Cardinal Value(s) in the Objectivist Ethics

[Xray]

The basic problem with Xray is that she always asks people to pour liquid into her full glass.

The basic problem with Michael is that he does not want to pour liquid into any glass Xray hands to him because he knows epistemological litmus tests are going to be done on the liquid's contents.

For example, on the premises that there exist "objective values" and "non-self interest".

If you think that I'm in error on this, just give examples of what you think are objective values and non-self interest and we'll get to the core of the issue pretty fast.

Edited June 18, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

I do want to get in a discussion with you all, but can't shake the feeling that something stops you from taking the plunge. It is like - figuratively speaking - we had agreed to go on a mental journey to explore Rand's philosophy, and now that we are ready for take-off, with the plane already waiting, you don't want to go aboard but cancel the trip.

Flight 447?

No need to be afraid, Brant. The flight on the virtual plane I mentioned is safe and will reach its destination: the epistemological truth about Objectivism. The only things that can 'crash' may be cherished beliefs based on fallacious premises. But these can be discarded during the flight without problems. Edited June 18, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

I do want to get in a discussion with you all, but can't shake the feeling that something stops you from taking the plunge. It is like - figuratively speaking - we had agreed to go on a mental journey to explore Rand's philosophy, and now that we are ready for take-off, with the plane already waiting, you don't want to go aboard but cancel the trip.

Flight 447?

No need to be afraid, Brant. The flight on the virtual plane I mentioned is safe and will reach its destination: the epistemological truth about Objectivism. The only things that can 'crash' may be cherished beliefs based on fallacious premises. But these can be discarded during the flight without problems.

Don't forget you're trying to examine and criticize the scientific method too.

--Brant

the epistemological truth about science

Edited June 18, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

You are right about me not wanting to pour my liquid onto the ground.

You claim you are not asking already knowing. I judge differently.

You may not know what I think, but you already know what you want to think about the topic per se so you can challenge what I think (find gotcha contradictions, etc.), including knowing what Rand "really means."

This is a game and I don't play it with people I like.

I prefer to give it time.

Michael

[Xray]

Well, here's Objectivism for you: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics plus how these depend on and are integrated with and proceed from each other. So far you've displayed zip understanding of what I've just written with your commentary and questions.

What exactly is it you think I don't understand? All I see is some vague declaration about epistemology, etc., I'm all for epistemology; the epistemology of entity identity by mentally abstracting by a set of differentiating characteristics.

Objectivism. You don't even get to the plate, much less first base. The rock bottom basis for Objectivism is the same as for science: there are things out there and there are things in your head. It is the job of your head to get as much congruence as possible so you don't get run over by a bus instead of getting on a rocketship and making a round-trip to the moon followed by parties and celebrations and marrying that pretty thing and having a lot of children before departing for Mars and the moons of Jupiter.

--Brant

Do you believe "objective values" are also among the "things out there"?

Edited June 18, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Xray,

You claim you are not asking already knowing. I judge differently.

You may not know what I think, but you already know what you want to think about the topic per se so you can challenge what I think (find gotcha contradictions, etc.), including knowing what Rand "really means."

This is a game and I don't play it with people I like.

I prefer to give it time.

Michael

Michael,

again: I have NO IDEA what you mean by "conceptual mentality". No idea whatsoever. Why don't you explain?

Also, I don't get the "play games" part.

As for the "so you can challenge what I think" part - I can only speak for myself: I welcome challenge when I am convinced of a truth. I even invite others to challenge me on it by trying to refute so that I can discover possible fallacies in my thought system. Nothing like a challenger to keep "opponents" on their toes to double check their argumentation and premises. Can you think of any philosophical discussion without challenge? I can't.

I prefer to give it time.

Again, I'm at sea here. Give time to what?

Edited June 19, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Xray,

You claim you are not asking already knowing. I judge differently.

You may not know what I think, but you already know what you want to think about the topic per se so you can challenge what I think (find gotcha contradictions, etc.), including knowing what Rand "really means."

This is a game and I don't play it with people I like.

I prefer to give it time.

