Rand's gender hierarchy

[Xray]

Can you give me some examples of people having "difficulty" in "understanding" what someone wrote?

You for example who wrote:

So the problems wars, death and destruction in the world are because of pool! Wow! Brilliant solve.

I owe you an apology, Selene - I thought you were able to abstract from the MUSIC MAN example and recognize my metaphoric use of "trouble in river city." My bad.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What does this mean "an individual life is an end in itself"? Does it mean we will all die one day?

GS,

Actually, this is part of it. Since an individual life has to die, everything it does is able to be measured by that standard. The individual life itself, so far as I am able to ascertain, has no other fundamental purpose than to exist.

Religion teaches otherwise. It usually claims that individual human life is a trial for placement in a later post-death existence, the purpose usually being some variation on "amusement of God." In this conception, all other individual life has the purpose of serving the pleasure and ends of human life. Even vicious animals are made so they can be put in zoos for human amusement, sort of like the earth for God.

There is one small crack in the end-in-itself view. That is reproduction of the species. But if you look at it closer, reproducing is not a capacity all living beings have. Those that don't have it exist until they die. That makes existing more universal (fundamental) than reproduction.

I have differences with the traditional Objectivist view of human nature, but not the "end in itself" part. Even if it becomes discovered later that there is a Creator, I have no way of looking at all of existence through those eyes. I only have human ones. So from my human perspective, I observe that the end of each individual life is to exist for a time. I have not observed any exception to this on a metaphysical level. In other words, a living being has no real reason it sprang into being on earth other than to live.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's the term "value" one has to focus on. A rosebush can't seek values, no matter what linguistic contortions Rand made with the term "value".

Xray,

This is very typical of your "argument by repetition and ignoring all facts" rhetoric.

Earlier it was stated that sunlight is a value to a plant and it acts by growing toward the sunlight it values.

If you can convince me with your own "linguistic contortions" that plants do not act like that and that sunlight is not good for plants, maybe I can take you seriously. But you can't and you won't stop parroting. I don't take parrots for generators of ideas.

This is also a place where you have been soundly refuted, yet later you ask for rebuttal as if it were not mentioned.

Reading and comprehension problem? Most likely...

I only respond to you for the sake of young readers who might imagine that there is no answer to your nonsense. You also present excellent examples of rhetorical water-muddying, so I can point those out, also. Your posts are excellent training for studying and recognizing how people deceive others intellectually.

Interestingly enough, I have yet to be convinced by a single argument of yours. On the contrary, you have shown clearly that your objections so far are due to personal opinion, context dropping, refusal to accept the meanings of an author when analyzing her own work, argument by repeating opinions and ignoring facts, outright misunderstanding of Objectivism, and on and on and on.

You mentioned when you came here you used to belong to a cult. They certainly trained you well in rhetorical camouflage.

Michael

[Xray]

"Individual human beings chose what we use violence for, when we use it and how do we live with its use after it is employed."

"xray wants all the animals to play nice on the Serengeti. She wants the lion to lay down with the lamb. She is a member of PETA."

"It fascinates me when European Socialists attempt to understand how sometimes a solid punch in the mouth stops a bully who has terrorized all the little castrated [yes, I picked that specific word for the essential de-masculization of the educational system you work for and represent] boys you turn out of your schools."

"this country which is the greatest country that ever existed on our planet"

"Let me ask you a question xray, would you breach a contract with Roark after he was acquitted?

I can accept a yes or no answer only. No modifying, changing or maybes are permitted.

Then after you answer that one, if you moved into my town and you were hungry so you were going to go into my orchard and pick fruit, go into the garden and pull up some veggies and snap the neck of one of my chickens and were going to squat under one of my shade trees and make a stew while eating an apple, but as you entered the grove, a skeleton was hanging from a tree with a sign on it stating:

Looters will be shot

You going to actualize that plan?"

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nGUq1LldU

Full steam ahead! Here comes Selene, the board's resident categorizer, trying to flatten once more with his moral steamroller all those choices he happens to disagree with. Look how he's fuming.

"Let me ask you a question xray, would you breach a contract with Roark after he was acquitted?

I can accept a yes or no answer only. No modifying, changing or maybes are permitted.

No.

