Can you imagine being a non-moralist?

[tjohnson]

My next questions:

1. If it would be difficult, would it still be possible? Are you admitting that it would at least be possible?

2. Why would it be difficult? I believe I feel no sense of "obligation," yet I find this condition really easy. I don't have to work at achieving it. It is my default state, normal. In fact, I find it impossible for me to feel an "obligation." The only difficult thing about my lack of "obligation sense" is trying to convince others that I do indeed lack it.

-Luke-

Hard to say. Did you ever have a pet? If so, did you feel obligated to feed it?

[Lukon]

My next questions:

1. If it would be difficult, would it still be possible? Are you admitting that it would at least be possible?

2. Why would it be difficult? I believe I feel no sense of "obligation," yet I find this condition really easy. I don't have to work at achieving it. It is my default state, normal. In fact, I find it impossible for me to feel an "obligation." The only difficult thing about my lack of "obligation sense" is trying to convince others that I do indeed lack it.

-Luke-

Hard to say. Did you ever have a pet? If so, did you feel obligated to feed it?

I have had pets. I never felt obligated to feed them. But I did feel a DESIRE to feed them.

-Luke-

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Can you imagine a person who had no such "code of values used as a guide"? Can a person exist who was "guided" by DESIRES instead of "values"?

Luke,

This is like apples and salt. Desire is a purely mental process and value is a mental process allied to results. Both are mental processes, but just like apples and salt are both food, there is a big difference between the two.

It is possible for a person to not desire a value, such as the body (and mind) registering hunger, but the volition part not desiring to eat. When this gets out of whack, you get bulimia.

Paul Mawdsley once made a very interesting post about the difference between Rand and Branden: Rand's standard is good and evil, while Branden's is healthy and unhealthy. The best is actually to use both standards.

It is true that we must be in touch with our feelings, since they exist just as much as the apple and salt exist. On that score, I agree that a person who negates his feelings and tries to replace them with a conceptual code makes a terrible mistake, but that does not transform a feeling into any value other than the value of being a feeling, nor the need to identify other values in life in order to know what to do. If your quest is to get in touch with all your feelings irrespective of what they are, then go on from there, I say that is a very wise thing to do. You will be very healthy psychologically (and that is "the good."). But there is no sense in throwing the baby out with the bath water. You need to conceptually identify your values just as much as you need to properly identify what you feel and make sure that part remains healthy.

Can I imagine a person merely desiring and expecting this to fulfill his needs, like food and shelter? I sure can. I can imagine lots of them.

Here's one right off the top of my head. People have banded together and made ritual animal sacrifices (and sometimes human ones) to gods since the dawn of man because their desires told them this was something they needed to do to put food on the table. The desire to do that comes from a very ugly place in the human psyche and it doesn't work out in reality, but it still persists in one form or another up to today.

You should see some of the deity religion rituals in Brazil. They only do chickens and goats and sometimes frogs, but this last is in order to sew up a message in a frog's belly and bury it in front of the door of the house of a person being targeted. The chickens and goats are the animals the gods really want, though, as payment to satisfy the person's desires.

The funny part about desires like that is that they end up becoming codes.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

I have had pets. I never felt obligated to feed them. But I did feel a DESIRE to feed them.

Hmm, this sounds a bit like playing semantic games to me. Do you mean that it wouldn't have bothered you if your pets had been starved? Or do you say that you just desired that they wouldn't starve? If so, what is then in fact the difference with saying that you felt obligated to feed them? I guess you were not indifferent to their fate and that you wouldn't as easily have decided not to feed them (because you didn't desire that action, or more accurately: inaction). In that case we're talking about a feeling of obligation. A feeling of obligation doesn't need an outside source like a guru or a priest who will tell you what you should do.

[kiaer.ts]

Mindy offered a correct response about the necessity of moral judgment. Morality is not axiomatic, but it is very damn close. One can make simple pronouncements such as "the sky is blue" without making a moral claim. But if such a person believes that his claim should be taken seriously, or not be misrepresented, or that one shouldn't also then claim the contradiction that the sky is not blue, then he must accept moral claims about the logic of discourse. No person who denies the reality of moral truths can demand to be taken seriously.

I have had pets. I never felt obligated to feed them. But I did feel a DESIRE to feed them.

This bothers me. These pets did not wander into your house. You accepted the responsibility to care for them, or to make other provisions such as finding another owner for them when you adopted them. You most certainly have an obligation to carry out voluntarily chosen responsibilities. That is why having a pet is an important lesson for children. Were you raised by wolves?

