Can morality be objective?

[Christopher]

Are we all in agreement that there are certain professions that, by their nature, acquire a higher order of "social responsibility?

If so, there would still have to be a tipping point wherein an oath can be:

voided

non-binding

revocable

For example, an officer's oath would be voidable if, in their individual evaluations they concluded that the order to commit an act. or the act itself. was unconstitutional, in human or immoral.

Adam

we spend New Years Eve at home since it is amateur night anyway

Yes, it reminds me of the military code as well. Officers in the military might ideally join because their personal values coincide with the constitution and the upholding of national security. Once the commands cease to be constitutional or against the safety of the nation, the military no longer represents the same organization that the officer joined; therefore the officer has an obligation to himself not to continue with that organization. Perhaps it is better to say that one does not join an organization (like an "institution of doctors"), one joins a set of organized ideals with a unique expression. Take an oath, but it's an oath towards the values an organization upholds, not towards the organization. A doctor is nothing more than an individual committed to upholding life with a certain set of skills. The system around him is irrelevant.

Where the system is relevant is when one considers how his/her actions influence the system. Galt and his engine could have saved lives, but it would strengthen the system of corruption in his world. Galt maybe believed that the system was more harmful overall to life than the benefits his engine could provide in that system; therefore, by witholding his engine, he in fact was promoting life.

Who knows... I'm just thinking out loud to the sound of keyboard buttons clicking. Anyway, just as an aside - Adam... I like the way you've been handling Xray.

[Selene]

Are we all in agreement that there are certain professions that, by their nature, acquire a higher order of "social responsibility?

If so, there would still have to be a tipping point wherein an oath can be:

voided

non-binding

revocable

For example, an officer's oath would be voidable if, in their individual evaluations they concluded that the order to commit an act. or the act itself. was unconstitutional, in human or immoral.

Adam

we spend New Years Eve at home since it is amateur night anyway

Yes, it reminds me of the military code as well. Officers in the military might ideally join because their personal values coincide with the constitution and the upholding of national security. Once the commands cease to be constitutional or against the safety of the nation, the military no longer represents the same organization that the officer joined; therefore the officer has an obligation to himself not to continue with that organization. Perhaps it is better to say that one does not join an organization (like an "institution of doctors"), one joins a set of organized ideals with a unique expression. Take an oath, but it's an oath towards the values an organization upholds, not towards the organization. A doctor is nothing more than an individual committed to upholding life with a certain set of skills. The system around him is irrelevant.

Where the system is relevant is when one considers how his/her actions influence the system. Galt and his engine could have saved lives, but it would strengthen the system of corruption in his world. Galt maybe believed that the system was more harmful overall to life than the benefits his engine could provide in that system; therefore, by witholding his engine, he in fact was promoting life.

Who knows... I'm just thinking out loud to the sound of keyboard buttons clicking. Anyway, just as an aside - Adam... I like the way you've been handling Xray.

Thanks. And most of the time, I do not have to wash my hands.

Happy New Year Chris - maybe we will get a chess game in this year!

Adam

I have only made one New Years Resolution every year for decades and I keep it perfectly. I resolve not to make any stupid resolutions that I have no intention of keeping. 100% compliance so far.

[Christopher]

Happy New Year Adam!

[Steve Gagne]

Happy New Year Adam!

Chris --

Happy New Year to you, and to all on OL.

steve

[BaalChatzaf]

And, doing the work for ourselves - - that's not that bad of a deal. Rand went so far, explored so much and offered so much insight. It would be lacking in grace to obsess with criticizing her for what she didn't get done. Our job - - as you say, to get it done ourselves!!!

Enough for a lifetime and more.

Bill P (smiling)

Not allowed. According to the Shi'ite Objectivists, Objectivism is a Closed System. Nothing can be added or taken away. It is as the Mistress made it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Alfonso Jones]

And, doing the work for ourselves - - that's not that bad of a deal. Rand went so far, explored so much and offered so much insight. It would be lacking in grace to obsess with criticizing her for what she didn't get done. Our job - - as you say, to get it done ourselves!!!

Enough for a lifetime and more.

Bill P (smiling)

Not allowed. According to the Shi'ite Objectivists, Objectivism is a Closed System. Nothing can be added or taken away. It is as the Mistress made it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That is the way the Orthodox see it, of course. Of course, Rand herself said there was work to be done in working out the system.

Bill P

[Dragonfly]

1) You did fire at it, but you missed by a mile - - - didn't come near shooting it down. (In fact, what you call the target isn't even there!) You point out at the link that Dagny talked for some time, perhaps two minutes, with the guard. I look at that extended dialogue, and conclude that she was giving him repeated chances. The delay fits well with the idea that she gave him clear chances, endeavoring to show him the choice was making if he continued to bar her entry. The only reason for delay (from Dagny's viewpoint) was to give the guard a chance to choose life. If Dagny just wanted to be brutal and had no concern for the guard's lidw, she could have short the guard before he saw her.

The point is that not Dagny's viewpoint is the point, but Rand's viewpoint. Dagny is here mere an instrument for Rand to present a philosophical lesson.

2) It is of course true that Rand makes a philosophical point about the guard. DAGNY DOES NOT.

No, did I ever say that? We're talking about the meaning of a passage that contains a philosophical message, and the message is that Dagny is justified in killing the guard because the latter cannot make a decision. That the guard is obstructing her rescue of Galt is only a convenient excuse for the passage, as no one would have accepted her killing of an innocent passer-by. Its comparable to the fact that in dictatorships show trials are held or prisoners are allegedly shot "while attempting to escape". If Rand only wanted to describe the situation where a guard had to be neutralized to rescue Galt, there are many other ways that could have been done, as I've indicated in an earlier post. Again: this is not some journalistic or naturalistic report where unexpected things happen that somehow have to be solved, this is a novel in which the author creates the scenes as she wants them. And Rand's comments makes it quite clear what the meaning of the scene is, namely not that you may kill a guard in an emergency situation, but that someone who cannot make up his mind is lower than an animal, and that you therefore may kill him without compunction. That is the reason that so many readers object to this scene, who would not have objected when Dagny had shot a guard in a real emergency where every second counts. Instead Dagny has all the time to do a sadistic cat-and-mouse play with the guard, who, no doubt quite contrary to Rand's intentions, in fact becomes the hero of the scene. After all he refuses to accept Dagny's allegations on faith, even at gunpoint, where a pragmatic person would have either attacked Dagny or surrendered. He's an idealist who refuses to act on uncertain and conflicting information and he's even prepared to die for it.

[Brant Gaede]

Very sophisticated analysis, DF.

--Brant

[Darrell Hougen]

I still don't think you've addressed the "why" question. Here is (in brief) my approach (outlined in my reply to Jeffrey):

In a nut shell, I would argue that if your chosen, long-range goal, for which life is a subordinate goal, causes you to act in any manner that is substantially incompatible with the requirements of your life, you will substantially increase your probability of death and, therefore, will substantially reduce your odds of achieving your primary goal. Therefore, it is impossible to choose any goal that is substantially different from the maintenance of your life. That does not mean that you cannot maintain your life by different and various means. Rather, it implies that the maintenance of your life can never be subordinate to any other long-range goal, at least not in any substantial manner.

