Darrell Hougen

You've got it backwards. If an ethical system is necessarily subjective, then it is impossible for a person's decisions or actions to carry any ethical weight. That is, if there are no right or wrong answers, if there are no decisions that are objectively better than any others, then ethics is irrelevant to the choices a person makes. Darrell

Then, it sounds like we are in agreement on this point, though I'll let you rethink your exact statement now that I have provided the context of the argument that I was having with Dragonfly. Darrell

In order for that statement to stand, it must be the case that for those people, the odds of being successful going in were better than the odds of being successful doing something legitimate.Why did you chop off the qualification and take it out of context? Like I said, you are discussing something else. Don't you think parasites and crooks have goals? I gave you one: holding up a bank. That's a goal. That's not a good goal, but it's a goal.Michael, We are definitely operating on different wavelengths here. Obviously, parasites and crooks have goals and could pursue them using logical means, but that was never the issue. The issue regarding parasites and crooks is whether, if man takes his life as his ultimate value, that is sufficient to tell him how to behave or whether "the life of man qua man" has to be interpreted in some broad sense (such as flourishing) in order to make the case. Dragonfly's original claim in post #5 on his thread was that it is not sufficient because a crook or parasite can live successfully as such: Later, Victor said: To which Dragonfly responded (in post #28): My claim has always been that being a crook or parasite is not a successful strategy, so choosing to be a crook or parasite is not rational (regardless of how cunningly devious their plans or operations may be). Darrell

You're missing the point. I'm not saying there is a, "higher level logic." I'm saying that you can step outside of a logical system and view it as an object of inquiry. But, that doesn't imply that you are not using logic to analyze the system. In fact, as beings that "reprogram" ourselves, we do it all the time. I'm still waiting for you to answer the original question that I posed back in post #47. Why do you believe rationality is important? Darrell

I apologize for the striped nature of this post, but there were several points to which I wished to respond. No one is arguing that there is no dichotomy between facts and decisions. Of course decisions cannot be derived from facts. The decider has to make a choice. He is volitional. No one is disputing that. The question is whether the best choice --- the choice that one ought to pursue --- the decision that one ought to make --- can be determined by examining the facts of reality. Objectivists recognize the validity of deductive logic and other methods of reasoning as well. It appears that you are trying to saddle your opponents with a particular method of reasoning in order to limit the kinds of arguments that they can make. That just isn't going to fly. It is nice of you to offer your opinion of your opponents' level of success. I have quite the opposite opinion. I don't feel that you have presented me with anything truly difficult to handle. Your lack of understanding of my responses does imply that you are winning the argument. In my view, it is impossible to discuss ethics without first establishing a moral basis. In the Objectivist view, your personal self interest in served by treating other people in an ethical manner. That is because other rational individuals are viewed as being more valuable to you acting as free and independent persons than they would be as slaves or prey. The phrase "man-qua-man" is only vague if you ignore the definition that Rand, in fact, gave. Rand defined reason as man's essential, distinguishing characteristic. "Man is a rational animal." Therefore, the "life of man-qua-man" is a life lived in accordance with reason. I made that point already on Dragonfly's thread. I don't know who the people are that you are referring to, but that hardly sounds like an Objectivist conclusion. Since when is "desire" a tool of cognition? You are obligated to care for your baby because you created it with the full knowledge of what you were doing. Objectivism holds that there are no conflicts of interest among rational men because Objectivists view other rational people, left free to pursue their own ends, as more valuable to one's own life than they would be if an attempt were made to enslave them or treat them as prey. The subjectivist alternative that you offer can never eliminate conflict because subjectivism explicitly bans reason from the realm of morality. Darrell

In post #297 on Dragonfly's thread, you stated in response to my earlier post: So, on that thread, you seemed to have no problem with the notion that you can back up further. However, when I asked you to give an explanation as to why you think rationality is important, you acted as if the question was totally baffling. I just don't understand where the communications breakdown is. In other words, I gave my explanation for why rationality is indispensible on Dragonfly's thread. But you weren't buying it --- though you never responded to my final post. So, my question to you is: If you don't like my reasoning behind the need to be rational, what is your reasoning? You evidently believe it is very important, otherwise you wouldn't have said: Darrell

