Jump to content
Science Forums

Objectivism Vs. Subjectivism In Morality


cal

Recommended Posts

Math schema can certainly be described as true if you prove them, I mean we'd live in a very false reality if two and two was not equivalent to four.

With a moment's more time on my hands I would say that reality would be markedly different if "murder for fun" were moral. You keep introducing the example. If it were the case then we wouldn't have culture, or society, or probably even language... we couldn't have any kind of math or anything else on which agreement rests.

 

What, then, really, is morality worth? Is it worth nothing to you?

 

~modest

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
If happiness is truly the only thing to work for, if it's the "ends" that are objectively good without qualification, then why should I not be happy murdering for fun? You even just said I shouldn't have to qualify my murders, so I don't need any reasons beyond the fact that it makes me happy. With the idea that Rand explores - selfishness being a virtue rather than a vice - it would be totally fair game to murder for fun, even virtuous, if I am happy doing it.
Well, no, this is not at all the philosophic position of Ayn Rand. So, see this quote from Rand..."All that is proper to the life of a rational being is the good..." So, we see that the good is qualified by Rand. How does this work in practice ? Rand claims.."The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of things in themselves nor of man's emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man's consciousness according to a rational standard of value". So, it is silly to claim that Rand would say that it is fair game to murder for fun. Rand claims..."the objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man--it must be discovered--it does not allow one to separate [value from purpose] or [good from beneficiaries] or [man's actions from reason]. Note: all my references to Rand are from the H. Binswanger 1986 Rand Lexicon.

 

So let's tackle this at it's heart. ....There are good deeds done unintentionally' date='...[/quote'] Well no, this is impossible according to Rand, according to her 'objective theory of good'. Why ? Because by definition the good is always an act that must be discovered using consciousness. Rand would never claim that good deeds can be done unintentionally...such deeds, whatever their outcome, are neither good nor bad, they are value neutral.

 

So selfless good deeds do exist..
No they do not' date=' not if you accept an objective theory of good as presented by Rand. They only exist if your theory of the good is not objective.

 

I'd like you to reconsider living life for your own happiness at all...
Not a life worth living.

 

I mean chimps die happy...pigs die happy.
No' date=' this is nonsense according to Rand's objective theory of THE GOOD..see above statements of Rand...pigs and chimps do not act from decisions made via rational consciousness, and THE GOOD is a concept that is only an aspect of reality IN RELATION TO MAN, not animals, plants, bacteria, and virus. Rand claims..."Happiness is possible only to a rational man". So, see how silly it is to say that animals can be happy..whatever mental states they have, happiness is not one of them.

 

I'd rather die completely and thoroughly unhappy, knowing I had the choice.
Well, I'd rather die completely and thoroughly happy, knowing that I have the choice.

 

I sense you do not completely have a mental grasp of the complexity of Rand's objective philosophy, she is very easy to misunderstand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Well, no, this is not at all the philosophic position of Ayn Rand. So, see this quote from Rand..."All that is proper to the life of a rational being is the good..." So, we see that the good is qualified by Rand. How does this work in practice ? Rand claims.."The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of things in themselves nor of man's emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man's consciousness according to a rational standard of value". So, it is silly to claim that Rand would say that it is fair game to murder for fun. Rand claims..."the objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man--it must be discovered--it does not allow one to separate [value from purpose] or [good from beneficiaries] or [man's actions from reason]. Note: all my references to Rand are from the H. Binswanger 1986 Rand Lexicon.

Rand was not the first to say these things, and they are only her qualifiers for her other proofs, they don't in themselves qualify anything except for the fact that at one point someone did say those things. Just because she says there needs to be a standard for which judgement of action should come from, does not mean the standard she employs is a valid or worthwhile one. I am just saying this as a precursor to the rest of the refutation here.

 

 

Well no, this is impossible according to Rand, according to her 'objective theory of good'. Why ? Because by definition the good is always an act that must be discovered using consciousness. Rand would never claim that good deeds can be done unintentionally...such deeds, whatever their outcome, are neither good nor bad, they are value neutral.

I'm confused, is this what you think or what she thinks? If all you're going to do is quote other people (or paraphrase), then I'm not really arguing against you, now am I? And if I'm not arguing against you, but rather against Rand, then all I need do is quote (or paraphrase) her opposition, correct? This conversation will be drastically different if we go down that road, so that being said, from here on out, every time you use quotes, you have to validate why those quotes have value; refer back to the precursory statement above your quote for why this is necessary in a logical argument.

 

That aside, she is relating her schema by means of Subjective Morality, not Objective Morality. Why is this and how am I coming about that statement? She is saying it takes human peoples (or something with advanced consciousness) to reason out the consequence of an action in order for the action performed to have any moral weight to it. This is what Subjective Morality describes, that without humans here to equivocate it, morality wouldn't exist. This is a pretty bullshit argument though, because if I say I commit an action without thinking about it, and without weighing the moral outcome, no matter to what value scale we use, then I am outside of morality and am unaccountable for my actions, even if the action I committed was murder. Many other philosophers realized that Subjective Morality (and Relativism in morality) aren't very good ways to apply a system of judgement since they are so easily circumvented. That is where Objective Morality comes in to save the day because we can have universal truths that would be true even if humans weren't around to equivocate them to be so.

