Rand's gender hierarchy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Your use of the word "purpose" here is confusing me.

As for my objections--it's one basic objection--that at several key points Objectivism asserts (or assumes)things which it claims are objectively derived from reality, but which are in fact only subjective valuations.... But there is no objective criteria, no logical chain of deductions and inferences from reality, by which you can prove that "to exist" is a better alternative than "to not exist". It's really just an assumption, a subjective decision that "to exist" is the better alternative...

Jeff,

You have answered the second part with the first. If you are confused about the Objectivist meaning of purpose, why make negative dogmatic statements about it?

Here's the rub. For your subjective "better alternative" to be valid, you are presuming a third implicit alternative to reality where something can be better or worse and still not exist. In other words, where something can exist and not exist at the same time. But reality doesn't work that way. There is no volition that does not exist. If it does not exist, it is not volition (or anything else, for that matter).

Not existing is not better or worse than existing. It is simply not existing. You presume a normative metaphysics, but there is no such thing. In epistemological terms, there is only a cognitive exist or not exist alternative.

Good and bad are measurements. To exist is the standard of measurement derived from reality. Lack of existing is no standard of anything—it is a total lack of the thing and the measurement.

I have been discussing all life and you keep going back to human life. So here is the thing in terms of human life. If a person decides to check out of existing, he is not making a choice to enter a bad state. (This is your point of confusion.) Not existing is not a state of existence. It is lack thereof. So the person is opting out of good and evil altogether since he is opting out of everything.

Michael

[Xray]

Rand said that "where no alternative exists, no values are possible". No alternative, no value.

....

The term, value, and choosing what to value, has no valid connection to a non volitional plant.

Xray is an expert at selective seeing and selective ignoring.

P1. On page 16 of Virtue of Selfishness she sees: "Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible."

P2. On page 19 of Virtue of Selfishness she sees: "But whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction."

She thinks: Aha, since there is no alternative in a plant's function (ref. P2), then no values are possible for the plant (ref. P1). Aha, Rand contradicted herself!

That was selective seeing. Here comes the selective ignoring. The two sentences immediately before P2 are: "Nourishment, water, sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions it encounters in its physical background—such as heat or frost, drought or flood—and there are certain actions which it is able to perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight." (my bold)

So there are alternatives for the plant, contra Xray, and the plant's values are stated. My flyswatter scores again. Was that a sacrifice fly?

I'm afraid you saw a fly to swat where there was none, Merlin.

Look closely at what was said.

Rand speaks of two different things.

First about the plant's function (in which there is no alternative).

Second about the conditions which it encounters in its physcial backgrounds, in which per Rand can be alternatives. (heat, frost, drought, rich or poor soil)

These varying conditions are not the same as the plant's biolgical program which unfolds no matter what the conditions are.

It is the same with humans: you will have digestion whether you live on the North Pole or in the rain forest; you will feel the cold in arctic climate and you will sweat in hot climate. It is never the reverse. You can't go against physiological reactions and choose not to sweat or not to feel thirst (unless you volitionally intefere by taking pills suppressinsg sweat or the feeling of thirst).

You may be malnourished if you live in a hunger zone, but still your body will try to keep up its functions according to its biologicical program.

I don't even like term "alternative" applied in the context referring to plants: imo "alternative" refers to two possibilities offered in one specific situation.

But for a plant growing under the condition "poor soil", there does not exist the alternative "rich soil" at the same time.

So to be clearer, instead of "alternatives", I would use "differences", or simply "different conditions".

Rand: "There are alternatives in the conditions it encounters in its physical background"

I would say instead: "There are different conditions it can encounter in its physical background".

Rand herself sums it up:

TVOS, p. 19: : "But whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction."

Edited August 3, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Well, X-Ray, answering your question is probably not in my self-interest (will Robert Preston's hat fit me?). Can't resist, though.

And your examples of non self-interest are .....?

[Xray]

[Xray]:

For every sacrifice IS a trade. That is the gist of my argumentation.

xray:

Try not to use big words like argumentation, since you exhibit almost no skill sets in that area.

With all my affections and as a teacher of argumentation [Rhetoric].

Adam

Sounds a bit like wishful thinking on your part, Selene.

But you alleging something does not magically transform the allegation into a fact.

Every sacrifice is a trade, Selene. It is that simple.

A trade is offering something in order to receive something else which is valued more highly.

The German word for sacrifice is "Opfer", (related to English "offer"). The sacrificer is a trader offering something in order to get something else of subejctively esteemed higher value in return, whether it is loaf of bread, an in-vitro child, the thank-you smile of a beggar or the feeling he has gotten god's approval.

