Critique of Objectivist ethics theory

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Judith,

Of course human nature is not determined by statistics. It exists as it exists. This is metaphysical.

But the concept of human nature is statistical (as are all concepts). It comes from observation and the core of observation is statistics (even when not computed in numerical terms). This is epistemological. More importantly, induction works by noting similarities and differences among many different entities, attributes and actions. How on earth can you notice similarities without having a majority of something to notice and differentiate?

Here is a logical question for you.

Is a severely mentally retarded person who is in a coma a human being or not? If you say he is not a human or no longer human, then the question becomes: Does he belong to the human species in that state or to some other species? If not human, what is he then?

If he is human, then he is an exception to the norm.

Even Rand stated somewhere that if a rational Martian were ever discovered, a new concept would need to be formed because the other differences would be too great to call that being a human being.

You also say that the majority of people live against their nature. I find this incomprehensible. Are you sure you do not mean they live live against their rational potential? And that we are still struggling to discover that?

The very fact that man has volition means he can choose. People choose. Everyday. Everywhere. That is their nature. Man's nature also includes several types of mental operations, of which reason is only one. People live by using them all. Everyday. Everywhere. Everyone has the capacity to choose and perform both good and evil. That is man's nature and everybody does it. Everyday. Everywhere.

Where are people living against their nature?

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

To elaborate...

First of all, as Dragonfly mentioned we need to get the physiologic values out of the discussion. Food and water as values don't count. We're talking ethics.

I am not saying, nor is Dragonfly I think, that there is a code of ethics that at a gut level seems to be 'proper' or at least more valuable than another. The problem is that it cannot be derived. The very root of the problem is free will. You have the free will to value anything thing you wish. You have the free will to develop you character as you see fit. There is no OBJECTIVE basis for evaluating the variations, only subjective. Even murder other types of force can be logically justified in the same "man qua man" basis that Rand uses to argue against it.

Michael wrote :

"The very fact that man has volition means he can choose. People choose. Everyday. Everywhere. That is their nature."

Exactly, and that is PRECISELY why no objective ethics can ever be derived.

Bob

[Laure]

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins has some interesting insights into morality. Dawkins is not an Objectivist but neither is he a moral relativist. He discusses a book by Harvard biologist Marc Hauser, "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong". Hauser has studied "the moral sense of real people" by presenting people in different cultures with a set of moral dilemmas and comparing their answers. He found that most people's answers agree, and it's not even related to which religion they adhere to, if any. Dawkins quotes Hauser: "Driving our moral judgments is a universal moral grammar, a faculty of the mind that evolved over millions of years to include a set of principles for building a range of possible moral systems. As with language, the principles that make up our moral grammar fly beneath the radar of our awareness."

A quibble I have with Dawkins (and probably Hauser) is that he regards morality as only being concerned with how we treat other people, particularly in emergency scenarios, whereas Rand and probably some other philosophers widen the concept of morality to include "how we should behave" whether there are other people involved or not.

I want to answer one other point, the idea that parasitism could be rational. The reason this is not true is because you can't generalize it and have it work. You can't say that it's OK for everyone to be a parasite, because for parasitism to work, you have to have producers to feed off of. If the argument is "why can't I have one moral code, and everyone else have another?" well, that's kind of solipsistic or primacy-of-consciousness thinking. An Objectivist would reject that argument because he will objectively see that other human beings are like him, and it makes sense that the same moral code should apply to everyone.

[Guyau]

Bob, this morning you wrote:

"You have the free will to value anything thing you wish. You have the free will to develop your character as you see fit. There is no OBJECTIVE basis for evaluating the variations, only subjective."

How do you know that the virtue of objectivity cannot have an objective basis? How does the fact that I can, directly or indirectly, develop my character such that I chronically think and desire in ways not objective show that objectivity is only a subjective virtue, i.e., that it is not an objective virtue?

Stephen

[Ellen Stuttle]

A quibble I have with Dawkins (and probably Hauser) is that he regards morality as only being concerned with how we treat other people, particularly in emergency scenarios, whereas Rand and probably some other philosophers widen the concept of morality to include "how we should behave" whether there are other people involved or not.

