[Victor Pross]

Objectivist ethics: Life as the Standard.

(Note from MSK:
Article removed for plagiary of "Ayn Marx" (pseudonym) and Robert Bass. See here for the intitial identification and here for the full text with the plagiarized parts compared against the original texts.

OL extends its deepest apologies to the person calling himself or herself Ayn Marx and to Robert Bass.)

LATER NOTE (July 12, 2007): Apparently "Ayn Marx" was also plagiarizing. Her posts on other forums are from Ronald E. Merrill's The Ideas of Ayn Rand (see here). OL extends its deepest apologies to the heirs of Ron Merrill.

This post has been edited by Michael Stuart Kelly: 12 July 2007 - 10:22 AM

[Martin Radwin]

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 09:58 AM, said:

R. Christian Ross, on Mar 30 2007, 12:49 PM, said:

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

Use premises, verifiable by observation ('IS' statements - no opinions allowed) and proceed via DEduction to arrive at a moral prescription. Try it.

"If an argument *is* fallacious, does this mean we *ought* not to accept it? If so, how can this be, if it is impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is."




RCR

Good example.

More formally.

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Smuggled "ought" - "Accepting fallacious arguments is bad."

Now, notice that I did not say "Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error." This is an observable fact - a conclusion of a different kind. But we still need "Accepting errors is bad." to reach the final "ought" conclusion.

We ALWAYS need another "ought" in there. Inescapable.

Bob

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Fact - Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Isn't this the generally accepted meaning of the word "ought"? How many mathematicians or scientists would disagree with the conclusion that fallacious arguments ought not to be accepted, because they can lead to error? How many would insist that the proviso be added that "accepting fallacious arguments is bad"?

Martin

[Brant Gaede]

Ought we be having this discussion?

--Brant

This post has been edited by Brant Gaede: 30 March 2007 - 07:26 PM

[Victor Pross]

Daniel Barnes, on Mar 27 2007, 07:09 PM, said:

Victor:
>Morality is not just about preserving life (Man qua Man) but of maximizing life (Man qua man).

Victor, as I have said before, ' maximising' life as "man qua man" simply means "upholding Objectivist values". As such, as the answer to the question "why should we hold Objectivist values?" it is circular, thus a fallacious argument.

Daniel’s remark here entails that Rand's ethics is some sort of duty that you "should" follow independently of your own choices and values—independent of facts and the objective requirements of life--but Rand completely rejected the idea of such duties. Rand stands in a long tradition in ethics, which started with the classical Greeks and also included many Enlightenment thinkers. In this case, the study of ethics is a form of applied knowledge, similar to engineering or medicine, (constant examples I have been using in which Daniel did not dare challenge) whose purpose is to identify the means needed for achieving certain results in order to guide the actions of those who want to accomplish these results.

Ethics, it is true, is a field that is wider in scope and more fundamental than other forms of applied knowledge, because it guides the most basic choices that affect everything in your life. But the pattern and basic principles are the same. But it is Hume that has clouded the vision of those who are unable to conceptualize beyond the immediate “experience” of their noses.

-Victor

This post has been edited by Victor Pross: 30 March 2007 - 10:10 PM

[Bob_Mac]

Martin Radwin, on Mar 30 2007, 08:47 PM, said:

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 09:58 AM, said:

R. Christian Ross, on Mar 30 2007, 12:49 PM, said:

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

Use premises, verifiable by observation ('IS' statements - no opinions allowed) and proceed via DEduction to arrive at a moral prescription. Try it.

"If an argument *is* fallacious, does this mean we *ought* not to accept it? If so, how can this be, if it is impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is."




RCR

Good example.

More formally.

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Smuggled "ought" - "Accepting fallacious arguments is bad."

Now, notice that I did not say "Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error." This is an observable fact - a conclusion of a different kind. But we still need "Accepting errors is bad." to reach the final "ought" conclusion.

We ALWAYS need another "ought" in there. Inescapable.

Bob

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Fact - Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Isn't this the generally accepted meaning of the word "ought"? How many mathematicians or scientists would disagree with the conclusion that fallacious arguments ought not to be accepted, because they can lead to error? How many would insist that the proviso be added that "accepting fallacious arguments is bad"?