When John buys a loaf of bread for three dollars, it means that, at the moment of the purchase, John values the bread more than the three dollars - if not, he would have kept the money and not engaged in the trade.

Later, John passes a beggar, but decides not to give him a dime. In this situation, John values keeping his money more than donating some of it. Result: no trade occurs.

Jim passes by, gives two dollars to the beggar. The two dollars are considered by Jim as being of lesser value than the feeling he gets when giving some to the beggar, whose grateful "thank you!" makes Jim feel good about himself. (there is no such thing as altruism).

In short, there exist a wide variety of those choices, where X gives something to get Y in return, but it ALWAYS boils down to the trade principle.

No one will give a subjectively esteemed greater value in return for a lesser value. For we are motivated by self-interest, and however much others may frown on our subjective choices, it does not alter this fact one iota.

When Susan decides to give up her flourishing practice as a Manhattan dentist to become a potter instead, her family may wring their hands and groan "How can she be so crazy to give up her live as successful dentist?" But Susan is merely trading something she (for whatever reason) has come to consider as of lesser value compared to another, subjectively esteemed greater value.

In the Michael Jackson/Debbie Rowe trade, Rowe valued the sum of money she got from Jackson more than the children she left him, and Jackson valued the children more than the money. The trade could take place.

Edited August 3, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

The sacrifice/non-sacrifice debate is just a variant of the objective/subjective one. If all values are subjective you cannot make a sacrificial trade (unless you make a mistake in perceiving and understanding the actual values involved?). I think some are subjective, some objective and some both. If a value is objective one can make a sacrifice of that value for a lower one. Why? is another matter. It doesn't matter if the valuing is subjective. I agree with Xray that all valuing is subjective.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

The valuers being two different people adds more and different situations. Consider again the priest with an unwilling victim. The victim is not trading a lower value for his/her own higher value, but rather the opposite. The victim is coerced, or duped, into forfeiting a higher value for a lower value. For such a case, Rand's saying "sacrifice" means "the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue" is not meaningless like Dragonfly claims (post #408), but makes good sense. I suspect Rand thought more about sacrificial victims when she formulated her meaning of "sacrifice."

That is not what she wrote in the passage in Galt's speech I discussed. The examples she gives in that very same passage (of which I mentioned a few) are unequivocal. They are all about the values to the sacrificer, not the value to the sacrificed/the victim, like the starving child in some examples she gives (in one example it's in her terms even a sacrifice if the mother does not let her child starve because in fact a new hat is more important to her!). What you think she thought or what she wrote elsewhere is not relevant to a discussion of this passage. It's not some sentence taken out of context, it's a quite extensive passage with a definition and many examples. You can't just say "Oh, she may have written that, but what she really thought was...". Why would she spend so much ink on those "trivial cases" (in Galt's speech!) as you call them? Perhaps she didn't find them so trivial herself. You can't just alter the meaning of what she wrote because it doesn't fit with your own ideas about what she should have written.

[merjet]

Dragonfly, say "not relevant" all you want. I still don't care.

As I see it, you are still trying to restrict discussion to your hand-picked examples. Apparently you missed the point of the quotes from Ayn Rand that I gave in post #416 (none from Galt's speech). Now it seems you say your examples aren't trivial because you picked them from Galt's speech. There are many passages in Galt's speech about sacrifice, but you didn't pick any like these:

"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors—between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth."

"No, you do not have to be a man; but today those who are, are not there any longer. I have removed your means of survival—your victims."

"It is your mind that they want you to surrender—all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: 'It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others'—end up by saying: 'It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.

"Your code declares that the rational man must sacrifice himself to the irrational, the independent man to parasites, the honest man to the dishonest, the man of justice to the unjust, the productive man to thieving loafers, the man of integrity to compromising knaves, the man of self-esteem to sniveling neurotics."

"The justification of sacrifice, that your morality propounds, is more corrupt than the corruption it purports to justify."

"The mystics of both schools, who preach the creed of sacrifice, are germs that attack you through a single sore: your fear of relying on your mind."

"Those irrational wishes that draw you to their creed, those emotions you worship as an idol, on whose altar you sacrifice the earth, that dark, incoherent passion within you, which you take as the voice of God or of your glands, is nothing more than the corpse of your mind."

"Neither he [Hank Rearden] nor the rest of us will return until the road is clear to rebuild this country—until the wreckage of the morality of sacrifice has been wiped out of our way."