[Mindy Newton]

This will sound wild, but I think it can be defended: Morality is the enlightened man's guide to having everything one wants. The life/death premise is represented in this as "wants," enlightenment means living long-range--actually "guide" might imply that as well. The test then is whether I can show that any objective moral rule is in fact aimed at having what any enlightened man, or long-range-thinker does in fact want.

I'm thinking this is a morality even Luke's amoralist might like.

= Mindy

[Lukon]

Can you imagine a person who had no such "code of values used as a guide"? Can a person exist who was "guided" by DESIRES instead of "values"?

Can I imagine a person merely desiring and expecting this to fulfill his needs, like food and shelter? I sure can. I can imagine lots of them.

Thanks for your thoughts, Micheal.

This appears to be your answer, then. You can imagine a person going through life deciding what to do exclusively by desire. Is this so?

-Luke-

[Lukon]

I have had pets. I never felt obligated to feed them. But I did feel a DESIRE to feed them.

Hmm, this sounds a bit like playing semantic games to me. Do you mean that it wouldn't have bothered you if your pets had been starved? Or do you say that you just desired that they wouldn't starve? If so, what is then in fact the difference with saying that you felt obligated to feed them? I guess you were not indifferent to their fate and that you wouldn't as easily have decided not to feed them (because you didn't desire that action, or more accurately: inaction). In that case we're talking about a feeling of obligation. A feeling of obligation doesn't need an outside source like a guru or a priest who will tell you what you should do.

Thanks for considering this issue, DF. Let me try a reply here.

Do you mean that it wouldn't have bothered you if your pets had been starved? Or do you say that you just desired that they wouldn't starve?

The latter. I simply DESIRED they not starve. I DESIRED my pets to enjoy their lives, free of sufferings and pains, including the pains of hunger.

If so, what is then in fact the difference with saying that you felt obligated to feed them?

To feel OBLIGATED to feed them would mean that I felt some kind of drive to feed them that was in no way a form of desire, nor derived from desire. It is like seeing something as a goal to be achieved, but feeling no desire for that goal, such that the goal is what I would call a desire-void goal.

This is the beast way I know how to describe an obligation to you. I claim not to feel such things, so I'm not working from introspection here. I'm just describing it based on what I can imply from the reports of others who DO claim to feel such things.

I guess you were not indifferent to their fate and that you wouldn't as easily have decided not to feed them (because you didn't desire that action, or more accurately: inaction).

You guess correctly. My strong preference is to feed them, for the reasons already stated.

In that case we're talking about a feeling of obligation.

Well, not by the definition of obligation I offer. The preference I have (that my pets enjoy and thrive) seem like a goal well grounded in desire.

A feeling of obligation doesn't need an outside source like a guru or a priest who will tell you what you should do.

I totally agree. Based on my definition for "obligation" as a desire-void goal, the goal need not be assigned by an external authority. The origins of this desire-void goal are not specified.

The closest thing to an obligation I can imagine experiencing is a desire so strong that I cannot resist seeking it's gratification. Because of this, I have been tempted to claim that "obligation" is just irresistibly strong desire. But moralist reject this. They hold that obligation is desire-void. I trust their word on this.

-Luke-

[Lukon]

Mindy offered a correct response about the necessity of moral judgment. Morality is not axiomatic, but it is very damn close. One can make simple pronouncements such as "the sky is blue" without making a moral claim. But if such a person believes that his claim should be taken seriously, or not be misrepresented, or that one shouldn't also then claim the contradiction that the sky is not blue, then he must accept moral claims about the logic of discourse. No person who denies the reality of moral truths can demand to be taken seriously.

Thanks for keeping this argument current, Ted.

Yes. Mindy's argument is substantial. I took time to analyze it into a progression of essential statements. And I then explained why it failed to convince me. But here's my version of her argument:

Premise 1: Skepticism about the validity of morality requires an interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood.

Premise 2: An interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood is a type of interest.

Premise 3: All types of interest require morality.

Conclusion: Therefore, skepticism about the validity of morality requires morality. Doubt affirms that which has been doubted. Doubt implies certainty. "A" is "not-A."

So far, Mindy has not objected my paraphrasing of her argument. So I'll assume it is valid for now.