Darrell

I think I see what you're getting at. Why?.... why oh why? I think we are both answering the "why" question at different levels. I might say that we should act in a life-sustaining manner because that is what we are evolved to do. Why does a rock fall in gravity? Because that is the nature of the universe. Now, on a more personal level, we should act to sustain our life because it leads to a greater magnitude and length of positive experience. Positive experience as such is an irreducible primary in terms of human preference. Extending further, positive experience is also evolution's way of telling us "you're doing good, kid. You're surviving."

The way you address the question is very nice. My first thought would be to say that a conscious goal to survive per se is not equivalent to the multitude of ways we experience and perceive the goals necessary for our survival. I think you recognize this. It is interesting that in a way you are arguing pure logic, whereas I mix in a bit of biology and psychology. You may not be fully answering your own "why" though. For example, you seem to be implicitly assuming that continued living is better than not living. Why?

Christopher

Hi Chris,

The fact that we evolved to carry out life sustaining actions is not a reason to do so. If a person says, "Why should I care about what I evolved to do?" what will your answer be?

I'm not sure what you mean by "positive experience," but in common parlance, it would not be an irreducible primary. Rand correctly identifies the pleasure-pain mechanism as the most basic form of information about the status of one's survival. Pleasure and pain, in the sense she used them, are sensations caused by the stimulation of nerve endings. As such, they have no cognitive or conceptual content. They are like a noise that has not yet been interpreted. A sensation of pain may occur when the body is being damaged and it may differ depending upon whether it is due to physical trauma, heat, cold, hunger or thirst, but it contains no interpretation of its cause. Similarly, a physical sensation of pleasure may differ depending upon whether it results from satisfying one's hunger or thirst or from the stimulation of nerve endings sensitive to touch, but it tells a person nothing about how his hunger or thirst were satisfied or why his nerve endings are being stimulated. In short, pleasure and pain are raw sensations providing information about the value of a particular action to the individual.

The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the proper function of its body, which requires action to correct it. [italics in the original]

Maximizing "positive experience" is not an objective standard of value. Neither is maximizing pleasure while minimizing pain. The pleasure-pain mechanism provides raw information about the values of actions to a person and may provide clues about the correct course of action, but man is a conceptual animal and must identify his standard of value in conceptual terms. It is the concept of life that serves that purpose for a rational man. And, it is the concept of life, the concept that man faces a fundamental alternative between continued existence or nonexistence, that makes the concept of of value possible.

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence --- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. ... It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible."

A rational man must strive to continue to live. If a man chooses not to live, he has also chosen not to be rational. As I argued in an earlier post, man must hold his life as his standard of value in order to have a value hierarchy. If he chooses death, he cannot have a value hierarchy because nothing can be less valuable than death. A series of values that could never be achieved would be meaningless.

If a man does not have a value hierarchy, he cannot be rational because to be rational means to have a logically consistent value hierarchy for deciding what to do and what to think. Moreover, if a man is not rational, that implies that he cannot think logically. In order for a man to favor a true conclusion over a false one, he must value the true conclusion over the false one. But, if he has no value hierarchy, then he cannot value truth over falsehood and, therefore, cannot reason logically (or reason at all).

The question then becomes, why not abandon reason, logic and rationality completely? There can be no answer to this question because any answer must involve the use of logic in the first place. One cannot argue for the use of logic, but all arguments assume its use. No contradictions can exist in reality. Therefore, all discussions of ethics must start from the assumption of rationality and the only choice consistent with rationality is the choice of life as the standard of value. Therefore, a man is rational if and only if he has chosen life as his standard of value. To ask why a man ought to choose life is ask why an argument must be logical. Every argument about ethics assumes the existence of a man that has chosen to live. Life is the only rational choice.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

The way you address the question is very nice. My first thought would be to say that a conscious goal to survive per se is not equivalent to the multitude of ways we experience and perceive the goals necessary for our survival. I think you recognize this.

Yes. And Rand also recognized this fact. In fact, I think she handles the issue very nicely in VOS.

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others --- and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose.

In psychological terms, the issue of man's survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of "life or death," but as an issue of "happiness or suffering." Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man's body is an automatic indicator of his body's welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death --- so the emotional mechanism of man's consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative be means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. [italics in the original]

She goes on to discuss the proper relationship between life, as the standard of value, and happiness, as the psychological barometer of one's success or failure.

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one's own life as one's ultimate value, and one's own happiness as one's highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one's life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one's life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself --- the kind that makes one think: "This is worth living for" --- what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.

But the relationship of cause and effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting "man's life" as one's primary and by pursuing the rational values that it requires that one can achieve happiness --- not by taking "happiness" as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. [italics in the original]

By the way, her use of the word "concomitant" above is significant. Something is concomitant if it occurs with something else but is subordinate to it. Happiness is the emotional concomitant of life, but it is metaphysically subordinate to it. Life is the metaphysical primary. Happiness is the emotional reward that accompanies it.

Darrell

[Christopher]

I still don't think you've addressed the "why" question. Here is (in brief) my approach (outlined in my reply to Jeffrey):

In a nut shell, I would argue that if your chosen, long-range goal, for which life is a subordinate goal, causes you to act in any manner that is substantially incompatible with the requirements of your life, you will substantially increase your probability of death and, therefore, will substantially reduce your odds of achieving your primary goal. Therefore, it is impossible to choose any goal that is substantially different from the maintenance of your life. That does not mean that you cannot maintain your life by different and various means. Rather, it implies that the maintenance of your life can never be subordinate to any other long-range goal, at least not in any substantial manner.

Darrell

I think I see what you're getting at. Why?.... why oh why? I think we are both answering the "why" question at different levels. I might say that we should act in a life-sustaining manner because that is what we are evolved to do. Why does a rock fall in gravity? Because that is the nature of the universe. Now, on a more personal level, we should act to sustain our life because it leads to a greater magnitude and length of positive experience. Positive experience as such is an irreducible primary in terms of human preference. Extending further, positive experience is also evolution's way of telling us "you're doing good, kid. You're surviving."

The way you address the question is very nice. My first thought would be to say that a conscious goal to survive per se is not equivalent to the multitude of ways we experience and perceive the goals necessary for our survival. I think you recognize this. It is interesting that in a way you are arguing pure logic, whereas I mix in a bit of biology and psychology. You may not be fully answering your own "why" though. For example, you seem to be implicitly assuming that continued living is better than not living. Why?

Christopher

Hi Chris,

The fact that we evolved to carry out life sustaining actions is not a reason to do so. If a person says, "Why should I care about what I evolved to do?" what will your answer be?

I'm not sure what you mean by "positive experience," but in common parlance, it would not be an irreducible primary. Rand correctly identifies the pleasure-pain mechanism as the most basic form of information about the status of one's survival. Pleasure and pain, in the sense she used them, are sensations caused by the stimulation of nerve endings. As such, they have no cognitive or conceptual content. They are like a noise that has not yet been interpreted. A sensation of pain may occur when the body is being damaged and it may differ depending upon whether it is due to physical trauma, heat, cold, hunger or thirst, but it contains no interpretation of its cause. Similarly, a physical sensation of pleasure may differ depending upon whether it results from satisfying one's hunger or thirst or from the stimulation of nerve endings sensitive to touch, but it tells a person nothing about how his hunger or thirst were satisfied or why his nerve endings are being stimulated. In short, pleasure and pain are raw sensations providing information about the value of a particular action to the individual.