Michael

Michael,

again: I have NO IDEA what you mean by "conceptual mentality". No idea whatsoever. Why don't you explain?

Also, I don't get the "play games" part.

As for the "so you can challenge what I think" part - I can only speak for myself: I welcome challenge when I am convinced of a truth. I even invite others to challenge me on it by trying to refute so that I can discover possible fallacies in my thought system. Nothing like a challenger to keep "opponents" on their toes to double check their argumentation and premises. Can you think of any philosophical discussion without challenge? I can't.

I prefer to give it time.

Again, I'm at sea here. Give time to what?

He thinks you're going to have an epiphany. I don't.

--Brant

Edited June 19, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Selene]

Xray,

You claim you are not asking already knowing. I judge differently.

You may not know what I think, but you already know what you want to think about the topic per se so you can challenge what I think (find gotcha contradictions, etc.), including knowing what Rand "really means."

This is a game and I don't play it with people I like.

I prefer to give it time.

Michael

Michael,

again: I have NO IDEA what you mean by "conceptual mentality". No idea whatsoever. Why don't you explain?

Also, I don't get the "play games" part.

As for the "so you can challenge what I think" part - I can only speak for myself: I welcome challenge when I am convinced of a truth. I even invite others to challenge me on it by trying to refute so that I can discover possible fallacies in my thought system. Nothing like a challenger to keep "opponents" on their toes to double check their argumentation and premises. Can you think of any philosophical discussion without challenge? I can't.

I prefer to give it time.

Again, I'm at sea here. Give time to what?

See, I think you are a philosophical phony:

"I have NO IDEA what you mean by "conceptual mentality". No idea whatsoever. Why don't you explain?"

So, for the record you were floundering so badly at sea...

or, were you in the ether of your little fantasy Piper Cub flight from reality, which I believe you visit as a tourist...

to do a search on the "anti-conceptual mentality" which would yield you the following:

http://freedomkeys.com/withoutaself.htm

Are you at least somewhat in touch with reality to hit the link?

In case you are not:

Selfishness Without a Self:

The non-conforming tribalist"

by Ayn Rand

(An article published in the June 4, 1973 issue of The Ayn Rand Letter

and included as a chapter in the book, Philosophy: Who Needs It )

"The grim joke on mankind is the fact that [a type of person who has no real self and no personal interests] is held up as a symbol of selfishness."

_____

In my last two Letters ["The Missing Link"] I discussed the anti-conceptual mentality and its social (tribal) manifestations. All tribalists are anti-conceptual in various degrees, but not all anti-conceptual mentalities are tribalists. Some are lone wolves (stressing that species' most predatory characteristics).

The majority of such wolves are frustrated tribalists, i.e., persons rejected by the tribe (or by the people of their immediate environment): they are too unreliable to abide by conventional rules, and too crudely manipulative to compete for tribal power. Since a perceptual mentality cannot provide a man with a way of survival, such a person, left to his own devices, becomes a kind of intellectual hobo, roaming about as an eclectic second-hander or brain-picker, snatching bits of ideas at random, switching them at whim, with only one constant in his behavior: the drifting from group to group, the need to cling to people, any sort of people, and to manipulate them.

Whatever theoretical constructs he may be able to spin and juggle in various fields, it is the field of ethics that fills him with the deepest sense of terror and of his own impotence. Ethics is a conceptual discipline: loyalty to a code of values requires the ability to grasp abstract principles and to apply them to concrete situations and actions (even on the most primitive level of practicing some rudimentary moral commandments). The tribal lone wolf has no firsthand grasp of values. He senses that this is a lack he must conceal at any price -- and that this issue, for him, is the hardest one to fake. The whims that guide him and switch from moment to moment or from year to year, cannot help him to conceive of an inner state of lifelong dedication to one's chosen values. His whims condition him to the opposite: they automatize his avoidance of any permanent commitment to anything or anyone. Without personal values, a man can have no sense of right or wrong. The tribal lone wolf is an amoralist all the way down.

