Essence and Human Nature

[thomtg]

Breaking out from another topic, I would like to discuss a point Ted makes:

[...]

[...] I find Rand's theory of human nature rationalistic. We are not rational (animals) whose every value descends top down from our intellect and will, but (rational) animals whose values develop from our most basic urges upward as we learn to integrate and harmonize them and pursue longer term goals in the same way we come to understand more abstract concepts. [...]

I don't see Ayn Rand's theory of human nature to be rationalistic at all. Our being rational animals is only the essentialized summary of our human nature, not the full enumeration of our faculties. If understood this way, Rand's theory conforms exactly to your interpretation of human sexuality, which, if I understand correctly, goes as follows:

1. that human beings are omnisexual in like manner as being omnivorous in appetite;
   
2. that urges, or needs, are determined from species-level capacities or potentialities which are discoverable biologically;
   
3. that preferences (or attractions, tendencies, dispositions) develop naturally through individual refinements in like manner as being left-handedness or ambidextry; but
   
4. that desires, or wants, to satisfy such needs are volitionally chosen (in the form of values) with the optional aid of morality; and therefore,
   
5. that those sexual acts in a sex life which are derived from a rational guidance (on a standard of life) are moral. Additionally therefore,
   
6. that sexual identity (e.g., heterosexuality/straight, homosexuality/gay-lesbian, transexuality, bisexuality, etc.) is a postmodernist anti-conceptual package-deal development.
   

Given Rand's theory of concepts and her theory of human nature, including the nature of emotions, I find her meta-ethics to be based on perceptual experience and scientific knowledge. If so, I see no difference in your approach and hers.

[kiaer.ts]

Breaking out from another topic, I would like to discuss a point Ted makes:

[...]

[...] I find Rand's theory of human nature rationalistic. We are not rational (animals) whose every value descends top down from our intellect and will, but (rational) animals whose values develop from our most basic urges upward as we learn to integrate and harmonize them and pursue longer term goals in the same way we come to understand more abstract concepts. [...]

I don't see Ayn Rand's theory of human nature to be rationalistic at all. Our being rational animals is only the essentialized summary of our human nature, not the full enumeration of our faculties. If understood this way, Rand's theory conforms exactly to your interpretation of human sexuality, which, if I understand correctly, goes as follows:

1. that human beings are omnisexual in like manner as being omnivorous in appetite;
   
2. that urges, or needs, are determined from species-level capacities or potentialities which are discoverable biologically;
   
3. that preferences (or attractions, tendencies, dispositions) develop naturally through individual refinements in like manner as being left-handedness or ambidextry; but
   
4. that desires, or wants, to satisfy such needs are volitionally chosen (in the form of values) with the optional aid of morality; and therefore,
   
5. that those sexual acts in a sex life which are derived from a rational guidance (on a standard of life) are moral. Additionally therefore,
   
6. that sexual identity (e.g., heterosexuality/straight, homosexuality/gay-lesbian, transexuality, bisexuality, etc.) is a postmodernist anti-conceptual package-deal development.
   

Given Rand's theory of concepts and her theory of human nature, including the nature of emotions, I find her meta-ethics to be based on perceptual experience and scientific knowledge. If so, I see no difference in your approach and hers.

I want to thank Thomas for the thread. There is a lot to deal with, and I would need to address both the nature of biological species and whether individual organisms partake of a species essence, and also address the bottom up nature of values. I'll take my arguments about essentialism in biology from the biologist Ernst Mayr. The relevant arguments on essentialism vs. population thinking can be found in his The Growth of Biological Thought. I'll have to write out my own thoughts on the nature of value and happiness, since my original essays were destroyed when I lost my hard drive in a flood.

I'll just say for now, that points one and two above exhibit the problem of treating individual organisms as if they are exemplars of a type. The view is Platonic. Points three through six seem accurate to my view, but would need a lot of expanding upon. Til then.

From Wikipedia:

Ernst Walter Mayr (July 5, 1904, Kempten, Germany – February 3, 2005, Bedford, Massachusetts U.S.), was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism. But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. I would not call him the greatest Darwinian.[8]

[BaalChatzaf]

The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism. But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. I would not call him the greatest Darwinian.[8]

Dawkins is an evolutionist more than he is a Darwinian. Dawkins asserts Natural Selection, but for him, the gene is the unit of selection. The whole organism is the transport means for the gene.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[thomtg]

[...]

[...] I'll take my arguments about essentialism in biology from the biologist Ernst Mayr. The relevant arguments on essentialism vs. population thinking can be found in his The Growth of Biological Thought. [...]

[...]

From Wikipedia:

Ernst Walter Mayr (July 5, 1904, Kempten, Germany – February 3, 2005, Bedford, Massachusetts U.S.), was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism. But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. I would not call him the greatest Darwinian.[8]

Thanks for the reference to Ernst Mayr, of whom I have never heard. Wow, what a scientist! And long-lived too. Hist last book was in 2004 when he was 100 years old.

[kiaer.ts]

Many of Mayr's books are still in print, including What Evolution Is, (a comprhensive introduction to the general reader,) What Makes Biology Unique, (a philosophical critique of reductionism,) Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, and Systematics and the Origin of Species, among others.

[kiaer.ts]

I am having trouble locating my copy of Mayr's The Growth of Biological Thought which is in storage. In the meantime, I suggest the following short reading assignments as evidence to be subsumed under the topic of species as populations, rather than as the reflections of metaphysical essences:

Rape - an evolutionary strategy (from New Scientist)

A SINGLE act of rape may be more than twice as likely to make a woman pregnant as a single act of consensual sex.

Precocious Parr: Alternative Mating Strategies in Atlantic Salmon and Brown Trout

What is a species?

Ring Species