I could cite many more, but there is no need for that. These make it clear that Rand is not referring to cases such as a mother choosing between a hat and some food, or who gets a bottle of milk, or somebody choosing between giving a small amount of money to a friend or a stranger. They don't involve coercion or calls for self-sacrifice to God or society or sacrifice as a moral ideal. That's what I meant by "trivial." Rand via Galt is instead talking about something far more significant -- religion and politics and pervasive ideas that have enormous consequences. Rand via Galt is talking about societal leaders calling for other people to self-sacrifice, i.e. for victims.

I have not tried to alter the meaning of what she wrote to fit my own ideas about what she should have written. Nowhere have I said 'she should have written something else' or anything simlar. I have emphasized passages different from the ones you have; that's all.

[Xray]

Dragonfly, say "not relevant" all you want. I still don't care.

As I see it, you are still trying to restrict discussion to your hand-picked examples. Apparently you missed the point of the quotes from Ayn Rand that I gave in post #416 (none from Galt's speech). Now it seems you say your examples aren't trivial because you picked them from Galt's speech. There are many passages in Galt's speech about sacrifice, but you didn't pick any like these:

"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors—between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth."

"No, you do not have to be a man; but today those who are, are not there any longer. I have removed your means of survival—your victims."

"It is your mind that they want you to surrender—all those who preach the creed of sacrifice, whatever their tags or their motives, whether they demand it for the sake of your soul or of your body, whether they promise you another life in heaven or a full stomach on this earth. Those who start by saying: 'It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others'—end up by saying: 'It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.

"Your code declares that the rational man must sacrifice himself to the irrational, the independent man to parasites, the honest man to the dishonest, the man of justice to the unjust, the productive man to thieving loafers, the man of integrity to compromising knaves, the man of self-esteem to sniveling neurotics."

"The justification of sacrifice, that your morality propounds, is more corrupt than the corruption it purports to justify."

"The mystics of both schools, who preach the creed of sacrifice, are germs that attack you through a single sore: your fear of relying on your mind."

"Those irrational wishes that draw you to their creed, those emotions you worship as an idol, on whose altar you sacrifice the earth, that dark, incoherent passion within you, which you take as the voice of God or of your glands, is nothing more than the corpse of your mind."

"Neither he [Hank Rearden] nor the rest of us will return until the road is clear to rebuild this country—until the wreckage of the morality of sacrifice has been wiped out of our way."

I could cite many more, but there is no need for that. These make it clear that Rand is not referring to cases such as a mother choosing between a hat and some food, or who gets a bottle of milk, or somebody choosing between giving a small amount of money to a friend or a stranger. They don't involve coercion or calls for self-sacrifice to God or society or sacrifice as a moral ideal. That's what I meant by "trivial." Rand via Galt is instead talking about something far more significant -- religion and politics and pervasive ideas that have enormous consequences. Rand via Galt is talking about societal leaders calling for other people to self-sacrifice, i.e. for victims.

I have not tried to alter the meaning of what she wrote to fit my own ideas about what she should have written. Nowhere have I said 'she should have written something else' or anything simlar. I have emphasized passages different from the ones you have; that's all.

Merlin, Dragonfly's approach to the subject "sacrifice" is analytical, "sine ira et studio", whereas yours is "valuing" the choices which the sacrificers make, valuing politicians' attempts to persuade people to sacrifice this or that, etc. But this is another topic altogether.

Would you agree that every sacrifice is basically a trade?

[jeffrey smith]

Your use of the word "purpose" here is confusing me.

As for my objections--it's one basic objection--that at several key points Objectivism asserts (or assumes)things which it claims are objectively derived from reality, but which are in fact only subjective valuations.... But there is no objective criteria, no logical chain of deductions and inferences from reality, by which you can prove that "to exist" is a better alternative than "to not exist". It's really just an assumption, a subjective decision that "to exist" is the better alternative...

Jeff,

You have answered the second part with the first. If you are confused about the Objectivist meaning of purpose, why make negative dogmatic statements about it?

Here's the rub. For your subjective "better alternative" to be valid, you are presuming a third implicit alternative to reality where something can be better or worse and still not exist. In other words, where something can exist and not exist at the same time. But reality doesn't work that way. There is no volition that does not exist. If it does not exist, it is not volition (or anything else, for that matter).

Not existing is not better or worse than existing. It is simply not existing. You presume a normative metaphysics, but there is no such thing. In epistemological terms, there is only a cognitive exist or not exist alternative.

Good and bad are measurements. To exist is the standard of measurement derived from reality. Lack of existing is no standard of anything—it is a total lack of the thing and the measurement.