Dawkins is a biologist, and comes from the viewpoint generally called today "evolutionary psychology," earlier called "sociobiology." Dawkins' first book, The Selfish Gene, was a major forerunner to "sociobiology" before the term was coined as the title of Edward O. Wilson's commotion-causing 1976 book.

The problem in regard to ethics for biologists isn't how people -- as products of evolution -- could act for their own self-interest; it's how any animal could act in a way which endangers its own survival while conferring some survival benefit upon another or others of its group. Why would the individual organism ever risk its own skin in a way that benefits another or others of its kind? That's the question hard to answer from a Darwinian standpoint. The taking of such a risk is called "altruistic behavior" in behavioral evolutionary literature. Thus when Dawkins talks of "ethics" in The God Delusion, I expect that what evolutionists call "altruistic behavior" is what he means.

I haven't yet read that book -- or indeed any of Dawkins' more recent books -- so I'm presuming here on the basis of what I know of his earlier views. I doubt that he's approaching the whole subject of ethics in the way an Objectivist would. For another thing, in addition to his evolutionist question as to how "altruistic behavior" could evolve, historically Dawkins has been a thorough determinist (and reductionist). As I say, I'm not current with his more recent writings (by which I mean books he's published in about the last 8 years or so), but I'd be surprised if he's changed in his determinist and reductionist stance. Indeed I always feel a bit amazed when I see Objectivists touting Dawkins as if they think of Dawkins as a "fellow traveler," since Dawkins's basic causal approach doesn't mesh with Objectivist views on volition. (I've seen lots of Objectivists of a more scientific background tout Dawkins; the remark isn't meant as specific to Laure.)

Ellen

___

Edited March 10, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[bmacwilliam]

Bob, this morning you wrote:

"You have the free will to value anything thing you wish. You have the free will to develop your character as you see fit. There is no OBJECTIVE basis for evaluating the variations, only subjective."

How do you know that the virtue of objectivity cannot have an objective basis? How does the fact that I can, directly or indirectly, develop my character such that I chronically think and desire in ways not objective show that objectivity is only a subjective virtue, i.e., that it is not an objective virtue?

Stephen

That's a good question. I'll think about that, but I'm not sure it's central to my point.

What I'm trying to say is that many variations on character types and behaviours, some of which we all might object to, are still equally valid within a rational framework. There's no good way to prove one is superior. Even in the case of behaviour that cannot be generalized, like in the prior post. That argument isn't good enough. Many things we'd call "good" cannot be generalized. If it cannot be good to be a parasite, then it cannot be good to be ________ , because society wouldn't work if we were all _________. That argument doesn't hold water. The blank could be just about anything.

"How do you know that the virtue of objectivity cannot have an objective basis?"

Tough question. Although I tend to think that I can say that I value that virtue, but cannot prove logically that it's objectively virtuous. Doesn't it always come down to the assertion that we "ought" to be objective?

Bob

[reason.on]

To elaborate...

First of all, as Dragonfly mentioned we need to get the physiologic values out of the discussion. Food and water as values don't count. We're talking ethics.

I disagree; we could not discuss "ethics" or "values" at all if human beings were not biologically capable of doing such in the first place (complex string of biological components here), and further without taking into account a particular "nature of man", those terms would either be useless or incomprehensible. The very idea and need for "ethics" and "values" springs from what we are (or are not) and what we are capable of, and they clearly don't apply to all living organisms, only to a particular subset. The specific nature of those values and ethics (rationally conceived) would also change were it so that human beings operated from a single unified mind, for example, or by some other alternate biological foundation. Were is not so that a reasonable "ought" (in terms of values and ethics) can be derived from an "is" (relative to the nature of the thing conceiving of values), then we ought not have any trouble defining a rational ethics for amoeba, ants, and tulips.

It is certainly true that not all values are created equal, but we can't even begin to make objective judgments about a particular thing (whether ethical, or aesthetic) without a reality-based standard to judge it against. With regard to determining good and bad values, the nature of human beings is that base, rational standard.

The can be no point in even thinking about rational ethics for human beings without at least understanding what a human being is; just as I can not make rational aesthetic judgments (saying it's good or bad) about a "novel", without having an understanding of what a "novel" is in the first place.