The physical sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing the wrong course of action, that something is impairing the proper function of its body, which requires action to correct it. [italics in the original]

Maximizing "positive experience" is not an objective standard of value. Neither is maximizing pleasure while minimizing pain. The pleasure-pain mechanism provides raw information about the values of actions to a person and may provide clues about the correct course of action, but man is a conceptual animal and must identify his standard of value in conceptual terms. It is the concept of life that serves that purpose for a rational man. And, it is the concept of life, the concept that man faces a fundamental alternative between continued existence or nonexistence, that makes the concept of of value possible.

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence --- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. ... It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible."

A rational man must strive to continue to live. If a man chooses not to live, he has also chosen not to be rational. As I argued in an earlier post, man must hold his life as his standard of value in order to have a value hierarchy. If he chooses death, he cannot have a value hierarchy because nothing can be less valuable than death. A series of values that could never be achieved would be meaningless.

If a man does not have a value hierarchy, he cannot be rational because to be rational means to have a logically consistent value hierarchy for deciding what to do and what to think. Moreover, if a man is not rational, that implies that he cannot think logically. In order for a man to favor a true conclusion over a false one, he must value the true conclusion over the false one. But, if he has no value hierarchy, then he cannot value truth over falsehood and, therefore, cannot reason logically (or reason at all).

The question then becomes, why not abandon reason, logic and rationality completely? There can be no answer to this question because any answer must involve the use of logic in the first place. One cannot argue for the use of logic, but all arguments assume its use. No contradictions can exist in reality. Therefore, all discussions of ethics must start from the assumption of rationality and the only choice consistent with rationality is the choice of life as the standard of value. Therefore, a man is rational if and only if he has chosen life as his standard of value. To ask why a man ought to choose life is ask why an argument must be logical. Every argument about ethics assumes the existence of a man that has chosen to live. Life is the only rational choice.

Darrell

We're still talking at different levels. If a person says "Why should I care about what I evolved to do," I'm not offering a religious service. I'm merely saying that objectively the right thing to do is to carry out life-sustaining actions. It would be the same if this man asked me "why does gravity draw matter together?" I don't need to talk about God, I merely need to point out that this is how the universe functions. The man is still free to choose whatever he wants.

Your moral "why" is based on philosophical premises of rationality and logic, which is why I think you misinterpret my scientific approach. I agree with a lot of what you are posting. You're not arguing for "objective morality" so much as you are arguing for "rational morality."

Christopher

[Darrell Hougen]

We're still talking at different levels. If a person says "Why should I care about what I evolved to do," I'm not offering a religious service. I'm merely saying that objectively the right thing to do is to carry out life-sustaining actions. It would be the same if this man asked me "why does gravity draw matter together?" I don't need to talk about God, I merely need to point out that this is how the universe functions. The man is still free to choose whatever he wants.

Your moral "why" is based on philosophical premises of rationality and logic, which is why I think you misinterpret my scientific approach. I agree with a lot of what you are posting. You're not arguing for "objective morality" so much as you are arguing for "rational morality."

Christopher

No. I'm arguing for the objectivity of morality. (I'm not sure what that has to do with God or religion.) You're saying that, "objectively the right thing to do is to carry out life-sustaining actions." But, you're not saying why. You have to say why. When you say that it is right to do something, you're saying that a person --- a volitional creature --- should do that thing. But, to justify the statement that someone should do something, you must say why that person should do it.

I'm making your argument for you. Simply stating that in observing the fact that people and lower life forms carry out life-sustaining actions, you observe that such actions reveal implicit (or explicit) value judgments does not prove that volitional creatures should carry out life-sustaining actions. You need an argument about the nature of man, life, values, volition, and rationality to accomplish that goal. I have provided that argument (more or less).

Darrell

[jeffrey smith]

Darrell, I'm sorry to report that your argument, while well written and detailed, proves nothing, because it's actually an elaborate begging of the question.

In order to prove that life is the standard of value, you have to assume that life is the standard of value. There is no way to prove it, rationally, objectively, or whatever you wish to call it.

The central problem is that (contrary to your argument) death is not the only possible alternative to life as the standard of value. There are others, and they are equally rational: love, knowledge, serenity (which is a different thing from happiness), truth are all possible alternatives, and none of them are subsidiary to life in the way you try to argue. You try to argue that because every person must seek to live in order to succeed at their preferred goal, then life is primary. That's reversing the order of things: in such a situation life is the secondary goal, the means to the primary value. They would be subsidiary to life only if a person attempts to succeed at their preferred goal for the sake of living--the reverse of the usual procedure. You are confusing the means and the end. A more obvious example would be a person who buys an expensive coffee maker so they can enjoy gourmet coffee at home. By your logic, having the coffee maker is a higher value than enjoying the gourmet coffee.

Jeffrey S.

Edited January 3, 2010 by jeffrey smith

[anonrobt]

anonrobt,

Could it be that the the entire process of one man's self-upliftment (or that of Man, in general) is the process of super-imposing the "trading syndrome" over the "taking syndrome"? The latter 'morality' is certainly far inferior to the first, which requires volition and rationality to develop.

The trading (individualist) syndrome does not, like its counterpart, come 'naturally' hard-wired, but must be consciously selected and nurtured, doesn't it? Anyhow, that's how I see it.

These two groupings of Jacobs you have presented help me answer some puzzles about the majority of people I've known, and just by the way,(!) go a long way to confirming O'ist ethics. That you have identified the divide as tribalist/individualist is an important addition.

(Interesting that several pillars of industry, our Capitalist 'traders', appear to match the Taking Syndrome morality, rather than the Trading : vengeful,deceptive,ostentatious. Or at least those I've met and heard about.)

Thanks for this, and for your clarity.

Tony

regarding that -

[Thoughts to consider - from the chapter "Conflicts" of my manuscript, where the syndromes explain why the negative viewing of commerce pervades to today...]

When the earliest of humanity spread out from the African terrain, the general assumption is that they all spread upward, that is, to the northern areas. One group, which in time became the Neanderthals, took to crossing the then land bridge of the Gibraltar straits, into western Europe. Others more or less settled among the shores of the Mediterranean which at that time were not the desert-like areas known today. Most wandered to the northeast, some settling among the delta of the Nile, others across the curve into the Anatolian region, still others crossing the isles into the Grecian areas into what became Thrace. The rest, by various ways, traversed across the near east region into the region of the Indo of the far east. As each advance took place across the land, offshoots took to going north, depending on the Ice Age glacier decendencies. There was also, after a time, a return migration from the Indo area across the northern lands, following the game which they by that time had begun to hunt, becoming very much the hunter society.

It was those which settled along the eastern coastal waters of the Mediterranean, those who settled in Thrace and the Anatolian regions and down into the Mesopotamian valley, from which, it seems, civilization first took root, where the then lushness of the land did not derive a fierceness of struggling to survive, but allowed the leisureness from which all the rest developed. There is a proviso on this - too much lushness does not generate development, as there is little incentive for development. After all, why bother - what would be the gain in terms of survivability. None, or very little, actually, and what there was would have preceded along a path little different than of the other primates. In many ways, this would as consequence lead to the 'dead end' societies of today's primitives, who have, as they've had, almost no incentive to advance beyond where they presently are - human beasts of the jungle [and which is why Africa, except for its outlining fringe areas, never developed anything more than primitive civilizations].

