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Anyway, interesting post. Thanks!
Maybe next time.
What a HUGE disappointment. I can see more clearly now why you left the Objectivist movement. You don't understand the Objectivist Ethics. Be seeing you.
Glenn
I'm going to go ahead and guess that the thing that Glenn thinks you don't understand has something to do with A being A...
Reason is natural, in a sense, because it is an attempt to pattern our thoughts after nature--that is, after what we are able to learn of the world around us. We are bound to its norms because, while it won't kill you instantly or every time, deviations from reason offer a mere shot in the dark compared to what reason is likely to offer.
Lastly, I don't think it's so strange to claim that a fully rational ethics has only just lately been discovered. Considering the religious fanaticism, crude theories of human nature, and utter ignorance about good political systems that prevailed for most of human history, I think there is at least a prima facie case that we haven't known at all what we were doing for most of human history. In part the results can be seen in how premodern societies really did contain vastly more starvation, disease and illiteracy. And those results return whenever governments and societies deviate far enough from a reasoned approach to life, a market economy, and a regime of individual rights.
2.) After reading your response to Tim, I'd like to modify my statements above: It may be possible for someone to live quite happily as a parasite, provided they never identify the root cause of their success, which will, in a rational person, eventually cause them to feel guilt and unhappiness. Could it be, though, that this process takes longer for some than for others, and that this explains how some people manage to be old, happy, and mystical? If this mechanism explains things, then (rationally?) aiming at becoming old, happy, and mystical is a distinctly risky bargain.
Replies to first comment:
(1) I agree. Some people are unwitting Objectivists. But that has no bearing on the argument.
(2) Do you know the literature on heuristics and biases? The upshot is that we don't naturally reason according to what we have learned to think of as norms of reason. A lot of our cognitive capacities deliver "wrong" answers in certain contexts, but may be fairly optimal rules given computational and developmental constraints. These are not "shots in the dark" but fairly efficient probabilitic strategies. If reason provides a payoff above and beyond our "quick and dirty" cognitive rules of thumb, then we are bound by reason's norms to the extent we're aiming at that payoff. But such an aim is not itself rationally mandatory.
(3) It's fine to say that rational ethics has been only recently discovered. Especially if you think that reason has only been recently "discovered." My complaint was that you can't say that we just now finally discovered rational ethics, AND that adhering to a rational ethics was an objectively necessary requirement for life ALL ALONG. If all Rand wanted to say was "here's a way to do it a little better," than there might be no problem. But she insisted on saying "here's how you have to do it if you're going to do it at all," and it's false that you have to do it that way.
Replies to second comment:
(1) One can glean the right pattern of On and Off by imitating someone who lives an evidently happy life. Or one can reason one's way to the right pattern, and then purposefully implement it until it habituated, at which point, one doesn't have to reason about it much any more. Read Aristotle on this. The best you can do is is emulate the virtuous man. How do you identify the virtuous man? Well, you could come up with a theory and try to use it to identify the genuinely virtuous. But your theory is no likely to be no better than your intuitive identification. (How will you know you came up with the right theory? Probably because it matches your intutions about what virtue looks like.) And it is evident that many people sucessfully choose people to emulate without having much a theory.
(2) You've basically provided the motivation for a theory of constructive self-deception.
Unwitting Objectivists have tremendous bearing on the argument, as Objectivists claim that these people are more likely to be happy than others. I do not accept that this claim is necessarily circular as you suggest it is. More evidence is needed on both sides before it can be tested, and I'm content to let it rest at that.
In my second comment, I don't think that I was arguing for a theory of rational self-deception; on the contrary, I was arguing precisely against such a theory--by suggesting that it would be difficult or impossible in practice. I was arguing above all that those who achieve the celebrated old-mystical-happy life are merely lucky, not virtuous, and that we ought not to try emulating them. Our luck might not be so good as theirs--particularly if we know up front that we are trying to deceive ourselves.
Second, you write, "you can't say that we just now finally discovered rational ethics, AND that adhering to a rational ethics was an objectively necessary requirement for life ALL ALONG." But this is a distortion of Rand's position. She claimed to be the first to find a fully rational ethics, but that many people had discovered bits and pieces of it before, particularly capitalist economists, Aristotle as relates to the individual, Aquinas when he wasn't being mystical, and a few others.
Her claim is not, then, preposterous just on its face. But I do happen to doubt it all the same: I find many other Aristotelians to be just as rational as she was, and also I find that quite often Rand herself was irrational. She makes a mistaken claim in my view, but not a preposterous one, and certainly not one that sinks the whole philosophy.
Incidentally, I don't recall Aristotle ever saying that one should purposefully turn off one's reason. This is really what the first question of the second post was addressing, and I still do not think that there is any time when turning off one's reason--that is, acting irrationally--can ever be justified. Habits of reason, though, are quite a different matter, and these should not be lumped in with irrational behavior.
Many Objectivists, when pressed, will admit that that's all she really meant. But they will not hold her responsible for her inexact use of words. In fact, they, as likely as not, will say that you are doing something wrong when you point this out.
I'm an objectivist, fairly new to objectivism.
I was interested in reading your three letters, only just discovered this site.
The 2nd and 3rd letters were easy to find, but where is the first?
It's right here: http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2004/08/...
Enjoy!