In particular, she challenges the popular misconception that the irrational actions of men like Tiger Woods and Bernie Madoff were "selfish". Here's an excerpt:
By its most basic definition, to be selfish is to be interested in attaining something for oneself, to act in pursuit of one's own needs or desires.
But observe what these men attained for themselves: Madoff will spend the rest of his life behind bars, his stolen wealth lost, while Woods, once the highest paid athlete in the world, has lost his endorsements, his reputation, and possibly even his family. Clearly, such were not the desired outcomes.
This raises a question: can these men, whose actions led not to their success and happiness but rather to their self-destruction, really be characterized as selfish?
Basu is completely correct. Woods and Madoff were self-destructive, not "selfish". Lying, cheating, and stealing are tremendously self-defeating behaviours (even if their practitioners might temporarily delude themselves into believing that they are "getting away" with some short-term illusory gains.)
The truly selfish person thinks and acts in the long range. This requires living according to rational principles, which in turn requires a commitment to cultivating virtues such as honesty, integrity, independence, justice, productiveness, pride, and rationality. This may seem counter-intuitive to those who equate "selfishness" with a willingness to violate such moral principles. But a deeper examination of the genuine requirements of the pursuit of long-range rational self-interest reveals that living according to these moral principles is essential for a selfish life.
On a related note, I want to observe that the Undercurrent writers are generating some consistently good current affairs and cultural commentary from an Objectivist perspective and getting this material in the hands of college students across the country for free.
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
The January 10, 2010 New York Times recently published the following interesting ethics question:
When I checked into a hotel in California, I was starving, so I ate the $6 box of Oreos from the minibar. Later that day, I walked down the street to a convenience store, bought an identical box for $2.50 and replenished the minibar before the hotel had a chance to restock it. Was this proper? My view is "no harm, no foul." In fact, my box was fresher: the Oreos I ate were going to expire three months before the box I replaced them with.
DAVID LAT, NEW YORK
The NYT's ethicist Randy Cohen answered that the hotel guest was in the wrong:
...The hotel is providing not just a product but also a service -- the convenience of having Oreos available in your room, 24/7. To create this utopia of constant confectionery access, the hotel had to pay someone to travel the world and select the finest vintage cookies, order the Oreos and stock the minibar. You enjoyed that service; you must pay the (ridiculously high) price.
For what it's worth, I've never consumed any of the items in a hotel minibar.
But I have never thought of engaging in this sort of "minibar arbitrage" either (as Tyler Cowen calls it.)
Obviously if you take the Oreos from the minibar, you must make good. The key question is whether the only way to do so is pay the $6. Or is it ethically kosher just to replace the cookies?
Feel free to post your own thoughts in the comments section!
I'm simply overwhelmed to read Tony Judt's account of a single night stuck in the prison of his body, ravaged by ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gherig's disease). Here's how he describes his basic condition:
By my present stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. With extraordinary effort I can move my right hand a little and can adduct my left arm some six inches across my chest. My legs, although they will lock when upright long enough to allow a nurse to transfer me from one chair to another, cannot bear my weight and only one of them has any autonomous movement left in it. Thus when legs or arms are set in a given position, there they remain until someone moves them for me. The same is true of my torso, with the result that backache from inertia and pressure is a chronic irritation. Having no use of my arms, I cannot scratch an itch, adjust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth, or anything else that--as a moment's reflection will confirm--we all do dozens of times a day. To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers (and anyone else).
Please, go read the whole thing. While I don't know what Mr. Judt's own religious views are, I regard his life as a clear demonstration of the life-hating brutality of Christian doctrine. To wit:
Christianity regards suffering like that of Mr. Judt as not merely noble and elevated, but positively divine. It's not good to live fully, happily, robustly according to Christianity: it's good to suffer and die. That's what Jesus taught -- and then he lived and died by that ideal.
Christianity regards the body as a vile, despicable prison that leads a person's divine soul astray into the dark depths of sin. Mr. Judt is positively lucky, as his body really is a prison: he cannot indulge pleasures of the flesh, not even the seemingly minor ones like scratching his own itches.
Christianity regards Mr. Judt's life as God's property, not as his own. So Mr. Judt must be forbidden by law from ending his own life, if and when it becomes intolerable. If anyone attempts to help him end his life, that person should be imprisoned as a murderer. As a bonus, if Mr. Judt manages to end his own life somehow, the loving Christian God will consign him to the torments of hell for all eternity.