Martin

It DOES NOT MATTER how much the "Ought" makes sense. I in fact AGREE with the argument, but it IS NOT DEDUCTIVE. There is a value judgment/opinion inherent in the concept of BAD.

It is sloppy thinking to jump over the gap. How can you observe "BAD"? Can't.

Bob

This post has been edited by Bob_Mac: 31 March 2007 - 08:05 AM

[R. Christian Ross]

Bob_Mac, on Mar 31 2007, 07:58 AM, said:

Martin Radwin, on Mar 30 2007, 08:47 PM, said:

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 09:58 AM, said:

R. Christian Ross, on Mar 30 2007, 12:49 PM, said:

Bob_Mac, on Mar 30 2007, 10:41 AM, said:

Use premises, verifiable by observation ('IS' statements - no opinions allowed) and proceed via DEduction to arrive at a moral prescription. Try it.

"If an argument *is* fallacious, does this mean we *ought* not to accept it? If so, how can this be, if it is impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is."




RCR

Good example.

More formally.

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Smuggled "ought" - "Accepting fallacious arguments is bad."

Now, notice that I did not say "Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error." This is an observable fact - a conclusion of a different kind. But we still need "Accepting errors is bad." to reach the final "ought" conclusion.

We ALWAYS need another "ought" in there. Inescapable.

Bob

Premise - Argument A is fallacious.
Fact - Accepting fallacious conclusions can lead to error.
Conclusion - We ought not to accept it.

Isn't this the generally accepted meaning of the word "ought"? How many mathematicians or scientists would disagree with the conclusion that fallacious arguments ought not to be accepted, because they can lead to error? How many would insist that the proviso be added that "accepting fallacious arguments is bad"?

Martin

It DOES NOT MATTER how much the "Ought" makes sense. I in fact AGREE with the argument, but it IS NOT DEDUCTIVE. There is a value judgment/opinion inherent in the concept of BAD.

It is sloppy thinking to jump over the gap. How can you observe "BAD"? Can't.

Bob

Firstly, based upon how I responded to Bob a few posts ago, I'm obliged to post another quote from GHS, from another thread on A2 that clarifies his thinking on the first quote I posted (which, I think, I obfuscated).


http://groups.yahoo....I/message/21269

Quote

We do not need to hold a scientist, mathematician, or engineer "responsible" for his reasoning in order to evaluate the worth or accuracy of his conclusions. The same conclusions would be accurate (or not), regardless of who originated them. This is not true of moral reasoning, which presupposes that we can identify the (morally) responsible agent in order to judge his actions. Moral judgments are personal in a way that scientific reasoning is not.

Secondly, I wonder if this quote from GHS (from another thread on A2) sheds any new light on the issue...

http://groups.yahoo....II/message/3366

Quote

I have no objection to Rand's argument that life is a standard of value, at least in regard to *moral* values. My objection pertains to Rand's claim that a value is "that which one acts to gain and/or keep." I contend that action per se is not a defining characteristic of "value."

This is true whether we are speaking of subjective OR objective values. I have already explained my reasons in regard to subjective values, so let's turn for a moment to objective values. Let us assume that productive work is an objective moral value by Rand's standards. Okay, so is productive work an objective value even for a lazy person who does not act to gain and/or keep the value of productive work? Yes, of course it is. In calling productive work (or anything else) an objective value, we are saying that X would benefit a person even if he chooses NOT to pursue it. To describe X as an objective value is to say that X would objectively prove beneficial a person, which is to suggest that a person OUGHT to pursue X. But the relationship described by this objective value judgment holds even if a person does nothing in the way of acting to gain and/or keep X. In short, the truth or falsity of an objective value judgment (and this cognitive assessment is one thing that distinguishes objective from subjective value judgments) has nothing to do with whether or not a person actually acts to gain and/or keep X.

RCR

This post has been edited by R. Christian Ross: 31 March 2007 - 11:02 AM

[Robert Campbell]

Sorry about arriving late to this discussion.