The clearest symptom by which one can recognize this type of person, is his total inability to judge himself, his actions, or his work by any sort of standard. The normal pattern of self-appraisal requires a reference to some abstract value or virtue -- e.g., "I am good because I am rational," "I am good because I am honest," even the second-hander's notion of "I am good because people like me." Regardless of whether the value-standards involved are true or false, these examples imply the recognition of an essential moral principle: that one's own value has to be earned.

The amoralist's implicit patter of self-appraisal (which he seldom identifies or admits) is: "I am good because it's me.".

Beyond the age of about three to five (i.e., beyond the perceptual level of mental development), this is not an expression of pride or self-esteem, but of the opposite: of a vacuum -- of a stagnant, arrested mentality confessing its impotence to achieve any personal value or virtue.

Do not confuse this pattern with psychological subjectivism. A psychological subjectivist is unable fuly to identify his values or to prove their objective validity, but he may be profoundly consistent and loyal to them in practice (though with terrible psycho-epistemological difficulty). The amoralist does not hold subjective values; he does not hold any values. The implicit patter of all his estimates is: "It's good because I like it." -- "It's right because I did it" -- "It's true because I want it to be true." What is the "I" in these statements? A physical hulk driven by chronic anxiety.

The frequently encountered examples of this pattern are: the writer who rehashes some ancient bromides and feels that his work is new, because he wrote it -- the non-objective artist who feels his smears are superior to those made by a monkey's tail, because he made them -- the businessman who hires mediocrities because he likes them -- the political "idealist" who claims that racism is good if practiced by a minority (of his choice), but evil if practiced by a majority -- and any advocate of any sort of double standard.

But even such shoddy substitutes for morality are only a pretense: the amoralist does not believe that "I am good because it's me." That implicit policy is his protection against his deepest, never-to-be-identified conviction: "I am no good through and through."

Love is a response to values. The amoralist's actual self-appraisal is revealed in his abnormal need to be loved (but not in the rational sense of the word) -- to be "loved for himself," i.e., causelessly. James Taggart reveals the nature of such a need: "I don't want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself -- not for my body or mind or words or works or actions." (Atlas Shrugged.) When his wife asks: "But then what is yourself?" he has no answer.

As a real-life example: Years ago, I knew an older woman who was a writer and very intelligent, but inclined toward mysticism, embittered, hostile, lonely, and very unhappy. Her views of love and friendship were similar to James Taggart's. At the time of the publication of The Fountainhead, I told her that I was very grateful to Archibald Ogden, the editor who had threatened to resign if his employers did not publish it. She listened with a particular kind of skeptical or disapproving look, then said: "You don't have to feel grateful to him. He did not do it for you. He did it to further his own career, because he thought it was a good book." I was truly appalled. I asked: "Do you mean that his action would be better -- and that I should prefer it -- if he thought it was a worthless book, but fought for its publication out of charity to me?" She would not answer and changed the subject. I was unable to get any explanation out of her. It took me many years to begin to understand.

---

A similar phenomenon, which had puzzled me for a long time, can be observed in politics. Commentators often exhort some politician to place the interests of the country above his own (or his party's) and to compromise with his opponents -- and such exhortations are not addressed to petty grafters, but to reputable men. What does this mean? If the politician is convinced that his ideas are right, it is the country that he would betray by compromising. If he is convinced that his opponents' ideas are wrong, it is the country that he would be harming. If he is not certain of either, then he should check his views for his own sake, not merely the country's -- because the truth or falsehood of his ideas should be of the utmost personal interest to him.

But these considerations presuppose a conceptual consciousness that takes ideas seriously -- i.e., that derives its views from principles derived from reality. A perceptual consciousness is unable to believe that ideas can be of personal importance to anyone; it regards ideas as a matter of arbitrary choice, as means to some immediate ends. On this view, a man does not seek to be elected to a public office in order to carry out certain policies -- he advocates certain policies in order to be elected. If so, then why on earth should he want to be elected? Perceptual mentalities never ask such a question: the concept of a long-range goal is outside their limits. (There are a great many politicians and a great mean commentators of that type -- and since that mentality is taken for granted as proper and normal, what does this indicate about the intellectual state of today's culture?)