Of course, many Christians do not live by such dark principles. They are kind, decent people, loathe to see anyone suffering from such a tragic condition. They might even support stem-cell research, and even assisted suicide. To that extent, their values are more American -- loving science, seeking happiness, and upholding individual rights -- than Christian.
It is time to tell people the unvarnished truth: to stand up for man's mind and this earth, and against any version of mysticism or religion. It is time to tell people: "You must choose between unreason and America. You cannot have both. Take your pick."
If there is to be any chance for the future, this is the only chance there is.
By Diana Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
Despite the good news of late, the inmates are still running quite a few wings of the asylum.
Three colleges seeking to experiment with using the Kindle rather than expensive textbooks have been forbidden from doing so by the Justice Department. Why? Because they're not fully functional for blind students. Of course, the Kindle offers a good text-to-speech reader, so that makes it superior to an ordinary textbook for a blind student. However, the problem is that the menu functions of the Kindle require sight to navigate at present.
According to the Justice Department, blind college students are so profoundly disabled -- despite reaching college without the benefit of sight -- that they cannot possibly find any way around this problem. It would be impossible, for example, for them to ask a fellow student or a roommate for help with locating the right file. Of course, that wouldn't be ideal for them. I'd love to see the Kindle updated so as to read out the menu items for the sake of blind users. Yet the idea that a blind person couldn't manage this problem -- despite overcoming so many difficulties to get to college -- is absurd... and offensive.
According to the Department of Justice:
Under the agreements reached today, the universities generally will not purchase, recommend or promote use of the Kindle DX, or any other dedicated electronic book reader, unless the devices are fully accessible to students who are blind and have low vision. The universities agree that if they use dedicated electronic book readers, they will ensure that students with vision disabilities are able to access and acquire the same materials and information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted students with substantially equivalent ease of use.
That's demanding the impossible, particularly in a college setting. Blind students necessarily lack the easy access to visual information available to any sighted person. They will have to work harder to read a textbook or handout than a sighted student. Some forms of information, like PowerPoint presentations or writing on the chalkboard, might be largely inaccessible to them. The simple fact is that blind people have to work harder to educate themselves. Technology can make that process easier, but blind people cannot be made equal to sighted people -- except by blinding sighted people.
Notably, conservatives often oppose such policies. They reject the ideal of "equality of outcomes" in favor of "equality of opportunity." Yet notice that the Department of Justice appeals only the "equality of opportunity" to justify their interference. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said:
Advancing technology is systematically changing the way universities approach education, but we must be sure that emerging technologies offer individuals with disabilities the same opportunities as other students. These agreements underscore the importance of full and equal educational opportunities for everyone. [Emphasis added.]
People's opportunities in life often depend on factors beyond their control -- meaning, on bad luck. A person might be born with a congenital disorder. He might be born to stupid, poor, or amoral parents -- or in a backwards, irrational culture. He might suffer a terrible injury in an accident. A person can be the victim of bad luck, such that he must work harder than others to live well. Undoubtedly, that's unfortunate, perhaps even pitiable. Such people are often worthy of benevolent help. They are often admirable for overcoming their misfortunes by courage, determination, and hard work.
However, justice does not oblige anyone to help to unlucky people so that their opportunities in life are the same as everyone else's. A person is responsible for making his own life as good as he can, whatever misfortunes he might suffer. That's his basic job as a human person. Other people are only obligated to leave him free to do that, by respecting his rights. That's what a person needs -- more than anything else -- to overcome any kind of bad luck: he needs the freedom to act according to his own best judgment, for the sake of his own life and happiness. Moreover, the unlucky person needs other people, whatever their luck in life, to enjoy the same freedom. The freedom of others will enable them to be most productive, and the unlucky person will thereby benefit in trade. In addition, although far less important, that freedom will enable others to more easily help him through charity, if they wish to do that.
The Justice Department rejects that approach based on each individual's right to his own life and responsibility to live it as best he can. They prefer to deny everyone, rather than permit some people to enjoy the benefit of a technology that others cannot fully enjoy at present. In other words, everyone must be held down to the standards of the least capable -- in the name of equality of opportunity.