A few posts back, Martin Radwin asked which of the following accounts of the origin of species Aristotle adhered to:

Quote

(1) All species of life have always existed
2) All species of life were created at once by a creator
3) All species of life just appeared sponteneously
4) All species of life evolved through a series of steps from simpler life forms

Definitely not (4). Aristotle believed in the fixity of species. You can't get from some antiquated land-dwelling mammal to a whale through a series of successive changes, not even over many generations.

Definitely not (2). Aristotle's god is too uninvolved in the affairs of the universe to go about creating anything. He wouldn't have taken the trouble to create the heavenly bodies, let alone life forms that come into being and pass away.

As for (3), Aristotle couldn't rule out "spontaneous generation" of living things from some inanimate matrix (the hackneyed example is maggots arising from rotting meat, though I don't know his biological works very well, and that example may not be his). But it wouldn't have been part of an evolutionary scheme.

The standard interpretation of Aristotle is (1).

Ellen asked what kind of biology Rand got exposed to in her Russian education. That is a question for Chris Sciabarra. We can set some limits on the inquiry, though. Rand left Russia well before Josef Stalin made Trofim D. Lysenko his pet biologist. On the other hand, one wonders how up-to-date education in biology was during the early Soviet years. I know from some work I've done on Jean Piaget (whose education in biology basically took place between 1906 and 1917) that Lamarckian doctrines were still generally accepted in the French-speaking world during that period; Piaget would never shake them off completely. The neo-Darwinian synthesis was just under way in 1920, and early reactions to modern genetics included grossly confused notions (from today's point of view); for instance, that "mutationism" is incompatible with "Darwinism," so you must pick one or the other.

I also wonder what Rand's early exposure to "social Darwinism" was like (and whether it took place before she arrived in the US). She hated Herbert Spencer's ideas (on the basis of what acquaintance I don't know). How did she think Spencer's theories related to more modern evolutionary conceptions?

Dragonfly's suggestion, that Rand's rejection of theism was partly religious in its motivation (man ought to be the object of worship, not god), strikes me as plausible. If correct, it would shed further light on Rand's insistence that human beings ought to strive for moral perfection.

Whatever the reasons for Rand's wanting to keep evolution at arm's length, its legacy is a weird disconnect about evolution out in some neighborhoods of Rand-land. When presented with "intelligent design," an ARI acolyte will insist that biological evolution is incontrovertible scientific fact and that "intelligent design" advocates are the sheerest of theological obscurantists. Yet, when asked whether evolution has any relevance to metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics, the ARI acolyte, quoting Dr. Peikoff, will insist that evolution is forever outside the scope of philosophy. And when questions are raised as to why Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, well... we know what happened to Neil Parille when he ventured into that territory a while back.

Robert Campbell

[BaalChatzaf]

Robert Campbell, on Apr 16 2007, 10:46 AM, said:

Whatever the reasons for Rand's wanting to keep evolution at arm's length, its legacy is a weird disconnect about evolution out in some neighborhoods of Rand-land. When presented with "intelligent design," an ARI acolyte will insist that biological evolution is incontrovertible scientific fact and that "intelligent design" advocates are the sheerest of theological obscurantists. Yet, when asked whether evolution has any relevance to metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics, the ARI acolyte, quoting Dr. Peikoff, will insist that evolution is forever outside the scope of philosophy. And when questions are raised as to why Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, well... we know what happened to Neil Parille when he ventured into that territory a while back.

Robert Campbell

Allow me to venture a guess why Rand stood away from Evolution Theory. The Theory of Evolution in its current state puts us in a continuum of descent from a common ancestor to the chimps and the bonbobos. The chimps and bonobos manifest behavior which not purely instinctual. This is not to say the chimps (for example) equal humans in linguistic ability or mental abstraction. But they do show conceptual ability at some level as is exhibit in certain problem solving scenarios. Think of the prehomonids portrayed in -2001: A Space Odessy-. The difference between the bone weapon and an orbiting space station is one of degree as was shown in the famous "toss the bone" seqway in the motion picture. Likewise, humans exhibit some "wired in" tropes and behavior modalities. See -The Blank Slate- by Steven Pinker for more on that.

