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11-18-2006, 3:09 PM NickOtani Joined on 04-21-2006 Posts 323 Re: My Beliefs (Nick)You should do whatever you want in pursuit of your flourishing survival within the parameters of allowing other humans that same right. I don’t care if you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I also don’t care how you cut your fingernails. I think you are responsible for your own choices as long as you don’t violate my rights." (keapponlaffin)My question about chocolate and vanilla was in reference to normative ethics, but if you wish to switch the debate to politics, then that's ok too. So it's ok to do X as long as X doesn't violate the rights of others? And what do we do in prisoners dilemmas? (Nick)I’m not switching the debate from ethics. My statement above is an ethical principle, like the golden rule or the categorical imperative. The proposition I have been defending from the beginning is that rational egoism “can” be a basis for morality, that the rational egoist would choose to live in a moral community and be moral within it. Being a rational egoist is pursuing one’s self-interest, and being moral is respecting the rights of others to do the same. Prisoners do not necessarily live in moral communities, but they do make decisions based on risk and rational self-interest. They try to minimize risk and maximize advantage, the advantage being escaping prison. The moral community is not a prison from which a rational egoist would want to escape, and it would not be rational to take risks in such a community. (keapponlaffin)I asked if we could make a categorical claim regarding the living authentically and respecting others, You stated in response, "In a moral community, it is not only less risky to be moral, it is also more authentic, thus more pleasurable than being a predator." Again you failed to answer the question, but again I say ok, whatever. I'm willing to grant what you just said. In at least some communities it's a great idea to be moral and authentic. That wasn't my question, however. I will repeat it, just in case you didn't read it the first time. So can you make a categorical claim, that it's always less risky to be honest? (Nick)No, it is not always less risky to be honest. There are situation ethics when dealing with dishonest people in immoral communities. This, however, is not topical. You are changing the subject, not me. If you agree with my statement above, that in a moral community, it is not only less risky to be moral but also more authentic, thus more pleasurable than being a predator, then you concede the debate to me.  (Nick)I wouldn’t mind finding money on the ground, and I would prefer it to losing a race. (keapponlaffin)Ok, this shows that the earned is not always better than the unearned. That's all I need. (Nick)This didn’t prove anything. Trying to earn money is more rational and closer to being successful than depending on finding money on the ground. You haven’t refuted that. (keapponlaffin)I wasn't trying to refute your last statement. Again you're changing the topic (which is fine, but I ask that you do it openly). (Nick)Are you accusing me of not being open? I am not changing the subject, since the subject has to do with rational egoism being a basis for morality. Finding money on the ground has nothing to do with rational egoism or morality. Since you brought it up, you are the one trying to change the subject. Are you trying to accuse me of something of which you are guilty? (keapponlaffin)I didn't say anything about depending on finding money on the ground. You state that I didn't prove anything. No, I didn't have to, you did the proving for me. You granted that finding the money would be better, and so that debate should have come to a close (because you agreed with me). We can open up a new debate, on a new subject, but again that's something that we need to do openly. (Nick)I do not agree with you that that a proper system of morality “cannot” be based on self-interest. This is what the debate is about. Finding money on the ground has nothing to do with the subject of this debate. (keapponlaffin)Real life isn't an emergy, of course not. That's part of the definition of emergency, that it's not the norm. But, it's exactly in these emergency situations when morality is most important. In everyday life, the egoist and the utilitarian are going to act almost identically (the utilitarian being slightly more willing to help others). So, you say that you would do what needs to be done. What needs to be done? That doesn't answer the question really. Also, how can you justify dying on the titanic on egoistic grounds? (Nick)One shouldn’t base a philosophy of life on what should be done in emergencies, since emergencies are not the norm. However, Rand did write an essay about this in The Virtue of Selfishness. She did show how Galt would sacrifice himself for Dagney if her life were being threatened to get information from him. This would be a selfish choice, since her welfare would be his top value. Also, I do think we have an obligation to prevent evil if we can. If someone is being mugged or raped outside my window, I would intervene, even if it is to call someone else to intervene. I would want others to help me also if I am in such danger. Someone who does nothing, someone who would do nothing to save someone from drowning when it would be easy, is immoral. However, there are rules, even in emergencies. I would not allow a loved one to die in order to save a total stranger, even several total strangers, even if those total strangers are doctors and people who could do more for the world than my loved one. My choices in emergencies would still reflect my rational egoism. (keapponlaffin)I didn't suggest that our moral systems should be based on emergencies. I am only arguing that a complete moral system is one that doesn't run for the hills when a tricky situation is presented. (Nick)If you read my answer, you will see that I am not running for the hills. I said my choices in emergencies would still reflect my rational egoism. (keapponlaffin)It would be selfish to sacrifice oneself for someone else? You can claim that it's selfish all you want, but I remain unconvinced. Unless we're going to redefine what egoism is of course. We may simply be at a dead lock here otherwise. (Nick)You don’t seem to have read my examples of Sydney Carton or of Galt and Dagney. You just skip over my reasoning and evidence as if it isn’t there. I’m not just claiming something. I’m supporting it with reasoning and evidence which you ignore. You don’t rebut debate points by ignoring them. (keapponlaffin)There's two ways of thinking about egoism, the standard version and a non-standard version, I'll present both... Standard: Doing what's best for you, period. Under this conception, there's nothing good or valuable about sacrifice, ever. Killing yourself to save your family is flatly irrational, no matter how much you love them. (Nick)That’s pretty shallow. Saving your family and loved ones can be seen to be doing what is best for you, if it makes your life meaningful, if it promotes a flourishing survival. Continuing to survive knowing what a coward you are to let your family and loved ones die when you could have saved them is not rational. (keapponlaffin)Non-Standard: Pursuing your values. While this is an interesting twist, I think it's going to end up being the emptiest of moral philosophies. What should I do? That which I want to do. Wow, thanks, so I should essentially just do whatever I was going to do anyways. (Nick)No, there is the theory of psychological egoism which assumes all motivated action is egoistic, however, I think there are examples of self-deception, when people are actually denying themselves and thinking they are happy being unhappy. And, there are those who are not as rational as others; those who choose to watch television rather than go to classes to earn a degree. And there are those who think living as a brain in a vat is better than living authentically. If everybody always did what was in their rational self-interest and respected the rights of others to do the same, we wouldn’t need morality. (keapponlaffin)We have an obligation to prevent evil? What do you define evil to be? It seems that a good egoist would be wise enough to not put himself in danger, to not let "evil" enter his life. As long as it's someone else being hurt, and it doesn't harm you, then there's no evil there, according to the egoist. (Nick)I’ve covered this material before. I said that that which promotes and protects one’s flourishing survival is good and that which threatens and destroys it is evil. I also said that preventing evil, intervening in a mugging or rape when it is outside one’s window or saving someone from drowning when it is easy to do so is more moral than walking by without doing anything. This is just an extension of a golden rule, that if I would not want someone to ignore my crises when it would be easy for them to assist me, I should not ignore theirs. It is rationally egoistic. (keapponlaffin)There are rules? What exactly are these rules? How do we establish them in a principled way? (Nick)The rules are not legalistic, as in a list, like in the ten commandments. They are principles, like the negative form of the golden rule, don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you. Forms of the categorical imperative can also be taken into consideration; don’t do anything unless you would prescribe it as a universal law, something that anyone else would do in the same situation. Also, treat others as subjects, not as objects; as ends in themselves, not as means to an end. Also, the good old libertarian maxim of doing what you want as long as you allow others that same right is compatible with all these other principles. True, they don’t tell us exactly what to do in every possible instance, but then we have to take risks, existential risks. Reason doesn’t reach everywhere. We are still in the process of becoming, but this is within the parameters which are generalizable. There are still shades of gray, but there are actions which are well on one side or other of the wide fuzzy line.  (keapponlaffin)I asked you to justify egoism. Your response is that it's justified prima facie. I'm sorry, but that's not how philosophy is done (at least not analytic philosophy... the existentialists and continentals are allowed to get away with sloppy arguments). You can't just say prima facie and expect everyone to bow down to your greatness. That argument really just boils down to "it makes sense to me". (Nick)Are you lecturing me on how philosophy is done? If you disrespect me, I’m going to lose respect for you. And, this debate is going to get ugly. My case, as a whole, is prima facie. It is your burden to refute it. Every attempt you have made to do so has been rebutted. So, stop being sloppy! Present some decent arguments. (keapponlaffin)The burden of proof, in this case, is not on me. I'm not the one making the claim, you are. Theories are not justified until proven unjustified. It's just the opposite. You're not justified until you actually present justification. I'm not going to be convinced by table pounding or appeals to intuition. (Nick)There could be other reasons why “you” won’t be convinced. I’ll leave that alone. I have presented reason and evidence in support of my claims. Apparently, you haven’t read them. Or, perhaps you are simply not at the Piagetian level where you will understand them. Perhaps someday you will, perhaps not. If you don’t agree that something has been justified, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t.  bis bald, Nick    Report