I have been discussing all life and you keep going back to human life. So here is the thing in terms of human life. If a person decides to check out of existing, he is not making a choice to enter a bad state. (This is your point of confusion.) Not existing is not a state of existence. It is lack thereof. So the person is opting out of good and evil altogether since he is opting out of everything.

Michael

Ah, Michael!

I'm not confused about what Objectivism (more precisely, Ayn Rand) meant by the word "purpose" (the evidence being the quotes provided in the Ayn Rand Lexicon). But your posts about the "purpose of life" did not make much sense if you were using that meaning. More exactly, they would come out as vapid and meaningless as a speech by Pres. Obama.

Now, normally, you are not vapid and meaningless, which made me question it. Maybe you were just having an bad day in the writing department?

I have to reject your line of argument about an "implicit third alternative". To say that it is better to exist than not exist does not require some third choice: it's merely the claim that something-ness is superior to nothing-ness; that it is better to continue to exist than to cease to exist; that life is better than non-life. I agree with that claim; so, probably, does the vast majority of the human race (the exceptions being those that are actively considering suicide, and those that have read too much Sartre). But there is no argument of fact or logic that you could make to prove the point: it's a subjective judgment. And Objectivism would be much better off if owned up to the fact that it was in fact making a subjective judgment, instead of inventing sophistical logic chopping to prove a point that can't be proved.

And if existence is the standard of measurement (be it noted that to make that statement is simply to phrase the subjective claim in a different fashion--then what quantity of existence equals one unit?

[merjet]

Would you agree that every sacrifice is basically a trade?

No. See the synonyms here. "Trade" is not among them. You even have the genus wrong.

Ayn Rand used "surrender" as a genus (link). "Surrender" is a synonym.

surrender - to yield to the power of another; to give or deliver up possession of (anything) upon compulsion or demand (source, my bold)

Edited August 4, 2009 by Merlin Jetton

[Xray]

Would you agree that every sacrifice is basically a trade?

No. See the synonyms here. "Trade" is not among them. You even have the genus wrong.

Ayn Rand used "surrender" as a genus (link). "Surrender" is a synonym.

surrender - to yield to the power of another; to give or deliver up possession of (anything) upon compulsion or demand (source, my bold)

I was not asking for synonyms, I asked whether you consider sacrifice a trade; that is, whether you recognize it as a trade.

As for Rand's definiton - do you really believe this holds any water?

Rand has no idea of what constitues a sacrifice. For it is a trade.

Name me any "sacrifice" and I promise you I can point out to you that the sacrificer is ALWAYS out to gain something from the act. There is no exception to that rule.

You can do test runs with well-known sacrifices.

For example, let's take Abraham wanting to sacrifice his son Isaac. Gain-aspect for aAraham: God's approval (with God being regarded as the greater value than the son).

Agree? Disagree?

If you disagree, why?

Not only does Rand go against the definition of the word sacrifice, (again, she arbitrarily decides to define terms as suits her purpose) - her article on "sacrifice" is full of her personal value judgments in terms of what she considers people "ought to" trade in or "should not" trade in.

Again, she commits the methodical error of letting her subjcectivity (personal moral value judgements in that case) spill over into her analysis, which makes her elaborations on sacrifice worthless.

It is as if John Doe decided with some of his friends to use English in a different way when communicating with each other.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Xray

[merjet]

I was not asking for synonyms, I asked whether you consider sacrifice a trade; that is, whether you recognize it as a trade.

I answered, point-blank.

Regarding your next questions and comments, I did not ask to play any of your word games.

Again, she commits the methodical error of letting her subjcectivity (personal moral value judgements in that case) spill over into her analysis, which makes her elaborations on sacrifice worthless.

Look in a mirror. You described yourself near perfectly.

It is as if John Doe decided with some of his friends to use English in a different way when communicating with each other.

That's pretty ironic said by you when you reject dictionary meanings that don't fit your non-objective notions.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Merlin Jetton

[Dragonfly]

The only way to judge a goal rationally is when it is intended as a subgoal to another goal, but that's merely shifting the problem. A goal in itself cannot be rational,

A subgoal is a kind of goal. Trying to mask a contradiction with verbal sleight-of-hand doesn't pass my inspection.

I suppose what Dragonfly meant is that how to achieve a subjectively chosen goal can of course be rationally assessed. For the means one chooses to attain a goal can be analyzed as to whether they are adequate and effective or not.

If e.g. my goal is to cook spaghetti, not turning on the stove to get the water boiling is an irrational decision in view of my desired goal).