[i'll leave it to you to figure out why]

Edited August 2, 2009 by Xray

[ginny]

Well, X-Ray, answering your question is probably not in my self-interest (will Robert Preston's hat fit me?). Can't resist, though. As for Bist Du Eine Jungfrau - wow, what a great double entendre pick up line. As for your Americanisms, they seem to lean toward Westerns. You a Karl May fan, by chance? Just curious.

Ginny

[tjohnson]

Actually, this is part of it. Since an individual life has to die, everything it does is able to be measured by that standard. The individual life itself, so far as I am able to ascertain, has no other fundamental purpose than to exist.

There are many levels here. At the cellular level we have chemical reactions that just occur - they have no purpose. But at the cortex level where firing neurons lead to certain actions then life may have other purposes than to simply exist. This is what differentiates intelligent life from the rest. Man can discover knowledge about our environment and pass it on from one generation to the next and this can help the survival of the whole species and this is something no other animal can do (in any significant way).

[Xray]

It's the term "value" one has to focus on. A rosebush can't seek values, no matter what linguistic contortions Rand made with the term "value".

Xray,

This is very typical of your "argument by repetition and ignoring all facts" rhetoric.

Earlier it was stated that sunlight is a value to a plant and it acts by growing toward the sunlight it values.

I'm merely thorough and look closely at what is said in the primary source.

To be able to value somethigs presupposes an entity capable of acting in the face of an alternative.

A plant can't choose not to seek sunlight, it is programmed that way. It has no alternative to act otherwise.

Rand expliticly points out that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible"

She's clear as a bell there. Per her own definition, plants can't value.

If you can convince me with your own "linguistic contortions" that plants do not act like that and that sunlight is not good for plants, maybe I can take you seriously.

The linguistic contortion comes from Rand. Please read the following excerpt form my prior post carefully (and I hope the non-posting readers you mentioned read it too, so let's leave it up to them to see who is contorting anything here).

Again, step by step:

Rand goes against her very own definition of "value" by offering examples blatantly contradicting the definition she gave.

Her definition of value is clear as a bell (rare from Rand, but she did get that right):

Quote

"Value" is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept "value" is

not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom

and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal

in the face of an alternative. (Rand)

Note how she stresses that where no alternative exists, no values are possible.

She mentions plants to illustrate her point:

Quote

there is no alternative in a plant's function (Rand)

No objection there. Perfectly consistent argumentation.

But lo and behold, although per Rand, no alternative exists in a plant's function, from which it follows that no values are possible, she states that plants can seek values:

"Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek." (Rand)

Bottom line: By using the word value in connection with plants, Rand is going against her own premises.

She speaks a lot about stolen concepts, but it looks like she stole her own concept here, applying it to situations where is illogical.

Was it mere mere sloppiness on her part? Certainly it was sloppy of her not to realize the contradiction.

Imo Rand's root mistake lies in her belief that she could set up a catolog of "moral values proper to man", to which "man" he would then adhere like plants adhere to their biological program. Imo THAT's why she snuck in the term "value" in connection with plants. She was bent on making her objective moral value program appear as watertight as natural law.

Edited August 3, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

You mentioned when you came here you used to belong to a cult. They certainly trained you well in rhetorical camouflage.

I mentioned -- WHAT??? A cult? I never belonged to any cult. (unless you decide to call the catholic church a cult. I was born and raised a catholic, which I mentioned; also, that I resigned my membership in that club long ago).

Even as a kid, I was skeptical of the dogmas told us; one of the few Bible figures I liked was the Doubting Thomas, who asked for proof.

I also spoke of having shed my faith and that I do not want to replace one Procrustes bed with another. For I always perceived the catholic church as a Procrustes bed, in which I happened to be put as an involuntary member via baptism.

Alas, some atheists are no less fanatical than theists. They may have shed their special god, but not the god principle.

If anyone is skeptical of cults, it is me, Michael.

So you must completely have misread my posts and to clear up this issue, please provide the posts where I allegedly said that I belong to a cult. (??)

Edited August 8, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Xray, Atheism is not part of the Objectivist philosophy although it may be a consequence. I was an atheist before I knew about Objectivism so it was not a consequence to me. The typical Objectivist will claim it is a part of the philosophy, but that's no more valid than saying the moon is not made of green cheese is a part of the philosophy.