11-20-2006, 4:33 AM marc Joined on 10-22-2006 Posts 11 Re: My Beliefs Although in a disorganized manner, I have layed out my unproven belief that man is largely motivated by the two often conflicting desires of passing on his genes and passing on his thoughts. From that context of self interest maybe I can make a small statement here. Man wishes to achieve immortality by passing on his genes and/or thoughts. Morality is not an especially useful pursuit to a man who is fixed on concentrating heavily on the gene strategy. To a man trying to pass on his thoughts and views, the sustainability of those thoughts and views in a society is in his self interest. Ideally, man would like for his obscure thoughts to one day be widely held. Stealing if you can get away with it seems great, but that thought cannot ever be widely successful because a future society of expert thieves would produce nothing and be highly ineffecient. Immortality through example requires sustainable behavior. But, why cant you just steal and not tell anybody about that view, just tell them about the other ones, let the stealing protect the ability to express the sustainable views? Well, its all about the framework of your mind. The stealing and the immoral immediate self interest required to justify it create another set of your views that supercede your morals. Whether you like it or not, that extra baggage provides for a bridge into your mind for other immoral ideas and weakens your overall moral integrity. Plus, now you are only trying to pass on half your ideas, and all the immoral ideas dont like, they want to be viable too. So in the end you just make yourself ideologically unviable. Your taint your ideas and make them ideas unlikely to do well in an improving society. Man is evolving away from animals, so the animal concept of self interest is a dead end. This isnt about altruism, but about egoism that goes beyond mortality, your ideas have to be sustainable in a future society to survive. Now, I could shoot a few holes in this as well as you all, and you all could probably patch up whatever holes you shoot as well as I could. I only hope it is a little intriguing. I will try to hit a few of these curveballs: (keapponlaffin) You stated, "(Nick) Your burden is to prove how being a predator can be in one’s self-interest. " Ok, I'll give a few examples, even though I just need one. A) You've been shipwrecked on a desert island, and there's no food available. There's one other person with you. If you kill and eat him, you'll survive longer and perhaps be rescued. If you don't, then you'll starve. It would seem that the best option here, from the self-interested point of view, is to kill this person. You might also be rescued before that and you might survive. Killing and eating him will have legal and psychological consequences. You will probably not be able to be a perfect lier and cover it up to everyone, and people will still doubt the perfect lier unless the body is there unharmed. You may also mess yourself up and become a killer at home because of this. But even just knowing you probably ate someone would make a lot of people feel weird about you. Your children could have trouble with it and get depressed and be less likely to pass on your genes than if daddy is a dead hero. Your friends who might have remembered you always and treasured the ideas you passed to them might instead become prejudice against every idea they ever heard you say. People might say that the man eater was this religion, or this trade, and not trust people of that group as much. They might beat up your kids at school. All this could happen even if you die. They could recover both bodies on the island months later dead, figure out the story, and it could leak to the press. In the world of genes (if you have children already) and ideas (you have shared already) it is possible for effects against you that are greater than your own death. Through villainy you can more than undo everything you have ever done already in your life. You can work strongly against yourself. B) You're starving because you're poor homeless and jobless. No one will give you any money. You could sneak a loaf of bread from a vendor, and you know you won't get caught. Or you could starve.  If you want to work and just need to get back on your feet or you are somehow very disabled and cannot work you could ask people for help. If you just dont care to work you are not moral anyway and not acting in self interest anyway, because being a bum is not going to leave much of a legacy. Being a bum is very unhappy so people dont all want to be bums in the future. But anyway, if you just need to get back on your feet to work, you could make an agreement with someone in return for future services. It is rational that someone would agree. However, at some point you might just steal the loaf and swear to pay it back. Its not moral but moral perfection is difficult when surrounded by moral flaw and in a difficult position. If you were disabled, I think someone would give you some meager food. If you are disabled and nobody gives a crap, your odds of making a difference in life are low. Again, I guess you could steal the bread and be imperfect. You could then try to do something useful with your mind to earn some money. If your mind and body are both shot and nobody pays attention to you there is little you can do. Morality and survival become incompatible. This one is difficult in general because it is a fairly minor thing and it is kind of illogical. At some level you could argue the cost of food is so low, and the likelihood of spreading disease or entering an animal criminal state of mind is likely upon starvation, that it is in individuals self interest to support giving out free very low grade food. Anyway, I know my argument has more holes here. C) The most obvious one. You find yourself shackled and at gun point by a sadistic maniac who says you have two options. You can be shot on the spot, or go be a predator in the next room over where an unsuspecting innocent individual is sleeping. Again, it comes down to negative self interest. If you participate in unthinkable horrors you risk people finding out and you risk damaging your own psychology. Either of those could result in damaging everything you have already done in life, not just what you will do. You share genes with your whole family and finding out about what you did could depress and harm them all a lot and make them subject to community prejudice. You also risk making everyone hostile to every idea you shared with them in the past and would in the future. Villianny is the opposite of self interest, you make everyone want to be not like you. That is worse that death in selective competition. Also, you cannot trust the maniac. The source of the destruction is his desires. Serving those desires may only increase the destruction. You dont know how many next rooms there will be or when you will be the one in it. So, in general, I think that self interest can be a basis for morality if you incorporate the idea that part of self interest is to set some kind of example and that such an example needs to be sustainable in a generally improving society (a generally worsening society being unsustainable in itself). If man does not return to being an animal, he will be a better man. So, if you dont want your legacy to be erased by a return to animalism, be a better man, its in your interests. If the other side wins, nobody really wins. By the way, the idea of some legacy as self interest is not meant to be an empty pursuit that ignores other things. Being happy is part of setting a desirable example. Being moral is part of setting an example that people can broadly advocate eachother following, not just themselves, and that will lead to a better future.    Report