Without a such a standard, it seems to me to all just be a "ministry of silly walks".

RCR

Edited March 8, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[reason.on]

If it cannot be good to be a parasite, then it cannot be good to be ________ , because society wouldn't work if we were all _________. That argument doesn't hold water. The blank could be just about anything.

I don't know if this is useful or not, but I'd say it isn't about "society" working well, but individual existence working well. It isn't good for a human being to act like a parasite, because we aren't parasites by nature (contrasted with tapeworms, for example). It is a stretch of logic to say, but if we could talk about the ethics of tapeworms, it would be ethical for them to be parasites, and not ethical to be individualists (which would lead to their deaths).

In other words, the truth or falsehood of any given ethical claim is relative to the organism to which the claim applies.

RCR

Edited March 8, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Judith]

Of course human nature is not determined by statistics. It exists as it exists. This is metaphysical.

But the concept of human nature is statistical (as are all concepts). It comes from observation and the core of observation is statistics (even when not computed in numerical terms). This is epistemological. More importantly, induction works by noting similarities and differences among many different entities, attributes and actions. How on earth can you notice similarities without having a majority of something to notice and differentiate?

I've been talking about the metaphysical.

Here is a logical question for you.

Is a severely mentally retarded person who is in a coma a human being or not? If you say he is not a human or no longer human, then the question becomes: Does he belong to the human species in that state or to some other species? If not human, what is he then?

If he is human, then he is an exception to the norm.

Granted.

You also say that the majority of people live against their nature. I find this incomprehensible. Are you sure you do not mean they live live against their rational potential? And that we are still struggling to discover that?

The very fact that man has volition means he can choose. People choose. Everyday. Everywhere. That is their nature. Man's nature also includes several types of mental operations, of which reason is only one. People live by using them all. Everyday. Everywhere. Everyone has the capacity to choose and perform both good and evil. That is man's nature and everybody does it. Everyday. Everywhere.

Where are people living against their nature?

I think we're misunderstanding each other here over semantics for the same reason we misunderstood each other in the discussion about sex. What I'm saying is that we have a metaphysically given nature that requires certain behaviors for optimal results. Over human history, people have not discovered those behaviors and have not performed them. We are just beginning to learn what they are, and even when we know what they are, we often do not perform them.

Clear?

Judith

Edited March 8, 2007 by Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

There are some ethics that are completely objective. One is productive work. The other is using reason to judge reality for dealing with it. But here's the catch. Traditional ethics have always been decreed by a higher power, like the Ten Commandments. There is always an "if" (desired result) involved in all ethics. In religious ethics, that "if" is always is pleasing the higher power. (Thou shalt not kill "if you want to please God," and so on.)

With Objectivist ethics, the "if" always goes back to some reality-based value, then essentially back to the fact that reason is man's main tool of survival. Rand goes overboard and says that reason is man's ONLY means of survival, but the history of cavemen and primitive cultures shows that they managed to survive for centuries almost on the level of perceptual animals. However, reason is our means of knowledge. Here is one example of how this plays out in the social realm.

If you want to judge whether Person A murdered Person B, you need knowledge. Reason is man's means to acquire knowledge. Thus it is ethical to use reason to determine whether Person A murdered Person B. It is unethical to condemn Person A for murder because "God told the accuser" or that the accuser simply felt that the guilty man did it or the accuser had a vision or something like that. A formal movement during an age where this subjective standard was considered ethical, The Inquisition, is now considered, even by Christians, to have been an evil time of abuse of power where innocent people were tortured and killed. Today's suicide bombers are the perfect example of what happens when ethical standards are chosen on subjective, and not objective, criteria. I could do the whole conceptual chain, but that would take too long. Here we see that justice has to include the component of reason in order to be aligned with reality (true or false). That is derived from both reality and man's nature as a rational animal.