If a man subordinates ideas and principles to his "personal interests," what are his personal interests and by what means does he determine them? Consider the senseless, selfless drudgery to which a politician condemns himself if the goal of his work -- the proper administration of the country -- is of no personal interest to him (or a lawyer, if justice is of no personal interest to him; or a writer, if the objective value of his books is of no personal interest to him, as the woman I quoted was suggesting). But a perceptual mentality is incapable of generating values or goals, and has to pick them secondhand, as the given, then go through the expected motions. (Not all such men are tribal lone wolves -- some are faithful, bewildered tribalists out of the psycho-epistemological depth -- but all are anti-conceptual mentalities.)

With all of his emphasis on "himself" (and on being "loved for himself"), the tribal lone wolf has no self and no personal interests, only momentary whims. He is aware of his own immediate sensations and of very little else. Observe that whenever he ventures to speak of spiritual (i.e., intellectual) values -- of the things he personally loves or admires -- one is shocked by the triteness, the vulgarity, the borrowed trashiness of what comes out of him.

A tribal lone wolf feels that his "self" is dissociated from his actions, his work, his pursuits, his ideas. All these, he feels, are things that some outside power -- society or reality or the material universe -- has somehow forced on him. His real "self," he feels, is some ineffable entity devoid of attributes. One thing is true: his "self" is ineffable, i.e., non-existent. A man's self is his mind -- the faculty that perceives reality, forms judgments, chooses values. To a tribal lone wolf, "reality" is a meaningless term; his metaphysics consists in the chronic feeling that life, somehow, is a conspiracy of people and things against him, and he will walk over piles of corpses -- in order to assert himself? no -- in order to hide (or fill) the nagging inner vacuum left by his aborted self.

The grim joke on mankind is the fact that he is held up as a symbol of selfishness. This encourages him in his depredations: it gives him the hope of success in faking a stature he knows to be beyond his power. Selfishness is a profoundly philosophical, conceptual achievement. Anyone who holds a tribal lone wolf as an image of selfishness, is merely confessing the perceptual nature of his own mental functioning.

Yet the tribalists keep proclaiming that morality is an exclusively social phenomenon and that adherence to a tribe -- any tribe -- is the only way to keep men moral. But the docile members of a tribe are no better than their rejected wolfish brother and fully as amoral: their standard is: "We're good because it's us."

The abdication and shriveling of the self is a salient characteristic of all perceptual mentalities, tribalist or lone-wolfish. All of them dread self-reliance; all of the dread the responsibilities which only a self (i.e., a conceptual consciousness) can perform, and they seek escape from the two activities which an actually selfish man would defend with his life: judgment and choice. They fear reason (which is exercised volitionally) and trust their emotions (which are automatic) -- they prefer the tribe (the given) to outsiders (the new) -- they prefer commandments (the memorized) to principles (the understood) -- they welcome every theory of determinism, every notion that permits them to cry: "I couldn't help it!"

It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership0 and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism's perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and "protection" against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value -- they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice -- they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against "selfishness," they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf. But their leaders -- the theoreticians of altruism -- know better. Immanuel Kant knew it; John Dewey knew it; B. F. Skinner knows it; John Rawls knows it. Observe that it is not the mindless brute, but reason, intelligence, ability, merit, self-confidence, self-esteem that they are out to destroy.

Today, we are seeing a ghastly spectacle: a magnificent scientific civilization dominated by the morality of prehistorical savagery. The phenomenon that makes it possible is the split psycho-epistemology of "compartmentalized" minds. Its best example are men who escape into the physical sciences (or technology or industry or business), hoping to find protection from human irrationality, and abandoning the field of ideas to the enemies of reason. Such refugees include some of mankind's best brains. But no such refuge is possible. These men, who perform feats of conceptual integration and rational thinking in their work, become helplessly anti-conceptual in all the other aspects of their lives, particularly in human relationships and in social issues. (E.g., compare Einstein's scientific achievements to his political views.)

Man's progress requires specialization. But a division-of-labor society cannot survive without a rational philosophy -- without a firm base of fundamental principles whose task is to train a human mind to be human, i.e., conceptual.