The reason her argument fails to convince me is that I object to premise 3. I don't agree that all types of interest require morality. There is a non-moralistic type of interest that I call "desire." And yes, desire can create a serious preference for truth over falsehood - a SERIOUS one at that.

No person who denies the reality of moral truths can demand to be taken seriously.

Well, they can demand it all they want. Expecting it is another story. LOL But I get what you mean here.

Anyway, the quoted statement would hold if morality was the exclusive domain of interests in truth. But I contest this very point. And so far, nobody has explicitly addressed it.

-Luke-

[Lukon]

I have had pets. I never felt obligated to feed them. But I did feel a DESIRE to feed them.

This bothers me. These pets did not wander into your house. You accepted the responsibility to care for them, or to make other provisions such as finding another owner for them when you adopted them. You most certainly have an obligation to carry out voluntarily chosen responsibilities. That is why having a pet is an important lesson for children. Were you raised by wolves?

I'm sorry it bothers you. I don't mean to bother people on purpose.

But I obviously disagree with your response to it. I can care for pets without feeling things like "responsibility" and "obligation". My DESIRE to care for them is quite enough.

You apparently worry that if I lack moral feelings of "responsibility" or "obligation" I'll necessarily hurt my pets by starving them, neglecting them, or by outright assault.

Don't my feelings of sympathy, empathy, compassion, and benevolence count for anything? And what about what Nathaniel Branden called the "Mutnik Principle"? All these are causes and categories of desire. And they assure my care for my pets.

-Luke-

[Lukon]

Morality is the enlightened man's guide to having everything one wants. The life/death premise is represented in this as "wants," enlightenment means living long-range--actually "guide" might imply that as well. The test then is whether I can show that any objective moral rule is in fact aimed at having what any enlightened man, or long-range-thinker does in fact want.

I'm thinking this is a morality even Luke's amoralist might like.

= Mindy

That's really interesting.

The test then is whether I can show that any objective moral rule is in fact aimed at having what any enlightened man, or long-range-thinker does in fact want.

This is what I would call the "convergence of obligation and desire" - when their aims converge on the same goal. It is precisely the case in which compliance with a moral obligation is instantiated by that same state of affairs as the gratification of a desire.

This is an intricate issue to unravel. And I would therefore like to postpone it for a separate posted topic of its own.

-Luke-

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You can imagine a person going through life deciding what to do exclusively by desire. Is this so?

Luke,

No. Not for a normal person. Only a mentally retarded person could do that. I mean that literally. A person without a clearly functioning conceptual faculty.

(This kind of question is a good example of what I often see in discussions about Objectivism: a true idea gets stretched beyond its scope. Just because feeling is the base of animal sacrifices, this does not mean it is the base of all other values in the mind of a practitioner. There's a mix.)

Part of our conceptual faculty runs on autopilot. Even Rand acknowledged this. The standard way of putting it was that you cannot choose whether to integrate concepts or not, but you can choose whether to integrate them based solely on reality (i.e., sensory awareness to start with), or you can let the process run at random. And part of that randomness will be reasonable by default—due to the very nature of the integrating mechanism. (In the other part all hell breaks loose, of course.)

If you form concepts, you make cognitive evaluations in addition to flooding your mind with desires. You can't not do that. It's like trying to unlearn—or trying to refuse to learn—how to speak. You can choose not to speak over time, but you can't unlearn it and you can't stop yourself from learning it. That's just the way you are.

Thus a code of values develops whether you want it to or not. This ties in with what I call cognitive and normative abstractions and the nature of the mind.

Michael

[Mindy Newton]

Mindy offered a correct response about the necessity of moral judgment. Morality is not axiomatic, but it is very damn close. One can make simple pronouncements such as "the sky is blue" without making a moral claim. But if such a person believes that his claim should be taken seriously, or not be misrepresented, or that one shouldn't also then claim the contradiction that the sky is not blue, then he must accept moral claims about the logic of discourse. No person who denies the reality of moral truths can demand to be taken seriously.

Thanks for keeping this argument current, Ted.

Yes. Mindy's argument is substantial. I took time to analyze it into a progression of essential statements. And I then explained why it failed to convince me. But here's my version of her argument:

Premise 1: Skepticism about the validity of morality requires an interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood.

Premise 2: An interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood is a type of interest.

Premise 3: All types of interest require morality.

Conclusion: Therefore, skepticism about the validity of morality requires morality. Doubt affirms that which has been doubted. Doubt implies certainty. "A" is "not-A."

