Why does man need a code of values?


Laure

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Well, here you are saying that ethics is in fact outside of the domain of logic. I agree.

Daniel,

I do not think this is what Darrell meant. He merely mentioned that one cannot deduce the need to be logical within a system of logic. He did not say that he had to leave the domain of logic altogether (but I do admit that you could easily insinuate this from his wording, which was a bit awkward).

Do not forget that our terms must always be checked to see if we are all talking about the same thing before arriving at a sweeping statement like that. I suspect we are not talking about the same thing in this case. Objectivist logic starts with induction and Darrell only mentioned deduction. The need to be logical is not deduced, but it is observed and identified—not only as part of man's nature, but also as his unique method for handling all nature for his needs and wishes.

The fact of the need to be logical is observed and the "file folder" (the concept) is opened in his mind (a process of induction). This concept can called by many different words or phrases, but the initial concept in itself is only one. It is arrived at by induction and logic proceeds from there. Logic cannot start before this point, nor eliminate this initial starting point. Logic rests on it.

So it is well within the domain of logic. It might not be within the domain of specific formulas and equations of logic, but that is another issue.

(Note to Victor: God how I HATE Objectivist jargon at times! Talk about anti-concepts! Use these buzz-words for name-calling and taunts and this practice turns Objectivist language into words essentially without meaning. The whole goddam thing is irrational to the core. You sometimes have good arguments. I suggest you stop spoiling them with this kind of empty rhetoric.)

(EDIT: My post crossed with Daniel's. If you were only joking, I withdraw the statement. If you were serious, the statement stands. Daniel obviously took it as banter.)

Michael

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Darrell:

>You can't deduce the need to be logical within a system of logic. You have to step outside of it. One way to step outside of the logical system is to view the question as an ethical question.

Well, here you are saying that ethics is in fact outside of the domain of logic. I agree. So we're now on the same page, which is always encouraging.

Daniel,

I debated replying to the post by Darrell you've quoted from, because it seemed to me too that there was a shift in his argument from believing that "is" entails "ought" (or at least might entail "ought" -- I recall some comments of his about a "weak" case in his post #93 on the other ethics thread). But the last comment does seem to revert:

Another (related) way to step outside of the logical system is to note that rationality is the only condition that is consistent with my nature as a rational being.

I don't see that as stepping "outside of the logical system."

Ellen

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A quick note to Stephen: I just noticed your post #41 when I signed on now; somehow I didn't see that earlier. I'll try in the next couple days to speak to your views, which, along with Dragonfly's, and I think Daniel's, too, are on a different track of thinking about how behavior toward others connects to "ethics" and/or "morality," one which differentiates one's personal-life goals guidance from behavior toward others as "selves." This seems to me a really sticky point in Rand's whole way of approach. I don't know if it is in my own related way of approach, since I've never felt any discrepancy between pursuing my own emotionally fulfilling existence and respecting other persons' boundaries. But truth is, I never thought about that issue prior to some debates about rights theory which developed on Old Atlantis. I'm unsure if I'll conclude it's a problem for a life geared toward personal satisfaction or not. It hasn't felt like it was in my own life.

Ellen

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(Note to Victor: God how I HATE Objectivist jargon at times! Talk about anti-concepts! Use these buzz-words for name-calling and taunts and this practice turns Objectivist language into words essentially without meaning. The whole goddam thing is irrational to the core. You sometimes have good arguments. I suggest you stop spoiling them with this kind of empty rhetoric.)

(EDIT: My post crossed with Daniel's. If you were only joking, I withdraw the statement. If you were serious, the statement stands. Daniel obviously took it as banter.)

Michael,

God...I'm telling you, M...take a vacation. :turned: Of course we are bantering. Gawd! Ought I put a smiley icon to every jest?

-Victor

p.s

it's not "Objectivist jargon"; study general philosophy. :wink: Damn right I have good arguments.

Edited by Victor Pross
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Michael,

A point of curiosity: Have you even read my post #38 and Daniel's #48 responding to your #36?

Sometimes you post at such length -- and as if you're proposing whole new thoughts -- it's impossible for me to tell if you've read, digested to any extent, are replying to or thinking you're saying something different from, or just what.

Ellen

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Ellen:

>I debated replying to the post by Darrell you've quoted from, because it seemed to me too that there was a shift in his argument from believing that "is" entails "ought" (or at least might entail "ought" -- I recall some comments of his about a "weak" case in his post #93 on the other ethics thread). But the last comment does seem to revert:

>Darrell: "Another (related) way to step outside of the logical system is to note that rationality is the only condition that is consistent with my nature as a rational being."

>I don't see that as stepping "outside of the logical system."

Me neither. Not sure where Darrell's coming from with this. He also seems to be shifting between positions on the other thread too, perhaps without being fully aware that he is doing so:

To wit his #310 on that thread: "...if the decider is rational, he must make the rational choice."

becomes by his #346 "A person that was previously rational can choose to become irrational."

So if you're rational you must make the rational choice on one hand...but on the other hand, you don't have to?

I think his position on this thread has the same basic problems. But perhaps this is because he really is stepping outside of the logical system???

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Michael,

Besides your reading Hume, noted Empiricist, there are others that follow in this tradition and that would include:

1.Locke. 2. Berkeley. 3. Burke. These are the Great Empiricists. All of these philosophers, believe it or not, are germane to the current discussion, the obvious one being Hume.

Maybe Daniel has something to say here, or we can return to the program?

-Victor

edit: My joking aside, Daniel, would you align yourself at all with empiricism? I take it, even in your bantering with me, that you do.

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Darrell,

In #63 you wrote: "One way to step outside of the logical system is to view the question as an ethical question. Why be logical? Because logical thought is instrumental to life."

A stepping back to view logic as an ethical question is a stepping back to view logic as a normative question. The question "Why be logical?" is a normative question, having various species. "Why be logical?" can be a question of epistemic norms or it can be a question of ethical norms. The relation between epistemic norms and ethical norms is a lively issue in philosophy today.