Rand, if I understand her correctly, insisted that man is the only advanced mammal -without- instincts. It just ain't so. It may be true that Man is not -ruled- by instinct, but we do have them and we occasionally overcome them with effort and training. If you grant Evolution, as it currently is, then Man differs from his cousins on the evolution tree sometimes only in degree and at other times by kind. We are not totally sundered from those species with whom we share 95+ percent of our genes. To put a point on it, I belief Rand did not like the theory of evolution for some of the same reasons that the religious folk of Britain had when they objected to Darwin's thesis. She did not believe Heroic Man was a Great Ape's cousin.

Ba'al Chatzaf (Chutzpah Guy).

[Brant Gaede]

Robert, did you get some of your numbers mixed up, like 1 for 2?

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Robert Campbell, on Apr 16 2007, 09:46 AM, said:

Dragonfly's suggestion, that Rand's rejection of theism was partly religious in its motivation (man ought to be the object of worship, not god), strikes me as plausible. If correct, it would shed further light on Rand's insistence that human beings ought to strive for moral perfection.

Whatever the reasons for Rand's wanting to keep evolution at arm's length, its legacy is a weird disconnect about evolution out in some neighborhoods of Rand-land. When presented with "intelligent design," an ARI acolyte will insist that biological evolution is incontrovertible scientific fact and that "intelligent design" advocates are the sheerest of theological obscurantists. Yet, when asked whether evolution has any relevance to metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics, the ARI acolyte, quoting Dr. Peikoff, will insist that evolution is forever outside the scope of philosophy. And when questions are raised as to why Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, well... we know what happened to Neil Parille when he ventured into that territory a while back.

Robert Campbell

I don't know what happened to Neil Parille. Was it on RoR? SOLO? Could someone give a link to the thread?

However, I know what happened to me a couple times (basically I was ignored -- I didn't then push the issue, just dropped out of the conversation) when I commented on how much it surprises me to see Objectivists touting Dawkins -- they tout him especially for his The God Delusion but some of them praise his The Blind Watchmaker and even The Selfish Gene too -- while apparently not realizing how BIG the disconnect is between Dawkins --any Darwinian evolutionist's -- views on the nature of man and Objectivism's views.

Bob wrote:

Quote

To put a point on it, I belief Rand did not like the theory of evolution for some of the same reasons that the religious folk of Britain had when they objected to Darwin's thesis. She did not believe Heroic Man was a Great Ape's cousin.

That says in a pungent way just what I think her problem with evolution was. She saw "an enormous gulf" between man and the other animals (see her Ayn Rand Letter on "The Anti-Conceptual Mentality"); the theory of evolution entails that there isn't anywhere near so enormous a gulf as she saw. I doubt that she had familiarity with details of the theory. I don't know if she ever even read a book by an evolutionist. And there is the question what she was taught in Russia, and what her views were, maybe mixed up, about Spencer and his place in evolutionary theory -- even about what he was saying. But my bet is that, at the most basic level, she sensed that evolutionary theory doesn't provide the mental disjunct (the disjunct in how cognitive processes work) between man and other animals which she thought existed.

Ellen

PS: Robert, you did miswrite in saying: "Definitely not (1)." You meant "Definitely not (2)."

___

This post has been edited by Ellen Stuttle: 16 April 2007 - 12:18 PM

[Robert Campbell]

Brant and Ellen, thank you for the editorial advice. I should have followed Martin's possibilities in their original order, instead of trying to work from the least compatible with Aristotle's worldview to the most.

Neil Parille put an essay about Rand and evolution on the old SOLOHQ:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Parill...Evolution.shtml

Neil's essay was subsequently blasted by Don Watkins (in a blog entry no longer available on the Web) for having the temerity to suggest that Ayn Rand was irrational and dishonest.

Whereupon Diana Hsieh tried to outdo Mr. Watkins by writing off the entire content of Neil's essay as a series of arbitrary assertions:

http://www.dianahsie...oning-well.html

When I was still foolish enough to venture into SOLOP, I wrote about the entire mess here:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/798

One correction that I see is necessary: I said in the SOLOP entry that Mortimer Adler's book was recommended during the NBI days. In fact, it was recommended by Nathaniel Branden when he operated Academic Associates. However, I doubt that his thinking about human evolution had changed much in between.