In the north, however, matters were very much different. With the shifting of the ice masses of the Ice Ages, what was once lush lands ceased to remain as such. As a consequence, the leisure kind of life as examplified by those that settled on more southern areas, a life marked by gathering/foraging more than by hunting, and a diet consisting more of a vegetarian/seafood mode than heavy meat eaters, all changed. The hunters became the more important members to the group's survival. This principle economic activity, being focused on what can be considered a parasitic relationship to animals, was of course, the special preserve of menfolk. Thus the political/religious institutions which evolved took a quite different turn than the developed areas of the Anatolian region. There arose a system of patrilineal families, which were united into kinship by the authority of a chieftain, the person who was responsible for daily decisions as to where to seek out pastures for the animals which were kept, like goats, and the area where game was to be sought. Because expediency is often the measure of survival in harsh times, especially in a culture not highly developed, pastoralists were more apt to engage in the oftime violent seizure of another's animals or pastoral grounds - it was, after all, the easiest way to wealth, and was the most obvious form of prowessness. Thus arose importance to the practice and discipline of war - for war, as Jacob Bronowski pointed out in his Assent of Man, is organized theft.

The hunter society, by its nature, stems more from the centripetal form of relationships. Alpha-males are considered needed for the social structure to work for the survival in a harsher land where leisure is much more at a general premium and foraging does not garner the surpluses found in the more hospitable climates. The political/religious would, then, be based on the agonic mode of commanding attention. This would be for the purpose of channeling the aggression of the males into a bonding to defend the members of the respective societies against, in the original pre-human ape/hominid societies, the leopard, or other similar predatory animal powerful enough to threaten the groups' survivals. As the evolvement became the human, the "leopard' became as much as a metaphor to signify "the enemy". Their religion, then, evolved as a means of, eventually, to justify the politics. In so doing, it would have had to shift emphasis from the benignly Mother Goddess that the women had preached into something congruent with the male domination of the hunters surviving in a harsh land.

Religion is a primitive form of philosophy. The ethics of religions stem from what, pragmatically, were the actions considered as virtues to the groups involved. These in turn stemmed from the conditions in which the groups lived as they developed the cognitive abilities. As Jacobs pointed out, there are those two fundamental sets of virtues. I suspect, tho, that there were few areas on earth where conditions were so optimum as to foster rapid growth that led to the earliest civilizations beyond the initial group developments - and that this is why, in a few select areas, matriarchal societies were able to take hold and advance as rapidly as cognitive possibilities allowed. The other groups advanced, yes, for the most part, but much slower, for the reasons already pointed out.

I further suspect, too, that the virtues of the trader syndrome were in place before these divisions among the civilized groups took place and the diaspora took place. This is not to say that the competing groups around the civilized ones did not possess a rudiment of virtue sets, but that their developments, if they had them, went much slower, and probably like those that went out far north, turned patriarchal as well in the course of time - tho for a different reason [this is to say, the patriarchialness of the kind found among the primitives of today]. This is also assuming before these groups were overcome by those early homo sapiens that migrated up along the coast of Africa from their apparent origin in South Africa areas.

In any case, these virtues acquired prominence over the course of time, and ethics arose from them. Could ethics have arisen without religion - probably not, for the initial striving to understand the world around in a patterned sense, even in the optimum case, would have resorted to analogies involving relatings to their own kind. Thus the "mother earth" deity, for instance. I don't, however, hold to the idea that the matriarchal religions had to develop as ferociously as did the patriarchal ones did, mostly because I hold their development was far more benign and fostered a far less a stressful inquisitiveness.

What had been originally a mild form of the matriarchal/matrilineal association, where the first religions came out of the first attempts to make sense of what at first seemed as a lot of chaos in the world, quickly shifted to what was felt a need for some form of organization to combat that sense of chaos. The most likely way of making sense of something which doesn't at first makes sense is to relate to something which is understandable, at least to the degree anything could be understood in those times. In this case, just as the women used the earth goddess as a means of countenancing sex and birthing and the former bountiness of the land, so the hunter leaders used the human-as-example forms. Gods, like goddesses, were created as analogies to explain the unpredictables of the world - oversized invisible humanlike beings who controlled the weather, crop growth, and so forth, with the same degree of inconsistency which had been observed among fellow humans. As this, under the harsher and different conditions of the north, seemed to be a more correct viewing of things, the analogies quickly became considered as if actuals, in a much more formidable form than were the goddesses - and which were then used as means of controlling the members of the groups. Goddesses still were acknowledged, but they shared with gods. Moreover, such matters as the sensual/sexuality of the society of the southern climes did not get very developed in the north - sex was largely for procreational purposes, and too many children made difficulties in distributing food supplies, as the herbs used for birth control were not as easily found up north.

Now, virtues, as expressed by the syndromes, implies ethics which encompass those virtues. The ethical code of the northern hunter societies, as was to be expected, derived from out of the agonic taking tribal syndrome. It was essentially the ethics of stealing, because the attribute of taking implies the other end, of being taken, and also implies the zero-sum perspective of the world, wherein one's gain is at another's expense - which is what all the other animals essentially have: eat or be eaten, take or be taken. It was, essentially, a justification for reverting to acting like human-style animals. Even tho these early humans, like all humans, had the capacity to think, that is to abstract to at least some degree, to be able to make judgments - the form of ethics became modeled, almost inevitably, after the only mode that was outrightly noticed by them, that of the animals around them. By the time these groups encountered trading, these societies had already formed a hard and fast code based on the agonic mode. Raiding others' territories successfully, as well as other aspects of the hunt, evolved the virtue of "prowess", to achieve this prowess, then, required "obedience" and "respecting hierarchy" for the group, as well as "loyalty". These comprise the basic virtues of the agonic mode syndrome. It also explains why such extreme agonic societies, such as the latter dynasties of ancient Egypt, used animal characteristics as their gods - for these animals adhered to the code "effortlessly", as part of their nature, and this was considered a superior trait, something to be emulated. The same can be said of those early civilizations in the Americas, which were founded by patriarchal groups which had migrated across the straits. Thus no American civilizations were ever matriarchal, and why in the land of lushness there arose such agonic societies as the Incas and Mayans and Aztecs which rivaled the Egyptians in being so authoritarian.

When the game patterns again shifted, these northerners, some, went south - and came into contact with the cities and civilizations that, as noted, flourished there. They also came into contact with something else - a whole different view of the female and her relationship to society.

To reiterate, the political/religious structuring of the matriarchal societies was that of the Mother Goddess with, as the word matriarchal means, the female as the prevailing sex and the male as a subserving one. While by the time of the patrilineal hunter society invasion this was more nominal than anything else, resting mostly with the matrilineal means of lineage, and the earth mother being referred to more as an allegory than actual - to those invaders, it was an absolutely intolerable situation. These patrilineal/patriarchal societies, as noted, subserved the females, some very denegratingly so, having by this time completely altering out any referring in their religions of goddesses. The two systems could not co-exist. Those holding to the taking code could not permit sanction of a competing code, especially one which would negate their established power structures and upset their status quo. "Shun trading' was a defense against that alternate viewpoint of the matriarchal societies, even as it was later admitted, tho reluctantly, that there was much value being gained by having the riches acquired by trading.

