The ultimate ethical dilemma

[anthony]

Where's the "thinking error"?

The basic thinking error lies in equating the rational with the moral, and the irrational with the immoral.

By those archaic religious premises, maybe. Which instantly contradicts truthful thought.

But you repeat yourself without any fresh argument - please offer an alternative morality, in depth.

Morality by instinct? Even more archaic and primitive, and certainly anti-reason.

Morality by collectivism? Most archaic, and anti-individual.

[Leonid]

Personal ethical preferences simply mean a subjective morality.Your objection implies that morality is a matter of opinion and there is no difference between Ayn Rand and Stalin. Both represent disputed untruths.

Speaking of an individual's "personal ethical preferences", was a statement of fact. It says nothing about how this person came to develop these specific values, and what kind of values they are. Nor does it sugggest that one set of values is just as good (or bad) as the other because they are just personal opinions.

The actual task would be to examine the person's arguments re the moral values he/she has chosen.

Sometimes such an examination requires a stomach of pathologist who often performs an autopsy. More importantly , it requires a certain standard of values, the same undisputed truth which you oppose. Without it how would you know to evaluate the result? A rational morality is the one which based on objective foundation, It pertains to the human nature by recognizing the man's life as standard of value. The way to sustain such a life is a rational conduct. Therefore ethical system which is based on any other subjective, irrational or arbitrary premises would anti-life and immoral. The moment you identified the basic moral premise, its standard of value, you examination is completed.

[Brant Gaede]

The rational is moral because . . .

The irrational is immoral if . . .

The irrational is moral if . . .

Each statement is both true and incomplete--or true as far as they go.

It should be easy enough to complete the first sentence. Objectivists have been doing that for decades.

I know of two or three true inclusive completions for the last sentence.

--Brant

If--you'll be a man my son (If you go get that woman and drag her back to your cave [it's the rational irrational thing to do])

[Leonid]

Brant "If--you'll be a man my son (If you go get that woman and drag her back to your cave [it's the rational irrational thing to do])"

In case you forgot, we don't live in caves anymore and these half-animals who did hadn't had any ethical systems. The truth is that many of them don't have it even today. Otherwise how you explain the scourge of rape?

[Brant Gaede]

Brant "If--you'll be a man my son (If you go get that woman and drag her back to your cave [it's the rational irrational thing to do])"

In case you forgot, we don't live in caves anymore and these half-animals who did hadn't had any ethical systems. The truth is that many of them don't have it even today. Otherwise how you explain the scourge of rape?

Well, if you want to have this discussion, it could be tribal or family sanction. There are other reasons including that lack of a good moral and ethical system, female vulnerability because of relative size and lack of male protection, some women's refusal to arm themselves. I've read that the comparative lack of rape in Hong Kong is lack of places for rapists to rape. This might be true. Etc. My metaphorical attempt at humor doesn't necessarily encompass rape any more than sex necessarily does or marriage does. "Drag her back" could be successful courtship and "cave" a modern house.

--Brant

I do admit my comment came out of a 1950s' and 60s' sexist context I grew up in with common caveman cartoons of a guy with a club dragging a woman by her hair, which isn't funny any more if it ever was, so I shouldn't have made it, but there was no intention of sanctioning use of force and rape

[anthony]

If it comes right down to it, there are two things a person needs in abundance to live any sort of reasonable life: certainty and sustainability. A rational mind is all we have to gain those. Else, we're blowing in the wind.

Instincts, emotions - what's the problem? Often life enhancing - we choose when and where to give them free rein - but destructive without rationality to set the limits.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I do admit my comment came out of a 1950s' and 60s' sexist context I grew up in with common caveman cartoons of a guy with a club dragging a woman by her hair, which isn't funny any more if it ever was...

Brant,

It's still funny.

Michael

-- Fellow sinner from the same culture...

[Xray]

Where's the "thinking error"?

The basic thinking error lies in equating the rational with the moral, and the irrational with the immoral.

By those archaic religious premises, maybe. Which instantly contradicts truthful thought.

But you repeat yourself without any fresh argument - please offer an alternative morality, in depth.

Morality by instinct? Even more archaic and primitive, and certainly anti-reason.

Morality by collectivism? Most archaic, and anti-individual.