Robert Campbell

PS. During none of the hullabaloo over Neil's essay did a single one of his critics ever comment on Rand's speculation that there are "missing links" among us.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert Campbell, on Apr 16 2007, 04:56 PM, said:

Neil's essay was subsequently blasted by Don Watkins (in a blog entry no longer available on the Web) for having the temerity to suggest that Ayn Rand was irrational and dishonest.

Robert,

I found it here.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

Thank you for linking to an archived version of Watkins.

I'm amused to see that the second comment on his old blog page refers to Adler's book.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Robert Campbell, on Apr 16 2007, 02:56 PM, said:

One correction that I see is necessary: I said in the SOLOP entry that Mortimer Adler's book was recommended during the NBI days. In fact, it was recommended by Nathaniel Branden when he operated Academic Associates. However, I doubt that his thinking about human evolution had changed much in between

Are you sure it wasn't recommended during the NBI days? I've somehow remembered it as having been recommended then.

Thanks, Robert, for the thread links, and, MSK, for the Watkins blog link. I'll try to get a chance to read the material in the next few days.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to weigh in here with a quote from Barbara Branden from The Passion of Ayn Rand on the is/ought problem (pp. 265-266). I found Barbara's terminology to be extremely precise.

Barbara Branden said:

When she began writing Galt's speech, Ayn thought that the purely conceptual planning had been done, that she knew precisely the issue she would cover. But she found that new thinking was required and new ideas have to be included. The most notable was her theory of the origin of values, to which she had given only cursory consideration before. The statement of that theory was one of Ayn's outstanding intellectual achievements; in a few paragraphs in a novel, she took a major step toward solving the problem that has haunted philosophers since the time of Aristotle and Plato: the relationship of "ought" to "is"—the question of in what manner moral values can be derived from facts.

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence are nonexistence—and that pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms," she wrote. "The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. . . . It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. . . . Man has no automatic course of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives, by means of volitional choice. . . . Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative is nature offers him is: rational being for suicidal animal. . . . A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

Notice that Barbara stated the issue correctly. She did not state that "ought" is deducted from "is" as a stand-alone proposition. She mentioned "the relationship of 'ought' to 'is'—the question of in what manner moral values can be derived from facts." (My emphasis.) And, of course, the manner is to establish the standard of life and death as a fundamental metaphysical choice open to a human being and include it as a conditional part ("if one wants to live, one ought to do X with Y because the nature of both in such action produces that result.")

I was very pleased to find this.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen,

Adler's book may well have been verbally recommended in the NBI days, sold by NBI book service, etc. I just haven't found confirmation of that in print. Academic Associates printed NB's review of the book.

Robert Campbell

[Stephen Boydstun]

Robert wrote in #66: "I also wonder what Rand's early exposure to 'social Darwinism' was like (and whether it took place before she arrived in the US). She hated Herbert Spencer's ideas (on the basis of what acquaintance I don't know). How did she think Spencer's theories related to more modern evolutionary conceptions?"

Readers might like to see what Ronald Merrill had to say on this in his final essay "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique" in Objectivity V2N5, which is available at Objectivity Archive: www.objectivity-archive.com

Consider, too, which works of Nietzsche Rand read when and consider what Fritz wrote in those works concerning biological evolution and Social Darwinism.

This post has been edited by Stephen Boydstun: 19 April 2007 - 12:54 PM

[Ellen Stuttle]

Stephen Boydstun, on Apr 19 2007, 02:21 PM, said:

Readers might like to see what Ronald Merrill had to say [...] in his final essay "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique" in Objectivity V2N5, which is available at Objectivity Archive: www.objectivity-archive.com

I've been reading that article, in the hard-copy version. I'm about halfway through. For a good short synopsis of the status and background of intellectual opinion in the first half of the 20th century on the issue of human nature, see pp. 71 - 77 (1st para.), Sections III, IV, and the start of V. Merrill describes the development and then dominance of the idea that with humans cultural evolution had superceded biological evolution, the viewpoint which Steven Pinker, in a pungent phrase I find amusingly apt, has characterized as "the we in the machine."