 

TRIANGLE DOTS! [therefore], it is a logical fallacy to say that all actions are value neutral if the good/evil behind them is undiscovered using the doer's consciousness (or anyone's consciousness for that matter). Murder is still murder as long as the definition for what that word defines is what we call murder. The system of Objective Morality self-actuates and Rand is simply wrong in this right. I apologize now if you don't appreciate my wordplay lol, I'm quite egotistical about the pleasure I take from thinking I'm clever, and that's something Rand would find as a positive, I'm sure. See there I go again.

 

 

No they do not, not if you accept an objective theory of good as presented by Rand. They only exist if your theory of the good is not objective.

I don't. So they do. Does that clarify it for you?

 

Your problem here is going to be the same problem Modest is having. Just because something is objective does not automatically make it true or applicable or valid or even in this case relevant. Yes, there is something objective to what she says, just like we can objectively define Subjective Morality, but that does not make Subjective Morality objectively true or applicable or valid or even relevant, as we have previously discussed and as I have actuated within this post itself.

 

Whether or not you chose to follow the logic, you may be asking why am I saying this? You seem to take quite a few assumptions from the names that are given to things in ethics. Yes, it is called the "Objective Theory of Good", however it is not a part of Objective Morality. Again, something Modest just quite did not understand. More triangle dots, since it a part of Subjective Morality, it can't be universally applied, and if it can't be universally applied, then it holds no grounds in isolated incidences as well. But on the macro or micro scale, to say Human consciousness is a precursor for ethics is a logical fallacy, it'd be like saying atoms wouldn't have element-specific weights if a consciousness wasn't there to measure them.

 

I literally don't know enough ways to describe this, like those were all the ways I could possibly describe it. So if you say that I'm simply wrong, and that you refuse to believe you live in a shared reality in which logics can be proven true and made universally applicable via their own existence (recursiveness or self-actuation), then like I said to Modest, you would have to perverse your very own logic that you used to type it out to me. And again, you have the right as a sentient consciousness to deny reality and to withhold accepting anything as a viable truth outside of your own consciousness, but if you do, there is no point in arguing with me, or with anyone ever, because you are simply denying any realistic observation of the existence of the universe itself. It is not simply this skinny white kid saying this, it is the aggregate of every consciousness linked or unlinked that has ever existed in this universe that fundamentally proves and agrees with this, even if it is only on a subconscious scale, that there are universally applicable logics (that are then Truths of the Universe, undeniable to any point of rationalism). YET, people will argue this and I am utterly confused as to why. You yourself may still argue this even after I post it, and I think it is usually because people simply don't want to say they are wrong (I am not assuming you will argue this point, I am giving an example), I am no exception to this, but I have given Modest a few points within the argument, and if you do not accept this point, then I (and everyone else reading) should be left to assume you simply do not follow logic. Which again, is your right, but it is also our right to ignore you afterwords if you go down that path. You have been warned.

 

 

Not a life worth living.

And what a selfish thing to say. I thought living life for the moral good was the right thing to do? Yet you say living for the happiness of others is not a worth-living life. This is another perversion of logic that Rand brings about. When I describe living for the happiness of others, I don't mean slavery, I mean it in the universally applicable Objective Morality way, the way that would imply everyone else would be living the same way - for others' happiness.

 

Another problem we may be running into here (just a prediction, I may be wrong) is our definitions of happiness. Which disagree as your quote follows...

 

 

No, this is nonsense according to Rand's objective theory of THE GOOD..see above statements of Rand...pigs and chimps do not act from decisions made via rational consciousness, and THE GOOD is a concept that is only an aspect of reality IN RELATION TO MAN, not animals, plants, bacteria, and virus. Rand claims..."Happiness is possible only to a rational man". So, see how silly it is to say that animals can be happy..whatever mental states they have, happiness is not one of them.

Her theory is just that - a theory, which means that although we can disprove the most fundamental aspects of it to be wrong, as I've done in this post, the theory can still be reworked and fixed. So-

 

How do you know that chimps and pigs do not weigh the consequences of their actions? Do Bonobo Apes not have sex to work out their disagreements? Do gorilla packs not defend their weak and disabled from other gorilla packs because they know the weak and disabled cannot defend themselves? Do pigs not make sure all of their young get fed equally from their own tat? You can argue that those animals do it out of instinct, but then would that not be what we do it out of? There are pigs and apes that make the choice to not treat their others well, not all Bonobos accept sex, not all gorillas protect each other, and not all pigs are unbiased about their young, but those individuals are ostracized from their communities because sentient animals know wrong things are wrong. You seem to have a very warped view about Humans being the only intelligible organism on this planet, and it's a very ego-centric, arrogant, and most importantly, ignorant view.

