What Objectivism means (or meant) to a non-objectivist.

[Dragonfly]

"The moral is the practical" may be a nice slogan, but it is of course an unproven assertion that has become Objectivist dogma.

[BaalChatzaf]

"The moral is the practical" may be a nice slogan, but it is of course an unproven assertion that has become Objectivist dogma.

A moral code must be survivable (which is long term practical). If a moral code leads to the destruction of those who followed it, it would soon be an extinct moral code. What if reproduction were considered immoral. Than after a maximal number of adherents from the breeding population were absorbed, it would then dwindle and disappear. A case in point is The Shaker Sect or Cult. I believe the last of the Shakers has died.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

To include the proper context where that expression is used, it should read, "the rationally moral is the practical."

Slight difference from the meaning I got from your words.

Michael

[sjw]

"The moral is the practical" may be a nice slogan, but it is of course an unproven assertion that has become Objectivist dogma.

Sweeping aside this "slogan" is nothing less than sweeping aside the whole Objectivist philosophy. Which is to say, if you object to it, then make a case for your objection, and in another thread. Calling it an "unproven assertion" is not gonna fly, particularly given OPAR and ITOE and other writings which discuss theory/practice and moral/practical dichotomies in a lot of detail.

Shayne

[Dragonfly]

A moral code must be survivable (which is long term practical). If a moral code leads to the destruction of those who followed it, it would soon be an extinct moral code.

A moral code is not the same as "the moral", as crooks and murderers also have a moral code, although theirs is in general not deemed "the moral". Nevertheless their code has also survived successfully for thousands of years, so it is also long term practical.

[Dragonfly]

To include the proper context where that expression is used, it should read, "the rationally moral is the practical."

And what does that exactly mean? A parasite or a crook can be rational and also practical, but I don't think that that is the meaning of the slogan.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

This is actually one of the things I think need to be clarified in Objectivism: using the same word to mean two or more different things. For instance, the way you understand "the moral" is not what an Objectivist means in that context. You understand morality in general and an Objectivist understands Objectivist morality.

In the case of rational, there is the same problem: two meanings (at least). There is the rational method of simply using a premise and deducing/inferring matters to guide short-range actions, and there is the rational process of taking it all the way down to the metaphysics level and deriving ought from is. If looked at short-term, to the extent a human parasite or crook's acts are based on reality, he is acting morally (according to the Objectivist value of the rational being the good). He uses his reason to obtain his values.

To the extent he acts medium-to-long range, i.e., in choosing his values, he is acting immorally. He is not acting as humans evolved for surviving as a species. On the contrary, instead of obtaining his survival by using nonhuman elements from reality, he does so by preying on other humans for his own consumption. (I am not including "animal" things like breast-feeding, which come built into human beings as survival mechanisms.) If all humans only preyed on other humans, the species would die out in no time. That is irrational as an ideal.

Short term, he is moral, medium-to-long term he is immoral. He uses moral means for immoral ends. You decide how moral that is. I think the short-term moral is worse than using immoral or amoral means since it is effective at attaining the immoral goal.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

To the extent he acts medium-to-long range, i.e., in choosing his values, he is acting immorally. He is not acting as humans evolved for surviving as a species. On the contrary, instead of obtaining his survival by using nonhuman elements from reality, he does so by preying on other humans for his own consumption. (I am not including "animal" things like breast-feeding, which come built into human beings as survival mechanisms.) If all humans only preyed on other humans, the species would die out in no time. That is irrational as an ideal.

That is not a valid argument. If all humans became, say, bakers, then the species would also die out in no time, but that doesn't imply that becoming a baker is an irrational choice.

[sjw]

To include the proper context where that expression is used, it should read, "the rationally moral is the practical."

And what does that exactly mean? A parasite or a crook can be rational and also practical, but I don't think that that is the meaning of the slogan.

The Objectivist view is that a parasite/crook is not operating in accordance to rational principles. How can you have been in Objectivist circles for this long and not know this answer to your question?

Shayne

[Dragonfly]

The Objectivist view is that a parasite/crook is not operating in accordance to rational principles. How can you have been in Objectivist circles for this long and not know this answer to your question?

Oh, of course I know the Objectivist answer. I'm only saying that it isn't correct.

[sjw]

The Objectivist view is that a parasite/crook is not operating in accordance to rational principles. How can you have been in Objectivist circles for this long and not know this answer to your question?

Oh, of course I know the Objectivist answer. I'm only saying that it isn't correct.

I agree with your criticism of Michael's argument, which is essentially Kantian. So what's your view, that it's "rational" to steal if you can get away with it?

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Folks,

How about defining what "rational" means in the case under consideration?