I will grant you that there are things Rand tried to include as ethical, such as artistic taste for a glaring example, which exceed the realm of ethics. Or more to the point, the field of ethics (values) was involved, but Rand did not make room for differing values, judging things only on a good/evil basis. On a metaphorical basis (thinking about morality), I say black and white exist in reality, but so does an entire spectrum of gray, and so does a rainbow of colors. When you claim that ethics are ONLY subjective, I see you saying that black and white do not exist at all. I see no reason whatsoever to claim that ONLY black and white exist or that black and white do not exist when I can clearly see black and white with my own eyes, and I can see gray and colors, too.

Sometimes I come across amusing examples of how reason develops on top of an irrational premise and results in turning a practice considered universally evil on its head. For example, cannibalism is usually seen as evil, yet there is a book called Brazil by Uys where the traditional warlike accounts of cannibalism among Brazilian Indians (probably Tupinambá, I no longer remember since I read the book some years ago) were given a different spin. In this version of cannibalism (known among anthropologists by the endearing term "affectionate cannibalism," a loved member who died is eaten so that he will not carry rotting flesh into the afterlife. These Indians were horrified at the white man's practice of burying the dead. I don't know what source Uys used for this, though, and his work is Michener-like fiction.

Also, the head-shrinking of the Jivaro Indians is well-known (they are from the Ecuador and Peru region of the Amazon jungle). If you look them up, you will see that their head-shrinking was to confine an enemy's spirit in the afterlife. Yet I had a friend in Brazil, a very colorful person named Edmund Bielawski, who actually filmed the head-shrinking ritual (he saved the life of a tribe member, so he became friendly with the tribe, and this was before the different armies went in and machine-gunned those Indians practically out of existence). It was quite a story and maybe someday I will write up an article about this person (we were drinking buddies). I have been gratified to see that Edmund must have finished his film because I saw it referenced doing a Google search, EXPLORING OF THE SOURCE OF THE AMAZON RIVER. I do know that Edmund would periodically exhibit an unfinished rough copy in Brazil when he got broke and these events would always result in ample news coverage.

What was explained to him by the Indians was that a friendly person could have his head shrunken, also. The idea was that if a person was doing many bad things in life, there were evil spirits in his head. So to cure him, they would shrink his head to a size that could not contain both his spirit and the evil spirits. The only inconvenience was that they had to decapitate him first in order to help him, but that was a mere detail...

In today's society, cannibalism is ritualized in the Christian communion, where people symbolically eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ.

In all these cases, cannibalism is considered ethical. So I agree that from this perspective, the ethical consideration is subjective and cultural. But notice that if the premises behind the cannibalism are taken as values, reason is employed in obtaining them. In this sense, reason was not chosen to arrive at the premise, but reason was chosen to act on it.

Objectivism differs from most all other ethical systems in that it uses reason to determine the premises (core values). That is how it derives the "ought" from the "is."

Michael

[Guyau]

Bob,

I should add that Michael Huemer maintains his objections to Rand's arguments supporting various parts of her ethics and her metaethics while maintaining a strictly objectivist stand of his own. In his 1996 essay "The Subjectivist's Dilemma" in my journal Objectivity (V2N4), he argues systematically against all of the modern subjectivist approaches to metaethical theory.

He exposes their self-undermining character. He overturns the subjectivist stances of Ayer, Hare, Harmon, and Mackie. He argues against the view that moral claims (i) do not assert propositions, (ii) assert propositions, but falsely, (iii) assert propositions that are neither true nor false, or (iv) assert propositions whose truth depends on attitudes of observers.

Mr. Ross,

I appreciate the thought in your post #58. There is a stretch of the wonderful Dialogue Protagoras that advances this good idea.

[reason.on]

Mr. Ross,

I appreciate the thought in your post #58. There is a stretch of the wonderful Dialogue Protagoras that advances this good idea.

Danke. I had to go look that particular dialogue up, I've only read a few...and I'm pretty sure Protagoras wasn't one of them.