Broadly speaking I wish Objectivism had been set up with a more individualistic orientation. I think Rand only gave lip service to individualism which accounts for her eschewing of libertarianism. In many ways she was an unacknowledged conservative who thought it more important to support Richard Nixon and Alan Greenspan's forays into Washington. The seduction of power is an awesome thing and the typical conservative sees himself as a powerful actor and influence on the political-economic stage. He does not blow it all off like the strikers in Atlas Shrugged. The fatal contradiction in AS is the strikers were going back into the world after the way was cleared but there wasn't anything to go back to. By going on strike in the first place seeking the consequence of a perfect world they accepted the statist premise of the supremacy of the state. Note they were going to set up another state with the Judge's tweaked US constitution. That made the whole enterprise a battle for political power. If that's your business don't hide it in the bushes. You don't celebrate individualism by having Francisco give up Dagny for a crusade. Now there is altruism for you! Even the artificial premise of human perfection can't give that notion any sense at all.

Rand championed the idea of the impotence of evil--that evil cannot survive or flourish except with the sanction of the virtuous victim. There is a lot of truth in that but there is no truth in human perfectibility any more than societal perfectibility. An ideal is something to be achieved by moving toward such while understanding you can never get there even under the most ideal of circumstances. You really wouldn't want to anyway. That'd be like achieving absolute zero: all motion would stop. A state of pure capitalism would soon get degraded as citizens involved forget why it was so valuable to begin with. If you don't fight for your freedom(s) you won't have any freedom muscles.

Because of free will all humans have potential for good or evil. The sanction of the victim concept is blind to the fact that pretending you yourself can and will do no conscious wrong makes one not see the wrong one actually does, usually to oneself. It is blind to free will in the morally perfect, someone like John Galt. Hence the lack of individualism in Objectivism as would be Objectivists display themselves as Galt moral facsimiles. It's like the old-time religion where one suddenly announces one has been "saved" with appropriate emotional ejaculations that fit the demanded-expected form.

--Brant

Edited August 2, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... please provide the posts where I allegedly sad that I belong to a cult. (??)

Xray,

It was within the universe of calling your particular Catholic upbringing something like a cult (although I searched for that word and did not find it). You mentioned if you were going to give you life over to a new philosophy, or something like that, you needed to make sure it didn't contain the bad elements of where you left. (Maybe my memory is just being generous...)

I remember thinking at the time that you are not supposed to give your life over to a body of thought and things along those lines, but I did not say anything because your errors about Rand's writing were so great, they needed correcting first. This was around the time when you were claiming that according to Rand a concept was not a category.

However, just now I was searching and searching and getting more and more bored because of all the twisted logic laced with snark you were presenting when you first arrived, then I came across this gem:

Categorizing a substance as "poison" in general is an arbitrary decision too.

So I gave up.

I am no longer interested.

I have to keep an eye on you because you are prolific and polluting my forum with this kind of crap, thus newcomers could get the wrong impression of what this forum is about, but I have no other interest.

Michael

[Selene]

Xray, Atheism is not part of the Objectivist philosophy although it may be a consequence. I was an atheist before I knew about Objectivism so it was not a consequence to me. The typical Objectivist will claim it is a part of the philosophy, but that's no more valid than saying the moon is not made of green cheese is a part of the philosophy.

Broadly speaking I wish Objectivism had been set up with a more individualistic orientation. I think Rand only gave lip service to individualism which accounts for her eschewing of libertarianism. In many ways she was an unacknowledged conservative who thought it more important to support Richard Nixon and Alan Greenspan's forays into Washington. The seduction of power is an awesome thing and the typical conservative sees himself as a powerful actor and influence on the political-economic stage. He does not blow it all off like the strikers in Atlas Shrugged. The fatal contradiction in AS is the strikers were going back into the world after the way was cleared but there wasn't anything to go back to. By going on strike in the first place seeking the consequence of a perfect world they accepted the statist premise of the supremacy of the state. Note they were going to set up another state with the Judge's tweaked US constitution. That made the whole enterprise a battle for political power. If that's your business don't hide it in the bushes. You don't celebrate individualism by having Francisco give up Dagny for a crusade. Now there is altruism for you! Even the artificial premise of human perfection can't give that notion any sense at all.