In order for that statement to stand, it must be the case that for those people, the odds of being successful going in were better than the odds of being successful doing something legitimate. A lottery winner is very successful, but that does not mean that it is rational to buy lottery tickets. You don't know ahead of time whether you're going to be a winner or not. Now, the odds of winning the lottery are much lower than the odds of being successful as a criminal, but the downside is not nearly as bad either. If you just buy a few tickets, the amount you lose playing the lottery is barely noticeable in your monthly budget. If you get caught as a criminal and thrown in jail, your reputation is ruined and life becomes much more difficult. And, you might be killed or ripped off by your associates. You can't just look at the successful examples of criminals as data points in determining the success of crime as a strategy. You have to look at all of the people who attempted to become criminals and failed. Or, you at least have to look at people with similar characteristics. You could look at all of the people from the top 10% of the IQ spectrum to see what percentage of those that attempted to become criminals were successful. Then compare them with all of the people from the top 10% of the IQ spectrum that decided on legitimate careers and determine what percentage were successful and to what degree. I can't comment on your personal experience because I don't have access to it. But ask yourself: Have any of those people that you know or knew ever been caught or killed or ripped off or beat up? The chances of being murdered in the U.S. among all people in 2005 was 0.0056% and was probably much lower among law abiding citizens. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html In order to be a rational strategy, it must be a successful strategy. What else could rational mean, in this context? The whole point of asserting that criminal behavior is a rational strategy is an attempt to undermine the claim that living a virtuous, principled life is a rational strategy. If criminals are highly successful compared to ordinary, law abiding citizens, then it is the criminals that are intelligent and rational and good people are just dupes or patsies. So, some other justification of being good is required, because being good is not the most rational strategy. I reject that notion entirely. Being good is a rational strategy. It is not only good for society, it is the best personal strategy as well, at least under most reasonable circumstances. It provides the most wealth, longest life, best health, etc., on average, to the individual practitioner of the strategy, and it does so whether the practitioner is near the top of the IQ range or the bottom or somewhere in between. Darrell

We don't need to have an exercise in the obvious, do we?Dirty Rotten Harry's goal is to steal money from a bank. He analyzes the situation in terms of how to best achieve that goal and he implements it using rational thought to guide his actions. For example, he decides to use a gun and planning instead of, say, faith (praying for the money to jump out of the bank and into his pocket) or whim (going into the bank unprepared and telling the bank teller he wants the money) because rationally, this is the only way to threaten a bank teller short-term to hand over the loot and get him to comply. He robs the bank and makes a clean getaway. He spends the money and does not get caught. Dirty Rotten Harry is successful in achieving his goal of stealing the money from the bank. Now how is that not successfully pursuing and achieving his goal with rational thought? You can't assume, a priori, that Dirty Rotten Harry gets away. The question is, were the odds in his favor going in? Judging by the average success rate of criminals of all kinds, I believe the answer is a resounding no. In order to argue that criminal behavior is a successful strategy, you would have to argue that criminals are almost always successful long term (due to the horrible, nasty consequences of failing even once). But, most criminals are unsuccessful long term. There are also other enormous difficulties associated with criminal behavior. An upstanding citizen views other people as being worthy ends in themselves and treats them as such. A criminal views other people as prey and therefore tends to view other people as unworthy of existence or respect. As such, he finds it difficult to avoid conflict with even his closest associates, thereby making his life difficult. Remember the old adage, "There is no honor among thieves." The truth of that statement stems from the fact that it is impossible to uphold a principle such as honor when one views other people as potential prey. As an aside, I would recommend seeing, "The Departed," if you haven't already. Although it is fiction, I think it illustrates the terrifying nature of life as a predator when other humans are your prey. Darrell

No. That's not what I'm saying. I really can't believe you can't understand what I'm saying here. The question is a question of logic one level removed. It is meta-level question. It must still be answered using logical means, but at a higher level. Darrell

Just stating that over and over won't make it true.This appears to be a quibble over an incomplete statement. There is an enormous difference in the two following completions, which I believe, respectively, represent Dragonfly's approach and yours.1. Parasites and crooks can be very rational and successful in pursuing and achieving their goals. 2. Parasites and crooks can be very rational and successful in formulating and promoting a reason-based universal standard for ethics. The first statement is true (Dragonfly is correct). The second statement is false (you are correct). I disagree that the first statement is true. I'm not saying that it is trivial to prove that it is false. It is actually quite an interesting claim. However, I believe that it will ultimately be seen to be false and I am trying to get Dragonfly, or whoever else wishes to get involved, to make some argument for its veracity. Somebody needs to produce some sort of evidence or logical argument for the the truth of proposition one before I would be willing to accept it. Right now, I have nothing to attack but the statement itself, which I believe to be false and therefore assert to be false. Neither Dragonfly nor anyone else can use proposition one as evidence for a problem with Objectivism unless and until it is shown to be a true statement. Darrell