I'm curious, do you mean this passage (which, ironically, is charged within the dialogue as being too stretched)? :-)

[...Protagoras] replied; for I know of many things-meats, drinks, medicines, and ten thousand other things, which are inexpedient for man, and some which are expedient; and some which are neither expedient nor inexpedient for man, but only for horses; and some for oxen only, and some for dogs; and some for no animals, but only for trees; and some for the roots of trees and not for their branches, as for example, manure, which is a good thing when laid about the roots of a tree, but utterly destructive if thrown upon the shoots and young branches; or I may instance olive oil, which is mischievous to all plants, and generally most injurious to the hair of every animal with the exception of man, but beneficial to human hair and to the human body generally; and even in this application (so various and changeable is the nature of the benefit), that which is the greatest good to the outward parts of a man, is a very great evil to his inward parts: and for this reason physicians always forbid their patients the use of oil in their food, except in very small quantities, just enough to extinguish the disagreeable sensation of smell in meats and sauces.

RCR

Edited March 9, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Guyau]

Bingo!

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael K:

>Objectivism differs from most all other ethical systems in that it uses reason to determine the premises (core values). That is how it derives the "ought" from the "is."

Hi Michael

I might just drop in on this topic briefly. It seems to me when it comes to Rand's proposal for deriving "ought" from "is" we should take it straight from the horse's mouth:

"In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends and 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 for which any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgements 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 relationship between "is" and "ought."

- Rand, 'The Objectivist Ethics', VOS, italics in original.

Now there are a number of problems in this passage and the essay as a whole, particularly her key equivocation over man's "life" which Huemer (and Nyquist) have already dealt with thoroughly.

But let's just leave these aside for a moment and focus on the single issue of whether Rand really has solved Hume's famous "is/ought" problem. She certainly seems to think she has, but I am not sure she actually understands it.

The "is/ought" dualism can be simply grasped as the distinction between facts and decisions - "here is a fact, what ought I do?" (This can also be understood as the difference between descriptive statements and prescriptive statements) The problem is this: that a decision cannot be validly derived from a fact, or any number of facts. From the fact it is sunny outside as I type, I may make any number of decisions - to stay inside or go outside, to go surfing or to visit my mother, to stop writing and make coffee or to finish my post to O-living despite the glare on my computer screen. All these things are perfectly possible and reasonable choices, but I would never dream of claiming that any of them can be logically determined in the same way that we can validly determine "Socrates is mortal" in the classic syllogism - for of course we have no choice but to come to this conclusion. Now it does not matter what type of decisions we're talking about, ethical or otherwise, or what type of facts, natural or man-made. The problem remains the same. So it turns out the fact that a living entity "is" does not and cannot validly determine which of a vast range of decisions it "ought" to make. Thus there can be no sound "validation" of value judgements by the facts of reality - a situation which, interestingly, returns us the other great Humean problem, the problem of induction. (At least Rand plainly admits she has not solved that one - p303/4, ITOE - although once again it is not clear she fully understands it)

So much for Rand's solution to the problem of the logical relationship between "is" and "ought."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael K:

>Objectivism differs from most all other ethical systems in that it uses reason to determine the premises (core values). That is how it derives the "ought" from the "is."

Hi Michael

I might just drop in on this topic briefly. It seems to me when it comes to Rand's proposal for deriving "ought" from "is" we should take it straight from the horse's mouth:

"In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends and 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 for which 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 relationship between "is" and "ought."

- Rand, 'The Objectivist Ethics', VOS, italics in original.

Now there are a number of problems in this passage and the essay as a whole, particularly her key equivocation over man's "life" which Huemer (and Nyquist) have already dealt with thoroughly.

But let's just leave these aside for a moment and focus on the single issue of whether Rand really has solved Hume's famous "is/ought" problem. She certainly seems to think she has, but I am not sure she actually understands it.

The "is/ought" dualism can be simply grasped as the distinction between facts and decisions - "here is a fact, what ought I do?" (This can also be understood as the difference between descriptive statements and prescriptive statements) The problem is this: that a decision cannot be validly derived from a fact, or any number of facts. From the fact it is sunny outside as I type, I may make any number of decisions - to stay inside or go outside, to go surfing or to visit my mother, to stop writing and make coffee or to finish my post to O-living despite the glare on my computer screen. All these things are perfectly possible and reasonable choices, but I would never dream of claiming that any of them can be logically determined in the same way that we can validly determine "Socrates is mortal" in the classic syllogism - for of course we have no choice but to come to this conclusion. Now it does not matter what type of decisions we're talking about, ethical or otherwise, or what type of facts, natural or man-made. The problem remains the same. So it turns out the fact that a living entity "is" does not and cannot validly determine which of a vast range of decisions it "ought" to make. Thus there can be no sound "validation" of value judgments by the facts of reality - a situation which, interestingly, returns us the other great Humean problem, the problem of induction. (At least Rand plainly admits she has not solved that one - p303/4, ITOE - although once again it is not clear she fully understands it)

So much for Rand's solution to the problem of the logical relationship between "is" and "ought."