I'm an atheist, and I love Christmas. If you think that's a contradiction, think again.
Do you remember as a child composing wish lists of things you genuinely valued, thought you deserved, and knew would bring you pleasure? Do you remember eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas morning and the new bike, book, or chemistry set you were hoping for? That childhood feeling captures the spirit of Christmas and explains why so many of us look forward to the season each year.
That joyful spirit of Christmas, Ghate argues, is part and parcel of a commercial Christmas. It's nowhere to be found in a truly Christian Christmas.
As someone who felt rather overwhelmed this holiday season, I appreciated Ghate's explicit rejection of the all-too-common duty-based approach to Christmas toward the end of his essay:
It's not uncommon today to hear people say Christmas is their most stressful period. Pressed for time (and this year probably for money, too), they feel there are just too many lights to put up, meals to cook, and gifts to buy. Seeking something to blame, they blame the commercialism of the season. But there is no commandment, "Thou shall buy a present for everyone you know." This is the religious mentality of duty rearing its ugly head again. Do and buy only that which you can truly afford and enjoy; there are myriad ways to celebrate with loved ones without spending a cent.
Take some time to enjoy a mug of hot cocoa while staring at the pretty lights and decorations on your Christmas tree. Enjoy time with beloved family members and friends. Reflect on your accomplishments for the year. Look forward to 2010. Most of all, take a deep breath and enjoy your holidays in the most selfish way you can!
Question: Which is greener; being obese and out of shape or slim and healthy?
Answer: Although obese people do consume slightly more energy than slim people, they will not live as long and therefore, will consume less of the earth's resources.
Most people would likely think that's some kind of horrible mistake: "Surely, they can't mean that!" Yet in fact, the card perfectly represents the ideological core of the environmentalist movement, often referred to as "deep ecology."
As I've argued before, most self-described environmentalists are motivated by fundamentally human concerns: they want clean air and clean water; they want "open space" for hiking, camping, and other sports; they want to preserve species for future study and enjoyment. Such people often wrongly suppose that government controls are required to achieve these ends. They are often mistaken about the benefits and dangers of certain products or practices. They err in thinking in terms of intrinsic value of nature. Yet fundamentally, their aims are anthropocentric: they wish to protect and improve human life.
Undoubtedly, the creators of that game are environmentalists of a different sort: they are "deep ecologists." Here's the description of deep ecology from Wikipedia (with my emphasis added):
Deep ecology's core principle is the claim that, like humanity, the living environment as a whole has the same right to live and flourish. Deep ecology describes itself as "deep" because it persists in asking deeper questions concerning "why" and "how" and thus is concerned with the fundamental philosophical questions about the impacts of human life as one part of the ecosphere, rather than with a narrow view of ecology as a branch of biological science, and aims to avoid merely anthropocentric environmentalism, which is concerned with conservation of the environment only for exploitation by and for humans purposes, which excludes the fundamental philosophy of deep ecology. Deep ecology seeks a more holistic view of the world we live in and seeks to apply to life the understanding that separate parts of the ecosystem (including humans) function as a whole.
Notice that, in addition to its metaphysical collectivism, deep ecology specifically rejects anthropocentrism, i.e. man-centered environmentalism. Ultimately, that's why it promotes human suffering and death as a positive good. To understand the why and the how, we need to draw some parallels to altruism -- particularly to utilitarianism and impartialism.
The moral perspective of deep ecology is similar to that of utilitarianism -- or, more broadly, impartialism. Utilitarianism demands that we always act so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism is hedonistic: happiness is understood to be nothing more than pleasure, whether physical or emotional. Today, the widely-accepted variant of utilitarianism is the non-hedonistic doctrine of impartialism.
Impartialism abstracts away from the hedonism of utilitarianism: it is neutral about the nature of the good. Impartialism speaks in terms of "interests," yet that can mean just about anything: pleasure, wealth, happiness, health -- or even obedience to duty or submission to God's will. However, impartialism is still decidedly collectivistic: the good is neutral between persons. So whatever the standard for the good is, we must promote that good for everyone, not merely ourselves. We must be impartial in our decisions: we ought not concern ourselves with whether something is good for me or my loved ones -- or good for a stranger and his loved ones. All that matters is that something is good. (Kant's ethics of duty shares the same detached view of the good: that's why I think of impartialism as the distilled essence of both utilitarianism and deontology.)