More article excerpts from Ayn Rand:

Racism

The Age of Envy

The Roots of War

Selfishness Without a Self

The Cult of Moral Grayness

Is there a "final authority" in ethics?

Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World

even more

Adam

[Xray]

[see, I think you are a philosophical phony:

"I have NO IDEA what you mean by "conceptual mentality". No idea whatsoever. Why don't you explain?"

So, for the record you were floundering so badly at sea...

or, were you in the ether of your little fantasy Piper Cub flight from reality, which I believe you visit as a tourist...

to do a search on the "anti-conceptual mentality" which would yield you the following:

http://freedomkeys.com/withoutaself.htm

Are you at least somewhat in touch with reality to hit the link?

In case you are not:

Selfishness Without a Self:

The non-conforming tribalist"

by Ayn Rand

(An article published in the June 4, 1973 issue of The Ayn Rand Letter

and included as a chapter in the book, Philosophy: Who Needs It )

"The grim joke on mankind is the fact that [a type of person who has no real self and no personal interests] is held up as a symbol of selfishness."

_____

In my last two Letters ["The Missing Link"] I discussed the anti-conceptual mentality and its social (tribal) manifestations. All tribalists are anti-conceptual in various degrees, but not all anti-conceptual mentalities are tribalists. Some are lone wolves (stressing that species' most predatory characteristics).

....

I'm not interested in Rand's ramblings at this point (I'll get to that later) - I'm interested in the specific DEFINITION she gave of "anti-conceptual mentality". How exactly did she define it? Edited June 19, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

He thinks you're going to have an epiphany.

Brant,

Not epiphany. It's too long a haul and way too complicated for a single "poof" of enlightenment.

This one is going to be slow, exasperating and full of baby-steps.

Wet Nurse anyone?

Michael

[UncleJim]

The next time you come to a conclusion, will it be value based?

[Xray]

He thinks you're going to have an epiphany.

Brant,

Not epiphany. It's too long a haul and way too complicated for a single "poof" of enlightenment.

This one is going to be slow, exasperating and full of baby-steps.

Wet Nurse anyone?

Michael

No volunteers so far - hmm. Can't resist the pun, Michael, but it looks like you are being left holding the baby. ;)

But kidding aside - I can take care of myself in that field and I think you know that. I already gave you something to hang your epistemological hat on by supplying definitions of "fact" and "objective" with which - I can't stress it often enough - you AGREED.

So this could be the common ground to get to the core of the issue.

It's too long a haul and way too complicated for a single "poof" of enlightenment.

What do you think is complicated about Rand's philosophy? Imo it is very simple, based on two easily identifiable premises: that there exist alleged "objective values" and that there exists something like "non-self interest".

All her elaborations about "concepts" are actually about category.

In the deference to category, leaving finite entity identity out of her thinking equation, she set the category, "Man" as

an "entity". From there, after ignoring individual identity and all the volitional variations of valuing that go with it, she proposed a set of

"universal values" for the categorical "Man." Of course, the set of "objective and universal value" coincidentally happened to be exactly like her set of subjectively personal values.

So there is nothing complicated about it, is there?

I'm also interested in Rand's exact definition of "anti-conceptual mentality". Since you chose to label me with this term, imo it is only fair if you provided the definition here.

Edited June 20, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

The next time you come to a conclusion, will it be value based?

How can we know what the future will bring, Uncle Jim? For example, I may cut my finger while choppig onions for tonight's dinner and "conclude" I'll have to get a band aid.

Edited June 20, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No volunteers so far - hmm. Can't resist the pun, Michael, but it looks like you are being left holding the baby. ;)

Xray,

I was not asking for volunteers. There is a character in Atlas Shrugged who makes arguments similar to the ones you do. The nickname of the character is Wet Nurse.

But then again, if you had read the book, you would have known that...

Why do you like bashing stuff you are not familiar with?

That's a premise that seriously needs checking...