Daniel!!!

Great to see you finally post here! It will be a pleasure to disagree with you on OL in addition to ARCHN. And it will be a pleasure to watch you drive some people crazy (including me)...

I have to be careful with my answer to your post because I have not gone into the Huemer argument deeply (I have only skimmed his essay) and I have not finished reading Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature (I stopped a few months ago, so I would need to refresh the parts that I did read to argue them). I also have not read the Hume thing in context. So please take my comments below as musing, chewing, and presenting some conclusions I have arrived at, not as a specific refutation of another's work.

To be quite honest, the quote you gave from Rand is very vague to me, also, unless the concept of identity is included in her use of the word "is," er... that's not quite it. The concept of identity needs to be highlighted, almost substitute the word "is." Still, I agree with you on Rand's vagueness in that quote. Bombastic and vague is not a good combination if you are going to talk to scholars and highly intelligent independent thinkers.

Here is how I interpret Rand's meaning (from her words here and in other places).

By the very fact of being, an entity has identity. It cannot "be" without being a "something." It is a "what." All entities (i.e., things with identity) have attributes as part of having identity, and living entities further have specific needs for continued existence. The alternative is to die and go out of existence.

With this thought in mind, Rand's words could be rephrased from this:

The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do.

to this:

What a living entity is determines what it ought to do.

Now the caveat here is that there is only a group of core values that this applies to. For example, obviously a living entity needs nourishment. If it ingests poison it will die. The "ought" occurs both in seeking nourishment and in selecting the kind of thing to ingest from what is available.

You gave a series of examples that were much less critical actions ("...to stay inside or go outside, to go surfing or to visit my mother, to stop writing and make coffee or to finish my post..."). All these activities involve another choice (a BIG HONKING "ought" in fact) that underpins them. The choice (the "ought") is to limit the options of what you do to something relatively safe. I mean this in the extreme, too, not in the sense that there is a small risk involved, like in surfing. I mean choosing the kinds of activities you listed in lieu of things like jumping off a cliff, eating mold and rotten garbage, putting your bare hands on a live wire, sticking a screwdriver in your eye, etc.

On that level, what you are determines what you do. At least it sets limits to what you do if you want to continue living.

I will wait for your response, but I don't see what can be disagreed with so far. If you are with me so far, you might also agree with a position I have concerning Rand. When I find myself disagreeing with her, it is usually with respect to scope. What she claims is true for a specific range, but not for the whole shebang.

This case is a perfect example. What a living entity is determines some essential things it ought to do, but it does not determine everything it ought to do (the "if" I mentioned in my previous post being "if it wants to continue living"). I need to reread the pertinent sections of Rand's writing, but I get the impression that she was inconsistent on this point. (I am going from memory, so I could be wrong about the following statement, although I don't think so.) At times, she gives the impression that she means all acts (and entities encountered by a living being) are ultimately normative in that their value can be derived from the nature of the living entity and all can boil down to a survival level. At other times, she gives the impression of not only highlighting the variety of action inherent in free will, admitting not only good/evil but also indifferent, she delights in it.

At any rate, I see no reason (or evidence) to postulate that the "is" determines the "ought" for all acts and entities, nor postulate that the "is" never determines the "ought." I do see evidence to postulate a combination of the two.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Come on. Let's do some elementary mathematics. If the majority of mankind were murderers by nature, there would be no mankind. If the majority of mankind did not produce goods, merely stole them, by nature, there would be no goods.