Indeed, there is no contradiction at all. A goal in itself cannot be rational, as "rational" refers to the way how you can successfully achieve a goal. On the other hand, a goal A as a means of obtaining another goal B can be rational given the goal B.

Suppose my goal is to visit a fortune teller. You cannot say that this is rational or an irrational goal in itself. That would depend on the question why I chose that goal. If my ultimate purpose was to get information how to invest my money, it would be an irrational goal, as there is no evidence that such a visit would give any useful information. But if my ultimate purpose is to unmask that fortune teller (supposing I'm some kind of Randi), then the goal might be rational. That is no sleight-of-hand, but elementary logic.

[Dragonfly]

Merlin, Dragonfly's approach to the subject "sacrifice" is analytical, "sine ira et studio", whereas yours is "valuing" the choices which the sacrificers make, valuing politicians' attempts to persuade people to sacrifice this or that, etc. But this is another topic altogether.

You hit the nail on the head, I couldn't have formulated it better. Merlin doesn't seem to understand the difference between his examples from Galt's speech and those I mentioned with regard to Rand's definition of "sacrifice". I discussed that part in which Rand gives her definition and painstakingly illustrates it with many examples to leave no doubt about her definition, that is her analytical discussion of the meaning of sacrifice. The other examples are moral evaluations of sacrifice in practice, which is indeed another topic altogether. As I already mentioned in my previous post, Rand even states that it is a sacrifice when a mother does not let her child starve because a new hat is more important to her, implying that it would be not a sacrifice if that mother let her child starve to buy the new hat, an action that Rand in practice no doubt would condemn, but which is a perfect illustration of her definition of "sacrifice", and that is at that point more important to her than to utter a moral condemnation. It's not the first time that I observe that I take Rand more seriously than many Objectivists do.

[Selene]

Wow!

Does this mean that you two are going steady?

Adam

[Barbara Branden]

Xray, Atheism is not part of the Objectivist philosophy although it may be a consequence. I was an atheist before I knew about Objectivism so it was not a consequence to me. The typical Objectivist will claim it is a part of the philosophy, but that's no more valid than saying the moon is not made of green cheese is a part of the philosophy.

Broadly speaking I wish Objectivism had been set up with a more individualistic orientation. I think Rand only gave lip service to individualism which accounts for her eschewing of libertarianism. In many ways she was an unacknowledged conservative who thought it more important to support Richard Nixon and Alan Greenspan's forays into Washington. The seduction of power is an awesome thing and the typical conservative sees himself as a powerful actor and influence on the political-economic stage. He does not blow it all off like the strikers in Atlas Shrugged. The fatal contradiction in AS is the strikers were going back into the world after the way was cleared but there wasn't anything to go back to. By going on strike in the first place seeking the consequence of a perfect world they accepted the statist premise of the supremacy of the state. Note they were going to set up another state with the Judge's tweaked US constitution. That made the whole enterprise a battle for political power. If that's your business don't hide it in the bushes. You don't celebrate individualism by having Francisco give up Dagny for a crusade. Now there is altruism for you! Even the artificial premise of human perfection can't give that notion any sense at all.

Rand championed the idea of the impotence of evil--that evil cannot survive or flourish except with the sanction of the virtuous victim. There is a lot of truth in that but there is no truth in human perfectibility any more than societal perfectibility. An ideal is something to be achieved by moving toward such while understanding you can never get there even under the most ideal of circumstances. You really wouldn't want to anyway. That'd be like achieving absolute zero: all motion would stop. A state of pure capitalism would soon get degraded as citizens involved forget why it was so valuable to begin with. If you don't fight for your freedom(s) you won't have any freedom muscles.

Because of free will all humans have potential for good or evil. The sanction of the victim concept is blind to the fact that pretending you yourself can and will do no conscious wrong makes one not see the wrong one actually does, usually to oneself. It is blind to free will in the morally perfect, someone like John Galt. Hence the lack of individualism in Objectivism as would be Objectivists display themselves as Galt moral facsimiles. It's like the old-time religion where one suddenly announces one has been "saved" with appropriate emotional ejaculations that fit the demanded-expected form.

--Brant

Brant, I don';t believe you mean one word of this.

Barbara

[merjet]

Indeed, there is no contradiction at all. A goal in itself cannot be rational, as "rational" refers to the way how you can successfully achieve a goal. On the other hand, a goal A as a means of obtaining another goal B can be rational given the goal B.

Suppose my goal is to visit a fortune teller. You cannot say that this is rational or an irrational goal in itself. That would depend on the question why I chose that goal. If my ultimate purpose was to get information how to invest my money, it would be an irrational goal, as there is no evidence that such a visit would give any useful information. But if my ultimate purpose is to unmask that fortune teller (supposing I'm some kind of Randi), then the goal might be rational. That is no sleight-of-hand, but elementary logic.

