tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post3699214057969382395..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Quality vs Quantity of LifeAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-39584815295951265992008-05-12T09:32:00.000-06:002008-05-12T09:32:00.000-06:00Intruiging! I must admit it sounds good. Does Obje...Intruiging! I must admit it sounds good. Does Objectivism have anything to say about what the values that man seeks in his V-life should be?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-84568523350149108592008-05-11T02:42:00.000-06:002008-05-11T02:42:00.000-06:00In a collection of essays called "A GUIDE TO THE P...In a collection of essays called "A GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF OBJECTIVISM" by David King, Mr. King talks about the use of the word "life" in Objectist writings.<BR/><BR/>* Standard vs Purpose <BR/>I observe some confusion in the minds of many Objectivists regarding the proper applicaton of these two concepts. I will see if I can throw some light on the situation. <BR/>A standard is the basis upon which rests or which makes possible the existence of a purpose. The two things, while related, are not identical and should not be confused with one another. <BR/>Consider a house. Its standard is the foundation which it is built upon. Its purpose is the function of providing shelter for people. You can see that it could not fulfill its purpose without having its standard; but observe also that its standard is not the reason for its existence. <BR/>Now consider a man. His standard is his life - the life which is manifested in his biological mechanism. (To be specific, it is the ability to effect a temporary and local decrease in entropy through the use of chemical reactions catalyzed by nucleic acid molecules.) His purpose is also his life - but here "life" is used in a different sense, meaning the process of achieving values. I will refer to these two different aspects of life by the terms B-life and V-life. In the Objectivist writings there is considerable emphaisis on the idea that "man's life is the standard of values." (Here is meant B-life.) There is also much emphasis placed on the idea that "man's life qua man" (V-life) is the purpose of man's existence. Unfortunately, there is too little attention paid to differentiating between the two quite different aspects of the term "life" which are being considered. The result is that many people think in terms of B-lfe when they should be using the term V-life. An example is the man who claims that, if faced with a terrible situation in which he had to choose between saving his own life or saving his wife's (or child's) life, he would, according to the principles of Objectivism, have to save his own life. Because, after all, Obectivism tells him that his own biological existence is the most important value he can hold, doesn't it? This is surely not what Objectivism implies, nor is it what Rand means to say. You will recall Galt's words to Dagny at the time when he is about to be captured: <BR/>"But if they get the slightest suspicion of what we are to each other, they will have you on a torture rack.... At the first mention of a threat to you, I will kill myself.... I do not care to see you enduring a drawn-out murder. There will be no values for me to seek after that - and I do not care to exist without values." <BR/>This same motivation can be observed in the final scenes of Hugo's TOILERS OF THE SEA. Both Galt and Gilliatt realized quite well that his purpose in living is the achievement of values, not merely the continuance of his physical biological processes. <BR/><BR/>stevoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-58627372067445038262008-05-08T16:49:00.000-06:002008-05-08T16:49:00.000-06:00Although I stopped reading that thread on Evanesce...Although I stopped reading that thread on Evanescent's blog a couple of days ago, I take it from this post that it stayed dreadfully on topic.<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that "life" isn't an ultimate value (speaking everyday English here) so much as it's a <EM>basic</EM> value. A necessary value: one values (wants to maintain) their own life, and finds merit in attributing value to the lives of others, therefore civilization can exist and other values, beyond the barest subsistence, can be realized.<BR/><BR/>That's why I can't get my head around the way "life" is being used in the Objectivist sense. It seems trivially true, like saying paper is the ultimate value of a book, rather than the book's content. The paper is a necessity, so is the ink, but neither are sufficient for the reading experience. Therefore, paper can't be an end in itself, and I'm not sure life is either; a comatose individual isn't really "living", if you know what I mean.Steelmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09612062887585525213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-12493320343206262122008-05-08T15:29:00.000-06:002008-05-08T15:29:00.000-06:00As I've told evanescent several times now, the sta...As I've told evanescent several times now, the state of merely being alive is not even a <I>value</I> in Objectivism if we want the term "value" to be meaningful or the claim to apply universally.<BR/><BR/>In Objectivism, value is "that which one acts to gain and/or keep". I act to gain and/or keep dog shit when I step on it. But no, this isn't what Objectivists want! Why? Because it was not my intention to step on the dog shit, and I don't want it! So in what meaningful sense can we interpret their definition of "value"? Oh, how about... an intentional one?<BR/><BR/>Taking an intentional interpretation, values are things that one intentionally acts to gain and/or keep. This makes the claim that "life is a value" an empirical claim, yet evanescent and Ergo, strangely, fail to comprehend this. It is obviously a false empirical claim.<BR/><BR/>As you (Alonzo), others, and I have told him, multiple times, the fact that an action, state of affairs, or thing contributes positively to my staying alive does not make staying alive a value, even if the contributing action, state of affairs, or thing is a value.<BR/><BR/>It really is hard to believe that someone who rejects the proposition "a god exists" on rational grounds can reject the refutations we've given of Objectivist ethics.<BR/><BR/>Then again, the primary objection Rand had to the hypothetical existence of God seemed to be based on humanity's dignity, or some other non sequitur argument. (And I think she botched her primacy of existence vs. primacy of consciousness thing.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-72582373265622888692008-05-08T08:32:00.000-06:002008-05-08T08:32:00.000-06:00This is just hilarious:At comment 10, you said:---...This is just hilarious:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://ellis14.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/ultimate-value-and-morality/#comment-4710" REL="nofollow">At comment 10, you said:</A><BR/>---<BR/><I>I do hold that there are ultimate values - aversion to pain, desire for sex, desire to eat, desire to drink, etc.</I><BR/>---<BR/><BR/>then <A HREF="http://ellis14.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/ultimate-value-and-morality/#comment-4721" REL="nofollow">at comment 21, I say:</A><BR/>---<BR/><I>Absence of pain. Physical and emotional.</I><BR/>---<BR/>After that, all my subsequent comments are deleted.<BR/><BR/>And now, <A HREF="http://ellis14.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/ultimate-value-and-morality/#comment-4746" REL="nofollow">At comment 39, we read:</A><BR/><BR/>---<BR/><I>Further up, I challenged anyone to disagree with this by providing an example of something else that IS an end in itself. This challenge remains unmet.</I><BR/>---<BR/><BR/>Truly mind boggling!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-34496645771793228752008-05-08T00:27:00.000-06:002008-05-08T00:27:00.000-06:00There seems to be a paragraph missing at the begi...There seems to be a paragraph missing at the beginning, describing Shortly's life.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com