11-21-2006, 2:04 PM NickOtani Joined on 04-21-2006 Posts 323 Re: My Beliefs (Marc)Although in a disorganized manner, I have layed out my unproven belief that man is largely motivated by the two often conflicting desires of passing on his genes and passing on his thoughts. From that context of self interest maybe I can make a small statement here. Man wishes to achieve immortality by passing on his genes and/or thoughts. Morality is not an especially useful pursuit to a man who is fixed on concentrating heavily on the gene strategy. To a man trying to pass on his thoughts and views, the sustainability of those thoughts and views in a society is in his self interest. Ideally, man would like for his obscure thoughts to one day be widely held. (Nick)I identified the ultimate goal for humans, for any living thing, to be flourishing survival. This is general enough to include perpetuating the species and having an intellectual impact, in a general way. Some individuals choose not to pass on their seed, but they can still have a worthwhile life, a flourishing survival. Passing on one’s thoughts is a bit specific. Not everyone has original thoughts. Promoting those influences one finds worthy might be a better way of expressing this. If one is successful, if one fights the good fight toward this goal, this could be translated into flourishing survival, this would be opposed to merely existing and accomplishing nothing, not achieving even some of one’s potential. (Marc)Stealing if you can get away with it seems great, but that thought cannot ever be widely successful because a future society of expert thieves would produce nothing and be highly ineffecient. (Nick)The bad thing about stealing is that it is not universalizable. If everybody did it, the concept of private property would disappear. Then, there would be no such thing as stealing. It would become an incoherent concept. In a moral community, one doesn’t do to others what he doesn’t want others to do to him or her. Certainly you wouldn’t want someone to steal from you. And, it wouldn’t be rational for you to want to live in a community where stealing is commonplace. Finally, it would be hypocritical, thus irrational, to advocate stealing from others but not you. (Marc)Immortality through example requires sustainable behavior. But, why cant you just steal and not tell anybody about that view, just tell them about the other ones, let the stealing protect the ability to express the sustainable views? Well, its all about the framework of your mind. The stealing and the immoral immediate self interest required to justify it create another set of your views that supercede your morals. Whether you like it or not, that extra baggage provides for a bridge into your mind for other immoral ideas and weakens your overall moral integrity. Plus, now you are only trying to pass on half your ideas, and all the immoral ideas dont like, they want to be viable too. So in the end you just make yourself ideologically unviable. Your taint your ideas and make them ideas unlikely to do well in an improving society. Man is evolving away from animals, so the animal concept of self interest is a dead end. This isnt about altruism, but about egoism that goes beyond mortality, your ideas have to be sustainable in a future society to survive. Now, I could shoot a few holes in this as well as you all, and you all could probably patch up whatever holes you shoot as well as I could. I only hope it is a little intriguing. (Nick)Basically, here, you are arguing against stealing and lying, from a self-interest perspective, so I’ll let you do it, even if it is weaker than my arguments. I won’t argue against myself. (Marc)I will try to hit a few of these curveballs: (keapponlaffin) You stated, "(Nick) Your burden is to prove how being a predator can be in one’s self-interest. " Ok, I'll give a few examples, even though I just need one. A.You've been shipwrecked on a desert island, and there's no food available. There's one other person with you. If you kill and eat him, you'll survive longer and perhaps be rescued. If you don't, then you'll starve. It would seem that the best option here, from the self-interested point of view, is to kill this person. (Nick)I did argue, against keapponlaffin, that emergencies are not typical situations and should not be used to justify philosophies of life, based on the norm. And, survival at any cost is not necessarily “flourishing survival”. People can make judgments, even in emergencies, based on rational self-interest. If the other person on the island is a loved one, I might willingly sacrifice myself to save him or her and see it as a selfish decision, as Galt sees suicide to save Dagney as a selfish decision. (Marc)You might also be rescued before that and you might survive. Killing and eating him will have legal and psychological consequences. You will probably not be able to be a perfect lier and cover it up to everyone, and people will still doubt the perfect lier unless the body is there unharmed. You may also mess yourself up and become a killer at home because of this. But even just knowing you probably ate someone would make a lot of people feel weird about you. Your children could have trouble with it and get depressed and be less likely to pass on your genes than if daddy is a dead hero. Your friends who might have remembered you always and treasured the ideas you passed to them might instead become prejudice against every idea they ever heard you say. People might say that the man eater was this religion, or this trade, and not trust people of that group as much. They might beat up your kids at school. All this could happen even if you die. They could recover both bodies on the island months later dead, figure out the story, and it could leak to the press. In the world of genes (if you have children already) and ideas (you have shared already) it is possible for effects against you that are greater than your own death. Through villainy you can more than undo everything you have ever done already in your life. You can work strongly against yourself. (Nick)Whatever the rational egoist does in such a situation, he or she would not compound the matter by lying or escaping punishment under the law. The rational egoist would accept consequences of his or her actions and not worry about reactions from friends and society. This would be living for the herd, not for one’s self (Marc)B) You're starving because you're poor homeless and jobless. No one will give you any money. You could sneak a loaf of bread from a vendor, and you know you won't get caught. Or you could starve.  (Nick)Again, Ayn Rand does not approve of this sort of “crises ethics” which restricts moral consideration to black-and white, atypical, and abnormal situations which demand specific action in response to rigidly determined options. And, her solutions to such situations would probably not differ much from those of the ethical altruist. In the situation above, one can go ahead and borrow the loaf of bread, preferably from someone who doesn’t need it as much as he or she, and then pay back the loan later, with other goods or services, when one’s fortunes are better. (Marc)C) The most obvious one. You find yourself shackled and at gun point by a sadistic maniac who says you have two options. You can be shot on the spot, or go be a predator in the next room over where an unsuspecting innocent individual is sleeping. (Nick)The predator, in this case, is not the person being forced at gun point. It is the sadistic maniac. The rational egoist makes choices when choices are available, not when there is no choice. (Marc)So, in general, I think that self interest can be a basis for morality if you incorporate the idea that part of self interest is to set some kind of example and that such an example needs to be sustainable in a generally improving society (a generally worsening society being unsustainable in itself). If man does not return to being an animal, he will be a better man. So, if you dont want your legacy to be erased by a return to animalism, be a better man, its in your interests. If the other side wins, nobody really wins.   (Nick)The difference between you and me here is that you are justifying self-interest on the basis of the good of society, and I am saying someone would work for the good of society because it would be in his or her self-interest. In my position, self-interest is primary. bis bald,   Nick    Report

11-22-2006, 1:38 AM marc Joined on 10-22-2006 Posts 11 Re: My Beliefs (Nick)I identified the ultimate goal for humans, for any living thing, to be flourishing survival. This is general enough to include perpetuating the species and having an intellectual impact, in a general way. Some individuals choose not to pass on their seed, but they can still have a worthwhile life, a flourishing survival. Passing on one’s thoughts is a bit specific. Not everyone has original thoughts. Promoting those influences one finds worthy might be a better way of expressing this. If one is successful, if one fights the good fight toward this goal, this could be translated into flourishing survival, this would be opposed to merely existing and accomplishing nothing, not achieving even some of one’s potential. (Marc) I think there is a difference between humans and animals. Animals have genes to share. Humans have genes and thoughts, and the evolution of thoughts is much more dynamic and also introduces a complicated duality. This duality is actually why some choose not to pass on their seed. One motivation has completely dominated the other, but that is another rant. Anway, I would expand flourishing survival to include that some of the characteristics responsible for the flourishing (be they thoughts or genes) are passed on before death, such as to enrich their species in those characteristics. What is the point of dead end flourishing? Flourishing characteristics have an advantage in being passed on but if disinterest too often accompanies them, the species as a whole will eventually fail. By the way, this does not mean people should have 15 kids, but that is another rant too. Thoughts dont need to be original to be passed on. If you acquire a thought and spread it to others you participate in the survival of that thought. Once a thought is passed to you it effectively becomes yours as far as your desire to pass it on. You may be a little more passionate about your original thoughts, and they may be your greatest concern, but any thought you hold becomes your own. You do sort of try to promote the thoughts you find worthy though. The test for worthiness, by my system of thinking, is the internal competition of your thoughts in your mind. They all compete with eachother and form alliances (agreement and consistency) or conflicts. The mind filled with consistent agreeing thoughts is much more able to spread its thoughts to others and much more resistent to being overwhelmed by the influence of any other random thought it is exposed to. Only a more consistent, organized, and well presented system of thought can