So far, Mindy has not objected my paraphrasing of her argument. So I'll assume it is valid for now.

The reason her argument fails to convince me is that I object to premise 3. I don't agree that all types of interest require morality. There is a non-moralistic type of interest that I call "desire." And yes, desire can create a serious preference for truth over falsehood - a SERIOUS one at that.

No person who denies the reality of moral truths can demand to be taken seriously.

Well, they can demand it all they want. Expecting it is another story. LOL But I get what you mean here.

Anyway, the quoted statement would hold if morality was the exclusive domain of interests in truth. But I contest this very point. And so far, nobody has explicitly addressed it.

-Luke-

Not to neglect my duty: I think your no. 2 premise is a tautology--"interest implies interest?" I think your no. 3 premise is backwards. Interest doesn't "require" or depend on a person's having a moral code, rather having even an interest in something implies recognition of the "moral option," by which I mean awareness of an alternative along with a preference for one of the possible outcomes. Another way to put that is that interest is moral. (Note: interest, in a human implies certain things that are not entailed in the case of lower animals.)

Mischief managed!

= Mindy

[Lukon]

If you form concepts, you make cognitive evaluations in addition to flooding your mind with desires. You can't not do that. It's like trying to unlearn—or trying to refuse to learn—how to speak. You can choose not to speak over time, but you can't unlearn it and you can't stop yourself from learning it. That's just the way you are.

Thus a code of values develops whether you want it to or not. This ties in with what I call cognitive and normative abstractions and the nature of the mind.

Michael

That's a substantive argument. Thanks for offering it, Michael.

Of course I object precisely to this view of what's required for valid concept formation.

I say one can form objective concepts from a DESIRE to do so. Desire-driven concept formation does not condemn one to mental retardation.

The requirement for forming objective concepts is a focus on perceptually given reality. This focus can be initiated and maintained by the DESIRE to do so. No further forms of "evaluation" are necessary.

Moral beings can initiate and maintain focus by complying with a moral code that obligates them to do so. (Or, "acting according to their values," if you prefer.)

Non-moral beings can do the same thing by just wanting to.

I myself WANT to focus on perceptual reality when forming concepts, and to check abstract ones by reducing them to perceptual reality.

Desire is not always an enemy of focus! A mind "flooded" with desires may or may not be able to focus. This is true. But if a that mind's flood of desires includes one dominating desire to focus, then focus shall happen.

Just because a mind is full of desire, it does not follow that desire shall determine the conceptual content of that mind. Whenever desire has anything to do with concept-formation, it does not always lead to subjectivism or retardation.

Again, when the desire in command is the desire to focus, objectivity results. I can be objective, and the reason for my objectivity can be because I desire to.

Desire need not determine the content of one's ideas, as in "I believe it's true because I want it to be true." Desire can direct one's mind to reality for the source of one's ideas, as in "I believe it's true because I wanted to focus on reality, and this belief is the result."

So please, do not condemn desire as a necessary agent of distortion and subjectivity.

HEAR ME: I DO RECOGNIZE THAT WHEN WE DEPART OBJECTIVITY, UNCHECKED DESIRE IS NEARLY ALWAYS THE REASON. There is no need to beat this point into my head any further.

Objectivity does require that we keep desires out of the role of "cognition tool." This is what it would mean to keep desires in check: prevent desires from making us drop context, or making us go beyond context.

I suspect most Objectivists agree that volition can keep our desires in check like this. But volition isn't the only thing. An overruling desire to keep desires in check can also do it.

Yes, provided one has a very unique and over-ruling desire to keep all the other desires in check, objectivity can be achieved. I sometimes call it a "watchdog desire," based on the image of a guardian watchdog who repels all the other desires. Woof! Woof!

A head flooded with desires isn't always a head full of chaos. The desires in one's head may conflict one another, but there can be an order to it, an order of ranking, an order of priorities. One single desire can overturn all those with which it conflicts. If this one single desire is the desire to focus on reality while thinking, then the other conflicting desires are kept in check. Objectivity results.

So again, I say morality is not the only source of objectivity and truth. A cognitive watchdog desire can do it too.

Now, if my case is valid, then it supports the notion that a non-moralist can exist. And not just a retarded one either. A logically proficient human non-moralist, can exist.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Luke,

Are you responding to me?

I do not recognize hardly any of my thoughts in your words.

If you are responding to me, please read my words more carefully and see if you understand them correctly. Ask if in doubt. I will be more than happy to explain. Then if you agree or disagree, at least it will be based on something correct.