Technically, impartialism permits each person to consider his own interests when acting. Yet the desires, goals, and welfare of one person must always be deemed inconsequential in comparison to the interests of the other billions of people in the world.
For example, you might think that your choice to buy a latte is your own private business, perhaps just concerning you and the owner of the coffee shop. You aren't harming anyone by buying the coffee. In fact, you and the coffee shop owner are better off after the transaction. Sounds good, right? No! That's far too narrow a perspective for impartialism: you must consider the impact of that transaction on everyone else, including the billions of total strangers in the world. Impartialism demands that you consider everything else that you might have done with those few dollars. Clearly, you could be feeding the poor, rather than indulging your desire for luxury. You have no moral right to a cup of coffee while someone in the world lacks bread. (For that argument, see Peter Singer's classic essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality.)
The fact that the needs of the one are always swamped by the needs of the many is why impartialism is properly regarded as a form of altruism. In practice, you must always do for others, never for yourself. Unless you are the worst-off person in the world, you have no moral right to your own life or happiness.
That sounds awful, but it gets even worse.
(I'll speak of altruism from here on, as the rest of my analysis is not specific to impartialism.)
Impartialism and other forms of altruism cannot rejoice in the fact that people's interests are often in harmony. That only creates epistemic problems when attempting to judge people morally. How so?
Sometimes, a person might act for the sake of his own interests, yet by so doing, he happens to benefit others. In such cases, the person deserves no moral praise or credit -- even when the benefits provided to others are tremendous, like when neurosurgeon saves the live of a beloved child. Such a person is motivated by his own selfish concerns -- perhaps by the expected payment for the surgery or even his enjoyment of the work -- not purely by selfless concern for others.
Thus, when a person benefits from his actions in some way, we must wonder about his motives. He might be a secret egoist! As Kant observes in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, even the person himself might be deluded, thinking that he was motivated by duty when instead he was motivated by self-love. The result? A person can only be safely praised by altruistic standards when he receives no benefit whatsoever from his actions -- and better yet, when he suffers deeply for them. Only in such cases -- when the person clearly and deliberately inflicts harm on himself for the benefit of others -- can he be judged moral by altruistic standards.
Moreover, the person praiseworthy by altruistic standards need not really benefit other people much, if at all. A person's noble plans might go awry for all kinds of reasons beyond his control. Or perhaps a person lacks the resources or power to accomplish much. The critical question is whether the person decided on his course of action using the proper impartial or altruistic principle -- or "maxim," to use Kant's term. That's all that this morality demands.
So what does that mean? Altruism demands that people help others, yet shrinks from measuring moral worth by that standard. Instead, a person's moral worth is determined by his private motives or maxims: he must act for the sake of others, not for his own sake. He clearly demonstrates that only by his choice to suffer for others. Thus, self-inflicted suffering is the measure of a person's moral worth according to altruism.
Sadly, that's not some far-fetched, stretched interpretation of the meaning of altruism. It's exactly what the most consistent altruists have preached as the good throughout history -- Kant most explicitly.
Recall that the highest moral ideal of Christianity is that of Jesus, a god who willingly allowed himself to be brutally murdered for the sake of sinners. Jesus didn't die in a fight against injustice -- as might the leader of a slave rebellion. He didn't die in defense of anything of personal value to him -- like a friend, lover, or child. He died for the sake of all humanity, wicked and sinful as we are. He died for the sake of the very people who rejected him.
Moreover, that mythology of Jesus' death was based on the same altruistic principles he preached during his life, most clearly exemplified by the story of the Widow's Mite.
[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
Notice that the widow is not morally superior to those who donated large sums because she provided a greater benefit to the poor. She didn't. Instead, she's morally superior because she sacrificed more. She will suffer greatly for her donation, as now she has nothing to live on. That's what makes her virtuous: her deliberate suffering.
So what does all of that have to do with deep ecology? What does it have to do with the suggestion that we die sooner for the sake of the environment?