Rand championed the idea of the impotence of evil--that evil cannot survive or flourish except with the sanction of the virtuous victim. There is a lot of truth in that but there is no truth in human perfectibility any more than societal perfectibility. An ideal is something to be achieved by moving toward such while understanding you can never get there even under the most ideal of circumstances. You really wouldn't want to anyway. That'd be like achieving absolute zero: all motion would stop. A state of pure capitalism would soon get degraded as citizens involved forget why it was so valuable to begin with. If you don't fight for your freedom(s) you won't have any freedom muscles.

Because of free will all humans have potential for good or evil. The sanction of the victim concept is blind to the fact that pretending you yourself can and will do no conscious wrong makes one not see the wrong one actually does, usually to oneself. It is blind to free will in the morally perfect, someone like John Galt. Hence the lack of individualism in Objectivism as would be Objectivists display themselves as Galt moral facsimiles. It's like the old-time religion where one suddenly announces one has been "saved" with appropriate emotional ejaculations that fit the demanded-expected form.

--Brant

Thanks Brant - quite clear. It is one of the reasons that Ragnar was my favorite character. He fought for what he believed in. He had a family and he was an individualist who stood out amongst the Galtean herd.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

... please provide the posts where I allegedly sad that I belong to a cult. (??)

Xray,

It was within the universe of calling your particular Catholic upbringing something like a cult (although I searched for that word and did not find it). You mentioned if you were going to give you life over to a new philosophy, or something like that, you needed to make sure it didn't contain the bad elements of where you left. (Maybe my memory is just being generous...)

I remember thinking at the time that you are not supposed to give your life over to a body of thought and things along those lines, but I did not say anything because your errors about Rand's writing were so great, they needed correcting first. This was around the time when you were claiming that according to Rand a concept was not a category.

However, just now I was searching and searching and getting more and more bored because of all the twisted logic laced with snark you were presenting when you first arrived, then I came across this gem:

Categorizing a substance as "poison" in general is an arbitrary decision too.

So I gave up.

I am no longer interested.

I have to keep an eye on you because you are prolific and polluting my forum with this kind of crap, thus newcomers could get the wrong impression of what this forum is about, but I have no other interest.

Michael

Maybe you need a doghouse like on RofR.

As for poison many things ingestible can be a poison if the quantity can be adjusted high enough, water for instance. "The dose makes the poison" is a basic pharmacological principle. Of course, with some substances the dose is so low as to make the statement meaningless practically speaking. If a substance is classified as a poison based on quantity taken in then it's factual, not arbitrary. Take away the quantity and it is generally arbitrary. Take rat poison. Surgery patients are given it all the time. It's called coumadin. Take too much and you'll die of internal bleeding.

Reading Xray's post on poison reveals she is essentially confused on this subject for she would state that I'm still being "arbitrary." She's the one being arbitrary by not referring to secondary, distinctive attributes of something poisonous such as quantity or poisonous to what species. That is, if I simply state water is a poison that is an arbitrary classification. If I say concentrated mercury is a poison I'm not really being arbitrary with not using a specific quantity although science may demand it; "concentrated" is enough. One drop on your skin and spend the next six months dying.

--Brant

Edited August 2, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

It was within the universe of calling your particular Catholic upbringing something like a cult (although I searched for that word and did not find it). You mentioned if you were going to give you life over to a new philosophy, or something like that, you needed to make sure it didn't contain the bad elements of where you left. (Maybe my memory is just being generous...)

The very idea of "giving my life over to a new philosophy" is completely contradictory to my philosophy. I never said that. For surrendering mind goes against the grain of every value I hold.

I remember thinking at the time that you are not supposed to give your life over to a body of thought and things along those lines,

We are in complete agreement on this. See above.

This was around the time when you were claiming that according to Rand a concept was not a category.

I said that Rand used the word "concept" for what is actually "category".

A category is "a" concept; but concept is a general term with a far wider range. The idea of "non-conceptual thinking" sounds strange. Can you imagine any thinking not in concepts?

Categorizing a substance as "poison" in general is an arbitrary decision too.

So I gave up.

Note the modifier "poison in general".

For example, certain animals are not affected at all by substances poisonous to humans (and vice versa), and even a "poison" like arsenic is not toxic at all to humans as a trace element which we all have in our bodies.