We all appear to be using different definitions (and not one of them is allegedly Kantian or allegedly incorrect so far as I can tell, but they are all different).

It is wrong to use Meaning A for Meaning B, then claim some kind of judgment as if it were true. That is based purely on misunderstanding and refusing to accept the fact that a word can have more than one meaning or nuance.

Or we could start calling each other names. Now that would be productive...

Michael

[sjw]

We all appear to be using different definitions (and not one of them is allegedly Kantian or allegedly incorrect so far as I can tell, but they are all different).

A moral argument that says "what if everyone did it" is Kantian.

The disagreement DF has is probably rooted in the alleged is-ought gap. Which is a pretty fundamental disagreement. I wonder if DF hangs out in other forums where he totally rejects its intellectual basis. I don't know what he's even doing posting here if he thinks Objectivists are wrong on that point.

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think Dragonfly's definition of rational is the use of deductive logic (qua method) and it stops there, but I am not sure.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

To the extent he acts medium-to-long range, i.e., in choosing his values, he is acting immorally. He is not acting as humans evolved for surviving as a species. On the contrary, instead of obtaining his survival by using nonhuman elements from reality, he does so by preying on other humans for his own consumption. (I am not including "animal" things like breast-feeding, which come built into human beings as survival mechanisms.) If all humans only preyed on other humans, the species would die out in no time. That is irrational as an ideal.

That is not a valid argument. If all humans became, say, bakers, then the species would also die out in no time, but that doesn't imply that becoming a baker is an irrational choice.

To become a baker IF ALL HUMANS WERE ALSO BECOMING BAKERS would in fact be an irrational choice. It would lead one to be incapable of supporting oneself.

Context is the key. Some abstract idea such as "become a baker" is not the choice one makes or doesn't make. INstead, one makes the choice to become a baker in a context. And in the context of a world in which bakers were in radical oversupply, with shortages of other critical trades, would be one in which the decision to become another baker would be foolish - unless one could become a baker of such skill that they would be the one selected...

Bill

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Alfonso,

Objectivism includes concept formation as part of "rational." Other systems do not. This is one of the reasons for the constant repitition of the same old arguments over and over that go nowhere. People refuse to define terms.

For example, try to find an Objectivist who admits that you cannot deduce ought from is and you have found a very good mind. Ditto for an Objectivist-critic who admits you can actually derive ought from is.

But most of the vocal ones will have none of it. Usually the different sides prefer to yell at each other and pretend they are better than the other.

Michael

[sjw]

For example, try to find an Objectivist who admits that you cannot deduce ought from is and you have found a very good mind. Ditto for an Objectivist-critic who admits you can actually derive ought from is.

Sounds "profound" in The Fountainhead sense...

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Sounds "profound" in The Fountainhead sense...

Shayne,

I'm dense today. What is "profound" in The Fountainhead sense?

Michael

[sjw]

Sounds "profound" in The Fountainhead sense...

Shayne,

I'm dense today. What is "profound" in The Fountainhead sense?

Michael

As in when Keating said "It must be profound, because I don't understand it."

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

Are you saying you don't understand the difference between deduce and derive? That's not rocket science. Check Rand's actual wording in VOS, for instance, when she wrote about is and ought.

I don't know about the "profound" sarcasm business, but my remark was prompted not by any profound or pseudo-profound situation at all. It was prompted by the superficiality of those who engage in meaningless debates and namecalling for competitive purposes in lieu of purposes of wisdom.

Michael

[sjw]

Are you saying you don't understand the difference between deduce and derive?

No...

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne,

Was that "No..." a "profound" answer in The Fountainhead sense?

(Just joking...)

Michael

[Mike11]

The central problem I have with Objectivism is not so much I disagree with it but, even after reading most of the big Oist books, I still have no idea what its about. The word games that go on are incredible. This thread is a symptom of that problem.

I tried rereading "Fact and Value" 2 nights ago. Wow, just Wow. 10$ to anyone who can tell me what the heck Lenny was talking about.

[sjw]

The central problem I have with Objectivism is not so much I disagree with it but, even after reading most of the big Oist books, I still have no idea what its about. The word games that go on are incredible. This thread is a symptom of that problem.

I tried rereading "Fact and Value" 2 nights ago. Wow, just Wow. 10$ to anyone who can tell me what the heck Lenny was talking about.

Hint: It's not word games, it's going over your head. (Not that F&V is correct).

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike11,

I will let "Fact and Value" stand on its own two dirty bare feet. That was not one of Peikoff's finest moments.