I agree with Rand in the view that life is the sole source of all problems and methods. Only when single-cell life appears in a previously lifeless world do actual problems and engineering-like methods appear on the scene. All problems apprehended by our consciousness, too, arise only because our consciousness is part of life. So on Rand's view, it is not only ethical norms that presuppose life, epistemic norms also presuppose life.

Even that much might disputable by readers here. But there are and have been many philsophers who would concur that far.

It would take some argumentation to reach the further proposition that epistemic norms are norms because they are instrumental to life. Or rather, I should say, it would take some further argumentation and explanation to reach the proposition that all epistemic norms are instrumental to life. That is what would be needed to make acceptable that all "logical thought is instrumental to life" as answer for the question "Why be logical?"

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To wit his #310 on that thread: "...if the decider is rational, he must make the rational choice."

becomes by his #346 "A person that was previously rational can choose to become irrational."

So if you're rational you must make the rational choice on one hand...but on the other hand, you don't have to?

I think his position on this thread has the same basic problems. But perhaps this is because he really is stepping outside of the logical system???

Daniel, I don't think there's a problem with Darrell's logic here. Substitute an alcoholic being "on the wagon" for "being rational." In order to be on the wagon, the alcoholic must choose not to drink alcohol. But he might choose to drink alcohol. But then he would no longer be on the wagon. No logic problem there.

If you want a real logic problem, explain to me the line from that Rush song, "I will choose free will." :blink: ?!?!?

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To wit his #310 on that thread: "...if the decider is rational, he must make the rational choice."

becomes by his #346 "A person that was previously rational can choose to become irrational."

So if you're rational you must make the rational choice on one hand...but on the other hand, you don't have to?

I think his position on this thread has the same basic problems. But perhaps this is because he really is stepping outside of the logical system???

Daniel, I don't think there's a problem with Darrell's logic here. Substitute an alcoholic being "on the wagon" for "being rational." In order to be on the wagon, the alcoholic must choose not to drink alcohol. But he might choose to drink alcohol. But then he would no longer be on the wagon. No logic problem there.

Thanks Laure. Did everyone else understand that?

Darrell

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Parasites and crooks can be very rational and succesful ...
Just stating that over and over won't make it true.
This appears to be a quibble over an incomplete statement. There is an enormous difference in the two following completions, which I believe, respectively, represent Dragonfly's approach and yours.

1. Parasites and crooks can be very rational and successful in pursuing and achieving their goals.

2. Parasites and crooks can be very rational and successful in formulating and promoting a reason-based universal standard for ethics.

The first statement is true (Dragonfly is correct). The second statement is false (you are correct).

I disagree that the first statement is true. I'm not saying that it is trivial to prove that it is false. It is actually quite an interesting claim. However, I believe that it will ultimately be seen to be false and I am trying to get Dragonfly, or whoever else wishes to get involved, to make some argument for its veracity.

Somebody needs to produce some sort of evidence or logical argument for the the truth of proposition one before I would be willing to accept it. Right now, I have nothing to attack but the statement itself, which I believe to be false and therefore assert to be false. Neither Dragonfly nor anyone else can use proposition one as evidence for a problem with Objectivism unless and until it is shown to be a true statement.

Darrell

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I disagree that the first statement is true.

Darrell,

We don't need to have an exercise in the obvious, do we?

Dirty Rotten Harry's goal is to steal money from a bank. He analyzes the situation in terms of how to best achieve that goal and he implements it using rational thought to guide his actions. For example, he decides to use a gun and planning instead of, say, faith (praying for the money to jump out of the bank and into his pocket) or whim (going into the bank unprepared and telling the bank teller he wants the money) because rationally, this is the only way to threaten a bank teller short-term to hand over the loot and get him to comply.

He robs the bank and makes a clean getaway. He spends the money and does not get caught.

Dirty Rotten Harry is successful in achieving his goal of stealing the money from the bank.

Now how is that not successfully pursuing and achieving his goal with rational thought?

Michael

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Darrell:

>You can't deduce the need to be logical within a system of logic. You have to step outside of it. One way to step outside of the logical system is to view the question as an ethical question.

Well, here you are saying that ethics is in fact outside of the domain of logic. I agree. So we're now on the same page, which is always encouraging.

No. That's not what I'm saying. I really can't believe you can't understand what I'm saying here. The question is a question of logic one level removed. It is meta-level question. It must still be answered using logical means, but at a higher level.

Darrell

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A point of curiosity: Have you even read my post #38 and Daniel's #48 responding to your #36?

Sometimes you post at such length -- and as if you're proposing whole new thoughts -- it's impossible for me to tell if you've read, digested to any extent, are replying to or thinking you're saying something different from, or just what.

Ellen,

Please excuse this one in terms of length. (It is long—over 5,000 words.) But like the lady said, “You asked for it!”

Actually, I have read those posts. I get lost at times because of the quickness with which this particular thread (and the other one on ethics) is developing, especially as repetition and tangents kick in. It gets hard to sort through all that and keep the important posts in my head.

There is one issue in particular that I have wanted to address with both Daniel and you, but it requires some research. I will do it now. For easy reference, I have included my own Post 36, your Post 38 and Daniel’s Post 48 in their entirety. Those who have read them can skip over them and get to my comments, but if they want to consult something, it is at hand and they don’t have to bounce all over the place to find it.

Also, I want to start with part of a previous post by Daniel that touches on the particular point I want to discuss (precision in how Rand is characterized).

My argument is of course that while Rand writes in a highly inspiring fashion, it turns out her arguments are confused rather enlightened.

. . .

In fact one of my main overall arguments is that much of the time, Rand is merely playing verbal games, not solving problems. For example, terms like her "contextual absolute", which is a mere oxymoron; or when she offers an example of "absolute precision" that is in fact what anyone else would call an approximation. And so forth.