Deep ecology is deep impartialism: the interests of everything in the natural world must be considered on a par with human interests. After all, why should mankind be so selfish as to only consider its own interests? Shouldn't we consider the interests of cows, moles, robins, turtles, worms, maples, lichen, and amoebas too? And more: even rivers and rocks have interests that we ought to consider, as well as the planet as a whole! For deep ecology, any form of anthropocentrism -- including traditional utilitarianism -- is really just another form of selfish egoism.
In practice, just as the interests of one person are totally swamped by the interests of billions of other people in human-focused impartialism, so human interests are totally swamped by the interests of living organisms, ecosystems, and natural objects in deep ecology. Consequently, humans will always be obliged to sacrifice themselves for nature. Just by sheer numbers, we're always going to lose.
As with altruism, the test of moral virtue for deep ecology is not any benefit done to the natural world but rather the depth of human sacrifices. Otherwise, we might just be pretending concern for nature, while actually secretly pursuing our own selfish ends. We can only prove our morality by eschewing anything that might benefit ourselves. That's why the morality of deep ecology demands human destruction.
These various moral theories -- utilitarianism, impartialism, altruism, and deep ecology -- are similar for a reason. The morality of egoism is the morality of life and happiness. To reject egoism as immoral requires adopting suffering and death as the moral standard -- whether for a single individual or all of humanity. The form of that ideal differs, as does its window dressing. Yet if you dig a bit, you'll find suffering and death at its core.
Sometimes, as with the card from "The Green Game," that's just a bit more apparent than usual.
William Doherty won't be among the throngs in the shopping malls Friday morning. He will be in church.
Doherty, a professor in the Family Social Science Department at the University of Minnesota, is part of a growing backlash against the commercialization of Christmas. Last year, he helped his church, Unity Church Unitarian in St. Paul, hold a worship service on what has become known as Black Friday, the official kickoff of the holiday gift-buying bonanza and biggest retail shopping day of the year.
This rejection of the commercialism of Black Friday seems somewhat different from the push to "Put Christ Back in Christmas." That movement originates with more conservative, "family values," evangelical Christianity. This opposition to Black Friday seems to reflect more progressive opposition to commerce and consumption. (That's an assumption on my part, but conservative evangelicals are not often found in Unitarian churches -- or in universities.)
Importantly, the two movements are united in their basic aim of stripping the supposed stench of commerce from Christmas. Ultimately, that means replacing the cheerful tradition of exchanging gifts with loved ones with the dull duty of serving the poor, the needy, and the unworthy. That's the operative moral ideal -- explicitly:
At New Hope Baptist, the Rev. Runney Patterson Sr. was excited by Unity's experience. It meshed perfectly with his concept of giving. "Most of what we consider holiday gift-giving isn't giving at all, it's swapping," he said. "We're just trading gifts. True giving is when you find an individual or a family that is not able to give back to you." [Emphasis added.]
Notice, the goal is not to help some worthy person, struggling to make ends meet due to hardships beyond his control. The goal is to prevent you from trading with others: you must not benefit! That's truly the moral imperative of altruism: it's not that you help others, but that you don't help yourself.
That's wrong every day of the year, including Christmas. Every holiday should be a celebration of human life and achievement!
By Diana Hsieh @ 5:00 AM
Our 1FROG Thanksgiving Dinner -- hosted Chez Hsieh this year -- has a traditional prayer. Can you guess what it is? (Have I mentioned it before? I have no idea.)
The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition. It is the injustice of thanking an alleged God for the productive accomplishments of actual men.
By Diana Hsieh @ 5:00 AM
I must admit, I'm often just a bit intrigued by religious spam. My favorite form is the attempt to turn me away from that pretender Jesus to the one true God, Allah. (If only the writer knew the depths of my evil!) The following gem appeared in my inbox a few months ago. As you'll see, it's fairly standard Christian proselytizing: you're a bad, bad sinner, but God will forgive all if you repent and accept Jesus.
If I were to seriously consider this attempt to convert me, I could only be offended. I'm not some lowly depraved sinner! Yet some people are deeply attracted to this kind of message. My question is... why?
Here's my supposition -- just one possible explanation. A person without clearly defined principles but some sense of the importance of morality is likely to feel vague pangs of guilt pretty routinely. Such a person might not want to consider what he's doing too closely, because that would require forsaking certain cherished desires. He might be caught in the crossfire of conflicting principles. He might often feel uncertain about whether he's acting rightly, yet not know how to determine the right course. He might not differentiate between his own honest errors and his willful evasions. He might indulge certain desires, knowing them to be wrong.