There was a problem, too, in understanding trading, by their standards - they viewed the world as a zero-sum matter, and thus, somehow, trading had to have been in some way a matter of stealing, from distant shores at least. They could not conceive of a sum-plus view, only a greater measure of riches acquired from other rich places distantly. Thus trading became a sort of "necessary evil". the forms followed thru, but with suspicion - and, as such, it had to be controlled as much as possible, yet still expect to get the gaining out of it. This was morally done by disparing it as much as possible, and then hobbling its activities by as much restrictions as could be devised. And to do that, you had to take it all over - hence all the wars and episodes of conquests that dominated the fertile crescent at the dawn of history.

Which raises another question - if these matriarchal societies existed for thousands of years, building great cities of civilization into the fertile crescent, then spreading thru trading across into the Mediterranean, establishing outposts all along the coastlines, and into the European interior, as far as the British Isles, how could such obviously superior societies, so advanced in so many ways, be overthrown by barbarians? It would seem that the answer may be, sadly as it may be true, that after thousands of years of the trading syndrome, the "warrior" mentality, psychologically speaking, most likely deteriorated mightily for lack of necessity for developing it more - thus enabling the barbarians to gain the amount of hold they did when they first invaded.

The psychology of the two kinds of world view, the trading and the taking, were and are quite different from each other. The taking syndrome was tribalistic, whose members were raised to consider themselves as parts of groups, a valued quality when it comes to matters of organized theft. A group can overwhelm better than several individuals because the hierarchical structure makes for greater cohesion of purpose. Moreover, there is the psychological aspect of "us" versus "them" which is not as pronounced as a class among individuals as it is within a group, thus giving greater impetus to the achievement of conquering goals as opposed to the defensiveness of the individuals taken as a group. This is especially so when, in their zeal to maintain the patriarchal social structure, they were willing to slaughter wholesale all but the prepubescent females as the quickest way of obtaining female subjugation and ending any matriarchal rule. The consequence of this is the instituting of slavery, which was a human offshoot of the pastoral practice of domestication [which was why, with the conquerings by the patriarchal societies, slavery has always existed as a way of life from earliest historical times to only a hundred years ago or so - and still exists among the more virulent patriarchal groups of today; whether it is called by that name or not, the essence is the same].

The trading syndrome is one ennobling individualism. individuals qua individuals are not prone to yield and submit - they make poor slaves, always being apt to insubordination. So, the simplest way to be rid of them is - to be rid of them. Hence besides the females mentioned, there was also wholesale slaughtering of entire towns, decimations of entire cultures across the ancient world [ it has even been recorded and dealt with as a virtue [!!] in the Bible]. Yet, by the same token, it had come to be perceived that without at least some of the inhabitants, the whole richness of the trading world would come down completely, leaving poverty for all in its wake.

Thus there was the allowing of trading, but hobbling it as much as possible, considering it "necessary evil", yet still removing all traces of the matriarchal social structures - including to the extent of rewriting all the legends of the matriarchal into patriarchal gods and destroying as much as possible the originals. This meant imposing a two-tier system, the "commoners", the original inhabitants, and what became known as the aristocracy, the conquering ones - and it also meant elevating, where it hadn't existed before, males to the authoritating positions within the trading [indeed, to render all positions as male positions]. It also created, for the conquerors, because of having slaves, the leisure time which they were encouraged to make rich use of - which didn't amount to much since they in turn had to be almost constantly on war footing against other invaders out to do the same thing they had done: conquer.

Then there is the psychological influence of envy - perhaps the most potent of the reasons for the successes of the patriarchal conquerings. As noted by William L. Davidson in defining it, "envy is aimed at persons, and implies dislike of one who possesses what the envious man himself covets or desires, and a wish to harm him... There is in it... a consciousness of inferiority to the person envied, and a chafing under this consciousness..." [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, 1912] [my emphasis]. It has been around since before mankind. It appears to be a trait displayed in any group in which there is a deviancy from the established norm. it appears to be an outpouring consequence of the fear which results from considerations relating to the value of the being to the group. It stems not only from those low in the scale of hierarchy, but in the leadership as well, wherein there is the fear of displacement from another who can command attention better. It, of course, stems from the agonic mentality, and in humans came from the patriarchal societies of the northern hunter tribes.

Yet is has never been considered to be a virtue. Quite the contrary. Human societies have persistently sought, as far as possible, to suppress it - it is a taking aspect which even negates the viability of the taking syndrome, as envy destroys the very social relationship necessary for any society to survive in any human fashion. This is to say that as an unofficial accord, in the hunter societies, where life was often little more than as human animals, it maintained the status quo. But, in a society with the trading syndrome, which is the uniquely human syndrome, it cannot function - it can only destroy, reducing all back to the level of that pre-existing hunter state.

[Christopher]

I like your points Darrell, but I believe that objectivity rests in the nature of the universe. I find Rand's philosophy to be objective because she talks about the nature of man with respect to proper operation of our biologic heritage (e.g. the conceptual mind exists as the ultimate adaptive/life-sustaining mechanism).

Your points are fully situated in a rational approach to understanding morality. However, the foundations for rationality (shoulds, etc.) are not situated in rationality alone (as I believe Kant argued), but rather exist within the system of an organism. It is the existence of the organism that defines a foundation for objectivity, but there is nothing rational about the existence of an organism (life) per se. Therefore, rationality alone is not a foundation for objectivity, it is a subset of objectivity. In order to be wholly objective, we need to observe the organism.

[Xray]

"I swear ... that I will never live for the sake of another man..." was I think Ayn Rand's most powerful disavowal of altruism.

There are things that Galt does not say in this statement - he doesn't say "I will never give anything, or do anything for an other". One-off actions aren't covered here; rather, it is the living for another's sake, on a continual basis, that matters.

Which is why the debates on charity/selfishness always miss the point, I feel.

Altruism is LIVING for others. (... or trying to, to the best of one's ability, and with little success, as Darrell pointed out.) It means seeking out their approval and sanction one's entire life. It's primary enemy is independence.

I've been studying individual altruists - the self-proclaimed ones, as well as the unconscious ones - as they have aged, and it's a terrible sight. The chickens finally come home to roost.

One sees how angry and bitter they become, when they are not getting the recognition they expect from other people come their way; when the universe does not grant them the wealth and happiness that should be their just reward. This is the cynical type, who were actually in altruism for 'selfish' reasons: give a little, get a lot.

Then, one sees the misery in those who have tried to honestly and consistently live by the dictates of altruism, and have failed to overcome the last remnant of their abused ego - guilt is their only reward, for not giving enough.

Is there anybody more self-hating, people-loathing, and unfeeling, than this person who glorifies pity and unselfishness? In fact, this is the very person who (ironically) can not love, respect, feel compassion and empathy, and can only feel envy, resentment,and coldly,calculating avarice, for the whole human race.