I have a real problem with precision here because of the broad statements. For instance, Daniel does not say, “some of Rand’s arguments are confused rather [than] enlightened.” He merely says “her arguments are confused rather [than] enlightened.” This implies all of Rand’s arguments (or at least the fundamental part of them). I see no reason for this kind of exaggeration, but it is constant. (Also, there is that oft-repeated phrase about being right for the wrong reasons.) Actually, this kind of exaggeration about the arguments of other philosophers is precisely what Daniel objects to with Rand’s rhetoric, so I believe it is a mistake to do the same thing if objectivity is sought (as claimed). If this is merely an opinion, well, he is entitled to hold one. But such broad statements are not objective.

(I hope he forgives me speaking of him in the third person here, but I am addressing a post to you.)

Also, there is his complaint against Rand’s phrase, "contextual absolute," that he has voiced more than once. I got to thinking, is this merely a semantic quibble or is there something of substance here? Is it really an oxymoron as he says?

(Note for readers who do not know what oxymoron means. From thefreedictionary.com: “A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist.”)

I have the CD-ROM, so I looked it up. Here is what I discerned. Rand used this phrase for one thing only: definitions. I could not find this phrase for anything else in her writings. She did use the word “absolute” to refer to metaphysical facts (the given), but she only used “contextually absolute” to refer to the epistemological status of definitions. The meaning was quite restricted. In the first case (metaphysical fact), I think it is fair to say that “absolute” not only means unchanging, but also unchangeable in terms of being a fact. In the second instance, “contextually absolute” means unchanging in terms of past knowledge, but changeable in terms of future knowledge, i.e., changeable as new facts are learned and integrated. It does not mean “an approximation” as Daniel stated. The absolute (unchanging) part is what allows knowledge to be incremental.

This is a very important subtlety that has been left out of the arguments I have read where this phrase has been criticized. Definitions are unchanging with reference to past knowledge, but they are open to change with reference to future knowledge. “Contextually absolute” does not refer to facts, not even propositions. It only refers to definitions.

Here are the quotes. I have enlarged the phrase for easy viewing.

Remember that concept-formation is a method of cognition, man's method, and that concepts represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents. Since man is not omniscient, a definition cannot be changelessly absolute, because it cannot establish the relationship of a given group of existents to everything else in the universe, including the undiscovered and unknown. And for the very same reasons, a definition is false and worthless if it is not contextually absolute—if it does not specify the known relationships among existents (in terms of the known essential characteristics) or if it contradicts the known (by omission or evasion).
Definitions are not changelessly absolute, but they are contextually absolute. A definition is false if it does not specify the known relationships among existents (in terms of the known essential characteristics) or if it contradicts the known.
No single mind can hold all the knowledge available to mankind today, let alone hold it in minute detail. Yet that knowledge has to be integrated and has to be kept open to individual understanding and verification, if science is not to collapse under the weight of uncorrelated, unproved, contradictory minutiae. Only the most rigorous epistemological precision can implement and protect the advance of science. Only the strictest, contextually absolute definitions of concepts, can enable men to integrate their knowledge, to keep expanding their conceptual structure in severely hierarchical order by forming new concepts, when and as needed—and thus to condense information and to reduce the number of mental units with which they have to deal.

This is all she wrote using this term. Her meaning is quite clear to me, also. In this restricted sense, I have no problem with it. I do not consider this to be an oxymoron with this usage. One element of the phrase is unchanging (past knowledge), therefore that part is absolute (meaning unchanging). It is certainly no sin to use the same word with two different definitions. People do it all the time. In this case, one needs context to discern which meaning is meant, but that does not mean that their different meanings cannot be clear.

It is interesting to see that when one of the people present at her ITOE workshops tried to extend the phrase “contextual absolute” to a principle, Rand balked.

Prof. M: Would you consider the following method of confirming a scientific principle to be valid? One formulates the principle being guided by one's knowledge of fact. Using the principle, one next deduces how entities under certain conditions should act. Then, if one observes such action and, within the context of one's knowledge can account for it only by the principle which predicted it, it follows that the principle has been confirmed. In summary, one induces the principle, deduces its consequences, and if only that principle is known to give rise to those consequences, which in turn exist, then the principle is confirmed as a contextual absolute.

AR: This is outside the province of my book; this is the theory of induction. But within this context, I would say, no, this would not be the right procedure, and there is a danger of a very, very grave error here. Because if you follow the procedure you outline here, and you make certain predictions on the basis of a hypothesis, and the entities do act accordingly, you conclude that you can hold as a contextual absolute that it was your hypothesis that was operating and that it is therefore true. You are assuming an omniscience that contextual knowledge cannot permit. Because since you are not omniscient, within the context of your knowledge you cannot say that your particular hypothesis was the only possible cause of the entities acting the way you predicted. You would have to say this offers great confirmation of your hypothesis, but it still remains a hypothesis and cannot be taken as knowledge. Why? Because so many other possibilities are involved. And I don't mean unknown or unknowable factors—I mean that it would be impossible, for any complex principle of science that you are trying to establish, to eliminate, even within your own context of knowledge, all the other possibilities.

What I would question is this part of the procedure: "if only that principle is known to give rise to those consequences"—that's the mistake of arrested knowledge, right there.

It is also interesting to see Peikoff using this term (for the only time in OPAR) in a different manner not restricted to definitions.

But if a man reaches conclusions logically and grasps their contextual nature, intellectual progress poses no threat to him; it consists to a great extent in his identifying ever more fully the relationships, the connections among facts, that make the world a unity. Such a man is not dismayed to find that he always has more to learn. He is happy about it, because he recognizes that he is expanding and refining his knowledge, not subverting it.

Although the researchers cannot claim their discovery as an out-of-context absolute, they must treat it as a contextual absolute (i.e., as an immutable truth within the specified context).

The researchers must know that the initial generalization is valid—"know" as against guess, hope, or feel. It is only on this basis that they can progress to further discoveries.

Now in this case, I believe that Daniel’s observation holds. Peikoff is using the term “contextual absolute” to mean a discovery of a new fact, not necessarily a definition. If he wants to make a generalization about that fact (which, of course includes a provision for future knowledge), he is essentially making an approximation.