[Brant Gaede]:

"The dose makes the poison" is a basic pharmacological principle.

Correct.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Xray

[merjet]

[snip]

I'm merely thorough and look closely at what is said in the primary source.

To abilitiy to value something that implies an entity capable of acting in the face of an alternative.

A plant can't choose not to seek sunlight, it is programmed that way. It has no alternative to act otherwise.

Rand expliticly points out that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible"

She's clear as a bell there. Per her own definition, plants can't value.

[snip]

Xray has already presented this fallacious argument. It was detonated and crushed here.

Apparently Xray believes other readers will forget or miss this bit of history, and if she simply repeats something often enough and ignores being refuted, whatever she says is true.

As for her alleged thoroughness, see here.

[rhartford]

The ability to value something implies an entity capable of acting in the face of an alternative.

A plant can't choose not to seek sunlight, it is programmed that way. It has no alternative to act otherwise.

Rand explicitly points out that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible"

"Value" is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept "value" is

not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom

and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal

in the face of an alternative. (Rand)

She's clear as a bell there. Per her own definition, plants can't value.

Certainly it was sloppy of her not to realize the contradiction.

Imagine two individuals discussing the quality of students at the local public school. One adamantly asserts that the pupils are all black, no exception. The other says that some pupils are white and some are black. Yet, I claim, they both are asserting a truth. See the quotation from Xray that I included in this post for the resolution of the paradox.

That post also indicated a word that both Rand and Xray use to refer to two separate concepts.

In the post by Xray quoted here, we see a word denoting the same concept, but used in two different contexts.

This time I suspect Rand recognizes that fact, but Xray does not. It is important, once a concept and the word labeling is learned, not to disassociate the word from the facts the word denotes in its contextual usage.

“[Value] presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative.” Here alternative refers to the possibility of failed action or a failed result, for example, a plant in too much shade may fail to reach the sunlight that it is automatically programmed to seek.

“there is no alternative in a plant's function” This use of “alternative” refers to the fact a plant’s action is “programmed” by its nature and no alternative action is possible.

The first use of alternative refers to alternative results of action, the second use refers to an alternative means of taking action. Treating “alternative” as an audiovisual symbol without careful analysis, in context, leads to Xray’s error and claim of contradiction.

(I applaud Michael for letting Xray continue to post, because it prompts those that find Objectivism to be a valuable guide to philosophy to do the thought required to place it on a sound basis.)

[Xray]

A sacrifice is ALWAYS a trading of a LOWER value to get a HIGHER value in return.

That is way too broad, and would include even working for money and buying groceries.

Indeed it includes these things. For every sacrifice IS a trade. That is the gist of my argumentation.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

The ability to value something implies an entity capable of acting in the face of an alternative.

A plant can't choose not to seek sunlight, it is programmed that way. It has no alternative to act otherwise.

Rand explicitly points out that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible"

"Value" is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept "value" is

not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom

and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal

in the face of an alternative. (Rand)

She's clear as a bell there. Per her own definition, plants can't value.

Certainly it was sloppy of her not to realize the contradiction.

....

That post also indicated a word that both Rand and Xray use to refer to two separate concepts.

In the post by Xray quoted here, we see a word denoting the same concept, but used in two different contexts.

This time I suspect Rand recognizes that fact, but Xray does not. It is important, once a concept and the word labeling is learned, not to disassociate the word from the facts the word denotes in its contextual usage.

But if you apply a word (which you have explicitly defined) in another context contradictory to its meaning, problems will arise.

Rand's arbitrarily using her own explicitly defined term "value" in a context contradicting its meaning is something entirely different from using homonyms (like e. g. "pupil") in different contexts since homonyms refer to completely different things.

“[Value] presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative.” Here alternative refers to the possibility of failed action or a failed result, for example, a plant in too much shade may fail to reach the sunlight that it is automatically programmed to seek.

Capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative is as clear as it can get. A plant does not have this capability. If there is too much shade it can't reach the sunlight, like you have correctly pointed out.

“there is no alternative in a plant's function” This use of “alternative” refers to the fact a plant’s action is “programmed” by its nature and no alternative action is possible.

Precisely.