Altruism is so foreign to Man's fundamental identity, that it is a wonder it still survives as a 'virtue' - societally, and politically - it is the ultimate 'strawman' that could be knocked over with one finger.

The final irony, I believe, is that it is the Objectivist, who has sworn to live for his own sake, who is infinitely more capable of experiencing a deep consideration for others, than any altruist.

Tony

Well said, I agree.

It makes perfect sense that altruists are so toxic. It's a well known dynamic of abusive relationships that the abuser doesn't have a firm grip on where his/her self ends and the target begins. The target is not seen as a separate person. "She thinks he's growing out of her side" is how we describe it at my house.

Altruism exists as an ideology ("you ought to serve others"), but on closer examination, it is always self-interest which guides people's action. Self-interest is to be understod neutrally, not with any negative connotation.

A person staying in an abusive relationship is no "altruist", it is is often personal fear which tips the scale for staying. Fear of going it alone in an unknown future, fear of financial losses, fear of revenge, even of being killed. (Criminal statistics show that the latter fear is by no means unjustified). So the self-interest goes to save self from circumstances believed to be even worse than the present ones.

Hope can play a role as well. Hope that the abuser might change one day; desperate persons can still cling to such hope despite overwheming evidence indicating the contrary.

As for an abuser not seeing the target as a separate person, I'm not sure about this. I believe the target is very well seen as a separate person, but no respect and empathy is shown toward the person, who is is being disvalued by the abuser.

I have engaged in several discussions in which people argue that any moral assertion must be subjective.

I have found this article very interesting: Christian ideologists propagating their morality to be - guess what - 'objective':

http://nov55.com/rel/objt.html

What Objective Morality Means

Objective — originating outside of a mind.

Subjective — originating within a mind.

1. If someone says you can't jump off a cliff, it's not one person dominating another person; it's objective reality. Similarly, the Ten Commandments are not a whim of God's; they describe objective requirements for life.

2. Christ taught morality as a relationship to objective reality. Only an objective medium creates proper relationships between persons. Honesty and truth is a concern for that medium.

3. God created the material world as an objective medium. It wasn't a screw up; it has the temporary purpose of overcoming sin.

4. The most basic conflict in theology is whether morality and justice are determined by objective reality or whether the word of some god turns sin into virtue.

Thirty thousand years of demon worship taught humans to subjectivize everything, because sin is a conflict with objective reality. Later, when God started creating religion, humans assumed he too was subjectively synthesizing morality. Not so.

Christ taught the objective origins of morality. He taught how to determine morality from the objective lessons of life (like studying science).

Christ created science by teaching the standards of objectivity. Atheists didn't create science; they are in the process of destroying science due to their corrupt standards. The Greeks and Romans didn't create science; they were too corrupt.

You say I left out one of the alternatives—God's alternative, which is faith. No Virginia, there are only two alternatives: objective and subjective. When you assume God is not objective, you are mixing up your concept of God with the demons. There is no way to determine the difference between God and satan besides objective tests.

Faith must be based on objective reality, or it is the religion of the demons, not the religion of the creator. There is no such thing as life which is not based on objective reality.

To oppose objective reality as the basis of life is to say matter was created by some crazy who screwed everything up. Paul tries to make that argument (Rom 6,7,8). But material life is not as screwed up as Paul. It serves the purpose of overcoming sin through objective reality.

Objective reality creates and defines life—material and spiritual. Therefore, it defines the morality that sustains life.

Science creates light, in a stumbling and gradual way, where there is darkness. It does that through the study of objective reality, which allows evolution of knowledge to occur.

Objective reality is the medium and substance of life. Both material and spiritual life are made up of objective reality. (Objective means outside of one's own mind. Subjective means originating from within oneself.)

Spiritual life needs to be studied as objective reality, just as material life does. To study the objective reality of spiritual life creates light in religion, just as occurs in science.

Constructive Christians have been evaluating religious concepts in terms of the objective evidence. They evolved an advance state of awareness of religious and moral knowledge. The result is a rational analysis of morality and proper relationship to God.

That result is about the opposite of fundamentalist literalism or authoritarian infallibility, as found in Catholicism and elsewhere. Adherents of both contradict objective reality because of something they supposedly know which supposedly originates with God. It originates in their own minds based on their own assumptions and biases, and it conflicts with objective reality.

A lot of persons, particularly atheists, assume they can determine their own moral values (or ethics). Doing that creates subjective morality, which means it comes out of their minds. But the only morality of relevance, which Christ taught, consists of objective laws. Objective means the laws cannot be changed, not even by God, and they need to be studied and understood.

Christ harped relentlessly on the need to study and understand morality, while he taught what it is (Mat 15:10)(Luke 12:57)(Mark 8:17,18). Only objective reality can be studied and understood.

An example of subjectivity would be a cult leader requiring followers to stand on their heads for an hour per day and eat tree leaves. Having no relationship to objective reality, it could not be studied or understood.

Similarly, if morality were arbitrarily created by God, it would have no relationship to objective reality and could not be studied or understood.

Since people can determine what morality is through study, and they keep drawing the same conclusions throughout cultures, it is objective. Certainly, there are questions, but they are resolvable because of the objectivity of morality.

Morality certainly involves subjective concerns, but the relevance is other person's subjective concerns, not one's own. The subjective concerns of other persons are objective to oneself. A person has to look at other persons besides himself to determine morality. "Other than self" means objective. It's like looking at other automobiles to drive safely.

What does that say about removing the plank from one's own eye and following the Ten Commandments? Introspection is a defining difference between moral and immoral persons. But in looking back at oneself, one must determine what it is he is doing to other persons. Otherwise, it is selfishness.

The Ten Commandments cannot be followed without a concern for other persons. Personal morality cannot be improved except through social morality, because focusing on oneself only creates more selfishness and does not indicate how one relates to others.

Of course, subjective reactions are inherent in everything humans do. And the end results are subjective. But human interactions require objectivity as the standard that sustains life, and all subjectivity must be secondary to objective realities and laws.

The plain and simple standard that creates objectivity in communication is to provide the explanations and specifics that allow the objective truth to be established.

Path that Seems Right

From the article:

1. If someone says you can't jump off a cliff, it's not one person dominating another person; it's objective reality. Similarly, .....are not a whim ...... they describe objective requirements for life.

....... taught the objective origins of morality. He taught how to determine morality from the objective lessons of life (like studying science).....

Objective reality creates and defines life—material and spiritual. Therefore, it defines the morality that sustains life." (end quote)

Do these arguments look familiar? Let's look at them in the original with the spaces filled in:

"Christian Morality Morality is that which sustains life.

What Objective Morality Means

Objective — originating outside of a mind.

Subjective — originating within a mind.

1. If someone says you can't jump off a cliff, it's not one person dominating another person; it's objective reality. Similarly, the Ten Commandments are not a whim of God's; they describe objective requirements for life.

2. Christ taught morality as a relationship to objective reality. Only anobjective medium creates proper relationships between persons. Honesty and truth is a concern for that medium......

Thirty thousand years of demon worship taught humans to subjectivize everything, because sin is a conflict with objective reality. Later, when God started creating religion, humans assumed he too was subjectively synthesizing morality. Not so.

Christ taught the objective origins of morality. He taught how to determine morality from the objective lessons of life (like studying science).....