If you are not responding to me, I am not sure who you are talking to, so I would be grateful if you could clarify that.

Also, I have no idea why you set desire and volition as opposites. One is an emotion and the other is the power to choose. (There are several things of this nature in your approach, especially about the cause of mental retardation, which is biological and not cognitive, but I am more interested at this stage in probing to see if we can find a common ground of understanding to build on.)

Have you read ITOE? You seem to be aware of Objectivist ethics jargon, but I sense lack of familiarity with Objectivist epistemology (on which the ethics is based).

Michael

[tjohnson]

Hmm.... Luke doesn't feel obligated to feed the pets but he has a strong desire that they not starve. I don't see much difference "in reality" between these 2 statements. It seems both refer to the same outcome, ie. that one feeds one's pets. Whether you call it 'desire' or 'obligation' seems moot to me. Perhaps Luke means something different. Perhaps he means that the feeling of obligation (desire) comes from within and not from external influences. Most of us were brought up to feel guilt in some respect and this can be a destructive emotion because it teaches us to live according for other people's beliefs about what "is right". This can prevent an individual from learning how to make decisions for themselves and taking responsibility for them, IMO.

[Lukon]

Mindy addressed my challenge to something we've been calling "premise 3", since it is "premise 3" in the following argument:

Premise 1: Skepticism about the validity of morality requires an interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood.

Premise 2: An interest in distinguishing truth from falsehood is a type of interest.

Premise 3: All types of interest require morality.

Conclusion: Therefore, skepticism about the validity of morality requires morality. Doubt affirms that which has been doubted. Doubt implies certainty. "A" is "not-A."

I challenged premise 3, saying that there exists a type of interest that does not require morality. (I call it "desire".)

Mindy replied as follows:

I think your no. 3 premise is backwards. Interest doesn't "require" or depend on a person's having a moral code, rather having even an interest in something implies recognition of the "moral option," by which I mean awareness of an alternative along with a preference for one of the possible outcomes. Another way to put that is that interest is moral.

Ok, so thanks for addressing the issue further, Mindy. I'll now respond.

First Mindy claims:

Interest doesn't "require" or depend on a person's having a moral code,..

You apparently think I have mistaken "moral code" as the relevant part of morality, such that when I reject premise 3, I'm really rejecting this mistaken version of premise 3:

Premise 3: All types of interest require moral codes.

According to you, the truly relevant part of morality I need to consider is what you call the "moral option," which looks a lot like a cooperation between volition and preferences:

…"moral option," by which I mean awareness of an alternative along with a preference for one of the possible outcomes.

Thus, when I objected to premise 3, that is, when I objected to ALL interest being moral, it was because I had the wrong idea of what morality is. So once I grasp the relevant aspect of morality, I'll see that morality DOES subsume ALL interest.

Unfortunately, this argument fails on me. I still reject premise 3, even when I understand morality as the "moral option" instead of just "moral code."

I say there's a type of interest that does not rely on what you call "moral option." Given the "awareness of an alternative," you say one must also have something called a "preference" for one of the alternatives.

Normally, I would think of "preference" as a "ranking among desires whose gratifications conflict in reality," but you apparently want to use "preference" in a way that has nothing to do with desire. If you let "preference" mean desire, then you'd have to admit the validity of my notion that desire could be the very kind of interest we've been talking about all along. So you have to mean a desire-void kind of preference. You mean a MORAL kind of preference. Ok. I'll play "preference" by your meaning for now. I'll let you use the word "preference" to mean a way of deciding among alternatives that isn't necessarily desire.

So again, you say that deciding among alternatives is done by desire-void preference.

But I may still object to this narrow idea of how we select among alternatives. I say desire can do the job too. You moralists may use desire-void "preference" to do it. But we non-moralists use desire to do it.

And thus we return to my original objection to premise 3. Interest does not comprise ONLY this thing you call [desire-void] "preference". Interest can also include desire.

-Luke-

[Lukon]

Luke,

Are you responding to me?

Yes. My post was a response to yours.

If my response was unrecognizable as a proper response, please ignore it. I obviously misunderstood you.

-Luke-

[sbeaulieu]

Luke,

As a non-moralist, how do you chose between right and wrong? Wouldn't you have to start out as a moralist, from an upbringing perspective? I can see from your responses that desire is deeply entrenched in how you do things. So how do you attribute desire in choosing right from wrong? I can see desire for being benevolent and kind in acting towards others. But doesn't that accept a flipside to the coin, thus avoiding it through desire? It still seems a moral decision.