The first use of alternative refers to alternative results of action, the second use refers to an alternative means of taking action. Treating “alternative” as an audiovisual symbol without careful analysis, in context, leads to Xray’s error and claim of contradiction.

Rand said that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible". No alternative, no value.

She did not give any separating definitions for "alternative". Nor did she do this for "value" [there was no "value 1" versus "value 2" definition, only one], which is why homonyms like e. g. "pupil" can't serve as comparison examples.

If the term, value, connects to reality via a volitional entity, it logically follows that application of the term to a non volitional entity disconnects from reality.

The term, volition, connects to choice. The term, choice, connects to alternative. The term, alternative connects to awareness of choice. Without the ability to choose and awareness of choice, there is no choice. The term, value, and choosing what to value, has no valid connection to a non volitional plant.

Edited August 3, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

(I applaud Michael for letting Xray continue to post, because it prompts those that find Objectivism to be a valuable guide to philosophy to do the thought required to place it on a sound basis.)

Robert,

It's a hell of a lot more trouble this way, but the rewards are far greater than being heavy-handed over disagreement. And who knows? Maybe some of the lucidity will trickle down to Xray...

Do you know the story of the man who teaches horses to laugh?

In olden times during the Ottoman empire, a man had committed a grave crime. He was brought before the Sultan for sentencing and was condemned to be beheaded. After the sentence was pronounced, he said:

"Your Majesty. I accept your sentence for I am unworthy. My only regret is that now you will never know a delight that would make your name travel with the four winds."

"What delight is this?" asked the Sultan.

"I can make your horse laugh. But alas, your Majesty will never hear the delightful laughter of your horse once I am without my head."

The Sultan thought. "A horse that laughs? My horse? I have never heard of such a thing. How long does it take to teach a horse to laugh?"

The man answered, "It is not an easy task. It is complicated. It takes about one year."

"What? One year? Too long. You mock me."

"No, your Majesty. Forgive this unworthy servant, but I do not mock. If you let me train your horse for one year it will laugh. I assure you it will laugh. And you will be more glorious that all the Sultans of the world. Your name will be carried by the four winds to the farthest reaches of the earth. And once that happens, I will then beg your merciful kindness to let me keep my head."

The Sultan's face clouded over. "And if you do not succeed?"

"If your Majesty's horse does not laugh, I will come here and gladly lay my head down on the chopping block."

The Sultan thought some more. If he had a laughing horse, he would not only be the envy of all the other other Sultans, he would be remembered for all time. "So be it," he decreed.

The man was set free after scheduling the training times with the Sultan's palace assistant. Out on the street, his friends rushed to gather around him.

"Are you crazy?" asked one. "You just limited your life to one year. Why did you not beg for mercy?"

The man replied, "His Majesty would not have pardoned me. Anyway, a lot can happen in a year. I could die. His Majesty could die. Many things... And who knows? Maybe the horse will laugh."

Michael

(EDIT: This story is rich in meaning for elective politics, also.)

[Xray]

Xray, Atheism is not part of the Objectivist philosophy although it may be a consequence. I was an atheist before I knew about Objectivism so it was not a consequence to me. The typical Objectivist will claim it is a part of the philosophy, but that's no more valid than saying the moon is not made of green cheese is a part of the philosophy.

Broadly speaking I wish Objectivism had been set up with a more individualistic orientation. I think Rand only gave lip service to individualism which accounts for her eschewing of libertarianism. In many ways she was an unacknowledged conservative who thought it more important to support Richard Nixon and Alan Greenspan's forays into Washington. The seduction of power is an awesome thing and the typical conservative sees himself as a powerful actor and influence on the political-economic stage. He does not blow it all off like the strikers in Atlas Shrugged. The fatal contradiction in AS is the strikers were going back into the world after the way was cleared but there wasn't anything to go back to. By going on strike in the first place seeking the consequence of a perfect world they accepted the statist premise of the supremacy of the state. Note they were going to set up another state with the Judge's tweaked US constitution. That made the whole enterprise a battle for political power. If that's your business don't hide it in the bushes. You don't celebrate individualism by having Francisco give up Dagny for a crusade. Now there is altruism for you! Even the artificial premise of human perfection can't give that notion any sense at all.