That's as wrong as you can get. That man has a certain nature does not imply that he'll always act according to his nature. Cultural influences do have a very important effect. When we live in relative prosperity it is easier to overcome what we consider to be the negative aspects of our nature, as we can see that this is to our advantage, for example that we will be better off if in the end we don't just bash in the skull of our neighbor if we don't like what he does. But that doesn't mean that such tendencies are not part of our nature. As Judith said: "human nature isn't determined by statistics". Or rather, it isn't determined by the statistics of a single non-representative sample of a prosperous society in peace-time. When you examine the statistics in war-time and/or in other countries you get a very different picture.

I agree that there is a violent strain in the animal part of man's nature and it needs to be taken into account. I also agree that it is in all men to a small degree when compared to other characteristics. That is the norm, even in underdeveloped tribal societies. Mankind would not have survived otherwise.

Wrong. This another example of the false dichotomy fallacy which I hear so often from Objectivists: if there is some continuous scale from A to B and you deny that x = B, then x must be A (another example: if a system is not 100% deterministic it must be completely random, or: if you can't be 100% certain of anything you can't know anything). If part of your nature is the tendency to murder other member of your species, this doesn't necessary mean that you'll just kill any member of your species. There might for example groups be formed in which the members stick together, but try to exterminate rival groups. Such behavior can be observed in the animal world and also with humans (as some study of history will tell you). There is no contradiction in the fact that both cooperation and aggression are evolutionary stable strategies. How much of each will determine actual behavior will depend on cultural and external factors. If you happen to live in the wrong place and in the wrong time, you'll sooner be inclined to conclude that aggression and murder are the more dominant traits. It is an error to call the behavior that you think desirable "natural" and behavior that you condemn as an "exception".

Since when have you ever adhered to oversimplification?

And who is oversimplifying here? "Anything that we find good in humans is part of his nature, and everything that we find bad is an exception." Yeah, sure.

This doesn't either:

You think...

I think you have a heavily biased view...

You probably don't realize...

Where did you buy those rose-colored glasses?

That's a hell of a lot of speculation about what goes on in my head, and of course it is all wrong. Do you know something I don't about me?

Is it really wrong?

1. "You think..." The complete sentence was "You think war, murder, rape, aggression, stealing, fraud, parasitism are exceptions?" So, it was not a statement about what you think, as you suggest by omitting the rest of the quote, it was a question. And was it really an unreasonable question when you wrote:

When we discuss man's nature, we are talking about the norm as a species, not the individual exceptions. Of course a psychotic will kill people by acting according to his individual nature as a freak, but not according to the nature of what a human being normally is. When I say "man's nature," I am referring to what a human being normally is. And exceptions are just that: exceptions. They should be treated as such even on a definition level.

I think my question was fully justified in view of what you wrote here and in earlier posts.

The other three quotes are all expressing my conviction that this theory is heavily biased and does reflect a very rose-colored view of mankind. I can't help that this seems to be really what you think and goes on in your head, that's just a simple logical conclusion.

[Dragonfly]

A quibble I have with Dawkins (and probably Hauser) is that he regards morality as only being concerned with how we treat other people, particularly in emergency scenarios, whereas Rand and probably some other philosophers widen the concept of morality to include "how we should behave" whether there are other people involved or not.

I completely agree with Dawkins on that point. Morality concerns only how we treat other people. The things I do that don't affect other people are my business and no one else's. Other people may approve or disapprove what I do but they shouldn't try to tell me that I have moral obligations to behave like they want. That would be the typical behavior of a religion, not a philosophy.

I want to answer one other point, the idea that parasitism could be rational. The reason this is not true is because you can't generalize it and have it work. You can't say that it's OK for everyone to be a parasite, because for parasitism to work, you have to have producers to feed off of.

That is a non sequitur. The question whether you can generalize it is irrelevant. That would imply that you couldn't earn a living as a baker as you can't generalize it: if everyone became a baker the whole society would collapse. The fact that there are so many succesful parasites is proof that it can be a rational strategy.

If the argument is "why can't I have one moral code, and everyone else have another?" well, that's kind of solipsistic or primacy-of-consciousness thinking. An Objectivist would reject that argument because he will objectively see that other human beings are like him, and it makes sense that the same moral code should apply to everyone.