Daniel, I don't think there's a problem with Darrell's logic here. Substitute an alcoholic being "on the wagon" for "being rational." In order to be on the wagon, the alcoholic must choose not to drink alcohol. But he might choose to drink alcohol. But then he would no longer be on the wagon. No logic problem there. Thanks Laure. Did everyone else understand that? Darrell

Just stating that over and over won't make it true. Darrell

The question was addressed to Daniel, but I'll blip in on it. I think the most truthful answer I can give is, I do not know; I've been that way since I was so young, I don't really know how I got that way, though I have some memories which might be indicative of fork points in paths. For sure I'm not a truth-seeker because of some derivation from an ethical code. I was years away from trying to verbalize an ethical code when I developed that basic attitude of mind. I recall being like that when I was a kid of 3-4.But why continue to be rational? Being a truth seeker is a good thing. Being rational is a good thing. And, I applaud your positive mental habits. But if you can't relate rationality to ethics, you can't defend your mental habits. Darrell

BTW, the notion of principles is critically important to the argument about why a person cannot flip flop between being an upstanding member of the community and a criminal. It is difficult to analyze every situation in depth, so a person relies on his principles to decide what to do in particular instances. Darrell

Victor, I feel you're succumbing to the Borg. Happiness is the correct psychological end, but, being an emotion, it doesn't make for a very good metaphysical end-in-itself. Happiness is the psychological concomitant of life as a rational being, the correct metaphysical end-in-itself. Darrell

Perhaps, because my post are ... er ... um ... logical? Sorry, I couldn't resist. But, it is nice to know that I am in the company of other intelligent, thinking people. Darrell

Daniel, It may be a stultifying question, but it is exactly the question that you have been trying to get me answer on Dragonfly's thread. True, it leads to an infinite regress if you try to answer it deductively. You can't deduce the need to be logical within a system of logic. You have to step outside of it. One way to step outside of the logical system is to view the question as an ethical question. Why be logical? Because logical thought is instrumental to life. If I am rational, I maximize my odds of survival. Then the question becomes, why try to live? One answer is, there may be no fundamental reason to choose to live, but I am faced with the choice between life and death, and so long as I choose to live, being logical is my best choice. That isn't really an answer to the question, "Why live?", but it is a justification for my choice to be rational if I choose to live. Another (related) way to step outside of the logical system is to note that rationality is the only condition that is consistent with my nature as a rational being. Darrell

It doesn't matter. A person that was previously rational can choose to become irrational. That is the nature of choice. Even though a person cannot arrive at a decision to be irrational by a logical argument, he can still make that choice at a particular moment in time. Similarly, an irrational person --- a person that has previously deluded himself --- can recognize his error and make a choice to acknowledge it. The previously rational person and the previously irrational person are two sides of a coin. Although the previously rational person cannot, in logic, find any reason for accepting an unwarranted conclusion, he may do it anyway, perhaps for emotional reasons. Perhaps the truth that he is required (by logic) to face is too painful to accept. So, he evades reality and does not accept it. Conversely, the person that has previously deluded himself, has a collection of unwarranted conclusions to handle. In attempting to reason, the previously accepted but false statements that clutter his memory keep getting in the way. Nevertheless, if he chooses to acknowledge the source of his error, he can begin to repair his damaged cognitive faculty. Darrell

So, why are you so committed to rationality? Why be rational at all? Why be logical? Darrell

A person can choose to be irrational, but a person cannot choose to be irrational and still be rational. First, a person cannot make a logical error and still have a logically consistent system of thought. Second, a rational person certainly cannot purposefully choose to be irrational and still be considered rational. In either case, a person can return to rationality by either discovering the error or by deciding to be rational by choosing to value rationality more highly than whatever irrational conclusion the person had decided to adopt. Scientists generally value rationality highly, both in terms of internal, logical consistency, and in terms of consistency with observation. However, every once in a while, one reads a story about a scientist that was so eager or desparate to make a scientific breakthrough that he deluded himself into thinking that something was true, even when it was not. Conversely, he may have actually made a breakthrough, but his jealous collegues or competitors were unable to accept it. In either case, one or more scientists were placing their own desires above logic. The path back to rationality is to admit that a mistake was made. It is the person that refuses to admit the mistake, either to himself or others, that has become irrational. Darrell

Hi Barbara, Welcome to the discussion. I completely agree. That characterization was offensive. I guess we mostly ignored it and moved on. Anyway, welcome. Darrell