Objective reality creates and defines life—material and spiritual. Therefore, it defines the morality that sustains life....

The result is a rational analysis of morality and proper relationship to God." (end quote)

(http://nov55.com/rel/objt.html)

Well, how about that? There's even the "rational" bit with "proper relationship to God" being replaced by Rand with "life proper to man."

Change the word, God, to "Man" with a few other words substituted as well and "Objectivism" looks like a perfect philosophical, epistemological and linguistic overlay of the Christian ideology.

It looks "discovering" "objective morality" and "life as a standard" is not 'atheistic and new' at all ...

The article actually is an improvement. The writer, at least, clearly differentiates objective from subjective and claims a volitional source for the alleged "objective values."

Edited January 6, 2010 by Xray

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell, I'm sorry to report that your argument, while well written and detailed, proves nothing, because it's actually an elaborate begging of the question.

In order to prove that life is the standard of value, you have to assume that life is the standard of value. There is no way to prove it, rationally, objectively, or whatever you wish to call it.

The central problem is that (contrary to your argument) death is not the only possible alternative to life as the standard of value. There are others, and they are equally rational: love, knowledge, serenity (which is a different thing from happiness), truth are all possible alternatives, and none of them are subsidiary to life in the way you try to argue. You try to argue that because every person must seek to live in order to succeed at their preferred goal, then life is primary. That's reversing the order of things: in such a situation life is the secondary goal, the means to the primary value. They would be subsidiary to life only if a person attempts to succeed at their preferred goal for the sake of living--the reverse of the usual procedure. You are confusing the means and the end. A more obvious example would be a person who buys an expensive coffee maker so they can enjoy gourmet coffee at home. By your logic, having the coffee maker is a higher value than enjoying the gourmet coffee.

Jeffrey S.

Let me try this again. Imagine that you make two lists. On the first list, you place all of the ends or goals or standards of value that lead to life. On the second, you place all of the ends that lead to death. So, on the first list, you might put being a doctor, being a lawyer, or running a business, etc. On the second list, you might have committing suicide or being a suicide bomber. You might also put things that wouldn't necessarily lead directly to death, but involve ignoring your life and thereby significantly increasing your probability of dying such as becomming a drug adict, wasting all of your time playing golf instead of working (when you're not that good at golf), or any other activity that fails to pay the bills or provide the things required to live.

Now, you might decide to pick something off of the first list, such as being a doctor. Can you then turn around and say that life was merely instrumental to the goal of being a doctor? I don't think so. The truth is that people choose something off of the first list because they want to live. A person may also wish to be a doctor, but he knows that doctor is on the first list and that is why he feels comfortable in his choice.

The life and death issue divides the list of all possible goals or ends into two lists, the list of ends that are conducive to life and the list of those that are not. The choice of which list to choose from is more fundamental than the choice of which goal to choose from the list.

To use your coffee example, imagine a person that was adicted to coffee. For him, obtaining coffee is more important than anything else. For him, coffee is like life. If he works hard and is successful, he may be able to enjoy gourmey coffee or buy a nice coffee maker to make it with, but the essential thing is that he must have coffee. The choice of blend of coffee is like the choice of careers. It is secondary to the essential requirement that he have coffee.

As to the other goals you mentioned, love, knowledge, serenity, and truth, they are all ill-defined. They can all be transformed into life affirming goals by defining them more precisely. For example, one could seek a life filled with as much love as possible. One could seek to gain as much knowledge as possible during one's life. One could seek to live a serene life. Or one could seek to discover as many facts --- as much truth --- as possible during one's life. Defining things in that way would help to move them onto the life affirming list and make them viable ends. But life can only be "instrmental" to such ends if such ends are defined to be life affirming in the first place. So, life can never be a subordinate end. The choice to live is always more fundamental than the choice of how to live.

Darrell

[tjohnson]

This is starting to sound like 'objective values' are values that an individual needs to achieve his goals (objectives). So obviously if he has no set goals, is just a drifting drug addict, then his only goal is to get more drugs. This is his objective value then.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

You got it partially. But an objective value is always in terms of a standard, not just a goal.

And don't forget that those goals are values in themselves.

Once you start making hierarchies and parallels out of this stuff, objective and subjective values start falling into place with ease.

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

Let me try this again. Imagine that you make two lists. On the first list, you place all of the ends or goals or standards of value that lead to life. On the second, you place all of the ends that lead to death. So, on the first list, you might put being a doctor, being a lawyer, or running a business, etc. On the second list, you might have committing suicide or being a suicide bomber. You might also put things that wouldn't necessarily lead directly to death, but involve ignoring your life and thereby significantly increasing your probability of dying such as becomming a drug adict, wasting all of your time playing golf instead of working (when you're not that good at golf), or any other activity that fails to pay the bills or provide the things required to live.

Now, you might decide to pick something off of the first list, such as being a doctor. Can you then turn around and say that life was merely instrumental to the goal of being a doctor? I don't think so. The truth is that people choose something off of the first list because they want to live. A person may also wish to be a doctor, but he knows that doctor is on the first list and that is why he feels comfortable in his choice.

The life and death issue divides the list of all possible goals or ends into two lists, the list of ends that are conducive to life and the list of those that are not. The choice of which list to choose from is more fundamental than the choice of which goal to choose from the list.

To use your coffee example, imagine a person that was adicted to coffee. For him, obtaining coffee is more important than anything else. For him, coffee is like life. If he works hard and is successful, he may be able to enjoy gourmey coffee or buy a nice coffee maker to make it with, but the essential thing is that he must have coffee. The choice of blend of coffee is like the choice of careers. It is secondary to the essential requirement that he have coffee.

As to the other goals you mentioned, love, knowledge, serenity, and truth, they are all ill-defined. They can all be transformed into life affirming goals by defining them more precisely. For example, one could seek a life filled with as much love as possible. One could seek to gain as much knowledge as possible during one's life. One could seek to live a serene life. Or one could seek to discover as many facts --- as much truth --- as possible during one's life. Defining things in that way would help to move them onto the life affirming list and make them viable ends. But life can only be "instrmental" to such ends if such ends are defined to be life affirming in the first place. So, life can never be a subordinate end. The choice to live is always more fundamental than the choice of how to live.

Darrell

Sigh. You're putting the cart before the horse, or more correctly, you're asserting that the means is more important than the end: that the subsidiary goal is more important than the ultimate goal.

To take the example of the doctor. You are saying that because it is necessary to continue living in order to be a doctor, the goal of "continuing to live" is more important than the goal of "being a doctor".

Well, in that case, the following goals are also more important than the goal of "being a doctor".

--attending medical school and doing internship and residency at accredited institutions

--opening an office with adequate staffing, or joining an existing practice

--obtaining patients

Obviously, all these are subsidiary goals, secondary to the main goal of being a doctor.

Your logic would make sense only if a person says "In order to live, I will become a doctor". Whereas in fact the usual case is "In order to be a doctor, I will live". The only exceptions would probably be someone with a hard to treat or terminal illness who decides to become his own doctor because existing doctors can't cure him.

And in fact, the fact that life is "instrumental" to all those goals means that it is perforce secondary to them.

Jeffrey S.