displace it, which is more appealing to core values or more capable of changing them. So, I think the ultimate goal of an individual human is the competitive success of their genes and thoughts. One cannot change their genes but one can prove them capable of survival and production. One can change their thoughts. This is not done out of disloyalty to existing thoughts but out of need to interact to spread them and to acquire missing building blocks to strengthen their cohesiveness. Sometimes many of the existing thoughts do get displaced, but this is a risk that was neccessary for their well being. But once old thoughts are displaced by new, loyalties shift, and spreading new thoughts is the priority. Thoughts are like genes that you can gain, lose, or effect mutations in during everyday contemplation and conversation. Part of the formulation of a successful system of thoughts is that it must be, as you say, somewhat universalizable. It cannot lead to joylessness, destruction, or large scale waste. Part of morality, and life itself I think, is planning enduring systems of thought or participating in their spread, whether they relate to philosophy, politics, science, culture, or trade. (Nick)The bad thing about stealing is that it is not universalizable. If everybody did it, the concept of private property would disappear. Then, there would be no such thing as stealing. It would become an incoherent concept. In a moral community, one doesn’t do to others what he doesn’t want others to do to him or her. Certainly you wouldn’t want someone to steal from you. And, it wouldn’t be rational for you to want to live in a community where stealing is commonplace. Finally, it would be hypocritical, thus irrational, to advocate stealing from others but not you. (Marc) Having less than two children is not universalizable, and neither is suicide. If everybody did either, private property would disappear. But somehow I think stealing is immoral and the other two are not exactly immoral. Stealing harms another person, so I guess that part is key. I am not sure if hypocracy is a morality test. One can believe one has unique characteristics that make one a poor candidate for one thing and a better candidate for another. If you advocate that stealing is always wrong but make silent exceptions depending on who the victim is, that would be hypocritical, but also just simply a lie, and spreading an idea you do not hold, and would therefore be immoral and against yourself. If you speak and explain exceptions, there could be a rational basis for them. (Nick)Basically, here, you are arguing against stealing and lying, from a self-interest perspective, so I’ll let you do it, even if it is weaker than my arguments. I won’t argue against myself. (Marc) I am glad we agreed on something. I think my past message showed the most common ground, by whatever coincidence or interaction. (Nick)I did argue, against keapponlaffin, that emergencies are not typical situations and should not be used to justify philosophies of life, based on the norm. And, survival at any cost is not necessarily “flourishing survival”. People can make judgments, even in emergencies, based on rational self-interest. If the other person on the island is a loved one, I might willingly sacrifice myself to save him or her and see it as a selfish decision, as Galt sees suicide to save Dagney as a selfish decision. (Marc) They are not typical but I think there are interesting challenges presented  to a system of thought by them.  I agree that self interest and survival do not exactly equate. The opportunity to save others by risking yourself  require many estimations. Do you want to live knowing you didnt try to save this person? Does this person want to live knowing you died saving them? What are the odds and befits of you both living? What are the odds and costs of you both dying?  How will your decision effect third parties you care about and the existing contributions of your life? I believe this is a valid concern. How will this decision effect your more broad interests like the fate or your entire culture? I think a young russian in 1910 who knew what Lenin would do could justify a risky assasination attempt based on self-interest.  The greater likelihood, becoming an almost certainty, of sooner death would be  outweighed by a broad but extremely high  volume  proposition to protect the characteristics one shares with their culture. In general, any sort of voluntary military or police duty would fit this as well, if it wasnt simply the best paying job available by far . I initially used Hitler in my scenario but Lenin seemed much less likely to backfire and produce a worse version of the same thing. (Nick)Whatever the rational egoist does in such a situation, he or she would not compound the matter by lying or escaping punishment under the law. The rational egoist would accept consequences of his or her actions and not worry about reactions from friends and society. This would be living for the herd, not for one’s self (Marc) As detailed in my final long passage, I think death binds one to the herd. Yours is a good interesting answer I should have thought of though. I think it is unnatural to not want to share your ideas and not want to have them be accepted. I dont think this means you should sacrifice the content of your ideas, but rather you should try to make your ideas good models that are presented in an appealing way (not saying I have accomplished that totally). I dont think there is any value to creating private art for just yourself to see for example. Participation in something that greatly contradicts your values and causes great harm, even under coercion, still affects both your self worth and your reputation, and I think both have value. Essentially, I do not think we need hell to deny immortality as a consequence of doing wrong. The characteristics you pass on are the closest thing to an afterlife you have, and doing wrong puts those characteristics at risk. I will explain this more in the end. (Nick)The predator, in this case, is not the person being forced at gun point. It is the sadistic maniac. The rational egoist makes choices when choices are available, not when there is no choice. I dont think our circumstances can ever completely seperate our actions from ourselves. If we do something, it becomes one of our experiences, and the thoughts necessary to carry it out pass through our minds and may take a toll. Death is an available choice. One can decide that the sum of all experiences ahead and their consequences represent a subtraction rather than an addition. There are some pretty difficult scenarios though that one could formulate. You and someone are chained to a button. A person with a gun says whoever pushes the button first, the other dies. If neither pushes the button after a minute, you both die. You can see the other person but you cannot tell whether they have pushed their button or not. This makes it pretty difficult. I still think self-interest is a value judgement here. Do you have a basis for why you should be the one to live? Perhaps you do not want to live knowing the choice you made. Perhaps you do not want your children to have to know the choice you made. I dont see why that cannot be a factor. But what if you both die then because neither pushes the button? Or does doing what the person wants make them more or less likely to follow through? Does it make them more or less likely to repeat the experiment, perhaps with your family members since they have your house key? And is the other victim perhaps really playing along? Will the maniac follow the rules anyway? Do you do unto others as you would have them do to you, and if so does that become a circular self vs. sacrifice argument. Ultimately you must do what is true to your values upon evaluating the situation I think. I dont see any harm in attempting these exercises as long as they are not the whole basis of your morality.   (Nick)The difference between you and me here is that you are justifying self-interest on the basis of the good of society, and I am saying someone would work for the good of society because it would be in his or her self-interest. In my position, self-interest is primary. (Marc) I am factoring in a component of future society, which is much different than the whole of present society. Essentially, I think the 'self' in self interest is something that exists in a form before and after ones lifetime aswell. Our genes and many of our ideas or their building blocks exist before we are born, in a larger pool of genes and ideas called human society. When we are born, a set of those genes converge within us. As we live, our mind provides a unique battleground for the ideas we are exposed to and at any one point a certain number of the available ideas are converged within us, in an exact structure and framework that is unique to us. When you physically die, the genes (if you had offspring) and ideas that passed through you dissipate through future generations back into society. I dont think anyone really wants to just die and be forgotten or have made no difference. If they do, they should be able to accomplish exactly that, and thereby reduce that tendency among the species. Even if your name is soon forgotten, your role in the chain of biology and thought goes on, and that is really more important than your name. Essentially there is a pre-converged, converged, and diverged you. That sounds kind of shady, but in a sense it very true. There is of course your actual brains development, aside from what ideas pass through it and how DNA orders it to be built, that will not be preserved and is unpredictable. However, I think a lot of self is DNA and thoughts that can be exchanged. The physical things that cannot be exchanged have character and personality that effect which thoughts prosper and develop in them, but I think their very lack of ability to preserve themselves, seperate from the thoughts, through the generations, causes the physical brain itself to lack a basis for developing motivations seperate from the interests of the thoughts and genes. I think we act to perpetuate genes and thoughts, but that this allows for extremely