| | Robert M,
No. Unless just being alive and sharing a common nature is that sense of life. There are too many documented cases to ignore of people who suddenly throw themselves in harm's way to save perfect strangers (just as one example).
But on a personal level:
How long could you listen to a man being tortured and screaming in agony without getting very irritable and upset - even wanting to do something dangerous to get the people to stop? You empathize with the man's pain.
Have you ever seen a person in great pain get sudden relief. The change in the look on his face - the sudden relief - makes you smile in pleasure.
How about pornography - the "I see sex, I want to engage in sex" impulse?
These are just three examples. Life is full of them and these reactions are automatic.
The first reaction (a person throwing himself in harm's way to save a stranger) is not evasion of the danger either. It is a direct automatic impulse to remove both the stranger and himself from the danger, but going in to get the stranger first.
The second and third reactions are not just individual value judgments of negating pain. They are a direct automatic reactions to (2) hearing the suffering of another and (3) seeing the suffering of another end.
The fourth reaction can be short-circuited through volition after a time - "I find that disgusting!" and actually feel disgust, not hidden desire - but it needs a lot of work to get there.
These automatic "species" reactions are based on a subconscious mirror, so to speak - seeing another with the same reactions, limitations, etc. as you have.
Disclaimer once again. They neither supplant nor negate individual value judgments on the subconscious level. The coexist with them and have their own nature (initially automatic, not volitional).
Michael
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 9/13, 10:20pm)
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When Barbara Branden was asked by a student"What will happen to the poor in an Objectivist society?" she answered "If you want to help them, you will not be stopped."