The deduce and derive thing is much more than a word game. In literature, there is usually a deeper subtext that runs beneath the surface with good works, and even with some bad ones. This also happens in discussions with Objectivists and Objectivism critics when they cross swords with the "deduce/derive is from ought" business. A big honking subtext.

But first, there is some scholarly doubt over what Hume actually meant when he made his famous is/ought pronouncement in his A Treatise of Human Nature:

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

For instance, see below from Hume's Moral Philosophy by Rachel Cohon on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy site (my bold):

Hume famously closes the section of the Treatise that argues against moral rationalism by observing that other systems of moral philosophy, proceeding in the ordinary way of reasoning, at some point make an unremarked transition from premises linked only by "is" to propositions linked by "ought" (expressing a new relation) — a deduction that seems to Hume "altogether inconceivable" (T3.1.1.27). Attention to this transition would "subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason" (ibid.).

Few passages in Hume's work have generated more interpretive controversy.

On the orthodox reading Hume says here that no ought-judgment may be correctly inferred from a set of premises expressed only in terms of 'is,' and the vulgar systems of morality commit this logical fallacy. This is usually thought to mean something much more general: that no ethical or indeed evaluative conclusion whatsoever may be validly inferred from any set of purely factual premises. A number of present-day philosophers, including R. M. Hare, endorse this putative thesis of logic, calling it "Hume's Law." (As Francis Snare observes, on this reading Hume must simply assume that no purely factual propositions are themselves evaluative, as he does not argue for this.) Some interpreters think Hume commits himself here to a non-propositional or noncognitivist view of moral judgment — the view that moral judgments do not state facts and are not truth-evaluable. (If Hume has already used the Motivation Argument to establish noncognitivism, then the is/ought paragraph may merely draw out a trivial consequence of it. If moral evaluations are merely feelings without propositional content, then of course they cannot be inferred from any propositional premises.) Some see the paragraph as denying ethical realism, excluding values from the domain of facts.

Other interpreters — the more cognitivist ones — see the paragraph about 'is' and 'ought' as doing none of the above. Some read it as simply providing further support for Hume's extensive argument that moral properties are not discernible by demonstrative reason, leaving open whether ethical evaluations may be conclusions of valid probable arguments. Others interpret it as making a point about the original discovery of virtue and vice, which must involve the use of sentiment. On this view, one cannot make the initial discovery of moral properties by inference from nonmoral premises using reason alone; rather, one requires some input from sentiment. However, on this reading it is compatible with the is/ought paragraph that once a person has the moral concepts as the result of prior experience of the moral sentiments, he or she may reach moral conclusions by inference from causal, factual premises (stated in terms of 'is') about the effects of character traits on the sentiments of observers. They point out that Hume himself makes such inferences frequently in his writings.

Rand blasted Hume all her life long. Many critics say she did not understand him correctly. Since scholars and even some of Rand's critics don't even agree on what Hume actually meant, that is not such a grave sin. Still, Rand left no doubt for her possibly misunderstanding him. She went with a single (and least likely true) interpretation and went ballistic. For instance, see here from For the New Intellectual:

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

Rand also made a famous statement about is/out in "The Objectivist Ethics" (the first essay in The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 18):

In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between "is" and "ought."

Her point was that "ought" means the nature of the action an entity must perform to obtain and/or keep a value, and that living beings by nature must seek values. Otherwise they stop existing (stop being an "is"). Value-seeking is part of their "is," thus ought derives directly from it.

But this has gotten twisted all round in endless debates over what Hume meant, what Rand meant, etc. Rand further compounded the issue by saying (in the same essay, p. 24):

Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every "is" implies an "ought."

She was talking about what knowledge of facts means to a conscious entity, not claiming that facts per se had any intrinsic value by themselves. But this got twisted to hell and back, too, by both sides (both Rand lovers and Rand haters).

The subtext is where the real issue lies. Rand defenders want her bashing of Hume to be correct at all costs and Rand attackers want bashing her to be correct at all costs. So they engage in endless verbal duels, hairsplitting, sarcasm and nastiness while trying to score points against each other's subtext.

Thus, they try to figure out if Rand's words "validation," "determines" and "implies" mean "deduce" or "derive." If "deduce," Rand haters win. Yaaaaay! If "derive," Rand lovers win. Yaaaaay!

I have never seen a clear winner in any of these debates and God knows what they would win anyway.

To me, those who compete for the sake of these bashing subtexts are after a booby-prize marked "sucker." I personally seek something better in life and in philosophy.

For the record, my own view is that Rand was way too hardheaded about Hume, but she did not mean formal logic only in her formulations about value-seeking being an intrinsic part of a living organism's nature. At root, she used concept formation from observation, differentiation and integration, not just syllogisms, as her primary method of reasoning.

Michael