Now, on to my post.

You do not have any choice about the outcome of a logical derivation. If "All men are mortal", and "Socrates is a man", the conclusion must be "Socrates is mortal" whether you like it or not. You have no choice in the matter.

Daniel,

Here is the whole crux of ethics: choice.

I have a few thoughts right now and hopefully I will elaborate further. If they seem a bit rambling, that is the nature of thinking as you go along.

We are doing is/ought on another thread, but I cannot deal with this issue without at least alluding to it. If I understand the issue correctly so far (and I admit I have not been able to do the reading on Hume, Popper, etc., just yet), the whole problem seems to be how to take choice out of volition. And the answer, of course is that you can't.

Ethics by definition is about choosing values according to a code and ethics only pertains to living beings with a rational capacity. A lower animal has no ethics (although it has values). But there is another element. A living being with a rational conceptual faculty—by definition—also has volition.

You can logically derive standards (for both cardinal and ordinal measurement), but you cannot logically derive the choice in applying them. Volition, like existence, identity, etc., is part of the given. It is merely identified. It is axiomatic. It is not logically derived. It is accepted through the impossibility of imagining it not existing while using it at the same time.

This is what makes including a big honking IF in the middle of any moral statement a necessity. This implication derives from the definition. Only a faculty with volition has the possibility of exercising an IF. A proper moral code ALWAYS includes the statement:

"If you want this result, you will do that."

This is basically what "should" or "ought" mean. There is no way to remove this statement without stepping outside of ethics altogether. It is like removing discrimination from definitions or numbers from mathematics.

If I understand Hume's problem so far (and, after some heavy thinking these last couple of days, I admit that I have yet to detect a problem per se), he wants to be able to formulate a moral principle, exclude choice from it, and say that it was logically derived. Like I said, you can't. You have removed a fundamental part.

Here is how this works in practice. If you want to make a general statement and claim that life is a rational standard of morality, you can never exclude the identification of whose life you are talking about. In dealing with ethics, this means the person who will apply the principle to his own actions. That is what ethics is for: applying principles to one's own life. (Applying moral principles to others is a question of rights, not ethics, and this is a whole new issue—a related one, but a new one.) So we are talking about a particular life. Not "life" as a general concept.

This is partly because of the component of volition. In ethics, by definition, we are looking for principles—and how to arrive at them—to guide choices. Well, there is no choice without the chooser. You can make a general statement about how we all are alive, but you cannot remove the individuality from each one of us and lump us all into a category like "life" that will automatically make choices. Only individuals choose. "Life" in itself does not choose.

So when a person says life is a standard to use in a syllogism for deriving a moral principle, he also has to say "whose life" and "if that person wishes to keep that life." The choice (in itself) of whether to keep his life is not a moral principle. It needs a moral principle to be made rationally. Whether he wishes to live or not depends on many factors. One of them is human nature. We can debate about certain characteristics of what human nature is, but there are some general characteristics that are "is" and not "ought" (living being that grows and dies, biped, rational faculty, volition, etc.). These are not open to choice.

But there is another biggie. And this is a big, big, big issue in ethics: context. All individuals come with unique contexts. Just as there is no way to eliminate choice from ethics, individuality from living beings, rational faculty from humans (all of these being defining characteristics, i.e., "differentia" or part of the "genus" in Rand-speak), there is no way to remove context from an individual living being. A living being does not only exist. It exists within a context. It can be old or young, healthy or terminally ill, disfigured or whole, etc. It also has an environment that is pretty varied here on earth.

In this sense, to answer your question in a more recent post, "is suicide moral or not?", you have to include an automatic drive to live that comes with being human, but you also have to include "suicide of whom?" as a fundamental element. And that "whom" will be individual and come with a context. Like I said, "life" does not choose. It especially does not choose suicide. Only individuals do.

So here are three components that are not present in Hume's statement: the "if," the individual chooser, and the context of that chooser. If your goal is to rationally derive principles for making choices, I don't see how these elements rationally can be left out.

Can one use the same equation for identifying facts to identify choices, and pretend that choice, the chooser and his context do not exist? No. Is that a problem for saying that ethics are rationally (or logically) derived? You and others have stated it is (if I understand correctly). You own words from above are: "You do not have any choice about the outcome of a logical derivation."

But I don't see a problem at all when you add the fundamental elements I just described. As I mentioned elsewhere, man has volition over what he does, but he has no choice over how the laws of nature operate.

If the whole problem is trying to make an improper fit of the problem to an unsuited equation (how to derive a prescriptive principle from a descriptive fact in a form that eliminates volition), the problem is not the reality of volition. It is in the use of that inadequate equation. Using the wrong equation is not rational. It only appears to be. Actually, it is irrational to do that. To be rational, you need to use an equation that includes all the elements of the issue.

I will have more to say later, but let's see where this goes first. In short and as a preview, there are two other issues involved that have direct bearing on this problem, since they are fundamental in defining rationality. One is whether you can eliminate external reality from mental operations and the other is accepting the fact that entities, not the reduced parts of them (unless they become entities in their own right), are primary existents.

Here is your answer to me.

Michael,

I have no significant quarrels that I see with your post; some details, yes, but not that I see -- on reading through your post twice -- with the "gist" of what you wrote.

I have the feeling though that somehow you aren't realizing that what you wrote is quite close to what Daniel and I are also saying.

Consider this paragraph:

If the whole problem is trying to make an improper fit of the problem to an unsuited equation (how to derive a prescriptive principle from a descriptive fact in a form that eliminates volition), the problem is not the reality of volition. It is in the use of that inadequate equation.

Are you aware that we're saying that "us[ing] that inadequate equation" is what Rand did in her passage which ends with her sweeping aside the is/ought problem as if she'd solved it? The point is: she did not succeed at deriving an "ought" from an "is" without that, as you put it, "big honking IF in the middle." The IF remains fully there; she hasn't eliminated it. Later, as I keep pointing out and no one seems to notice, she herself said, in her own way of saying this, that there's always the "big honking IF in the middle." See her article "Causality Versus Duty."