Michael

[Xray]

No volunteers so far - hmm. Can't resist the pun, Michael, but it looks like you are being left holding the baby. ;)

Xray,

I was not asking for volunteers. There is a character in Atlas Shrugged who makes arguments similar to the ones you do. The nickname of the character is Wet Nurse.

But then again, if you had read the book, you would have known that...

I AM reading AS but far from being through with it. Got bored in between and put it aside for while. Also, I have the habit of reading several books at the same time, so it always takes me quite long to finish one book.

I picked up AS again a few days ago and have currently arrived at the scene where Hank Rearden's wife Lilian confronts Dagny Taggart at Jim's wedding reception, suspecting (correctly) that Dagny and Rearden are having an affair.

I can only shake my head at Rand believing that people can be driven by non-self interest, with her naming Jim Taggart as an example.

At page 389 in my hardback ed, there is a passage where Jim, in a desperate monologue-like outburst (he is speaking to his future wife but what he says is not really addressed to her) literally BEGGING for personal recognition, for appreciation.

Example:

"If I acknowledge their [Dagny's and Rearden's] superiority in the materlal realm, why don't they acknowledge mine in the spiritual? " (Jim Taggart)

Michael, tell me: how can a personal desire for "superiority" not be driven by self-interest?

Edited June 21, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, tell me: how can a personal desire for "superiority" not be driven by self-interest?

Xray,

You already have your answer in your head: "It can't. Rand was wrong."

You are going to say that regardless of what I say. It's on autopilot.

That has been the leitmotif running throughout all your posts.

So why bother asking?

Do you like meaningless repetition?

Michael

[Xray]

Michael, tell me: how can a personal desire for "superiority" not be driven by self-interest?

Xray,

You already have your answer in your head: "It can't. Rand was wrong."

You are going to say that regardless of what I say. It's on autopilot.

Michael,

Of course, I'm going to say it. Since it's fact, what else is there to say? As pertains to Rand, it makes no difference who says it, the reality of 100% self interest refutes all such claims.

What can YOU say without having to agree on that?

The truth of 100% self interest marks "altruism" as fallacy, as illusion. This means all of Rand's arguments

treating "altruism" as a viable philosophy is thrashing a strawman, not addressing the actual issue. Even though neither you nor anyone else can come up with a single example of an action not motivated by self interest, the illusion is still clung to since it is an integral part of Rand's "Objectivism." Is there such an emotional commitment to the false premise of "altruism", that people deny what their own observations and conscious minds tell them is true?

Can you refute the fact of 100% self interest?

'That has been the leitmotif running throughout all your posts.

You're right: Stating what I see as truth and sticking with it unless and until someone refutes is exactly my position.

Do you like meaningless repetition?"

If repetition is what it takes to get answers, yes. Answering the question will end the repeated inquiry.

Edited June 21, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

You don't get it.

This is a discussion, not a preach fest.

You preach.

("Of course, I'm going to say it. Since it's fact, what else is there to say?" As any good fanatic could say...)

I discuss.

I have to give it time for the preaching to go away enough that the ideas can be seen. I don't expect this to be soon...

btw - You also said, "Answering the question will end the repeated inquiry."

Maybe, maybe not. I personally don't think so. But for certain it will (as it has) trigger a conditioned response of you crowing victory, irrespective of what the idea is.

I repeat, this is a discussion, not a place to get a fix...

Michael

[Xray]

Xray,

You don't get it.

This is a discussion, not a preach fest.

You preach.

("Of course, I'm going to say it. Since it's fact, what else is there to say?" As any good fanatic could say...)

I discuss.

I have to give it time for the preaching to go away enough that the ideas can be seen. I don't expect this to be soon...

btw - You also said, "Answering the question will end the repeated inquiry."

Maybe, maybe not. I personally don't think so. But for certain it will (as it has) trigger a conditioned response of you crowing victory, irrespective of what the idea is.

I repeat, this is a discussion, not a place to get a fix...

Michael

No need to repeat that it is a discussion. If only you would get started.

My question to you was: Can you refute the fact of 100% self interest?

Edited June 21, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

My question to you was: Can you refute the fact of 100% self interest?