complex individuality and morality. The active physical distinct self, aside from these components, is basically there to spread the genetic and thought components by keeping you alive, following urges to reproduce, processing thoughts to try to make them more consistent, sustainable, and successful, etc. However, I dont think that the physical you can have any motivations that are not somehow aimed at the interest of its thoughts or genes, whether still within it or already having been dispersed in the form of children and the people you have influenced in thoughts that you still hold. Only this converged you can take actions. Those actions can only benefit the converged you and the diverged you, since we cannot effect the past. In a sense, the diverged you can exist at the same time as the converged you, because you share thoughts and have children before you die. In the end, the converged you is mortal and the diverged you is not mortal. So by wanting to contribute sustainable elements that still reflect your thoughts and characteristics to future society, you are acting in self preservation of the future you. In this view, it would be better to die at 30 having left a modest legacy as a father of two and a person who openly discussed their values with others in the community than to have drowned at 120 as the elected king of atlantis with 50 kids and a lifes work to rival DaVinci and Cicero combined, all lost when the island sunk into the sea. The latter probably took a better approach to life but got unlucky, and in the end the result does count. The latter is totally dead whereas the prior lived to a decent extent minus fifty percent or so, and still passes their characteristics to the future with the chance they may prosper after his death. The implications of what I am saying are complex. I am not saying you sacrifice yourself to a future society. I think it is in self-interest to live in an enjoyable sustainable way that sets or spreads good sustainable industrious happy moral examples. It is not that you are trying to improve future society, but that you are trying to include pieces of yourself and your life in future society, so that you are not gone without making a difference. However, it is a secondary consequence that your contributions must somehow improve future society to have the likelihood of surviving within it perpetually in some form. Altruism is about protecting every part of society. Self-interest, to me, is about making your contributions to society, protecting them, and positioning them to protect themselves when you are gone. You are not joining the commune, you are campaigning to be it's CEO and transform it into a successful corporation. You dont need to concentrate on this serious objective every day, but I think it makes a justifiable core value system. Your contributions are in competition with other peoples contributions. Your legacy, and true longevity, are not fixed at death. Instead, they play out long after your death and depend on your intellegent ability to antipate the structure of thought that will most benefit future society. You must anticipate this, to some degree, and try to keep structuring your thoughts so that you abandon those that are unviable and package those that are viable with newly acquired or originated compliments that enhance their viability. Some other system of thought may appear to benefit you more now, but ultimately it must be moral and rational or else it will just teach society a lesson in suffering or waste and then disappear. Washington (or Jefferson, Adams, Franklin.. whoever you prefer) and Lenin, exempting moral qualifications, died in similar positions, as extremely successful revolutionaries. The mistake in both morality and self-interest of Lenin was that his ideas were initially and increasingly harmful to future society and thus were not viable in the long term. It is important to emphacize, here, that value is not just making a difference, it is setting a lasting example to be followed that expresses your characteristics. Making the kind of difference that sets an example of what not to follow and harms the future society  is not a meaningful way to contribute beyond your lifetime. To contribute you must show the benefit of your characteristics and spread them. You must lead by example. Contributing a destructive example of destructive characteristics will just result in your contribution being abandoned more rapidly or actually destroying the entire society or even species that you originated from and eliminating everything from the world that even had anything in common with you by past ancestry of genes or thought. The cave man who seeled off the cave with himself and half his tribe inside certainly made an enduring impression on that tribe, but it was no sustainable example that that tribe could have kept practicing and remained competitive. Therefore he didnt make the kind of lasting impression that coincided with self interest. So, morals are the philosophy, self interest is the goal, and social progress is the result. They can all be one, and in fact must. This social progress is not equal progress for the current society, but selective forces acting on the current society unequally to create an improved future society. The thing is, I think you can be more moral and more morally consistent if you recognize this. I dont think you can ignore it and just concentrate on apparent self interest that does not value the longevity of your contributions after your death. I think that we do care. We do not want to be wiped out of existence with no trace or memory of us upon death. We do not want society to collapse and the human race to become extinct in 200 years, even if we are dead. But we have trouble saying exactly why not and incorporating that element in our current value system. If it has value, we must incorporate it and understand the nature of that value. If I died and all my contributions were also erased, would I still care about the survival of humanity? Yes. I would have a little less interest in this scenario but my genes and the ideas I was exposed to and embraced would still exist in others, who gave them to me (directly or indirectly) or acquired them from a common source who lives at some point in the past. So I would still have something to root for. Now, what if humanity and all its works were wiped out completely. Would I be very concerned about the fate of earth and the next primate, lizard, or cockroach to develop language and society. Not so much. Yeah, they have some common DNA, but the chain of intelligent life is broken. My living society is dead. I dont know theirs. I am not depending on its success. A meteor can kill the lizard men and I will rest comforably in my grave, if that doesnt sound too silly. Our society is part of us. It constitutes the medium from which most of our characteristics are drawn and then to which they are returned as we live out our lives. The most logical way that we can contribute to our society is by trying to improve and pass on our characteristics, especially our thoughts, whether acquired, modified, or originated. Just because we recognize we are part of a society and our future interests depend on the improvement of that society by change does not mean that we need to try to preserve that society s it is or act according to the interests of its average current member. I dont know how to advocate this most simply, but it isnt altruism. It is a competitive philosophy. I just cant see self interest optimally functioning without consideration of factors beyond ones own lifetime. I think that consideration of these factors makes for a form of self interest that can give better answers to the extreme questions, more strongly oppose destructive forces in society, preserve humanity or a society itself from self destruction, and defeat purely mortal self interest in selective competition of thoughts. Like with the universe, I think we are all inseperably connected to our society but we are each our own center with respect to it. We all seek to both serve and control society by contributing the elements to create the society we want that are in our self-interest, which must be moral to be enduring. There is no value in serving the elements we do not want. There is no value in sacrificing ourselves to provide some general bonus to society. Survival can occasionally conflict with self interest when other things we value are at stake. Sometimes the value proposition in a 'sacrifice' could be unique and exceed the net expected value propositions of remaining alive but this is rare. In the end, the decision must be based on value to us, we do not need to sacrifice our life for other peoples value. To do so would show that one does not have their own value or has been talked out of it. The keys to contributing to society are to make contributions or support that reflect your values and to not contribute or support anything immoral or else the society will either collapse or eventually abandon your contributions. The goal for all of this can be the self interested motive that 10,000 years from now you want your genes and ideas or forms of them (in terms of origination or support) to still exist and in fact to be more prevelent in a society that provides them with even more safety from extinction. All of this can be accomplished simply by being happy, moral, ambitious, social and keeping sustainability somewhere in mind. - Marc    Report