As I've also said, I think that one gets much farther in understanding her ethics is one just disregards her mistake in indicating that she'd solved the Humean problem.

(I also agree, as I've also said, that the problem isn't really a problem; it's an acknowledgment of the inescapability of volition. Hume thought it was a problem; I don't agree with Hume in his thinking of it thus; instead I agree with Daniel: it isn't a bug; it's a feature.)

You wrote: “I have the feeling though that somehow you aren't realizing that what you wrote is quite close to what Daniel and I are also saying.” Actually, I have been aware of just how close our positions are (and how close they are to Rand’s positions) for some time. I mentioned the following the other day in a post to Daniel, after working a bit on the word “derive” (where I think different meanings are being used):

You essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

You even commented favorable by saying I was “on to something.” Now Daniel responded with this:

Michael K

>This is actually how I understand Rand's meaning, with the sole problem being the definition of the word "derive." As I stated earlier, I suspect that Rand meant one thing and Hume, etc., another.

Quite possibly. This would again indicate she did not understand the problem. Whatever the source of her confusion, her belief that she resolved Hume's "is/ought" dualism is clearly false. So we can say with some confidence that she did not solve - and IMHO the evidence indicates she did not understand - either of Hume's "is/ought" or his problem of induction.

. . .

>You essentially stated that man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate. That's about as purely Randish as you can get.

Well, Rand did indeed say this, but that does not make it a Randian insight. . . . Certainly there is nothing distinctively Randian about the idea that man has free will or that the laws of nature operate whether men like it or not.

I didn’t get around to answering this, so I will do it here. I am not so sure that Rand did not understand the problem so much as reject it wholesale as a problem. As her rhetoric is somewhat bombastic with Hume and her works are peppered with simple swipes at him that are nothing but name-calling (rarely are the titles of his works even mentioned, much less quotes), one get the impression that she claims to have solved the issue by simply dismissing Hume. But I looked into it and was surprised by what I saw. Here is my post where I quoted Hume.

. . . I just read the Wikipedia article Is-ought problem where it gave a quote from Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, said to be the start of the problem:
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

Now it is true that Hume talked about relations (and affirmations), but he specifically mentioned “deduction” as the means to arrive at them.

Here is the Rand passage that Daniel (and others) find objectionable.

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."

Establishing a relation and deducing a relation are two different things. So where is Rand actually claiming to have solved Hume’s problem? And, as both you and I have mentioned, where is the problem anyway?

If the issue is deducing the relation between “is” and “ought,” Rand simply ignored it. If the issue is establishing a relation between “is” and “ought,” Rand certainly did that, however I have no idea of whom “those philosophers” she mentioned are.

Now Daniel stated above: “This would again indicate she did not understand the problem. Whatever the source of her confusion, her belief that she resolved Hume's ‘is/ought’ dualism is clearly false.” You also have stated that Rand did not understand Hume’s problem, but believed that she had solved it. Where did she say she believed she did that? You stated above: “The IF remains fully there; she hasn't eliminated it.” Where did she claim to have eliminated it?

I have been unable to find any of these claims in Rand’s writings and I have been searching all morning. I remember reading over the years something by one of her intimates, probably NB, that she had solved the “age-old” problem that had been plaguing philosophers for centuries. But I don’t even remember if “is and ought” was the problem. I think it was where values come from (which, at least, is related).

Still, both Daniel and you have stated that you think Rand did not understand Hume. Why isn’t it possible for her to have understood him, but thought he was silly, so she dismissed him rather than refuted him? And her rhetoric above was a form of bypassing the need to acknowledge the problem as he stated it? I see no indication of the fact that she did not know that Hume was talking about deduction.

Another point. After I mentioned to Daniel that what he was saying and what Rand was saying were the same thing (“man has volition in choosing his values, but not in choosing how natural laws operate”), he grudgingly conceded that it was so, and then stated, “but that does not make it a Randian insight.” Then he went on as if I (or even Rand) claimed that this particular point was an insight that only she had and no one else had arrived at before her. I can’t find that affirmation in her writing either. I certainly never stated that.

This makes me start to believe that there is a willingness to try to belittle Rand’s thinking on this point, regardless of the facts. As you know, I have no problem in saying where I disagree with Rand, but I do find it necessary to align what I think is wrong with Rand’s views with her actual words (in context).

Now if the objection to Rand’s treatment of Hume is ever based on the following quote, I will have no problem at all in recognizing that she was way out of line. There are no quotes, no works cited, nothing but pure affirmations and the tone is spiteful.

When Hume declared that he saw objects moving about, but never saw such a thing as "causality"—it was the voice of Attila that men were hearing. It was Attila's soul that spoke when Hume declared that he experienced a flow of fleeting states inside his skull such as sensations, feelings or memories, but had never caught the experience of such a thing as consciousness or self. When Hume declared that the apparent existence of an object did not guarantee that it would not vanish spontaneously next moment, and the sunrise of today did not prove that the sun would rise tomorrow; when he declared that philosophical speculation was a game, like chess or hunting, of no significance whatever to the practical course of human existence, since reason proved that existence was unintelligible and only the ignorant maintained the illusion of knowledge—all of this accompanied by vehement opposition to the mysticism of the Witch Doctor and by protestations of loyalty to reason and science—what men were hearing was the manifesto of a philosophical movement that can be designated only as Attila-ism.

If it were possible for an animal to describe the content of his consciousness, the result would be a transcript of Hume's philosophy. Hume's conclusions would be the conclusions of a consciousness limited to the perceptual level of awareness, passively reacting to the experience of immediate concretes, with no capacity to form abstractions, to integrate perceptions into concepts, waiting in vain for the appearance of an object labeled "causality" (except that such a consciousness would not be able to draw conclusions).

Finally, here is Daniel’s response to my post above:

Ellen:

>I have the feeling though that somehow you (Michael K)aren't realizing that what you wrote is quite close to what Daniel and I are also saying.