It may make sense and in fact I support that view (let no one think that I'm defending parasitism, I'm only demolishing bad arguments). But "making sense" to someone is no proof that the behavior of the parasite is irrational. He'll say that he can objectively see that there other human beings who are not like him, people who like to work hard and lead a productive life, things he doesn't like at all. And he's clever enough to find a way to profit from the difference. That you find someone's behavior reprehensible doesn't mean that it can't be rational.

Edited March 10, 2007 by Dragonfly

[Dragonfly]

I disagree; we could not discuss "ethics" or "values" at all if human beings were not biologically capable of doing such in the first place (complex string of biological components here), and further without taking into account a particular "nature of man", those terms would either be useless or incomprehensible. The very idea and need for "ethics" and "values" springs from what we are (or are not) and what we are capable of, and they clearly don't apply to all living organisms, only to a particular subset. The specific nature of those values and ethics (rationally conceived) would also change were it so that human beings operated from a single unified mind, for example, or by some other alternate biological foundation. Were is not so that a reasonable "ought" (in terms of values and ethics) can be derived from an "is" (relative to the nature of the thing conceiving of values), then we ought not have any trouble defining a rational ethics for amoeba, ants, and tulips.

That is still no reason to extend morality to simple physiological functions, that would be a form of "greedy reductionism". An earthworm also "ought" to eat if it wants to survive, but I think it would be silly to call the behavior of an earthworm who for some reason doesn't eat "unethical". Ethics concerns our behavior towards other people; only a religion will condemn you for committing suicide or for sexual behavior that doesn't harm other people. That Objectivism tries to extend morality to purely personal and private concerns is in my opinion one of its most revolting aspects. We've just freed ourselves from similar dictates by the church and now we should deliver ourselves to the next religion. Thanks, but no thanks.

[Dragonfly]

I don't know if this is useful or not, but I'd say it isn't about "society" working well, but individual existence working well. It isn't good for a human being to act like a parasite, because we aren't parasites by nature (contrasted with tapeworms, for example).

How do you know we aren't parasites by nature? The fact that there are a lot of parasites among us is evidence against that statement. Of course in contrast to tape worms parasitism isn't the only aspect of human nature. The error is to suppose that there is only one aspect of human nature (the Objectivist aspect, surprise, surprise). In fact human nature is characterized by many different aspects, not only those that we like and admire, but also those that we don't like at all but which we can't reason away by calling them irrational or exceptions.

[Dragonfly]

its how any animal could act in a way which endangers its own survival while conferring some survival benefit upon another or others of its group.

Ellen! It's not its, it's it's!

[Dragonfly]

Hi Daniel! Glad to hear your cool voice of reason on OL!

[Mike Hardy]

Why would the individual organism ever risk its own skin in a way that benefits another or others of its kind? That's the question hard to answer from a Darwinian standpoint.

Is it really? Cannot a Darwinian say that species some of whose

members do that have more offspring that survive long enough to

procreate? -- Mike Hardy

[Daniel Barnes]

Hi Michael,

I think that, minor as it seems, the shift you suggest above from Rand's "The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do" to your modification "What a living entity is determines what it ought to do" basically changes the problem. It moves from the classic problem of the lack of logical relation between fact (is) and decision (ought) - which Rand is undoubtedly referring to when she talks about "those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends and values and the facts of reality" - to the different and quite innocuous claim that what something is determines to some extent what it does. I have no problem with that obviously as the opposite - that what something isn't determines what it does - would be hard to believe!

So it's not actually the same issue AFAICS.

Hi Daniel! Glad to hear your cool voice of reason on OL!

Hey Dragonfly, good to be here, sadly am just dropping in briefly as I don't even have enough time to update my own blog at present....;-)

[Brant Gaede]

Is, reasoning, then ought?

--Brant

Edited March 10, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Daniel Barnes]

The main point of my post was, BTW, to illustrate that the common assumption that many Objectivists have that Rand somehow comprehensively refuted Hume is quite incorrect. (And of course, Hume posed the fundamental problems that Kant - unsuccessfully - tried to solve). She clearly did not solve

1)the "is/ought" problem (even tho it seems she thought she did)

and did not even begin to address the big one

2) the problem of induction

which as a Popperian I think flows into and is more important than Hume's better known criticism of causality. It may well be she had not fully grasped either of the above.