Rand championed the idea of the impotence of evil--that evil cannot survive or flourish except with the sanction of the virtuous victim. There is a lot of truth in that but there is no truth in human perfectibility any more than societal perfectibility. An ideal is something to be achieved by moving toward such while understanding you can never get there even under the most ideal of circumstances. You really wouldn't want to anyway. That'd be like achieving absolute zero: all motion would stop. A state of pure capitalism would soon get degraded as citizens involved forget why it was so valuable to begin with. If you don't fight for your freedom(s) you won't have any freedom muscles.

Because of free will all humans have potential for good or evil. The sanction of the victim concept is blind to the fact that pretending you yourself can and will do no conscious wrong makes one not see the wrong one actually does, usually to oneself. It is blind to free will in the morally perfect, someone like John Galt. Hence the lack of individualism in Objectivism as would be Objectivists display themselves as Galt moral facsimiles. It's like the old-time religion where one suddenly announces one has been "saved" with appropriate emotional ejaculations that fit the demanded-expected form.

--Brant

Interesting post, Brant.

[jeffrey smith]

The observation that an individual life is an end in itself is a cognitive identification, not even a value judgment (a normative abstraction). A living thing's corpse might be food for the ends of others, but its life is an end in itself.

Michael

Here's the point that Objectivism seems to miss entirely.

To say that an individual life is an end in itself is a value judgment.

Rand quoted a passage from Galt's Speech at the start of Objectivist Ethics, the first sentence of which is extremely pertinent here: "there is only one fundamental alternative in the universe--existence or non-existence..."

Objectivism's morality is based on the value principle (as I said, I will be trying to use Robert Hartford's suggested terminology) that existence is better than non existence, that living is to be preferred to not living. That's a value judgment that every living person makes every day (excepting existentialists and anyone about to commit suicide)--but it is a choice, and there's nothing irrational about choosing to not exist, unless you truly believe that your soul will end up as a thornbush dripping blood in one of the middle circles of Hell

Even Scripture recognizes that life is a value-principle that must be chosen: <em>Therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.</em> (Devarim [that's Deuteronomy to you goyim ]30:19) Rand's whole edifice is based on a subjective valuation.

[merjet]

Rand said that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible". No alternative, no value.

....

The term, value, and choosing what to value, has no valid connection to a non volitional plant.

Xray is an expert at selective seeing and selective ignoring.

P1. On page 16 of Virtue of Selfishness she sees: "Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible."

P2. On page 19 of Virtue of Selfishness she sees: "But whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction."

She thinks: Aha, since there is no alternative in a plant's function (ref. P2), then no values are possible for the plant (ref. P1). Aha, Rand contradicted herself!

That was selective seeing. Here comes the selective ignoring. The two sentences immediately before P2 are: "Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions it encounters in its physical background—such as heat or frost, drought or flood—and there are certain actions which it is able to perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight." (my bold)

So there are alternatives for the plant, contra Xray, and the plant's values are stated. My flyswatter scores again. Was that a sacrifice fly?

[jeffrey smith]

What does this mean "an individual life is an end in itself"? Does it mean we will all die one day?

GS,

Actually, this is part of it. Since an individual life has to die, everything it does is able to be measured by that standard. The individual life itself, so far as I am able to ascertain, has no other fundamental purpose than to exist.

Which to my ears seems to mean "there is no purpose to human life", from which must be deduced the proposition that we get to choose our own purpose in life, however arbitrary that choice might be. Would you agree with that? (IIRC, Objectivism looks unfavorably on teleological explanations, which fits with your expressed view.)

Religion teaches otherwise. It usually claims that individual human life is a trial for placement in a later post-death existence, the purpose usually being some variation on "amusement of God." In this conception, all other individual life has the purpose of serving the pleasure and ends of human life. Even vicious animals are made so they can be put in zoos for human amusement, sort of like the earth for God.

TV preachers may teach that, but they're not my preference for understanding any theology beyond that of "send money".