Of course rationality should play a role when it comes to working out a sensible code of ethics.

For example, it would be irrational to believe that oppressing people via a rigid moral code is going to work in the long run.

Irrational is a cognitive category referring to the failure to assess reality.

It is true that a 'moral code' which is downright unethical always has an element of irrationality to it.

But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral.

[anthony]

Xray, You're not going to accept this as long as you see morality as "Outside-In"

Judgmentalism.

That what God 'judges', or the people 'think' of one, IS morality.

One has to subtract all previous notions of moral/immoral to look at this justly. Divorce deity

and religion, and the gaze of Society from the equation - and start over from scratch, I suggest.

Start with what is 'good' for a single organism, and what's 'bad'. That it wields its strongest

attributes to exist, or places reliance on its weakest- or non-attributes?

Assuming it has volition, what is the worst it can do to itself?( i.e. "sinful" - immoral, Objectively)

Perhaps, that it doesn't live in accord with its strongest attributes, its own nature - and the nature of existence?

So dies, metaphysically, or physically.

In the grand scheme of things, does it matter that it perishes? Nobody's watching, anyway.

"Immorality", beyond any other consideration, is primarily then what an individual commits on himself - by ignoring or undermining his reason. Ultimately it is not anyone else's judgment on him that matters. God doesn't exist, and a 'collective opinion' does not count, since it is a contradiction in terms. Unless or until his irrationality/immorality harms or intervenes on some other person's life, one's morality is self-focused, selfish.

[Leonid]

Brant "If--you'll be a man my son (If you go get that woman and drag her back to your cave [it's the rational irrational thing to do])"

In case you forgot, we don't live in caves anymore and these half-animals who did hadn't had any ethical systems. The truth is that many of them don't have it even today. Otherwise how you explain the scourge of rape?

Well, if you want to have this discussion, it could be tribal or family sanction. There are other reasons including that lack of a good moral and ethical system, female vulnerability because of relative size and lack of male protection, some women's refusal to arm themselves. I've read that the comparative lack of rape in Hong Kong is lack of places for rapists to rape. This might be true. Etc. My metaphorical attempt at humor doesn't necessarily encompass rape any more than sex necessarily does or marriage does. "Drag her back" could be successful courtship and "cave" a modern house.

--Brant

I do admit my comment came out of a 1950s' and 60s' sexist context I grew up in with common caveman cartoons of a guy with a club dragging a woman by her hair, which isn't funny any more if it ever was, so I shouldn't have made it, but there was no intention of sanctioning use of force and rape

Even In prehistorical context "Drag her back" is a wrong perception. There was a matriarchal society in caves ,women ruled and choose their mates. A rape is a typical product of patriarchate which viewed a woman as a property.

[Leonid]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

[anthony]

Xray, You're not going to accept this as long as you see morality as "Outside-In"

Judgmentalism.

[...]

"Immorality", beyond any other consideration, is primarily then what an individual commits on himself - by ignoring or undermining his reason. Ultimately it is not anyone else's judgment on him that matters. God doesn't exist, and a 'collective opinion' does not count, since it is a contradiction in terms. Unless or until his irrationality/immorality harms or intervenes on some other person's life, one's morality is self-focused, selfish.

Quoting oneself feels quite self-important!

What I guess I was getting at - in reply to Xray's basic, and reasonable if very conventional,

contention, that a code should be partly based on rationality, to be moral, but that it does not follow that it is immoral when irrational.

(And in a belated, and much calmer response to MSK....)

- is in answer to what I believe is the underlying premise: What doesn't pertain to reality is irrational, and therefore, immoral.

However, not only in regard to oneself.

Of course it is possible to commit immorality against another person!!

But, I think, it's preceded by immorality ( irrationality) within and toward one's self, firstly.

It's a consequence, not a primary as I see it. Albeit, a potentially harmful and directly damaging

consequence to them.

I'm sure that this area involves over-lapping circles, not mutual exclusivity.

If there could be one single unofficial 'commandment' to live by (as egoist) it may be this -

"Do not deny unto others that which one assumes and asserts unto oneself."

Which is their (and your) relationship with reality through reason - but no further "duty" than that.

(And so doing, not blocking their purposeful rationality that culminates in their just rewards of reality.)