Yes, exactly.

>Are you aware that we're saying that "us[ing] that inadequate equation" is what Rand did in her passage which ends with her sweeping aside the is/ought problem as if she'd solved it? The point is: she did not succeed at deriving an "ought" from an "is" without that, as you put it, "big honking IF in the middle." The IF remains fully there; she hasn't eliminated it. Later, as I keep pointing out and no one seems to notice, she herself said, in her own way of saying this, that there's always the "big honking IF in the middle." See her article "Causality Versus Duty."

This is an example of the confusion one encounters with Rand ( and other philosophers too). It seems regularly Rand said one thing, then denied it without realising it; or arrived at the very same conclusion those she repeatedly denigrated had, only using her own specialised terminology (ie "her own way of saying it"). This terminology is engineered to bridge the gap between what she did and what she thought she did; between her rhetoric and her achievement. Again, I offer the oxymoron "contextual absolute" as a central example of this verbal engineering, as it allows her to use "absolutes" as a stick to beat her rivals with, without ever really using them herself!

>As I've also said, I think that one gets much farther in understanding her ethics is one just disregards her mistake in indicating that she'd solved the Humean problem.

I think it is also a good vaccine against Randroidism to continue to point out that she did not in fact solve many of the problems she is thought to have by her fans (I would even add the problem of universals to that list, as while it is not an interesting problem IMO, I cannot see how her theory of concepts even begins to succeed) or even agrees at a deeper level with philosophers she entirely rejected. I actually agree with many of her ethics in a broad sense, and her generally inspirational ideas like productiveness and realism, but consider where she is right it is usually for the wrong reasons,which as I have said, Rand would hardly find satisfactory. The best thing to do is to appreciate her qualities, but where her underlying arguments are neither good nor original, simply face up to it.

All this broad dismissal would be food for thought, and I do respect the erudition of Daniel enough to likewise dismiss should I deem it warranted, but I ended up finding those errors and exaggerations I mentioned above (the claim that Rand stated that she had solved the Humean problem when she did not, stating that "contextual absolute" was an oxymoron without considering what the phrase actually meant, and the fact that Daniel seems to be saying the same thing she does on the substantive issues of volition and laws of nature, except he uses different words but the same concepts). These things are too basic to be able to accept the rest without checking.

Of all the problems Daniel has stated that Rand’s problems are, I only found the following to be true from my own reading: “…[she] arrived at the very same conclusion those she repeatedly denigrated had, only using her own specialised terminology…” But I do not agree that she “engineered” this terminology to “bridge the gap” between “her rhetoric and her achievement.” A lot of the terminology I find to be jargon that she created to fit the concepts she had arrived at and nothing more. I see it coming from a lack of reading and a whole lot of introspection.

I am not convinced that “where she is right it is usually for the wrong reasons,” or her theory of concepts has failed.

What I find interesting in all this is that many of our ideas are in complete alignment, but our opinions of Rand is not.

Michael

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I disagree that the first statement is true.
We don't need to have an exercise in the obvious, do we?

Dirty Rotten Harry's goal is to steal money from a bank. He analyzes the situation in terms of how to best achieve that goal and he implements it using rational thought to guide his actions. For example, he decides to use a gun and planning instead of, say, faith (praying for the money to jump out of the bank and into his pocket) or whim (going into the bank unprepared and telling the bank teller he wants the money) because rationally, this is the only way to threaten a bank teller short-term to hand over the loot and get him to comply.

He robs the bank and makes a clean getaway. He spends the money and does not get caught.

Dirty Rotten Harry is successful in achieving his goal of stealing the money from the bank.

Now how is that not successfully pursuing and achieving his goal with rational thought?

You can't assume, a priori, that Dirty Rotten Harry gets away. The question is, were the odds in his favor going in? Judging by the average success rate of criminals of all kinds, I believe the answer is a resounding no.

In order to argue that criminal behavior is a successful strategy, you would have to argue that criminals are almost always successful long term (due to the horrible, nasty consequences of failing even once). But, most criminals are unsuccessful long term.

There are also other enormous difficulties associated with criminal behavior. An upstanding citizen views other people as being worthy ends in themselves and treats them as such. A criminal views other people as prey and therefore tends to view other people as unworthy of existence or respect. As such, he finds it difficult to avoid conflict with even his closest associates, thereby making his life difficult. Remember the old adage, "There is no honor among thieves." The truth of that statement stems from the fact that it is impossible to uphold a principle such as honor when one views other people as potential prey.

As an aside, I would recommend seeing, "The Departed," if you haven't already. Although it is fiction, I think it illustrates the terrifying nature of life as a predator when other humans are your prey.

Darrell

Edited by Darrell Hougen
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Darrell,

Wait a minute. I think you are talking about another statement, not the one that was presented. You said that the first statement was not true. Here is the first statement:

"1. Parasites and crooks can be very rational and successful in pursuing and achieving their goals."

"Can be" does not mean "always are" or even "almost always" are, like where you pushed your observations.

Also, I love movies (and I have seen The Departed), but I have lived among the real-life bad guys. Lots of them were totally successful at achieving their dirty rotten goals and they were highly rational about how they conducted their affairs. I have seen it with my own eyes (with a "resounding" yes).

We were not talking about whether being a parasite or crook was a good idea. We were not even talking about criminal behavior being "a successful strategy" (presumably as a life style, from your context). We were talking about what was possible or not. If you want to change what we were talking about, I have no problem with that. But that still doesn't make the first statement false.

Michael

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"1. Parasites and crooks can be very rational ...

In order for that statement to stand, it must be the case that for those people, the odds of being successful going in were better than the odds of being successful doing something legitimate.

A lottery winner is very successful, but that does not mean that it is rational to buy lottery tickets. You don't know ahead of time whether you're going to be a winner or not. Now, the odds of winning the lottery are much lower than the odds of being successful as a criminal, but the downside is not nearly as bad either. If you just buy a few tickets, the amount you lose playing the lottery is barely noticeable in your monthly budget.

