Laure

Yep, Victor, it all comes down to epistemology.

So Daniel, do you believe that there is no method of reasoning that is not equivalent to deductive logic???? You make this snide remark about introspection as if introspection (looking inside yourself) is not a valid way of gaining knowledge. How the hell else do you gain knowledge about anything except by starting out LOOKING at it? or listening to it, touching it, tasting it, etc? We are talking here about how we get our propositions for propositional logic in the first place. Where do the P's come from? The fact that they are observed rather than deduced logically does not make them "illogical." If I tell Spock, "I am going for a hike, it's sunny out, etc, therefore I will put on sunscreen" he doesn't say "That's illogical, how do you know you're going for a hike?" You are showing your true colors by saying that concepts are not important. They are the most crucial thing there is!! Every word of every post that you make stands for a CONCEPT. And concepts are formed, not solely through deductive logic, but through observation of the world around us, observation of our own inner states, and induction. If that's "illogical", then to borrow your phrase, "you're not going to get very far."

Victor, sorry about your birth date! Mine's August 14, V-J Day (or rather the anniversary of it; I'm not that old!)

Oh puhlease!! Can you name one entity that's non-living that is pursuing goals?

Makes perfect sense, Judith.

OK, maybe we are getting someplace. It seems you're admitting that the purpose of ethics is your own self-interest, and what's missing is an explanation of why it is in your own self-interest to be honest and respect the rights of others. Maybe it's ironic, but I don't find such situations to be very difficult at all. My difficult moral dilemmas almost always involve what I personally should do to better my own life. Of course you should tell the prospective buyer about known defects in the car. If you do the right thing and tell the buyer about the defect, you eliminate buyers who will be bothered by the defect, and you wind up with one who is appreciative of your honesty, and you will be free of the worry that your actions will come back to haunt you later. As for the wider question of why I shouldn't steal and cheat: Well, if it's OK to do it some of the time, wouldn't it be OK to do it all of the time? What would happen then? You'd get found out, for one thing. You might get caught right away, and get sued, costing you time and money. You might get away with it some of the time, but eventually reality would catch up to you, people would find out, and your reputation would suffer, and other people would be wary of dealing with you. Also, you'd know that you were benefitting by cheating other people, leading to feelings of lower self-esteem because you know you are not self-sufficient. Worst case, everybody finds out what a jerk you are, and you end up in jail, or maybe on the street because nobody trusts you enough to give you a job or a place to live. Best case, your low feedback numbers make it really hard for you to sell anything on eBay! Also if it's OK for you to do, by what reasoning could you conclude that it wouldn't be OK for anyone else to do? So, do you want people trying to cheat you in each and every transaction? I don't think it's that hard really.

Right on, Victor.

So Daniel, you practice ethics out of concern for the well-being of others, and you just hope and pray that they will feel the same way and act out of concern for your well-being, rather than just acting for your own well-being and respecting the right of others to do the same. I think this idea logically bothers some of us Objectivists, kinda like Russell's set of all sets that don't contain themselves or something...

Laure, Please skim this over. It will tell you how to find Daniel's post (and others like it) and you will never have that problem again. Michael Aha! I clicked the thingy, and went to Daniel's original post. Apparently he had edited out that part by the time I saw it.

Or as Rand so aptly put it, "Why is the happiness of another person important and good, but not your own?"

Daniel, Men can have subjective values, yes. So what? Do you contend that ALL decisions are necessarily subjective--that none are objectively deduced from facts? None at all!? Now, if you confine your answer to this question, it might be very revealing. Thanks. -Victor (First of all, I can't find Daniel's post that Victor's quoting here! Weird!) Daniel, I don't get it. "I am going for a hike" is a fact, like the others. Facts can be about me as well as about the external world.

1) It is sunny outside. 2) I am going for a hike. 3) The sun can cause sunburns and even skin cancer. 4) Sunscreen can help protect me from skin cancer. 5) I value my life, and skin cancer could endanger it. ...therefore... I ought to put on some sunscreen. Now, I have come to my conclusion. Next I have to decide if I'm actually going to put on sunscreen or if I'm going to be lazy and skip it. I say, "I'm going to put on sunscreen." Then, I have to follow through and do it. I suppose your objection will be that the wearing of sunscreen is not a moral issue, but to my way of thinking it is. It's just a peccadillo, but nonetheless... (particularly where I live, in Tucson, skin cancer capital of the US) You say you make moral decisions "With some difficulty, and always a nagging feeling of uncertainty!" Sometimes moral decisions are difficult, but taking a rational approach to a moral problem can only make it easier! Imagine you're trying to send a rocket to the moon. You can try doing it without mathematics, but your probability of success will be greatly enhanced if you use every tool at your disposal! (P.S. Don't you think introspection is a method of reasoning?)

Daniel, your use of the term "decisions" is confusing. I would make a distinction between "conclusions", "decisions", and "actions". I think if you had all the facts (which we usually don't), and sufficient time to work through the derivation, you could always derive the morally correct course of action. This is your "conclusion" of the derivation: "I should do X." A decision is "I am going to do X." An action is actually doing X. The decision step requires the exercise of free will (as does initiating the process of thinking about the problem in the first place!) We are perfectly free to say "I should do X, but I just don't feel like it so I'm not gonna." We are also free to say "I'm going to do X" and then procrastinate so that we never get to the point of actually doing it. Now, on your idea that we cannot determine the right course of action no matter how many facts we have... do you really believe this? How do you personally make moral decisions? Even the law courts have the concept of the defendant "knowing right from wrong" in order to be held culpable. Are you saying that nobody can know right from wrong? Or there's some other means of obtaining knowledge other than reason? If this last, I'd ask you to prove it, but... ah... then you'd be using reason.