11-23-2006, 1:18 PM NickOtani Joined on 04-21-2006 Posts 323 Re: My Beliefs  (Marc) I think there is a difference between humans and animals. (Nick)Yes, there is a difference between humans and other animals, but you aren’t getting to it here. It really has nothing to do with the point I’m making that flourishing survival includes perpetuating the species and having an impact on the world. You go on and on in your responses but they are still unresponsive to what I said. (Marc) Having less than two children is not universalizable, and neither is suicide. If everybody did either, private property would disappear. But somehow I think stealing is immoral and the other two are not exactly immoral. Stealing harms another person, so I guess that part is key. I am not sure if hypocracy is a morality test. One can believe one has unique characteristics that make one a poor candidate for one thing and a better candidate for another. If you advocate that stealing is always wrong but make silent exceptions depending on who the victim is, that would be hypocritical, but also just simply a lie, and spreading an idea you do not hold, and would therefore be immoral and against yourself. If you speak and explain exceptions, there could be a rational basis for them. (Nick)Not everything is determined to be moral or immoral using the standard of universalizability, but matters involving other people certainly are. And, hypocrisy is a morality test if being moral is equated with being rational in pursuit of flourishing survival. Being hypocritical is not being rational. It is being irrational. However, if situations are unique and actions are rationally called for in those unique situations, then there is no hypocrisy, holding of contradictory views. (Marc) As detailed in my final long passage, I think death binds one to the herd. … I think it is unnatural to not want to share your ideas and not want to have them be accepted. I dont think this means you should sacrifice the content of your ideas, but rather you should try to make your ideas good models that are presented in an appealing way (not saying I have accomplished that totally). I dont think there is any value to creating private art for just yourself to see for example.   (Nick)I may want my ideas to be accepted, but not necessarily by everyone, by the herd. If they are accepted by a few people I respect, that might be good enough. I’m not going to sell out, do things I don’t like just to be popular, accepted by the herd. Low quality magazines with lots of pictures of naked women may be more popular than The Great Books Collection in public libraries, but The Great Books Collection has more enduring value, if not for the herd.   (Marc)... I dont see any harm in attempting these exercises as long as they are not the whole basis of your morality. (Nick) I don’t mind moral dilemmas. I like them. They make us think. I just think that basing one’s everyday moral philosophy on an unlikely possibility in an unlikely scenario is not very practical, rational, or wise. (Mark)…The goal for all of this can be the self interested motive that 10,000 years from now you want your genes and ideas or forms of them (in terms of origination or support) to still exist and in fact to be more prevelent in a society that provides them with even more safety from extinction. All of this can be accomplished simply by being happy, moral, ambitious, social and keeping sustainability somewhere in mind.   (Nick)The difference between you and me here is that you are justifying self-interest on the basis of the good of society, and I am saying someone would work for the good of society because it would be in his or her self-interest. In my position, self-interest is primary. Further, although a rational egoist may have as a goal to impact the world some way, he or she must also realize that it may not happen. He or she can live his or her life in such a way as to make it happen but also realize that not everyone can be Socrates or Jesus or Elvis or Princess Di. When we die, we may be thought about by our friends and relatives, until they die. Eventually, everybody who knows us will be gone. Life will go on without us. It probably won’t matter much that we ever existed. Still, we do our best.   Marc, people might notice you a little more if you learn to say relevant things a little more concisely. Going on and on as you do does not make you more interesting or profound. It may drive some readers away. It sometimes takes more effort and talent and time to write shorter posts. However, sometimes, less is more.   Bis bald,   Nick    Report

11-24-2006, 1:47 AM keapponlaffin Joined on 03-21-2006 Posts 67 Re: My Beliefs Hello, Back again after being gone awhile. I'll respond to as much as I can, but I'll be selective since so much has happened in my absence... Nick, I just finished reading your theory of value. It seems to be a reiteration of Rand's VoS, but one which adds to it. My concerns... 1. I would like to see "flourishing" be defined. 2. You provide a good amount of empirical evidence suggesting that existence is a universal value. I'm hesitant to say it's universal, but I'll at least grant that 99.999% of people/organisms pursue continued existence. Let's assume, for the sake of being generous, that 100% of species pursue existence, and that it is valued amongst those who can value it. From this you conclude that existence has "intrinsic value". How is this so? It seems to be that you're argument runs as follows: For all X, X is a living organism & X values being a living organism If all X value being a living organism, then being a living organism is intrinsically valuable for all X Therefore, for all X, being a living organism is intrinsically valuable. Where is the problem here? The way I've constructed it makes the argument valid. There's no problem there. The problem is in the second premise (and perhaps the first, but I don't care about that, it's close enough to 100% that I'll grant it to you). How do we get from a Y being valued to a Y being intrinsically valuable? Assuming that this argument were correct, then it would follow that what is good and bad is based upon what individuals happen to value. My valuing ice cream changes, ever so slightly, what is objectively good or bad. A strong majority of human beings in recorded history have believed in god (approximately 80% today, and a much larger percentage before the enlightenment). These individuals most likely also value theism. Would this make theism intrinsically valuable? Or perhaps just 80% intrinsically valuable? This is not to say that the argument won't work, only that it has some serious objections to overcome first. Let me know if I got your argument wrong. If there's a better argument for life having intrinsic value, I would love to hear it.   Going back to the thread... You stated, "(Nick)You continue to demonstrate your ignorance of logic. There are lots of logics, and one can construct one’s own system with axioms and rules of inference. Bertrand Russell contrasted his modern logic with Aristotle’s classical syllogistic logic, but there is also quantum logic, fuzzy logic, Boolean logic, etc. " I'm not suggesting that there aren't multiple systems of logic. I'm simply saying that logic qua logic is what it is, and nothing else. To present an analogy. We have several theories of reality (einstein, newton, etc). Of course there's a multitude of systems, but there's only one reality. You stated, "No, the deductive argument is circular, but the inductive argument is not. However, the inductive argument is inconclusive." And how do we justify inductive arguments? Perhaps we could show that inductive arguments have worked in the past, and therefore they are likely to work in the future? Ah, but I just went circular. Perhaps we could rest it on some a priori principle? Perhaps, but then we need to justify this argument. At bottom, it's all either A) unjustified, B) justified qua circularity, C) an infinite regress of justification (and that's just silly), or D) justified in a way which cannot be proven. It would seem that we want either B or D. Since D can't be spoken of, B is all we have to work with in debates. You stated, "(Nick)I think you missed my point, that relying on conventional wisdom is not always wise. Conventional wisdom can be used for defining words or calling Blacks inferior to Whites. Don’t muddy the waters with your red herring. " Again I'll stress, I'm not falling back on conventional wisdom. I am not making any claims about how the world actually is. I can't stress this enough. Wisdom, even conventional wisdom, is a set of beliefs, and beliefs are beliefs about the world. How we define our terms doesn't say anything about the world. Don't confuse the two, please. You stated, "(Nick)If everything must be justified, there would be an infinite regress. It is not a weakness that the intrinsic value has no justification any more than it is a weakness for the north pole to not have any further point north. And, just because people don’t agree with something doesn’t make them right. Truth is not always determined by majority rule. Finally, I am not making emotional appeals or forfeiting anything. I have made my prima facie case, and you are not refuting me. It is your burden, and the burden of all those people and philosophers and scientists, to do so." Alright, so your values go back to an intrinsic value which has no justification. Fine. I say fried hotdogs have intrinsic value. No, I'm not justified in saying so, but neither are you, so we're equally justified in our values. I'm sympathetic to this suggestion, but I doubt it's where you meant to go.   