You first say, "You cannot say that this is rational or an irrational goal in itself." How does "in itself" allegedly alter the meaning of "goal"? I can't see it does. A goal is not "context free." In the next sentence you include "irrational goal." Also, the sentence after that includes "the goal might be rational." So I still contend the sentences are contradictory.

[merjet]

Merlin doesn't seem to understand the difference between his examples from Galt's speech and those I mentioned with regard to Rand's definition of "sacrifice". I discussed that part in which Rand gives her definition and painstakingly illustrates it with many examples to leave no doubt about her definition, that is her analytical discussion of the meaning of sacrifice. The other examples are moral evaluations of sacrifice in practice, which is indeed another topic altogether.

You are correct that there are moral evaluations in the examples I gave, but not the ones you gave. However, the difference between our examples is not simply that. Ayn Rand defined sacrifice as "the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue." As I have pointed out, surrender means "to yield to the power of another; to give or deliver up possession of (anything) upon compulsion or demand." Whether or not there is compulsion or demand in a situation is a matter of fact or true/false, not somebody's moral evaluation of the situation. For the examples you gave there is no second party obviously present to demand or compel the person facing the alternatives.

All or most of the examples I gave alluded to two parties, the person facing the alternatives and a "higher authority" doing the demanding or compelling. That is a key difference between the examples you picked and the ones I picked. Such difference is a matter of true/false, not a moral evaluation of the situation.

Let's look again at the examples you picked.

1.If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is.

2. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is.

3. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty.

About each case Ayn Rand says the first alternative IS NOT a sacrifice, but the second alternative IS. Why? I submit it is because there is no imagined compulsion or demand from some external "higher moral authority" in the first alternative, but there IS in the second alternative. The latter is not clearly given in #1 and #2, but it is in #3.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Merlin Jetton

[Brant Gaede]

Brant, I don';t believe you mean one word of this.

Barbara

There are a fair amount of words there, Barbara. I'll try to rethink it through tonight when I have the time.

--Brant

[Xray]

Merlin doesn't seem to understand the difference between his examples from Galt's speech and those I mentioned with regard to Rand's definition of "sacrifice". I discussed that part in which Rand gives her definition and painstakingly illustrates it with many examples to leave no doubt about her definition, that is her analytical discussion of the meaning of sacrifice. The other examples are moral evaluations of sacrifice in practice, which is indeed another topic altogether.

You are correct that there are moral evaluations in the examples I gave, but not the ones you gave. However, the difference between our examples is not simply that. Ayn Rand defined sacrifice as "the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue." As I have pointed out, surrender means "to yield to the power of another; to give or deliver up possession of (anything) upon compulsion or demand." Whether or not there is compulsion or demand in a situation is a matter of fact or true/false, not somebody's moral evaluation of the situation. For the examples you gave there is no second party obviously present to demand or compel the person facing the alternatives.

All or most of the examples I gave alluded to two parties, the person facing the alternatives and a "higher authority" doing the demanding or compelling. That is a key difference between the examples you picked and the ones I picked. Such difference is a matter of true/false, not a moral evaluation of the situation.

Let's look again at the examples you picked.

1.If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is.

2. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is.

3. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty.

About each case Ayn Rand says the first alternative IS NOT a sacrifice, but the second alternative IS. Why? I submit it is because there is no imagined compulsion or demand from some external "higher moral authority" in the first alternative, but there IS in the second alternative. The latter is not clearly given in #1 and #2, but it is in #3.

And who IS that "higher moral authority" in # 2? No one but Rand herself, who again subjectively judges, in that case a stranger as "worthless" compared to the friend.

Instead of accepting subjective choices, there is the arbitrary Rand catalog of what one "ought to" value. Is that individualism?

[jeffrey smith]

1.If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is.

2. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is.

3. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty.

About each case Ayn Rand says the first alternative IS NOT a sacrifice, but the second alternative IS. Why? I submit it is because there is no imagined compulsion or demand from some external "higher moral authority" in the first alternative, but there IS in the second alternative. The latter is not clearly given in #1 and #2, but it is in #3.

And who IS that "higher moral authority" in # 2? No one but Rand herself, who again subjectively judges, in that case a stranger as "worthless" compared to the friend.

Instead of accepting subjective choices, there is the arbitrary Rand catalog of what one "ought to" value. Is that individualism?