The two ways one can interpose in others' reality - 1. By physical force, and so force against

their sovereign mind. 2. Dishonesty, deliberate untruth, or cheating.their consciousness.

These are born out - as the basic social principle - by Rand's assertion that "just as life

is an end in in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself..."

and: "Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value - and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man."'

[VOS]

And by her statement (don't remember where):

"The only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to

create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational,

and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim."

(And in other places, mostly implicitly, or represented in her fiction.)

We each live among people, and I do think she could have been more explicit on this business of

the egoist morality vis-a-vis 'other people' , and the critical cross over with various moralities and

mixed moralities...

but the principles and some clues are there, and we have to extrapolate it for ourselves, in the end. It shouldn't be a problem - a volitional relationship with other individuals answers the greater portion of the over-lapped circles.

[Brant Gaede]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

Moral or immoral is a judgment. Some judgments are automatic--no thought--and some aren't. If in time of stress I pray to God for relief, belief in His succor is irrational(?), therefore so too the praying(?), but the action can be both moral and correct. All thinking has a metaphysical component even if the thinking itself has no real existential referent, because the thinking exists while it is going on. We can say, not necessarily correctly, that there is no such thing as an irrational action because if you think your irrationality is rational and true it would be rational to act accordingly. An altruistic action would be to know a belief is irrational then conforming your action to the belief. While I suppose that's possible, I don't suppose that's all inclusive--or the contrary. That's my criticism of your criticism. This is only the "all swans are white" fallacy. Your question needs no answer for it's implicit assumption is not only are there no examples which you demand but that there never will be. That's unknowable, however, any semantics aside.

--Brant

[Leonid]

So, your example is a prayer. If we agree that moral is everything which promotes, enhances and better human life then can you show how prayer can achieve all that? Can prayer give you a knowledge, wealth, safe you when you stay in the front of running truck, heal you wounds, promote you on corporate ladder, make you business a success, give you a true love or self-esteem? Can prayer cure one's child from leukemia? If it could, than why people do anything else except praying? Even if your standard of value is subjective, to achieve it you still have to take a rational action, that is-driven by reason and logic. You could be a good altruist if you distribute your wealth to others, not collecting it from others to yourself.

[Xray]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

For example, to some people who have lost loved ones in a terrbible tragedy, the hope they might be with god now may be irrational, but can still give them comfort, and even strength to carry on with their lives.

Or a more mundane example: each time I pack my suitcases for a trip, it is the same: I pack way too much stuff I won't need, my way of packing is pretty irrational, one could say. But it is no immoral action. Nor is the consequence 'bad'. I just squeezed in too much stuff, that's all.

I could list many more examples.

What speaks against dropping the "irrational = immoral" equation? This still would leave enough for rationality, without the rigidity of judging every irrational act as immoral.

Aside from that - frankly, what's so bad about some irrational 'whims' to enjoy now and then? Isn't it often those whims that add pizzazz and fun to life?

[Brant Gaede]

So, your example is a prayer. If we agree that moral is everything which promotes, enhances and better human life then can you show how prayer can achieve all that? Can prayer give you a knowledge, wealth, safe you when you stay in the front of running truck, heal you wounds, promote you on corporate ladder, make you business a success, give you a true love or self-esteem? Can prayer cure one's child from leukemia? If it could, than why people do anything else except praying? Even if your standard of value is subjective, to achieve it you still have to take a rational action, that is-driven by reason and logic. You could be a good altruist if you distribute your wealth to others, not collecting it from others to yourself.

If you don't answer my post--I thought I answered yours--you can't expect another reply from me. My post was about a fallacy you are embracing and which X-ray and I eschew. Once the fallacy is rent out so too is your question, replaced, I hope, with another, better, question or observation. You are merely saying, "Here are some more white swans." I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you that they are white or swans. I have no especial reason to care.

--Brant

did you note my question marks: "(?)"?

[anthony]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

For example, to some people who have lost loved ones in a terrbible tragedy, the hope they might be with god now may be irrational, but can still give them comfort, and even strength to carry on with their lives.

Or a more mundane example: each time I pack my suitcases for a trip, it is the same: I pack way too much stuff I won't need, my way of packing is pretty irrational, one could say. But it is no immoral action. Nor is the consequence 'bad'. I just squeezed in too much stuff, that's all.