The religious view in general is that we are put here to make God manifest to each other and to ourselves. {Yes, there may be some element of "amusement of God" in these views, but not all of them.) After life states are the result, but not the purpose, of this. It's rather like a man who needs a job. If he looks for one, he can expect, sooner or later, to find one. If he doesn't look, then only a miracle (or at least, the gratuitous and unearned intervention of another person) will allow him to find one. Finding and not finding a job are not the reward or punishment they receive, but the natural result. There's a different way of explaining it but it equally sees the afterlife as a natural result, not a reward or punishment handed down by an apparently arbitrary judge--sin being, in religious terms, the choice of putting your will before God's will and therefore keeping oneself apart from God, Hell is the making visible of sin--the state of being apart from God. The reverse applies to Heaven, which is the state of being united with God. And there is nothing arbitrary in this: the individual freely chooses the one or the other, just like the job seeker chooses to be employed and the non-job seeker chooses to be unemployed. Even the most rigidly Calvinistic system adheres to this thinking, deep under its talk of depraved nature and grace (aforesaid talk of depraved nature, predestinated grace, and accompanying elements being of course the reason why most people back away from rigid Calvinism).

And I can't think of any religion which teaches that "all other individual life serving the pleasure and ends of human life". Even the Scriptural mandate that Man has dominion over all the inhabitants of the earth doesn't lead to that. (I'll admit that some of the Jimmy Swaggarts of the world may say that, but as I said above, don't look to them to find out what Christianity actually teaches.)

There is one small crack in the end-in-itself view. That is reproduction of the species. But if you look at it closer, reproducing is not a capacity all living beings have. Those that don't have it exist until they die. That makes existing more universal (fundamental) than reproduction.

I have differences with the traditional Objectivist view of human nature, but not the "end in itself" part. Even if it becomes discovered later that there is a Creator, I have no way of looking at all of existence through those eyes. I only have human ones. So from my human perspective, I observe that the end of each individual life is to exist for a time. I have not observed any exception to this on a metaphysical level. In other words, a living being has no real reason it sprang into being on earth other than to live.

Michael

I don't have a problem with your conclusion--but I think it contradicts the idea that there can be an "objective" morality in the way that Objectivism asserts.

Jeffrey

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jeff,

You have talked all around the issue and objected to this and that, but you have not made an alternative clear. What purpose do you imagine a living individual being has? (Any living being, not necessarily a human one.)

You claimed if a life is an end in itself, it has no purpose. That is correct. It is the purpose. In other words, it exists (in terms of being a single living existent) as a causal agent, not an attribute or effect of another existent.

If you have another purpose in mind (a master you wish to serve with your life), I am listening...

Michael

[Selene]

A sacrifice is ALWAYS a trading of a LOWER value to get a HIGHER value in return.

That is way too broad, and would include even working for money and buying groceries.

Indeed it includes these things. For every sacrifice IS a trade. That is the gist of my argumentation.

xray:

Try not to use big words like argumentation, since you exhibit almost no skill sets in that area.

With all my affections and as a teacher of argumentation [Rhetoric].

Adam

[jeffrey smith]

Jeff,

You have talked all around the issue and objected to this and that, but you have not made an alternative clear. What purpose do you imagine a living individual being has? (Any living being, not necessarily a human one.)

You claimed if a life is an end in itself, it has no purpose. That is correct. It is the purpose. In other words, it exists (in terms of being a single living existent) as a causal agent, not an attribute or effect of another existent.

If you have another purpose in mind (a master you wish to serve with your life), I am listening...

Michael

Your use of the word "purpose" here is confusing me. You seem to be saying that life is the purpose of itself, which for me is a fairly content free statement. And since you tend to avoid statements that are content free, I'm puzzled by what you in fact meant. Do you mean "purpose" as in "the purpose of an oven is to produce heat with the aim of cooking edible materials"? Or something less goal oriented?

As for

it exists (in terms of being a single living existent) as a causal agent, not an attribute or effect of another existent.

I agree fully with that.

As for my objections--it's one basic objection--that at several key points Objectivism asserts (or assumes)things which it claims are objectively derived from reality, but which are in fact only subjective valuations. For instance: Yes, we have a choice to exist or not exist (referring back to that sentence in Galt's Speech I quoted earlier tonight). But there is no objective criteria, no logical chain of deductions and inferences from reality, by which you can prove that "to exist" is a better alternative than "to not exist". It's really just an assumption, a subjective decision that "to exist" is the better alternative. And if someone decides that "to not exist" is the better alternative, they don't sunder themselves from reality. Not existing is inferior only if you have already decides that it is inferior.