Over time, such actions would take their toll on the person's psyche. Periodic pangs of guilt would accumulate into a vague sense of being guilty as a person, but for not-too-clear reasons. That would be a deeply, deeply uncomfortable feeling. For such a person, the Christian claim that we're all guilty would be a comfort. Christianity tells him that he's not uniquely bad, that all people face the same problem of guilt, whether they acknowledge it or not. Then Christianity offers an easy way out: repent and accept the sacrifice of Jesus for your sins. Heck, if he sins again, he can just repent again... and again... and again. The flesh is weak, after all.
Does that seem right? What other reasons might a person have for embracing an image of himself as a depraved sinner?
Oh, and here's the e-mail:
Hello,
Thank you for not deleting this email right away. While you and I may not know each other, what I want to tell you is important enough for me to want to contact you. But don't worry, I obtained your email address off of the internet and will not contact you again unless you reply.
I assure you that this is not a solicitation or a scam of any kind. I do not want to sell you anything or sign you up for anything. My hope is that you will continue to read the email. My hope is that, in the end, you will see this letter as so much more than "spam."
The reason for the email is so that you can hear about the good news of the Gospel. Now, you might be saying to yourself, "I already know Jesus Christ and am sure of my salvation". I THOUGHT I WAS SURE TOO. It can't hurt to examine your faith and see where you stand. The cost of being wrong is too great.
The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27 that "it's appointed for every man once to die, and then judgment." What that means is that everyone dies once and is then judged before Almighty God. So, if you are standing before God on Judgment Day, are you going to heaven or hell? Have you been a good person? You might think so but, unfortunately though, we aren't going to be judged by any human standard of goodness. There is only one standard by which we can all be judged and that standard is God's Law, also known as the Ten Commandments. The Bible says in Romans 2:15 that God "has written the law upon the heart of every man in the form of our conscience" so that when we die and face him, we will have no excuse.
So let's go through them real quick. Have you ever broken the 9th commandment by lying? Of course you have. A person who does that is called a liar. Have you ever broken the 8th commandment and stolen anything (regardless of value)? A person who does that is called a thief. Let's look at the 7th commandment against adultery: Jesus says that whoever looks upon another person with lust has committed adultery in their heart. Have you ever looked with lust? Yes. What about the 6th commandment against murder? Jesus also says that whoever hates a person, without cause, has committed murder in his heart. Have you ever hated anyone? If you're like most people, at this point you are a lying, thieving, murdering adulterer at heart standing before a just and holy God.
At this point, you might be saying to yourself, I don't believe in God, Heaven, or Hell. I say that it doesn't matter what you believe. Let's say that someone held you up at gunpoint, would you laugh at him and say "I don't believe in guns!"? Of course not! That's because your disbelief doesn't negate reality and believe me, GOD IS REAL. Or are you willing to bet your eternal life on it?
Or, you might be saying to yourself, "I don't believe that God would judge us so harshly. My god is a god of love and forgiveness and would never send anyone to Hell". You are right. Your god would not send anyone to Hell because he doesn't exist! What you've just done is broken the 2nd commandment against idolatry. When you create a god in your mind to suit yourself, you are turning your back on the real God. Have you ever broken the 3rd commandment by using our Creator's name in vain as a four-letter cuss word? That's called blasphemy and is very serious in God's eyes.
So, if you are still reading this then you've probably said, "That's impossible! No one can live up to the standard of the Ten Commandments." You are right. No one can. Man is not perfect. We were born into sin and have a sinful nature. God is so holy and so perfect that his standard is unattainable to mortal men. You might say, but that's not fair! What about forgiveness? God is supposed to forgive us of our sins. What about all of the good things that I've done in my life?
Well, let's look at an example. What if you were in a courtroom standing before a judge and you had just been convicted of murder. You did it. You're guilty and all that's left is for the judge to render his sentence: $500,000 or death. You can't just say to the judge "Your honor. I just wanted to say that you are a good man and that I know you will forgive me of my crime. Besides, what about all the other good things I've done in my life?" What's the judge going to say? If he is a good judge then he's going to send you to the electric chair. He might want to be merciful, but he can't just set you free, the law demands a penalty. Since God is a good judge and because he is so good and so holy, he has no choice but to send you to Hell. The law demands a penalty and the Bible says in Romans 6:23 that "the wages of sin is DEATH".