On the Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy: I went and read Dragonfly's piece, and I think I understand where he is coming from. Let me put forth my own view of it (which is not necessarily Objectivist Canon): I see Analytic-Synthetic as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. I agree with Peikoff that ultimately you could consider all truths to be analytic, AND all truths to be synthetic. The reason there appears to be a dichotomy is that some truths rely on a longer chain of reasoning than others. Hence, we can imagine that a truth relying on a long reasoning chain could be otherwise. BUT, if you actually derive it and look at each logical step along the way, there's no point at which you could imagine the alternative. And there are "empirical truths" that we can't derive yet because there are gaps in our knowledge. But once we figure out the gaps and we move that truth over to the analytical column, it doesn't suddenly mean that that truth doesn't tell us anything about the real world. It doesn't become a "well, DUH!" just because we now can see how it's derived. Working the other direction: We always have to make empirical observations even to begin the process of defining a concept. Thus, when we define ice as solid water, that definition itself rests on empirical observation. Here's this cold thing, I think I'll call it ice ... gee, when I melt it, I get water! We decide this is the characteristic of ice that's most important to us so it becomes the definition. Anyway, the reason I brought this up is because I was detecting in Daniel's posts the idea that if morality is analytic (derivable), then it somehow ceases to be significant anymore. This is what I'm rejecting. As to the "life as standard of value" being circular but necessary: I agree that a proponent of "God created the Universe, because only God could create the Universe" would also claim "circular but necessary". And that statement is internally consistent. It's a question of whether you accept "God created the Universe" as axiomatic. I accept "my survival is desirable" as axiomatic. And not just in consciously thinking about it, but implicitly in all of my day-to-day actions. If you introspect a little, you may find that you accept that statement as axiomatic, too.

What part of -- "even if a moral conclusion is logically derivable, you still have a choice of what action to take" -- don't you understand, Daniel? You seem to think that if we could figure out right and wrong by using logic, somehow that would take the whole challenge and meaning out of it, and somehow we would lose our free will. What makes ethical questions hard is not that they can't be decided logically, it's that (1) we have incomplete information, (2) even when the right course of action is determined, we sometimes need strength of will to CHOOSE to do right, (3) there usually is more than one "right" course of action, and we don't know which is best because of (1). I recommend you read The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy, by Leonard Peikoff, because your argument is exhibiting this dichotomy.

I think anyone reading this thread can see which side is winning here. We've addressed everything brought up, and basically all you're left saying is "no you didn't!" Everyone take a look at the quote below, and see if you can tell a difference between the logic in the Rand quote and the blustering of Daniel's "Take it or leave it" comment.

Dragonfly has not explained why he thinks we have to take all aspects of human nature, not just essential ones, into account in coming up with an ethical system.

We answered the suicide thing. We answered the "man qua man" thing, Michael noting that Rand laid out exactly what she meant. We answered the "prudent predator" objection, noting that even predators or parasites ultimately depend upon man's rationality for survival, even if they are depending on someone else's rationality. As for the "life as standard of value" being circular but necessary, as I put it -- here's what Rand had to say about it: "If anyone now asks: But why do I have to hold my survival as desirable? -- The answer is: You don't have to. It is an axiom, to be accepted as self-evident. If it is not self-evident to you, you have an alternative: admit that your survival is not desirable and get out of the way."

Darrell, post 188 is brilliant! Bob, if Rand's ethics is demonstrably false, how come nobody can demonstrate it false? Either it's true, or you really suck at argumentation. Probably both.

Bob, she made the "dishonorable adversary" comment when she was seventy-five years old, after enduring a lifetime of adversaries like you. Her comment was admirably restrained, I thought.

You keep harping on this suicide thing, but the fact is that according to Objectivism, suicide is almost never OK... just like stealing is almost never OK. Rules have exceptions; that doesn't make them bad rules.

Darrell, you're on the right track. Your statement here parallels the fact that the concept of 'value' presupposes the concept of 'life', so that you can't really talk about values without implicitly assuming that life is the ultimate value. I don't think you can call "Life is the ultimate standard of value" an axiom, but it's close to being an axiom. The naysayers will call it circular reasoning, but to me, the circularity is necessary and the premise makes sense. Now I'm gonna have to re-read Intro. to Objectivist Epistemology to figure out how to word this better. It has been an interesting discussion, and has deepened my admiration for what I see as the rock-solid logic of Rand's arguments.

... but not without depending on other men who are not living as parasites, looters, or moochers. Human survival depends on human rationality. This being the case, whose rationality is it most logical to depend on? Your own, or somebody else's? Also, I don't agree that rationality is only for superior people. Everyone can practice it to the extent of their ability.

But, there IS no purpose of life from an evolutionary point of view. Only people have purposes.

Without evolution there would be no people in the world, either. I just don't see how that's relevant to the discussion. It doesn't imply anything about what our own purposes are, or should be.