Ok, I read your post on natural rights. So, you grant that they ought to be violated sometimes. Then you've answered my question. They're not absolute. You stated, "No, utilitarianism was around long before Bentham and Mill. They just gave their version of it. It is consequentialism, as opposed to deontology. My version is egoistic. " Then just call it consequentialism, since that's what it definitely is. All philosophical encyclopedias and dictionaries would agree that egoism is not a form of utilitarianism, but it could be a consequentialist theory. You stated, "(Nick)Hedonism is the pursuit of happiness. If unhappiness is needed to appreciate happiness, then one would have to pursue unhappiness, which is counter to pursuing happiness. It is not coherent. And, a successful hedonist, one who never knew pain, would never know happiness that comes from knowledge of pain. This is incoherent. " I'm not convinced that this is counter-productive. It's like the businessman who buys new pens. Sure it's a loss in the moment, but the businessman can choose to buy the pens while only thinking of monetary gains. In the same way, the hedonist could fast to better appreciate having food. You stated, "(Nick)No, it is not always less risky to be honest. There are situation ethics when dealing with dishonest people in immoral communities. This, however, is not topical. You are changing the subject, not me. If you agree with my statement above, that in a moral community, it is not only less risky to be moral but also more authentic, thus more pleasurable than being a predator, then you concede the debate to me. " Again, my point is that the honesty principle is a rule of thumb. Heck, it's an awesome rule of thumb that works out 99.99% of the time. That doesn't, however, make it an absolute rule. That was my point, and your earlier statements seem to support it. You stated. "Finding money on the ground has nothing to do with rational egoism or morality." So your morality doesn't actually apply to all situations in life? Alright, fair enough. I'll shop around for a better morality, namely one that always has an answer. You stated, "(Nick)You don’t seem to have read my examples of Sydney Carton or of Galt and Dagney. You just skip over my reasoning and evidence as if it isn’t there. I’m not just claiming something. I’m supporting it with reasoning and evidence which you ignore. You don’t rebut debate points by ignoring them. " This didn't quite answer my question. I want to know how it could ever be selfish to sacrifice one's life for another (not just risk it, but sacrifice it). I'm not trying to skip over your evidence, I'm simply not seeing it. Dagny and Galt didn't die, and I'm not familiar with Sydney. So, please, explain how killing oneself satisfies the goal of preserving one's existence. You stated, "(Nick)That’s pretty shallow. Saving your family and loved ones can be seen to be doing what is best for you, if it makes your life meaningful, if it promotes a flourishing survival. Continuing to survive knowing what a coward you are to let your family and loved ones die when you could have saved them is not rational. " I understand that it could make your life meaningful to say, "If my family was ever in trouble, I would sacrifice myself to save them". It does not, however, make your life meaningful to die. After death, there is no meaning, because there is no you. Continuing to live, even as a "coward" (though, a coward who did the morally right thing), would be better, according to egoism, because you actually valued your life above all else. I stated, "(keapponlaffin)Non-Standard: Pursuing your values. While this is an interesting twist, I think it's going to end up being the emptiest of moral philosophies. What should I do? That which I want to do. Wow, thanks, so I should essentially just do whatever I was going to do anyways." You stated, "(Nick)No, there is the theory of psychological egoism which assumes all motivated action is egoistic, however, I think there are examples of self-deception, when people are actually denying themselves and thinking they are happy being unhappy. And, there are those who are not as rational as others; those who choose to watch television rather than go to classes to earn a degree. And there are those who think living as a brain in a vat is better than living authentically. If everybody always did what was in their rational self-interest and respected the rights of others to do the same, we wouldn’t need morality. " I'm not sure how this solves the problem. Even if we accept psychological egoism (which is shaky at best), you've still got the cases of the "self-deception" as you call it. If we ought to do whatever it is we value, then it follows that I ought to sit on the couch and watch TV all day, if that's what I want most. You stated, "I said that that which promotes and protects one’s flourishing survival is good and that which threatens and destroys it is evil. I also said that preventing evil, intervening in a mugging or rape when it is outside one’s window or saving someone from drowning when it is easy to do so is more moral than walking by without doing anything. This is just an extension of a golden rule, that if I would not want someone to ignore my crises when it would be easy for them to assist me, I should not ignore theirs. It is rationally egoistic. " The golden rule? That hardly seems to be 100% consistent with egoism. Also, as a side note, it's generally a pretty crappy standard for morality. You stated, "(Nick)Are you lecturing me on how philosophy is done? If you disrespect me, I’m going to lose respect for you. And, this debate is going to get ugly. My case, as a whole, is prima facie. It is your burden to refute it. Every attempt you have made to do so has been rebutted. So, stop being sloppy! Present some decent arguments. " I wasn't lecturing, for starters. It was an observation, namely that 'prima facie' arguments don't fly in analytic philosophy. That's not to say that it isn't philosophy, generally speaking. All it means is that I, as an entrenched analytic philosopher, will have trouble being convinced by prima facie arguments, especially when they aren't at all prima facie to me, or philosophers generally, or humanity generally. Where is the grounds for this prima facie argument, except that it makes sense to you? My burden is to refute it? Ok, well, my refutation is two fold: A) at bottom your only justification is prima facie B) prima facie arguments alone aren't at all convincing to me. But, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that they were. By this same standard I can claim anything (including the previously mentioned hotdogs) to be intrinsically valuable.    Report

11-24-2006, 1:22 PM NickOtani Joined on 04-21-2006 Posts 323 Re: My Beliefs (keapponlaffin)I just finished reading your theory of value. It seems to be a reiteration of Rand's VoS, but one which adds to it. (Nick)I posted a link to my theory of value two posts ago, on 11-13-06 . You answered that post on 11-18-06 . However, you just finished reading my theory of value, on 11-24-06 . This means that you responded to my post of 11-13-06 without having read it all. It shows. You try to debate with me without even knowing what my position is. Even when you do read my words, you indicate that you do not know or understand what was said. This is why you keep misrepresenting me, demonstrating your ignorance. Don’t you have any shame? You should be embarrassed. (keapponlaffin)My concerns... 1. I would like to see "flourishing" be defined. (Nick)Go look it up. It’s a word used by Marx and many other philosophers. It doesn’t need definition. Little children without much education know what “flourishing” means. Anyway, if I say, as I do in my theory of value, that good is that which promotes and protects life, then the fullest flourishing of life need not be defined. It would be relative, as is the healthiest apple or the most beautiful girl. If one is diseased and barely hanging onto life, then he or she is not flourishing. This is obvious to rational people. (keapponlaffin)2. You provide a good amount of empirical evidence suggesting that existence is a universal value. I'm hesitant to say it's universal, but I'll at least grant that 99.999% of people/organisms pursue continued existence. Let's assume, for the sake of being generous, that 100% of species pursue existence, and that it is valued amongst those who can value it. From this you conclude that existence has "intrinsic value". How is this so? It seems to be that you're argument runs as follows: For all X, X is a living organism & X values being a living organism If all X value being a living organism, then being a living organism is intrinsically valuable for all X Therefore, for all X, being a living organism is intrinsically valuable. (Nick)No, this is your slanted way of constructing my argument. Life, itself, implies value. Value is something which is pursued, acted upon to gain and keep. Life seeks life and can cease to exist. Therefore, life, for a living organism, is value. There is a difference between saying this and saying simply because all living things value life, life is a value. Life makes value possible. It is an intrinsic value not possible without life. (keapponlaffin)Where is the problem here? The way I've constructed it makes the argument valid. There's no problem there. The problem is in the second premise (and perhaps the first, but I don't care about that, it's close enough to 100% that I'll grant it to you). How do we get from a Y being valued to a Y being intrinsically valuable? Assuming that this argument were correct, then it would follow that what is good and bad is based upon what individuals happen to value. My valuing ice cream changes, ever so slightly, what is objectively good or bad. (Nick)As we can see, your construction of the second premise of my argument is slanted so that you can knock it over here. If flourishing survival is the intrinsic value for all living things, because it is inherent in the definition of life, it is not so because all living things value it as they may value ice cream. Rather, ice cream would be an instrumental value if it leads to a flourishing survival. It would not be a value if it threatens and destroys life, even if it is valued. Simply being valued is not what makes something valuable. (Mill was wrong when he said this.) People value things, like smoking cigarettes, which do not promote and protect their flourishing survival. (keapponlaffin)A strong majority of human beings in recorded history have believed in god (approximately 80% today, and a much larger percentage before the enlightenment). These individuals most likely also value theism. Would this make theism intrinsically valuable? Or perhaps just 80% intrinsically valuable? This is not to say that the argument won't work, only that it has some serious objections to overcome first. (Nick)As we can see, this is way off base. The above statement is a statement of relativism, not objectivism. Value is not based on majority rule. I’ve made this clear several times already. (keapponlaffin)Let me know if I got your argument wrong. If there's a better argument for life having intrinsic value, I would love to hear it. (Nick)Your argument is wrong. I gave you a better argument, but you didn’t understand it. (Nick)You continue to demonstrate your ignorance of logic. There are lots of logics, and one can construct