, phrased as vague, abstract generalizations -- is so much less demanding than what a philosophy like Objectivism requires: an entire system of integrated principles and positions.

In this regard, I've defined a basic principle of organizing (let's call it "Bidinotto's First Law of Cooperation") this way:

The greater the scope of required agreement, the smaller the organization; the narrower the scope of required agreement, the larger the organization.

That explains why the Democrat and Republican parties are big, the Libertarian Party tiny.

Moral: If you want to attract the largest base of support, narrow the required area of agreement to a single concrete position, as in an "ad hoc" campaign. However, if you want to attract a small cadre of hardcore advocates, broaden the required areas of agreement to an entire philosophy or worldview.

Post 29

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 8:36pm

"...Objectivism requires: an entire system of integrated principles and positions." -Robert B.

Isn't that the rub? When the positions come down to such concrete matters as e.g., (1) not being able to speak in front of self-described libertarians or (2) being against the Big Bang regardless of the evidence because of a vague similarity to the notion of creationism, then where does one draw the line? What is an uncompromisable principle, and what is a debatable position? And does requiring orthodoxy lead to a small group of staunch advocates or to a slew of schismatic movements with one member each?

I like to think of Objectivism as (1) a structure of integrated concepts and (2) a methodology which both implies and which is itself validated by that structure.

Once we get down to arguing as Objectivists qua Objectivists about whether a woman should want to be president, or whether or not voting a straight Democratic ticket (no matter how bad the Democrat!) is a proof of heresy then we seem to be putting the cart before the horse.

What you say about the conventional parties and their relative sizes is dead on. I know NY "Republicans" who are despicable pro-Bloomberg statists and I know blue-collar South Jersey Reagan-Democrats who intend to vote for Giuliani. That's politics. So how do we define Objectivism as a philosophy to maximize the effectiveness and to minimize the schisms? Benevolence and reading one's opponent generously but not uncritically seem like good starting points from which to move toward that goal.

Ted Keer

Post 30

Friday, March 16, 2007 - 8:07am

Ted,

In The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand (available here), David Kelley did an outstanding job in defining Objectivism in terms of basic principles and methodology, something in the manner you describe.

As for how to organize philosophical or ideological enterprises in ways that minimize friction, I lectured on that topic at the previous TAS Summer Seminar. You can find a transcript of my lecture, "The Anatomy of Cooperation," online here.

Post 31

Friday, March 16, 2007 - 5:04pm

"Sundered from its appropriate context, integrity can be distorted, too. On a personal level, the desire to maintain moral consistency can morph into blind duty�into viewing virtue as an end in itself, rather than as the means of achieving rational values. And on a social level, the desire to avoid moral compromise can be twisted into a misplaced intransigence that undermines rational cooperation."

- Robert Bidinotto, "The Anatomy of Cooperation"

Thanks, Bob, especially for the link to your lecture, of which I had been unaware, which is one of the best pieces of Objectivist writing I have read in years, and which every who hasn't yet read should do so now.

Ted

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 3/16, 5:49pm)

Post 32

Sunday, March 18, 2007 - 7:05am

Muchos gratias, Ted.

Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:32pm

One of my classes on philosophy covered an article by Peter Singer, but I found it to be fairly weak in that he supposes feelings over the reasons for things.

Take the example of the kid that is poor and starving, did Singer ever consider what were the causes? Was it some evil empire of consumers trying to strip the Earth bare of all its bounty? Or was it a mixture of misfortune and negligence of the parents? Such questions came to my mind when I read his articles for the class, and this was before I started digging into Objectivism [about later 2004 or 2005...], and I came to the conclusions Singer was fundamentally wrong for two basic reasons.

1) Feelings have to be connected to some set of reasons for them to be logically valid, otherwise my feeling of needing to 'relieve' myself is equivocal to his feelings to help a starving kid.

2) Even if feelings are logically valid, there is no set of axiomatic principles that suppose anyone ought to follow these feelings to any given course of action. [Translation: Just because it seems good to fulfill the feeling or to extinguish it by action, doesn't mean that is really a good thing to do...]

And I can go on further, but I don't see a reason to beyond this point. Hell, I know some Utilitarians that distance themselves from Singer only because they too find him as daffy as they come.

-- Bridget

Post 34

Friday, March 23, 2007 - 1:07pm

"1) Feelings have to be connected to some set of reasons for them to be logically valid, otherwise my feeling of needing to 'relieve' myself is equivocal to his feelings to help a starving kid."

I love the quote, although "equivocal" means "ambiguous." The proper term would be equivalent.

And, unless one is ill, I'd say that the urge to void is of unambiguous "validity."

Ted

Post 35

Friday, March 23, 2007 - 9:08pm

Thanks, I was tired when I wrote the post, so I didn't proof read it for errors. :-3

-- Bridget

Post 36

Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 11:47am

Is altruism and poverty pimp synonymous ?

Can it be defined from different perspectives?

It's seems to be a major industry and is the engine of the federal government.

Post 37

Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 3:21pm

LOL! I haven't heard "poverty pimp" in quite a while, but I'd say yes, one and the same.

Anyone watch Stossel's "Enough!" last night? It's just so cool to watch this one single media guy bash big government and cultural ills. Great show.

Post 38

Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 8:13pm