[Darrell Hougen]

Let me try this again. Imagine that you make two lists. On the first list, you place all of the ends or goals or standards of value that lead to life. On the second, you place all of the ends that lead to death. So, on the first list, you might put being a doctor, being a lawyer, or running a business, etc. On the second list, you might have committing suicide or being a suicide bomber. You might also put things that wouldn't necessarily lead directly to death, but involve ignoring your life and thereby significantly increasing your probability of dying such as becomming a drug adict, wasting all of your time playing golf instead of working (when you're not that good at golf), or any other activity that fails to pay the bills or provide the things required to live.

Now, you might decide to pick something off of the first list, such as being a doctor. Can you then turn around and say that life was merely instrumental to the goal of being a doctor? I don't think so. The truth is that people choose something off of the first list because they want to live. A person may also wish to be a doctor, but he knows that doctor is on the first list and that is why he feels comfortable in his choice.

The life and death issue divides the list of all possible goals or ends into two lists, the list of ends that are conducive to life and the list of those that are not. The choice of which list to choose from is more fundamental than the choice of which goal to choose from the list.

To use your coffee example, imagine a person that was adicted to coffee. For him, obtaining coffee is more important than anything else. For him, coffee is like life. If he works hard and is successful, he may be able to enjoy gourmey coffee or buy a nice coffee maker to make it with, but the essential thing is that he must have coffee. The choice of blend of coffee is like the choice of careers. It is secondary to the essential requirement that he have coffee.

As to the other goals you mentioned, love, knowledge, serenity, and truth, they are all ill-defined. They can all be transformed into life affirming goals by defining them more precisely. For example, one could seek a life filled with as much love as possible. One could seek to gain as much knowledge as possible during one's life. One could seek to live a serene life. Or one could seek to discover as many facts --- as much truth --- as possible during one's life. Defining things in that way would help to move them onto the life affirming list and make them viable ends. But life can only be "instrmental" to such ends if such ends are defined to be life affirming in the first place. So, life can never be a subordinate end. The choice to live is always more fundamental than the choice of how to live.

Darrell

Sigh. You're putting the cart before the horse, or more correctly, you're asserting that the means is more important than the end: that the subsidiary goal is more important than the ultimate goal.

To take the example of the doctor. You are saying that because it is necessary to continue living in order to be a doctor, the goal of "continuing to live" is more important than the goal of "being a doctor".

Well, in that case, the following goals are also more important than the goal of "being a doctor".

--attending medical school and doing internship and residency at accredited institutions

--opening an office with adequate staffing, or joining an existing practice

--obtaining patients

Obviously, all these are subsidiary goals, secondary to the main goal of being a doctor.

Your logic would make sense only if a person says "In order to live, I will become a doctor". Whereas in fact the usual case is "In order to be a doctor, I will live". The only exceptions would probably be someone with a hard to treat or terminal illness who decides to become his own doctor because existing doctors can't cure him.

And in fact, the fact that life is "instrumental" to all those goals means that it is perforce secondary to them.

Jeffrey S.

I disagree. It is you that are putting the cart before the horse. Being a doctor is a means of living. Being a doctor is the means and living is the end. The choice of whether to live or not is more fundamental than the choice of how to live. The choice of whether to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a businessman or something else is not a fundamental choice. One may have a particularly strong emotional attachment to one particular means of making a living, but, metaphysically, it is still a means.

One of the great lines from Tara Smith's book, "Normative Ethics," (and I am paraphrasing from memory) is that man's mode of surviving is by thriving. What that means, metaphysically, is that in order to maximize one's probability of survival, one should strive to thrive. A person should put as much distance between himself and brute survival as possible. If one is barely surviving, any accident or natural disaster could be the end of him. If he is wealthy and has many friends, it is unlikely that a small misfortune would be that devastating.

When I was an undergraduate, a flood struck Burma (now Myanmar) and killed roughly 10,000 people. At that time I was struck by how much more devastating a flood could be in a poorly developed country than it would be in a relatively modern country such as the United States. People that are not thriving --- people that are barely surviving --- are vulnerable to every misfortune that comes along.

The devastation in Burma should be compared to the 1900 hurricane that struck Galveston Texas in 1900. That hurricane killed roughly 8,000 people. However, there was a particular house called the Bishop's Palace that "was built between 1887 and 1893 by Galveston architect Nicholas J. Clayton for lawyer and politician Walter Gresham." It was built with steel beams and easily survived both the 1900 hurricane and the 2008 hurricane. Many people sought refuge in the house during the 1900 hurricane. Wealth is a great defense against natural disasters.

The reason for bring up the notion of thriving is to discuss the psychological aspects of choosing to live. I don't think that people say either, "In order to live, I will become a doctor," or "In order to be a doctor, I will live." Instead, psychologically, the desire to live confronts a person as a desire to thrive. When a person is considering what to do with his life, one of his principle considerations will be choosing an occupation that will allow him to be comfortable, to live in a nice house, to drive nice cars, and to not have to worry, day-to-day, about how to feed or clothe himself. In other words, he will look for a way to thrive. Of course, not every person thinks that way. Some people try to think of ways to help others without consideration for themselves, but that is not the norm.

The point is that, psychologically, the desire to thrive precedes the choice of a method of thriving. And, since thriving is man's mode of survival, the desire to thrive is the desire to live. Therefore, the desire to live precedes the choice of a method or means of living.

If that doesn't convince you, look at all of the college freshmen with undeclared majors. They know that they need to choose some major in order to succeed in college and ultimately in life, but they haven't yet decided what major to choose and what career to seek after graduating. Nevertheless, their goal is to thrive and thereby to live.

Darrell

[Xray]

The ruthlessness with which Galt & Co proceed in their destruction of the "enemy" world makes me think what would have happened if Rand herself had had any power to carry out in reality what she only carried out in fiction ...

[Brant Gaede]

The ruthlessness with which Galt & Co proceed in their destruction of the "enemy" world makes me think what would have happened if Rand herself had had any power to carry out in reality what she only carried out in fiction ...

You mean go on strike?

--Brant

[merjet]

The ruthlessness with which Galt & Co proceed in their destruction of the "enemy" world makes me think what would have happened if Rand herself had had any power to carry out in reality what she only carried out in fiction ...

LOL. Note Xray's silence about the ruthlessness of Wesley Mouch, Mr. Thompson, Orren Boyle, etc. and their real world counterparts (Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, etc.) with their coercive powers.

[Selene]

The ruthlessness with which Galt & Co proceed in their destruction of the "enemy" world makes me think what would have happened if Rand herself had had any power to carry out in reality what she only carried out in fiction ...

LOL. Note Xray's silence about the ruthlessness of Wesley Mouch, Mr. Thompson, Orren Boyle, etc. and their real world counterparts (Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, etc.) with their coercive powers.

Yes Merlin, but they mean well...

They have "feelings"...

You know like the feelings of the little black chillen that will not have access to a "quality" education because O'Biwan the diminishing cut the charter program in DC and sent these little black chillen into the DC public school system where they have the obligation to fail in order to meet the current DC educational standards!

This was of course directly due to the National Education Association and the teacher's union.

I wonder if Ms. Subjective, "teaches" [for lack of a better term] in the public or private school system. We know she is not teaching in Catholic school lol.

Adam

The God's themselves contend in vain against stupidity!