one’s own system with axioms and rules of inference. Bertrand Russell contrasted his modern logic with Aristotle’s classical syllogistic logic, but there is also quantum logic, fuzzy logic, Boolean logic, etc. (keapponlaffin)I'm not suggesting that there aren't multiple systems of logic. I'm simply saying that logic qua logic is what it is, and nothing else. To present an analogy. We have several theories of reality (einstein, newton, etc). Of course there's a multitude of systems, but there's only one reality. (Nick)Of course things are what they are. Big deal! This is meaningless. The law of identity tells us that reality is reality, but it doesn’t tell us how many realities there are. I said, “…there are different kinds of logics used for different purposes.” You said, “I'm very skeptical of this claim. What are the different kinds of logic?” So, I listed different kinds of logic, and you are trying to weasel out of this refutation. You should admit that you were wrong. (Nick)No, the deductive argument is circular, but the inductive argument is not. However, the inductive argument is inconclusive. (keapponlaffin)And how do we justify inductive arguments? Perhaps we could show that inductive arguments have worked in the past, and therefore they are likely to work in the future? Ah, but I just went circular. Perhaps we could rest it on some a priori principle? Perhaps, but then we need to justify this argument. At bottom, it's all either A) unjustified, B) justified qua circularity, C) an infinite regress of justification (and that's just silly), or D) justified in a way which cannot be proven. It would seem that we want either B or D. Since D can't be spoken of, B is all we have to work with in debates. (Nick)Are you talking to yourself here? I said deductive arguments are circular, thus not justifications, and inductive arguments are inconclusive. Either you agree with me or not. I do not agree that circular arguments justify or are all we have in debates. In debates, I rest on prima facie support which can be accepted as true if not adequately refuted. On this basis, I am winning this debate, whether you can recognize this or not. (Nick)I think you missed my point, that relying on conventional wisdom is not always wise. Conventional wisdom can be used for defining words or calling Blacks inferior to Whites. Don’t muddy the waters with your red herring. (keapponlaffin)Again I'll stress, I'm not falling back on conventional wisdom. I am not making any claims about how the world actually is. I can't stress this enough. Wisdom, even conventional wisdom, is a set of beliefs, and beliefs are beliefs about the world. How we define our terms doesn't say anything about the world. Don't confuse the two, please. (Nick)You do rely on conventional wisdom when you rely on dictionary definitions, which rely on conventional wisdom, or what ordinary people think, conventional wisdom. Perhaps even your notion about conventional wisdom is based on conventional wisdom, or your own slanted interpretation. Anyway, I don’t think I’m the one who is confused here. (Nick)If everything must be justified, there would be an infinite regress. It is not a weakness that the intrinsic value has no justification any more than it is a weakness for the north pole to not have any further point north. And, just because people don’t agree with something doesn’t make them right. Truth is not always determined by majority rule. Finally, I am not making emotional appeals or forfeiting anything. I have made my prima facie case, and you are not refuting me. It is your burden, and the burden of all those people and philosophers and scientists, to do so. (keapponlaffin)Alright, so your values go back to an intrinsic value which has no justification. (Nick)That’s right, just as nothing is north of the north pole. (keapponlaffin) Fine. I say fried hotdogs have intrinsic value. No, I'm not justified in saying so, but neither are you, so we're equally justified in our values. I'm sympathetic to this suggestion, but I doubt it's where you meant to go. (Nick)Good luck with that. See if you can build a system of morality on the foundation that fried hotdogs have intrinsic value. My explanation for flourishing survival as an intrinsic value was not that I simply say it is so and that’s all. I talked about the nature of life and value and the difference between intrinsic and instrumental value. I didn’t just pick flourishing survival arbitrarily, as you picked fried hot hotdogs. Flourishing survival is a biological, objective value. It is not subjective, as is anything one happens to like. You keep trying to twist what I say into something you can knock over. I show you circles, and you keep trying to call them squares. I’m not going to let that happen. (keapponlaffin)Ok, I read your post on natural rights. So, you grant that they ought to be violated sometimes. Then you've answered my question. They're not absolute. (Nick)That some minor violations of natural rights might be necessary, in less than ideal situations, to protect other more important rights is not proof that rights are not universal. The goal is still to protect all rights. (Nick)No, utilitarianism was around long before Bentham and Mill. They just gave their version of it. It is consequentialism, as opposed to deontology. My version is egoistic. " (keapponlaffin)Then just call it consequentialism, since that's what it definitely is. All philosophical encyclopedias and dictionaries would agree that egoism is not a form of utilitarianism, but it could be a consequentialist theory. (Nick)No, consequentialism is simply another way of talking about utility, which was around long before Bentham and Mill. Egoistic utilitarianism is simply utilitarianism without the criteria of extension. It is egoistic rather than altruistic, as is Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism. (Nick)Hedonism is the pursuit of happiness. If unhappiness is needed to appreciate happiness, then one would have to pursue unhappiness, which is counter to pursuing happiness. It is not coherent. And, a successful hedonist, one who never knew pain, would never know happiness that comes from knowledge of pain. This is incoherent. (keapponlaffin)I'm not convinced that this is counter-productive. It's like the businessman who buys new pens. Sure it's a loss in the moment, but the businessman can choose to buy the pens while only thinking of monetary gains. In the same way, the hedonist could fast to better appreciate having food. (Nick) I’m not concerned with what you are convinced of or not. I gave you a rational explanation of why pursuing pain is not pursuing pleasure. Most rational people would understand it. When combining simple hedonism with utilitarianism, we can talk about short term verses long term pain and pleasure and taking actions to appreciate future values etc. However, this is not simple hedonism alone.   (Nick)No, it is not always less risky to be honest. There are situation ethics when dealing with dishonest people in immoral communities. This, however, is not topical. You are changing the subject, not me. If you agree with my statement above, that in a moral community, it is not only less risky to be moral but also more authentic, thus more pleasurable than being a predator, then you concede the debate to me. (keapponlaffin)Again, my point is that the honesty principle is a rule of thumb. Heck, it's an awesome rule of thumb that works out 99.99% of the time. That doesn't, however, make it an absolute rule. That was my point, and your earlier statements seem to support it. (Nick)No, I’m not supporting absolutism. You keep mentioning absolutism, not me. I’m supporting the proposition that rational egoism can be a basis for morality. Again, you try to twist my position into something you can knock over. I show you circles, and you call them squares. (Nick)Finding money on the ground has nothing to do with rational egoism or morality. (keapponlaffin)So your morality doesn't actually apply to all situations in life? Alright, fair enough. I'll shop around for a better morality, namely one that always has an answer. (Nick)I didn’t say that at all. I said that finding money on the ground has nothing to do with rational egoism or morality, (unless you can find the person who lost the money.) It would be irrational to base a philosophy of life on finding money on the ground. You are either trying to be shifty, or you really don’t understand what is relevant or not to this debate. (Nick)You don’t seem to have read my examples of Sydney Carton or of Galt and Dagney. You just skip over my reasoning and evidence as if it isn’t there. I’m not just claiming something. I’m supporting it with reasoning and evidence which you ignore. You don’t rebut debate points by ignoring them. (keapponlaffin)This didn't quite answer my question. I want to know how it could ever be selfish to sacrifice one's life for another (not just risk it, but sacrifice it). I'm not trying to skip over your evidence, I'm simply not seeing it. Dagny and Galt didn't die, and I'm not familiar with Sydney. So, please, explain how killing oneself satisfies the goal of preserving one's existence. (Nick)I did answer your question. Either you just can’t see it, or you are trying to bait me to do some dance for you again. Even if you haven’t read Dickens’s classic, I explained several times how Carton’s actions could be considered egoistic and in pursuit of a flourishing existence, a preferable existence to dying without accomplishing consequences he valued. I also explained how Galt’s explanation of suicide, even if he didn’t die, could be seen as selfish, if he would have died in that situation. You don’t see it. Too bad. Rational people who read these explanations will understand them.   (Nick)That’s pretty shallow. Saving your family and loved ones can be seen to be doing what is best for you, if it makes your life meaningful, if it promotes a flourishing survival. Continuing to survive knowing what a coward you are to let your family and loved ones die when you could have saved them is not rational. (keapponlaffin)I understand that it could make your life meaningful to say, "If my family was ever in trou