If you get caught as a criminal and thrown in jail, your reputation is ruined and life becomes much more difficult. And, you might be killed or ripped off by your associates. You can't just look at the successful examples of criminals as data points in determining the success of crime as a strategy. You have to look at all of the people who attempted to become criminals and failed. Or, you at least have to look at people with similar characteristics.

You could look at all of the people from the top 10% of the IQ spectrum to see what percentage of those that attempted to become criminals were successful. Then compare them with all of the people from the top 10% of the IQ spectrum that decided on legitimate careers and determine what percentage were successful and to what degree.

Also, I love movies (and I have seen The Departed), but I have lived among the real-life bad guys. Lots of them were totally successful at achieving their dirty rotten goals and they were highly rational about how they conducted their affairs. I have seen it with my own eyes (with a "resounding" yes).

I can't comment on your personal experience because I don't have access to it. But ask yourself: Have any of those people that you know or knew ever been caught or killed or ripped off or beat up? The chances of being murdered in the U.S. among all people in 2005 was 0.0056% and was probably much lower among law abiding citizens. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html

We were not talking about whether being a parasite or crook was a good idea. We were not even talking about criminal behavior being "a successful strategy" (presumably as a life style, from your context). We were talking about what was possible or not. If you want to change what we were talking about, I have no problem with that. But that still doesn't make the first statement false.

In order to be a rational strategy, it must be a successful strategy. What else could rational mean, in this context? The whole point of asserting that criminal behavior is a rational strategy is an attempt to undermine the claim that living a virtuous, principled life is a rational strategy. If criminals are highly successful compared to ordinary, law abiding citizens, then it is the criminals that are intelligent and rational and good people are just dupes or patsies. So, some other justification of being good is required, because being good is not the most rational strategy.

I reject that notion entirely. Being good is a rational strategy. It is not only good for society, it is the best personal strategy as well, at least under most reasonable circumstances. It provides the most wealth, longest life, best health, etc., on average, to the individual practitioner of the strategy, and it does so whether the practitioner is near the top of the IQ range or the bottom or somewhere in between.

Darrell

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Darrell:

>No. That's not what I'm saying. I really can't believe you can't understand what I'm saying here. The question is a question of logic one level removed. It is meta-level question. It must still be answered using logical means, but at a higher level.

Well, I am struggling to see what you're saying. What exactly do you mean by this "higher level" of logic? I know Objectivists regard standard bi-valent deductive logic as valid, but the conclusions of this are just what we have been discussing, and nothing indicates it gets solved by a meta-level appeal. In fact it seems to me the problem is just the same. Just saying it is a "meta-level" question does not make it so. While no expert in the subject, I am familiar with a few meta-level problems, such as Tarski's rehabilitation of the correspondence theory of truth, but nothing you're saying to date seems even remotely analogous to these.

Can you lay out this "higher level" logical means, and demonstrate its conclusion, so we can see it clearly?

Or are you agreeing with Michael Kelly when he says in his #76:

"So it is well within the domain of logic. It might not be within the domain of specific formulas and equations of logic, but that is another issue."

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Darrell:

>No. That's not what I'm saying. I really can't believe you can't understand what I'm saying here. The question is a question of logic one level removed. It is meta-level question. It must still be answered using logical means, but at a higher level.

Well, I am struggling to see what you're saying.

In post #297 on Dragonfly's thread, you stated in response to my earlier post:

Darrell

>It's not rational to choose to be irrational. That's why you can't back up any further.

Actually there are two well-known problems with what you're saying here that you may not be aware of:

1) The least important, but still decisive one is that you can in fact back up further. For the problem with saying what you're saying here ie:"I should be rational, because that is the rational choice" is that it inherently presupposes that the decider is rational in the first place and is thus circular. So your argument is not valid.

So, on that thread, you seemed to have no problem with the notion that you can back up further. However, when I asked you to give an explanation as to why you think rationality is important, you acted as if the question was totally baffling. I just don't understand where the communications breakdown is.

In other words, I gave my explanation for why rationality is indispensible on Dragonfly's thread. But you weren't buying it --- though you never responded to my final post. So, my question to you is: If you don't like my reasoning behind the need to be rational, what is your reasoning? You evidently believe it is very important, otherwise you wouldn't have said:

The price of commitment to rationality is, unfortunately, that sometimes we have to give up our most deeply cherished beliefs when confronted with serious criticism that we cannot rebut - like they say in science, when a beautiful theory must be given up due to a single ugly fact.

Darrell

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Darrell:

>In other words, I gave my explanation for why rationality is indispensible on Dragonfly's thread. But you weren't buying it --- though you never responded to my final post.

Darrell,

I'll go back and have a look at the post you're referring to, and respond. But I don't recall any "meta-level" or "higher level" logic involved. But just so it's clear what you mean, once again, can you lay out this "higher-level" logical means, and demonstrate its conclusion, so we can see it clearly?

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I apologize for the striped nature of this post, but there were several points to which I wished to respond.

IMO, the debate over the dualism of facts and decisions is a discussion of the basics. The dualism of facts and decisions is fundamental. Unfortunately the debate does not feature much exciting or romantic language, but I don't think it's got overly technical yet.

No one is arguing that there is no dichotomy between facts and decisions. Of course decisions cannot be derived from facts. The decider has to make a choice. He is volitional. No one is disputing that. The question is whether the best choice --- the choice that one ought to pursue --- the decision that one ought to make --- can be determined by examining the facts of reality.

Certainly Objectivists recognise the validity of the rules of standard deductive logic ...

Given this mutual acceptance, some of the people there, myself included, are raising quite basic logical criticisms (starting from Hume) of Rand's ethical claims, and also their interpretation.

Objectivists recognize the validity of deductive logic and other methods of reasoning as well. It appears that you are trying to saddle your opponents with a particular method of reasoning in order to limit the kinds of arguments that they can make. That just isn't going to fly.