You have it reversed. The alternatives that Rand rejects are actions done in compliance with external moral codes, societal pressures, etc: the person making the sacrifice believes he or she has a duty to make the sacrifice, or feels co-erced by the opinion of those around here.

What Rand does not seem to contemplate is the situation where the person involved actually finds value in performing the alternative Rand labels as a sacrifice. Just because Rand did not find any value principle in giving money to worthless strangers (and of course, the very word "worthless" carries in it the fact that the stranger has no value) does not mean that everyone else does not, or should not.

[Brant Gaede]

Xray, Atheism is not part of the Objectivist philosophy although it may be a consequence. I was an atheist before I knew about Objectivism so it was not a consequence to me. The typical Objectivist will claim it is a part of the philosophy, but that's no more valid than saying the moon is not made of green cheese is a part of the philosophy.

Broadly speaking I wish Objectivism had been set up with a more individualistic orientation. I think Rand only gave lip service to individualism which accounts for her eschewing of libertarianism. In many ways she was an unacknowledged conservative who thought it more important to support Richard Nixon and Alan Greenspan's forays into Washington. The seduction of power is an awesome thing and the typical conservative sees himself as a powerful actor and influence on the political-economic stage. He does not blow it all off like the strikers in Atlas Shrugged. The fatal contradiction in AS is the strikers were going back into the world after the way was cleared but there wasn't anything to go back to. By going on strike in the first place seeking the consequence of a perfect world they accepted the statist premise of the supremacy of the state. Note they were going to set up another state with the Judge's tweaked US constitution. That made the whole enterprise a battle for political power. If that's your business don't hide it in the bushes. You don't celebrate individualism by having Francisco give up Dagny for a crusade. Now there is altruism for you! Even the artificial premise of human perfection can't give that notion any sense at all.

Rand championed the idea of the impotence of evil--that evil cannot survive or flourish except with the sanction of the virtuous victim. There is a lot of truth in that but there is no truth in human perfectibility any more than societal perfectibility. An ideal is something to be achieved by moving toward such while understanding you can never get there even under the most ideal of circumstances. You really wouldn't want to anyway. That'd be like achieving absolute zero: all motion would stop. A state of pure capitalism would soon get degraded as citizens involved forget why it was so valuable to begin with. If you don't fight for your freedom(s) you won't have any freedom muscles.

Because of free will all humans have potential for good or evil. The sanction of the victim concept is blind to the fact that pretending you yourself can and will do no conscious wrong makes one not see the wrong one actually does, usually to oneself. It is blind to free will in the morally perfect, someone like John Galt. Hence the lack of individualism in Objectivism as would be Objectivists display themselves as Galt moral facsimiles. It's like the old-time religion where one suddenly announces one has been "saved" with appropriate emotional ejaculations that fit the demanded-expected form.

--Brant

Brant, I don';t believe you mean one word of this.

Barbara

Well, Barbara, I can see several things to criticize. I shouldn't be telling people, generally, what is and isn't Objectivism because my minimalist Objectivism isn't classic Objectivism. Thus I was probably wrong to say atheism isn't part of Objectivism. I have always had one criticism about Objectivism in such matters, however, that it is some sort of middleman between my brain and reality--except for the reason part. It's one thing to have a philosophy of ideas. It's another to have a philosophy both of ideas and things. Ayn Rand had her things; not all of them were my things. To be more precise they weren't mine unless I already had them or agreed with them, getting them that way--the reason way.

In the American Revolution it was a battle for political power and the Founding Fathers won. Nothing wrong with that. But the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution which lay the groundwork for the continual expansion of state imperial power and the subjugation of the individual. It was what Americans wanted for westward expansion. They got that and they got wars, including the War Between the States which killed off 5% of the population. The fancy clothes of nationalism and patriotism belied what was underneath which led to the Spanish American War and the near-genocidal subjugation of the Philippines. Then came WWI which was a world war because the U.S. got into it. Instead of seeking peace the Brits sought American involvement and got it. Then came communism in Russia. Now even with that fiasco WWII didn't have to happen. Hitler didn't have to come to power. But war reparations ruined Germany and middle class Germans economically and the Great Depression, another consequence of state power and the ignorant economic stupidity of Hoover coupled with central banking made it all possible. Today we are still governed by stupidity and the country is burning down. This isn't something corrected by rendering the flaws out of the Constitution. The Supreme Court gave up on the Constitution 70 years ago under the packing threat from the executive and legislative branches. My grandfather contributed to that.