I could list many more examples.

What speaks against dropping the "irrational = immoral" equation? This still would leave enough for rationality, without the rigidity of judging every irrational act as immoral.

Aside from that - frankly, what's so bad about some irrational 'whims' to enjoy now and then? Isn't it often those whims that add pizzazz and fun to life?

It might be rational to continue packing too much.

It might be rational to console someone while not negating their supernatural beliefs.

It might be rational to get drunk and dance on the table.

We've been here before, and you still won''t get what rational is. I've never known a skeptic

who will.

It's not left-brain right-brain. it's not (just) simple empirical logic. Context, hierarchy, volition, consciousness, percepts, induction and concepts: Emotions. It's all of you meeting all of existence.

[BaalChatzaf]

You are presented with two buttons. If you press the red button, someone close to you dies. If you push the blue button, a random person dies. If you press neither within a certain amount of time both die. What to do?

My reaction might be to let the timer run out, because I cannot knowingly condemn someone to death by my actions. If someone did opt to press the red button, I would not blame them, but I might not call it ethical.

Sophie's Choice.

If the opportunity presents itself, I would kill the bastard who imposed that choice on me.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Leonid]

So, your example is a prayer. If we agree that moral is everything which promotes, enhances and better human life then can you show how prayer can achieve all that? Can prayer give you a knowledge, wealth, safe you when you stay in the front of running truck, heal you wounds, promote you on corporate ladder, make you business a success, give you a true love or self-esteem? Can prayer cure one's child from leukemia? If it could, than why people do anything else except praying? Even if your standard of value is subjective, to achieve it you still have to take a rational action, that is-driven by reason and logic. You could be a good altruist if you distribute your wealth to others, not collecting it from others to yourself.

If you don't answer my post--I thought I answered yours--you can't expect another reply from me. My post was about a fallacy you are embracing and which X-ray and I eschew. Once the fallacy is rent out so too is your question, replaced, I hope, with another, better, question or observation. You are merely saying, "Here are some more white swans." I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you that they are white or swans. I have no especial reason to care.

--Brant

did you note my question marks: "(?)"?

I just asked to show me the black swan. That's all. Give me one example of irrational moral action. However, I don't think you can. Unlike black swans such an action would a contradiction in terms.

[Leonid]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

For example, to some people who have lost loved ones in a terrbible tragedy, the hope they might be with god now may be irrational, but can still give them comfort, and even strength to carry on with their lives.

Or a more mundane example: each time I pack my suitcases for a trip, it is the same: I pack way too much stuff I won't need, my way of packing is pretty irrational, one could say. But it is no immoral action. Nor is the consequence 'bad'. I just squeezed in too much stuff, that's all.

I could list many more examples.

What speaks against dropping the "irrational = immoral" equation? This still would leave enough for rationality, without the rigidity of judging every irrational act as immoral.

Aside from that - frankly, what's so bad about some irrational 'whims' to enjoy now and then? Isn't it often those whims that add pizzazz and fun to life?

A belief is not an action. The trust in God will not bring the loved one back. Packing for trip too much is hardly irrational, but big excess of things you packed may make your trip very uncomfortable. The fact is you are complaining about this proves that it's bad for you.

[syrakusos]

A short time ago, in a galaxy pretty darned close, I wrote:

You are walking down the street and a giant radioactive octupus bursts through the pavement and in one tentacle, he has the President of the United States and in another 50 school children and in a third your wife and in a fourth tickets to the World Series and in the fifth a white flag of surrender and in the sixth an atomic bomb and in the seventh and eighth he is juggling back and forth the rights to Ayn Rand's Estate. You are armed with a semi-automatic rocket-launcher, a crossbow, a morningstar, a 9-mm Glock, an Uzi, a syllogism, and a large bucket of fresh oysters. Before you can react, Kofi Annan arrives on the scene, dressed like an octopus, but unknown to you, really is an octopus dressed like a man dressed like an octopus. You decide to kill him with the Glock but between the time you pull the trigger and the time the bullet arrives, you realize that it really a kind of quantum gravitation lens image mirage, and you have really shot yourself. In desparation, you turn to the octopus and offer him anything he wants to save your life. But, the octopus replies that saving your life would not be in his best interests because he loves your wife.