 

Happiness is not possible only to a rational man, it is possible to any organic neuron-based brain that carries serotonin as a neurotransmitter. Again, to deny this would be to deny the definition of happiness itself, ergo, pulling from my previous paragraph in this post about the universe and logic, reality.

 

Also, you say "in relation to man, not animals..." as if Humans aren't animals. I'm not sure if you're insulting all Humans intentionally, but we are animals and I'm offended you would classify me as something other, you pig.

 

 

Well, I'd rather die completely and thoroughly happy, knowing that I have the choice.

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the core concept of what the choice is here. The choice is not simply between dying happy and dying unhappy, if those were the options, then your choice would be the difference between chocolate and vanilla. The choice is whether or not you are dying happy because your life is morally satisfied, or dying unhappy because your life is not morally satisfied. Again, a logical fallacy that Rand creates - If you chose to die happy even though you know you are immoral, then you have still achieved happiness via selfish ways and totally circumvent the rest of ethics because of your in-acknowledgement that you are a shitty person. Also, if you die happy for the sole reason of knowing that you did immoral things, then do the immoral things you did become moral things because they ultimately lead to happiness? You see why selfishness is a vice right? I mean... we're pretty ****ed as a society because of people's selfishness, imagine how dysfunctional we'd be if selfishness was universally applied (pulling from Modest's arguments).

 

 

I sense you do not completely have a mental grasp of the complexity of Rand's objective philosophy, she is very easy to misunderstand.

I sense you do not completely have a mental grasp of the complexity of Rand's objective philosophy, she is very easy for you to misunderstand, Rade.

Edited by Matthew Garon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just because she says there needs to be a standard for which judgement of action should come from, does not mean the standard she employs is a valid or worthwhile one.
Matthew, yes, your life does have value and it is worthwhile. That you do not know this basic fact about Rand's standard of moral action makes your other claims pure nonsense. If there are specific questions you have about Rand's philosophy please ask and I'll do my best to clarify for you.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Matthew, yes, your life does have value and it is worthwhile. That you do not know this basic fact about Rand's standard of moral action makes your other claims pure nonsense. If there are specific questions you have about Rand's philosophy please ask and I'll do my best to clarify for you.

Wut. When did I say my life or anyone's life was valueless or worthless? I said you can't jump to the assumption that Rand's standard is a good one, or that it has value or worth in relation to other standards simply because she said it and you agree with it.

 

That you don't know this basic fact about logic and ethics makes your other claims pure nonsense. If there are specific questions you have about how a logical dialogue with another human being works please ask and I'll clarify for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I said you can't jump to the assumption that Rand's standard is a good one, or that it has value or worth in relation to other standards simply because she said it and you agree with it.
Yes, indeed, but it is you that jump irrationally, not I. OK, since you claim to be a Rand expert, explain to me how she claims the validation of value judgements is to be achieved ?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, indeed, but it is you that jump irrationally, not I. OK, since you claim to be a Rand expert, explain to me how she claims the validation of value judgements is to be achieved ?

When the **** have I claimed this? You and Greylorn both need to stop with that. I have no idea how she claims validation over value judgments since I don't think value judgements are applicable in relation to categorical imperatives. If you want to know what she shat out about that topic you can google it. In fact no, you obviously can't do that since you're coming to me for it, so here, I'll do it for you- Ayn Rand Value Judgments

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent use of Google Matthew. Which raises the question why you did not read this summary of the ethical philosophy of Rand before you started this thread...the questions you raised in OP #1 answered by Rand:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

Yea, I'm still not seeing how she answers the meat of the problems here. She's addressing that there is a problem, and then saying that nothing can prove objective morality as the truth of ethics. Which is the problem. She argues basically what modest has been saying, that yes a good system of ethics can lead to human prosperity and that it is pro-social to be anti-negative, but not really describing the physical evil or the physical good that is required for objective ethics. I don't see how this clarifies anything, she is just echoing the conversation thus far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea, I'm still not seeing how she answers the meat of the problems here. She's addressing that there is a problem, and then saying that nothing can prove objective morality as the truth of ethics.
What proves objective morality as the truth of ethics is exactly what Rand is saying when she answers the question..why do humans need ethics? When you understand the answer to that question presented by Rand, it follows logically that only an objective morality can provide an ethics proper for humans.

 

She argues basically what modest has been saying' date=' that yes a good system of ethics can lead to human prosperity and that it is pro-social to be anti-negative, but not really describing the physical evil or the physical good that is required for objective ethics. I don't see how this clarifies anything, she is just echoing the conversation thus far.[/quote']The physical evil or physical good would be the individual physical human that decides via volition to either adopt a subjective ethic (evil) or an objective ethic (good). Hitler is a good example of a physical evil that is the antithesis required for an objective ethics.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...