~ Shane

[Lukon]

Luke,

As a non-moralist, how do you chose between right and wrong? Wouldn't you have to start out as a moralist, from an upbringing perspective? I can see from your responses that desire is deeply entrenched in how you do things. So how do you attribute desire in choosing right from wrong? I can see desire for being benevolent and kind in acting towards others. But doesn't that accept a flipside to the coin, thus avoiding it through desire? It still seems a moral decision.

~ Shane

You ask how I chose between right and wrong. My answer is that I don't. I do not understand right and wrong. I have no moral sensibilities.

You speculate that I had to start out as a moralist, from an upbringing perspective. This is true. I used to think of myself as a moralist. It used to make perfect, common sense for me to ask "What is the right thing for me to do?" and "What SHOULD I do?" For many years I was even an Objectivist moralist. But I began to check my premises in this issue, to introspect with an ever increasing logical rigor. And when I introspected this way, I honestly found no such thing as "right" and "wrong" and "should". As I reflected on all the instances in which I used these moral terms, it appeared to me that I was just talking about what I desire. I had been dressing up my subjective desires in the disguise of objective morality. So once I discovered this mental self-trickery, I made an effort to stop. This is my experience with losing my morality.

I can see desire for being benevolent and kind in acting towards others. But doesn't that accept a flipside to the coin, thus avoiding it through desire?

I'm not sure I understand you here. Are you expressing worry that since my behavior is governed by desire, I will be just as likely to be governed by MALevolence as I am BENevolence?

-Luke-

[Brant Gaede]

m

Edited October 16, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

] m

Edited October 16, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

~ Shane

You ask how I chose between right and wrong. My answer is that I don't. I do not understand right and wrong. I have no moral sensibilities.

No morality, no Objectivism. This worse than a troll pseudo-sociopath immoral didactic pseudo-intellectual crypto-moralizer seems not to realize that if he were honest he could not know he was what he says he is. He hangs his hat on morality and goes swinging through his private jungle of truth impervious to disapprobation but full of crap!

--Brant

Edited October 16, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Barbara Branden]

The question being overlooked in this discussion is: What is morality? I think we agree that it is not the Ten Commandments, it is not governmental edicts, it is not our neighbors' demands or our fleeting desires. Morality pertains to values . As Rand stated: A moral code is a code of values. So before we ask why we need morality, we must ask if we need values and, if so, why we need them.

We need values in order to sustain our lives. Life and death is the basic alternative facing us. In order to cross the street without being hit by a car, we must know if life is a value to us. If it is, we will get out of the way; it it is not, we will cover our eyes as we cross the street. We cannot avoid holding values, because we must constantly make choices; our choices are a function of our values. The only question is whether or not we hold a consistent code of life-sustaining values or a hodgepodge of contradictory values. But we all hold values.

We need to kmow what principles of action are required in the service of our life. To quote Rand: "It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality." The man who chooses to be moral is the man who chooses to live.

To say that it is desires that motivate you, Luke, is to say that there are no principles governing your choices of action. Fine. But you must be prepared to accept the consequences -- that is, that some of your desires may be life-serving, but some probably will not be. If you desire to smoke four packs of cigarettes daily, you are free to do so. And if you are afraid to see a doctor when you have a life-threatening illnes, you are free not to see him. But you are not free to escape the consequences of your values and your choices.

I submit that you do, in fact, accept certain life-sustaining values -- that is, certain crucial parts of a rational moral code, or you would not have reached your present age. Presumably, you doh't smoke four packs of cigarettes a day, or refuse medical help when you're ill, or leap in front of oncoming cars. Your choice is not whether or not you hold values -- that is, whether or not you recognize that some choices and actions are good for you and others are not -- but whether or not your values are consistently life-sustaining.

Barbara

[sbeaulieu]

I'm not sure I understand you here. Are you expressing worry that since my behavior is governed by desire, I will be just as likely to be governed by MALevolence as I am BENevolence?

-Luke-

Worried, no. From my experience, there are always two sides to everything (at minimum)...yin/yang, light/darkness, and even benevolence/malevolence. Using the coin example, are you then riding the edge of the coin...the third side, which touches both and is therefore neither nor?

~Shane

Edited October 16, 2008 by sbeaulieu