Now, I know we have discussed this before, but this time, I want to consider an alternative to the usual reponse most Objectivists give to this problem. Therefore, would it make a difference, if you could substitute anyone else for Kofi Annan?

You see the dilemma, of course.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0890.shtml

[syrakusos]

"The Argument from Arbitrary Metaphysics" by Stuart Hayashi on Objectivist Living's "Chewing on Ideas" here;

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4957

[Brant Gaede]

A short time ago, in a galaxy pretty darned close, I wrote:

You are walking down the street and a giant radioactive octupus bursts through the pavement and in one tentacle, he has the President of the United States and in another 50 school children and in a third your wife and in a fourth tickets to the World Series and in the fifth a white flag of surrender and in the sixth an atomic bomb and in the seventh and eighth he is juggling back and forth the rights to Ayn Rand's Estate. You are armed with a semi-automatic rocket-launcher, a crossbow, a morningstar, a 9-mm Glock, an Uzi, a syllogism, and a large bucket of fresh oysters. Before you can react, Kofi Annan arrives on the scene, dressed like an octopus, but unknown to you, really is an octopus dressed like a man dressed like an octopus. You decide to kill him with the Glock but between the time you pull the trigger and the time the bullet arrives, you realize that it really a kind of quantum gravitation lens image mirage, and you have really shot yourself. In desparation, you turn to the octopus and offer him anything he wants to save your life. But, the octopus replies that saving your life would not be in his best interests because he loves your wife.

Now, I know we have discussed this before, but this time, I want to consider an alternative to the usual reponse most Objectivists give to this problem. Therefore, would it make a difference, if you could substitute anyone else for Kofi Annan?

You see the dilemma, of course.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0890.shtml

I could hardly stop laughing.

--Brant

I'll have to upgrade from one-liners to stay in the game

[anthony]

X-ray wrote "But the reverse does not apply: for irrational beliefs and actions are not automatically immoral."

Give one example of irrational action which wouldn't be immoral, that is- bad to the perpetrator or to other people in the short or long range.

For example, to some people who have lost loved ones in a terrbible tragedy, the hope they might be with god now may be irrational, but can still give them comfort, and even strength to carry on with their lives.

Or a more mundane example: each time I pack my suitcases for a trip, it is the same: I pack way too much stuff I won't need, my way of packing is pretty irrational, one could say. But it is no immoral action. Nor is the consequence 'bad'. I just squeezed in too much stuff, that's all.

I could list many more examples.

What speaks against dropping the "irrational = immoral" equation? This still would leave enough for rationality, without the rigidity of judging every irrational act as immoral.

Aside from that - frankly, what's so bad about some irrational 'whims' to enjoy now and then? Isn't it often those whims that add pizzazz and fun to life?

A belief is not an action. The trust in God will not bring the loved one back. Packing for trip too much is hardly irrational, but big excess of things you packed may make your trip very uncomfortable. The fact is you are complaining about this proves that it's bad for you.

Leon,

I must stand up in support of inveterate 'over-packers' everywhere!!

It might be that Xray packs an evening gown and full make up, on the smallish

possibility of being invited to an Opera. It may be that I over-pack because

there's a possibility I like the place so much, I extend my trip, which has

happened. These aren't illogical.

I'm getting at your point of anything remotely illogical (I think this is more

the preserve of the 'sensible' anyway) being bad for you. When they may only be "quirks" an eccentricity or a personality foible. Sure, one does/should look at the little things and examine one's premises. "An unexamined life..."etc.

(Eg. I came to a partial conclusion that I have a psychological need to take my home with me on travels; a need for security, perhaps.)

Once examined and recognized I can change my behavior. Again, maybe I won't

If it gives one a certain amount of benefit,comfort and security, it must surely

be rational, though not fully 'logical'.

There exist 100's of small things about one that are "illogical", but harmless.

Rationality, in my view, is all-encompassing of the complete human being, with

reason at his-her head. (Hmm.)

Or else this plays into Xray's Dichotomy of logic/emotion.

[Brant Gaede]

Women have been rationally acting irrationally for ages. Man smart, woman smarter!

--Brant