Are you assuming that people can never choose to be irrational? That the logical processes of the brain can never be corrupted? That people are not capable of evading responsibility for the content of their thoughts? If people can choose to be irrational, then they can choose to be rational. It may be difficult for a person possessing a lot of unwarranted conclusions and undefended premises to suddenly become rational, but does that make it impossible? Actually, it is probably easier for children to achieve rationality than for adults that are already carrying a lot of intellectual baggage. If they have been using their rational faculty honestly from the time that they were little kids, then it may be easier for them to make the right choice. As Michael stated in an earlier post, children value life, not as a matter of choice, but as a matter of their nature. That is, they act to preserve their lives because, just like animals, that is the standard of value with which they are born. Similarly, they attempt to reason logically, because that is the way they are made (so to speak). But, that is because they don't yet have a fully volitional consciousness. They haven't fully realized that they can subvert logic and kill themselves. That comes later. That is when they can choose to be rational or irrational. For most people, it is natural to continue to value rationality and to value their lives. For one thing, their emotions have been self programmed from an early age to protect the integrity of their minds and their desire to live. Successful living makes them happy, so they pursue it, often without being completely conscious of what they are doing. It is only the philosophers that have managed to screw up people's natural mechanisms for living a rational, happy life by asserting that there is no rational choice of values. This reminds me of the story of the centipede. One day a centipede was walking along the side of the road when he met a worm. The worm asked him, "How do you coordinate the activity of so many legs?" The centipede sat down and started to contemplate the question. Pretty soon he realized that he didn't know how it was possible and that he couldn't figure it out. Then, he got up and started trying to walk, but he was so confused that he was no longer able to do it. So, there he sat by the side of the road, incapable of moving. Most people are naturally rational and moral because that is the natural state of their existence. Their emotions have already encoded the correct responses, the responses they learned at an early age. It is only the philosophers that have given the question too much thought and are now incapable of moving forward because they can't remember what they already knew. I don't understand how that definition begs the question. Darrell

Hi Ellen, Thank you for your response. I'm sorry to hear that you have a neuro-muscular problem, but I appreciate you taking time to respond to my post. Still, I must disagree. If that is Hume's question, then it is the wrong question. I tend to take Hume's question in the broadest possible sense: Is there a factual basis for claiming that one choice of ultimate value is better than another? It doesn't matter whether the claim is supported by deductive logic or by any other non-contradictory means of identifying the facts of reality. In my view, the purpose of the question is to determine whether there is any means at all of determining whether one ethical system is superior to another. My claim, and I think it is consistent with Rand's claim in the broadest possible sense, is that there is only one choice of ultimate value that is consistent with man's nature as a rational being, that is life as a rational being. Any other choice leads to irrationality and is, therefore, irrational. If your choice of standard of value is ultimately rooted in desire, then the choice cannot be defended by the use of reason. The problem in understanding the metaphysical basis of values is that one cannot exclude the reasoning process itself from questions of values. Any conclusion that a person reaches is dependent not only on the rules of logic, but on the values possessed by that person. Therefore, a correct conclusion can only be (purposefully) reached by a person that values logical conclusions more highly than any value that the person is reasoning about. Even if the is-ought gap cannot be successfully bridged, it is still clear that the weak form of Rand's answer, the form that depends upon the choice of the valuer to live, goes an enormous distance towards closing the gap. Even if the choice to live is arbitrary, or depends upon one's desires, once the choice has been made, all other goals or ends become instrumental to that end. BTW, Rand stated that happiness is man's highest purpose, but she also stated that happiness is the "psychological concomitant" of life. That is, happiness is the psychological equivalent of the the metaphysical goal of life, but being psychological, rather than metaphysical, the concept of happiness is subordinate to the concept of life. Thus, the goal of happiness is consistent with the goal of life (as a rational being). Darrell

I'm not assuming that the decider is rational, but if the decider is rational, he must make the rational choice. That is, one cannot misuse logic and then claim to be logical. To be rational, in this context, means to be logical with regard to statements about ethics or morality. As Michael has pointed out, the fact that we can choose to do any number of things only means that we have choices. Also, you cannot assume that values cannot be derived from facts, a priori, because that is what the whole discussion is about. Decisions require choices and are not equivalent to values. One can always choose to be irrational, but then one is irrational. Darrell

Hi Brendan, Being an engineer/scientist and not a philosopher, I have no idea what you are talking about above. You're still trying to use deduction to state Rand's argument. But, it cannot be stated deductively, e.g., as a syllogism. I'm almost tempted to drop the whole, "is-ought," terminology because it tends to imply the use of instrumental or deductive reasoning. Darrell