But, here's where your story takes a turn for the good. You are about to be lead away in shackles when all of a sudden, someone comes into the courtroom and pays your $500,000 fine. The judge then sees that the requirement of the law has been fulfilled. And since you've met the requirements, you are now free to go! That's what Jesus Christ did for all of us when he died on the cross 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ came to earth, God in human form, born of a virgin, lived a perfect and blameless life, was crucified on the cross, and then rose from the dead three days later as a payment for our sins. All we have to do is accept the payment and we are free from eternal damnation!
How do we accept the payment? All that is required from us is to ask God for forgiveness, repent (turn away) from our sins, and then trust in the Lord Jesus Christ with all of our hearts (Romans 10:9). When we do that, Jesus Christ washes away all of our sins and we can now stand before God blameless on Judgment Day. Then read your Bible and obey it, join a local church and be baptized. God will make you into a new person with new wants and desires. He doesn't want to send you to Hell, He loves you. You've probably heard John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, will not perish but have eternal life."
Well, that's it. Thank you for reading all the way through. I thank you for your time and my prayer is that you will consider all that you've read and seek Jesus Christ for eternal life today. Don't wait for tomorrow because we never know when we will be taken from this earth and now that you've read this email you are without excuse when you stand before God.
To Him be the glory, Mel Kizadeck
Oh dear. I've read the e-mail in full, so now I'm definitely going straight to hell when I die. That's okay... because I'll be dead.
By Diana Hsieh @ 4:00 PM
William Schultz -- who I had the pleasure of meeting at the summer undergraduate conference of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism a few years ago -- e-mailed me yesterday to ask for my feedback on his defense of the Objectivist ethics in a discussion with a humanist. I didn't have time to do that for him, but I told him that I'd post a link with that request to NoodleFood, if he posted the exchange somewhere on the web.
"i imagine that the value of food is generalized to all humans in the same way that objectivists generalize the value of non-coersion, or that everyone has the obligation to let others follow their own rational self-interest. i might ask you.. "what fact of reality could possible [sic] give rise to such an obligation?" what's to prevent yaron brook from becoming a serial murder if killing is one of his 'standards of happiness'?"
William to Humanist:
My suspicion is that you miss the fact that non-coercion is a *principle* not an *obligation* granted by some outside source.
Missing this principle would make sense if you didn't understand the foundation of the Objectivist ethics. For OE, the first question of ethics is not "which ethical code should I accept" but "why should I accept *any* ethical code." Long story short: An ethical code is a hierarchy of values. Values are things you act to gain or keep. But value is only intelligible for living organisms. Inanimate matter has no values. It is only life that makes values possible. Thus, the life of each individual organism is the standard (as well as what makes possible) the very concept of value and thus the very concept of morality. For a human being, his mind -- thought -- is his primary tool of survival. This means recognizing a whole host of implications (one of which is the principle of non-coercion) that I'm not going to elaborate on here, but I hope you get the basic thrust. If you are interested or opposed, I recommend reading Rand's much better display here.
On to your example: "what's to prevent yaron brook from becoming a serial murder if killing is one of his 'standards of happiness" The objectivist view is that happiness can only be achieved via an objective set of standards. Thus, the short answer to your question "What's to prevent Yaron....?" is, *reality*.
Of course, I could talk to a strung-out, starving, drug addict on the street and he could parrot the words "I'm happy." But my contention is that such a statement is just as valid as someone pointing at a triangle and exclaiming "circle!" The same pattern of thought applies to a thief or murderer -- they may feel, believe and say their action is in their interest but that has nothing to due with the fact of whether or not it is *objectively* selfish.
If you're interested, please go read the whole thing. You're welcome to post any comments here on NoodleFood, but please do also post them to William Schultz's blog too.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 PM
Here's an unexpected demonstration of the power of philosophy, even amongst those completely oblivious to it. In this video, a rather ditzy vegan girl addresses the charge that vegans and vegetarians are guilty of killing tons of wild animals in the process of planting and harvesting crops. (It's true!)