No one can refute an argument by definition. You have simply put everything inside your tent demanding to know what is outside. Maybe a discussion with you would be possible if we merely go inside with you and establish sub-categories to self-interest and subjective. But who has time for these semantical games? I doubt you'd play anyway--only defend yourself or put down others with endless questions not meant to elucidate or illuminate but obfuscate and to maintain the superiority of you the teacher--the authority after all. If that's your thing--only thing--fine, but I'm not even monitoring the class. Note that my brain is there to help keep me from bumping into things. Those things aren't subjective epistemological artifacts. You have not stated one thing at odds with anything that anybody else has been saying that will help me think, identify, act, create, produce, love or anything else better. The waves on your ocean don't even reach the beach of the scientific method and science is all about the tentativeness of knowledge and technology all about what works. What works is what works. A is A.

--Brant

[Xray]

My question to you was: Can you refute the fact of 100% self interest?

No one can refute an argument by definition.

Did I ask for a definition? One example of an action motivated by non-self-interest will do. If you can think of any, please post it here. TIA.

Aside from that, of course can refute an argument by definition. This depends on the circumstances.

Refuting by definition often comes into play when people base their arguments on false premises rooted in misinformation.

Or use a term incorrectly.

For example, children often mistakenly accuse each other of "lying" when it is simply a case of being wrong on a fact.

Example: Siy-year old Tim: "Johnny has told a lie, he says dinsosaurs still exist! Liar!"

But Johnny is four years old and believes they still exist.

The definition of a lie is a conscious attempt to deceive by stating something as a truth while knowing it to be untrue.

When this is explained to Tim (in simpler words so he can understand) Tim's argument that Johny is a liar has been "refuted by definition", and he will see that little Johnny was merely wrong on something he believed to be true.

You have simply put everything inside your tent demanding to know what is outside.

No, I have invited everyone to go into Rand's tent and move the stuff outside so that it can be examined in the clear light.

Maybe a discussion with you would be possible if we merely go inside with you and establish sub-categories to self-interest and subjective.

There exist no sub-categories of self-interest and subjective.

But who has time for these semantical games?

Imagining non-existing sub-categories of self-interest and subjecitve - now that would qualify as semantical game-playing indeed. ;)

I doubt you'd play anyway--only defend yourself or put down others with endless questions not meant to elucidate or illuminate but obfuscate and to maintain the superiority of you the teacher--the authority after all. If that's your thing--only thing--fine, but I'm not even monitoring the class.

...

You have not stated one thing at odds with anything that anybody else has been saying that will help me think, identify, act, create, produce, love or anything else better.

The questions are meant to elucidate and illuminate, Brant. Inquiry is the mother of truth.

The mere thought of a person thinking themselves "superior" to others makes me cringe.

I'm an advocate of individualism and therefore myself extremely skeptical of any ideological leaders /gurus, etc, whatever the provenience.

Note that my brain is there to help keep me from bumping into things.

I hope it doesn't keep you from bumping into the truth.

Those things aren't subjective epistemological artifacts.

"Subjective epistemological artifacts" - very creative wording, Brant. Ayn Rand's work offers plenty of material here. For example, the illusion of "objective" values existing.

The waves on your ocean don't even reach the beach of the scientific method and science is all about the tentativeness of knowledge and technology all about what works. What works is what works. A is A.

What is "the scientific method"?

What is "scientific" about Rand's method?

Edited June 28, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

:bye:

[Xray]

:bye:

I sincerely hope you were not such a type of daddy when your kids were small, Selene.

Never underestimate the questions kids can ask.

For example, a six year-old once asked me "If God made the world - then who made God?"

Great question isn't it, Selene, dictated by logic and reason.

Edited June 23, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

I pity your tight assed sense of life.

I pity your inability to laugh.

I pity your inability to be.

Adam

[Xray]

I pity your tight assed sense of life.

I pity your inability to laugh.

I pity your inability to be.

Adam

"To be or not to be, that is the question".

....

"The rest is silence".

That's what I'm getting from you instead of answers to questions re Rand's thought system.

Edited June 27, 2009 by Xray