I was thinking a couple days ago -- and Merrill's synopsis doubly confirms the thought -- that some of the critiquing of Rand which has been voiced in the discussions here is anachronistic. Although I continue to be of the opinion -- which I've held since early in my acquaintance with Objectivism -- that there's an extent to which Rand's lack of interest in Darwinian theory is odd, she wasn't far out of keeping with the prevailing intellectual trends of her day in viewing humans as having broken with the course of natural selection. The leading schools of thought in sociology, anthropology, and psychology as well, also had this viewpoint on human nature. Where Rand differed from prevailing theories was in being non-determinist, but not in being predominantly non-nativist.

Cricticisms of her for not having been aware of selfish-gene theory -- and of evolutionary psychology -- are especially anachronistic. Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The first edition of Dawkins' popular-market work The Selfish Gene wasn't published until 1976. Wilson's Sociobiology, which brought to the attention of the wider intellectual world the type of approach to human behavior now more often called "evolutionary psychology," was published in 1975. The last chapter of the book -- a tome of a book -- talks about human behavior. That chapter is terribly simplistically written; others have done a much better job of the basic approach since. The book caused a huge flap; there was intense warring between environmental determinists, a number of them of Marxist persuasion, and Wilson and others. But I don't know if Rand ever even heard of any of that. By 1975 she'd had her operation for lung cancer, and her husband was in need of chronic care. The commotion occurring in biological thought was going on much too late to have an effect on her basic views about human nature.


Ellen

___

[Stephen Boydstun]

Hi Ellen,

In his essay, Ronald Merrill argued that Rand's conception of life was not entirely correct and that her ethical theory based on the concept of life therefore stood in need of renovations. He indicated some areas where he expected revisions and extensions would be necessary in Rand's ethical system in order for it to be fully attuned to modern biology. He had not yet formulated specifically what those revisions and extensions ought to be.

In the Remarks section in V2N6 of Objectivity (the issue of Objectivity following the one in which Ron's essay had been published) there were two responses to his essay: one from Phil Coates and one from Marsha Enright. Ron had died before seeing them.

My "True Searcher" piece opening that Remarks section was a remembrance of Ron through our exchanges. We had never met, but as with most of my writers, we had a substantial correspondence concerning essays submitted for publication in Objectivity. I recounted some of that correspondence, including some of our correspondence concerning his "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique."

Here is that portion from "True Searcher."

Quote

In May 1997, Ron sent me his "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique." This elicited a seven-page letter, and enclosures, from the Editor and a six-page letter from the Assistant Editor. Let it not be said that Ronald Merrill's ideas were not stimulating. There was one important criticism that he did not address in his revision of the article, but which he hoped to broach in future work.

I had commented that revision of Rand's definition of life to include reproduction could well have profound implications for her basic theory of value. If reproduction is an essential, fundamental part of the philosopher's definition of life, if reproduction is on a par with survival, if reproduction is as much the standard of value as survival of the organism is the standard of value, what becomes of the proposition that every man is an end in himself? What becomes of egoism? Should not interests other than the individual's---interests of the family or the population or other biological systems beyond the individual organism---then be appropriate moral criteria, perhaps alongside self-interest?

Ron had hoped to address this line of questioning in a future article or series of articles in Objectivity. To that end, he proposed to dig further into contemporary biology and to issue in the end a revised egoism, one explicitly harmonizing organism and gene, survival and reproduction.

In autumn 1997, . . . [Ron wrote to me] "My next project will be the paper on reproduction and Objectivist ethics. (Tentative title: 'Reproduction and Egoism'.) To my mind, this will mean examining, at a deeper level of rigor than is usually adopted, Rand's metaethical argument. Already I am beginning to see that a key issue will be her parable of the 'indestructible robot'." He evidently did not then know that the cancer he had fought for nine years was making its final assault. Who will take up Ron's unfinished work in basic ethical theory?

I am pleased to say that another of the Objectivity writers, Kathleen Touchstone, has risen to that challenge. Her answer is set out in her mighty tome Then Athena Said (2006).