If these criticisms turn out to be valid - and I certainly do not think supporters of Rand's arguments are having an altogether easy time of it thus far - then we should be careful not to dismiss them out of hand as obscure technicalities (I assure you they are nowhere near as complex as logic can get. These criticisms are in fact quite ordinary).

It is nice of you to offer your opinion of your opponents' level of success. I have quite the opposite opinion. I don't feel that you have presented me with anything truly difficult to handle. Your lack of understanding of my responses does imply that you are winning the argument.

Some people use "ethics" and "morality" interchangeably, referring to our responsibilities to others; alternatively some use "ethics" to mean how we conduct ourselves with other people, and "morality" to mean a kind of mode of personal behaviour; a kind of "rules for the self". I don't mind either way, but I think the issues are somewhat different (the making of a 'self' is a highly controversial and interesting issue in itself), so to avoid confusion I would prefer to stick to "ethics" or "morality" as being our responsibilities or conduct with others for the purposes of this discussion.

In my view, it is impossible to discuss ethics without first establishing a moral basis. In the Objectivist view, your personal self interest in served by treating other people in an ethical manner. That is because other rational individuals are viewed as being more valuable to you acting as free and independent persons than they would be as slaves or prey.

Obviously we need ethics because our interests as individuals can clash with the interests of other individuals. Rand hoped to resolve such clashes by starting from a level of individual survival - that "it is good for you to be good" - but was forced to equivocate from the start between this conception of "life" and an altogether vaguer "man qua man", as otherwise this would force her into a rather unpleasant version of selfish individualism.

The phrase "man-qua-man" is only vague if you ignore the definition that Rand, in fact, gave. Rand defined reason as man's essential, distinguishing characteristic. "Man is a rational animal." Therefore, the "life of man-qua-man" is a life lived in accordance with reason. I made that point already on Dragonfly's thread.

(Some still pick up on this first meaning she uses, but not the second highly equivocal one - for example, Joe Rowlands, Rick Passotto and some others memorably argued at the old Solo that one is perfectly morally justified to leave your baby outside to die of exposure if you so desire, as you have no duty whatsoever to it - to do otherwise would be altruistic. And we can hardly accuse them of being new to Objectivism).

I don't know who the people are that you are referring to, but that hardly sounds like an Objectivist conclusion. Since when is "desire" a tool of cognition? You are obligated to care for your baby because you created it with the full knowledge of what you were doing.

I conjecture that the reason we should treat other people properly is that they are "selves" too. We can understand their suffering, even feel it through empathy. Through this emerges what's called the golden rule, about treating others as you would like to be treated. This does not avoid clashes, it must be emphasised. No moral system can. (Rand's "no conflict between rational men" is IMO merely wishful thinking). However, we can use reason as our best chance to resolve such clashes as peacefully as possible, tho nothing guarantees this - and such resolutions, as with a good debate, can in fact be highly productive. Without reason, however, without rules for mutual understanding, the only resolution must be force or accident.

Objectivism holds that there are no conflicts of interest among rational men because Objectivists view other rational people, left free to pursue their own ends, as more valuable to one's own life than they would be if an attempt were made to enslave them or treat them as prey.

The subjectivist alternative that you offer can never eliminate conflict because subjectivism explicitly bans reason from the realm of morality.

Darrell

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I'll go back and have a look at the post you're referring to, and respond. But I don't recall any "meta-level" or "higher level" logic involved. But just so it's clear what you mean, once again, can you lay out this "higher-level" logical means, and demonstrate its conclusion, so we can see it clearly?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying there is a, "higher level logic." I'm saying that you can step outside of a logical system and view it as an object of inquiry. But, that doesn't imply that you are not using logic to analyze the system. In fact, as beings that "reprogram" ourselves, we do it all the time.

I'm still waiting for you to answer the original question that I posed back in post #47. Why do you believe rationality is important?

Darrell

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Darrell,

We are usually on the same page, so I am confused by this all of a sudden. For instance, you wrote:

"1. Parasites and crooks can be very rational ...

In order for that statement to stand, it must be the case that for those people, the odds of being successful going in were better than the odds of being successful doing something legitimate.

Why did you chop off the qualification and take it out of context? Like I said, you are discussing something else. Don't you think parasites and crooks have goals? I gave you one: holding up a bank. That's a goal. That's not a good goal, but it's a goal.

How does denying that it is a goal change the reality of its existence as a goal? Is that rational?

A lottery winner is very successful, but that does not mean that it is rational to buy lottery tickets. You don't know ahead of time whether you're going to be a winner or not. Now, the odds of winning the lottery are much lower than the odds of being successful as a criminal, but the downside is not nearly as bad either. If you just buy a few tickets, the amount you lose playing the lottery is barely noticeable in your monthly budget.

This shows that we are talking about completely different things. If a person's goal is to win the lottery, how is it irrational to buy lottery tickets? That's the only rational way he can win.

You are mixing up goal and method of achieving that goal. Also you are changing the meaning of "successful." Success at achieving a goal does not mean "being a success" in life.

I agree with you that being a criminal is not a good thing, or even a rational choice. But the criminal certainly can use a rational method to successfully achieve his goals once they have been chosen.

Using your same logic, a religious person can never be rational because some of his choices were made by faith. Yet most people are rational in the major portion of their lives.

I can't comment on your personal experience because I don't have access to it. But ask yourself: Have any of those people that you know or knew ever been caught or killed or ripped off or beat up? The chances of being murdered in the U.S. among all people in 2005 was 0.0056% and was probably much lower among law abiding citizens. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html

What does any of this have to do with a criminal using reason to achieve a goal?

In order to be a rational strategy, it must be a successful strategy. What else could rational mean, in this context?

I am talking about the criminal's specific goals, not his lifestyle. If he wants to hold up a bank and successfully pull it off, he better use a rational method. Like I said, praying or casting spells won't work.

You are treating these obvious statements as if they were an endorsement of criminality. They are not.

Nobody needs to convince me that being a criminal is bad news. Frankly I don't think anyone on this forum needs to be convinced into accepting that. They already made that choice long ago.

Michael

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