You cannot have individualism in Objectivism if Objectivists arrange themselves hierarchically respecting each other as in Atlas Shrugged with Galt on top of the moral/ability/character/integrity structure: "You don't get too close to a god" (Rand). Admiration is one thing, even intense admiration. Man worship? No. Not unless you're looking at a statue or making a general contemplation of man, not a man. Galt as a statue? Okay, but it doesn't travel.

Francisco giving up Dagny for a crusade is necessary to make Atlas Shrugged work. There is no way to make a significant improvement to AS and an attempt to do so here would simply collapse the entire plot-structure. In real life he wouldn't give her up for that. But maybe something else of equivalent moral significance that would work in real life just as the crusade worked in the artificial world of AS.

Rather than continue in this vein respecting the rest of my previous post to my previous post I'll stop here. I'm sorry I made you angry. I've probably compounded the offense.

--Brant

weary--time for a break

[Xray]

1.If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is.

2. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is.

3. If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice: she values the child higher than the hat; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother whose higher value is the hat, who would prefer her child to starve and feeds him only from a sense of duty.

About each case Ayn Rand says the first alternative IS NOT a sacrifice, but the second alternative IS. Why? I submit it is because there is no imagined compulsion or demand from some external "higher moral authority" in the first alternative, but there IS in the second alternative. The latter is not clearly given in #1 and #2, but it is in #3.

And who IS that "higher moral authority" in # 2? No one but Rand herself, who again subjectively judges, in that case a stranger as "worthless" compared to the friend.

Instead of accepting subjective choices, there is the arbitrary Rand catalog of what one "ought to" value. Is that individualism?

You have it reversed. The alternatives that Rand rejects are actions done in compliance with external moral codes, societal pressures, etc: the person making the sacrifice believes he or she has a duty to make the sacrifice, or feels co-erced by the opinion of those around here.

What Rand does not seem to contemplate is the situation where the person involved actually finds value in performing the alternative Rand labels as a sacrifice. Just because Rand did not find any value principle in giving money to worthless strangers (and of course, the very word "worthless" carries in it the fact that the stranger has no value) does not mean that everyone else does not, or should not.

Look at her example. When she says:

"2. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is.",

there is no external moral code, no societal pressure mentioned, no sense of duty, nothing of the sort.

What Rand does not seem to contemplate is the situation where the person involved actually finds value in performing the alternative Rand labels as a sacrifice. Just because Rand did not find any value principle in giving money to worthless strangers (and of course, the very word "worthless" carries in it the fact that the stranger has no value) does not mean that everyone else does not, or should not.

This is the gist of the matter.

A sacrifice is ALWAYS performed because the sacrificer hopes to get a higher value for that which he/she treades in. The individual motives prompting the sacrifice don't alter this fundamental principle.

Just one of countless examples: suppose a Hollywood movie director tries to persuade actress X to have plastic surgery performed, and in the end she reluctantly agrees (although she loathes the mere thought of having plastic surgery performed on her), because she is hoping to get a greater value for herself in return (the coveted role, which in case of her ot complying the movie director would give to another actress.

The actress trades (sacrifices) her independence for a value she subjectively holds higher (getting the role).

Now let's reverse the scenario: the movie director is not successful in persuading actress X to have plastic surgery. She declines. He reacts by giving the coveted role to another actress.

The actress trades (sacrifices) the coveted role for a value she subjectively holds higher: her independence.

The principle at work is always the same. People will only sacrifice (trade) something in exchange for a value they hold higher.

How one judges their choices is irrelevant here, since it is about analyzing an operative principle.

No sacrifice without a higher value expected on the part of the sacrificer.

Feel free to list any sacrifices, Merlin. Please do.

I would like to discuss two extreme cases of sacrifice with you: Galileo Galilei and Janusz Korczak.

More later.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Xray

[merjet]

The alternatives that Rand rejects are actions done in compliance with external moral codes, societal pressures, etc: the person making the sacrifice believes he or she has a duty to make the sacrifice, or feels co-erced by the opinion of those around here.

Bingo! There is compulsion or demand to surrender to somebody else's moral authority in all three cases. It is understood (meaning 3) in cases #1 and #2. However, it is not understood (meaning 1) by Xray. Are you surprised?

Edited August 5, 2009 by Merlin Jetton

[Xray]

The alternatives that Rand rejects are actions done in compliance with external moral codes, societal pressures, etc: the person making the sacrifice believes he or she has a duty to make the sacrifice, or feels co-erced by the opinion of those around here.

Bingo! There is compulsion or demand to surrender to somebody else's moral authority in all three cases. It is understood (meaning 3) in cases #1 and #2. However, it is not understood (meaning 1) by Xray. Are you surprised?

Have you read my # 523 post?