Stephen

[neale]

Daniel Barnes, on Mar 29 2007, 11:33 AM, said:

Michael:
>"Come on. Everyone knows there are cases where 1+1=3."[/indent]
After receiving the traditional "ridiculous," etc., I was challenged to provide one case where this was true. I replied:"Sex."

But this is a perfectly reasonable objection, at least prima facie, and one made by Popper himself against deductive logic,you willl be happy to know. Another one is putting 5 drops of water in a test tube, which makes 1+1+1+1+1=1!

But these do not in themselves invalidate logic. (arguments are required as well as examples) They only demonstrate that even logic itself - at least in the mathematical sense - is open to question and challenge.

But this is all quite beside the point.

Deductive logic is the rules for making valid inferences between statements. It's like the rules of a game, though obviously far more important, and like other human rule-bound games it has been subject to millenia of refinement to the point where, while not perfect, it's still damn useful. Now, using the game analogy, Hume is playing chess. Hume's problem is a chess problem. I have been talking about chess. The "other philosophers" Rand mentions are talking about chess. Now chess is not an "absolute." But I fail to see a. how Victor's solution succeeds as chess or b. why it would be any better if, as you suggest below, he is actually playing Scrabble!


>Well, that's that. Aristotelean logic is deductive logic. Period. There is no sense in arguing about it. Everyone is forced to agree on this point because it is that way by Aristotle's own definition. (Aside to Victor: Please take note of this. This is really, really important when discussing logic with someone philosophically knowledgeable outside of Objectivism.)But there is a little devil in these details, and it applies directly to Hume's problem and to the "man qua man" thingie that is driving this thread (going on the premise that it is OK to apply Aristotelean logic for both sides). The devilish little detail is the phrase "things supposed" or "premise." You see, deductive logic starts from a position of prior knowledge.

Yes, that is why even logic is not an absolute. But we have to agree we are playing chess, not Scrabble! And if we are playing chess, we have to play by the rules.

>There is another thing. Deductive logic needs at least two premises ("things supposed") in order to operate correctly....So with Hume's problem of deriving "ought" from "is," but excluding the reality of the agent, you are committing two errors within the methodology of deductive logic alone:

Not necessarily. You can introduce as many factual premises as you like. But at any rate, all you are saying here is that you can't logically derive an "ought" from an "is"!

I agree! Hume agrees! Victor doesn't! Rand doesn't! It seems apparent from her claim(ie from the fact that man is determines what he ought to do) she thinks she's solved it. She doesn't merely "dismiss" it as unsolveable.

>The point is that when you both use the term "logic," there is this fundamental difference that leads you to talk past each other. Both agree that the deductive logic part is included, but the Objectivist view adds something to it. It includes induction as a starting point, a premise of deduction so to speak, whereas your definition does not.

Look,we are not talking past each other. We are trying to solve a famous chess problem, if you like, and what is the point of considering an argument which so vague it might quite possibly be talking about Scrabble?(it is clearly incorrect as chess!) Plus, making an observation is not "induction". Let's get clear on that. Induction is a separate theory of truth from deduction. Induction is the attempt to predict the future based on past occurences.

-Addition by Neale- Provided that relevant condition are the same in both past and future occurrences.

Daniel Barnes, on Mar 29 2007, 11:33 AM, said:

And the problem is exactly that you can't have both! Induction is deductively false. The two methods clash. You can't just wave your hand and say it's magically "included". It's actually an either/or.

This is problem of induction: that you can't have your cake and eat it too!

>Yet the system of deductive reasoning allows for 2+2=4 only. So in order to align your observations with this kind of reasoning, you get 2+2=7,577.0387. And that sucks. Something has to give.

All that is required is not for logic to be some perfect method of knowing reality - it is not - but for people who want to use logic to, by the same token, have the strength to accept its conclusions, even when they conflict with their most dearly held beliefs.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neale,

Welcome to OL!

I admire anyone who tries to use the quote function at the start. Now to get the details right, I suggest looking at the following tutorial (it takes about 5 minutes): Quote Feature.

I will try to fix your post so you can look at the difference.

Michael