The doctrine (or principle) of double effect is often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting some good end. It is claimed that sometimes it is permissible to cause such a harm as a side effect (or "double effect") of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such a harm as a means to bringing about the same good end. This reasoning is summarized with the claim that sometimes it is permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally.
How does that apply here? According to ditzy-vegan-girl, it's morally okay to do something wrong (like killing animals) as an unintended side effect of pursuing a good end (like eating veggies) but not okay to do that same wrong thing (killing animals) as a direct means to your ends (like eating meat).
Of course, the doctrine of double effect doesn't actually help her answer the moral charge here. The doctrine is a handy tool of rationalization for people with ethics so disconnected from reality that they simply must violate them to live. It's not a real ethical principle.
Ditzy-vegan-girl surely hasn't ever heard of the doctrine of double effect, yet she's using it all the same. That's the power of philosophy.
By Diana Hsieh @ 4:00 PM
Wow, I was just so thrilled to watch Jerry Johnson -- an Objectivist I've corresponded with periodically over the years -- speak on CNN IBN (a national Indian news channel) -- about being gay in India:
(Update: I'm now linking to the YouTube version. It includes extra footage.)
I particularly liked his point about moving out of the parental house, so that the gay person wouldn't wouldn't be beholden to anti-gay parents. From what Jerry has told me, it's very difficult to be gay in India: the culture is not accepting, and many are well-hidden in the closet. So that freedom from parental interference would be crucial for living an authentic life as a gay person in India.
In this episode, I answer three questions on romantic relationships concerning (1) friendship after a failed romance, (2) romance between people of very different philosophies, and (3) managing finances in marriage.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 PM
I've just posted Episode #10 of Rationally Selfish Radio. As I mention in the introduction, I'm running a bit low on practical ethics questions for my "Philosophy in Action" podcasts. So if you have a question you'd like to ask, please e-mail it to me!
In this episode, I answer a question about whether people are obliged to respect the rules of property owners to the letter.
By Paul Hsieh @ 5:00 AM
I don't necessarily endorse this review of two particular philosophy books, but I did find this particular passage interesting:
...Take the old classroom chestnut about the runaway trolley: should you allow it to kill five workers on the track, or divert it onto another track where it would kill only one person? There is something comfortably abstract about this problem -- it invites leisurely debate, since we know that it couldn't actually happen to us.
But then Sandel turns to a real incident that took place in 2005. A Navy SEAL operating behind enemy lines in Afghanistan came across some unarmed goatherds: should he kill them, though they hadn't done anything hostile, or let them go, and take the risk that they would warn the Taliban?
In a Hollywood movie, we know what the hero would do: he would be merciful and let the men live. And in fact, Sandel shows, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell did let the goatherds go; then they alerted the Taliban, his unit was ambushed, and 19 American soldiers were killed.
It makes a pretty convincing case for killing innocent civilians, and Luttrell himself now regrets his impulse to do what seemed like justice: "It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made in my life."
If a war is morally justified, then the resulting deaths of any civilians of the opposing country are the moral responsibility of that country's government.
In this episode, I answer two similar questions from college students on how to choose a career from amongst a wide variety of disparate interests as part of my "Philosophy in Action" series.
In this episode, I discuss two questions of practical ethics as part of my "Philosophy in Action" series. The first concerns the morality of accepting an inheritance, while the second concerns a moral conflict about doing agreed-upon work.
In this episode, I answer a question about whether an introvert should stop attempting to be more extroverted to meet new people. I also discuss an example of a parent teaching a child to evade that I recently witnessed. Finally, I read a question on inheritance that I'll be answering next week.
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
A patient whose knee MRI I read last week had some questions about the results, and I told her she could contact me via e-mail.
Basically, she was frustrated by her interactions with her other doctors and she also wanted to give me additional details about her prior knee surgeries in case it changed my interpretation. (That information was helpful, but didn't ultimately change my final opinion).
After several e-mail exchanges, she was both thankful for my replies and apologetic for bothering me.
I then decided to reply with the following pro-egoist preamble in my most recent e-mail to her:
I completely understand how frustrating it can be to have a medical problem without an easy diagnosis. So I empathize with your situation. So don't apologize for asking questions! This is your body, and ultimately your responsibility. You should never apologize for seeking what's best for your own life and happiness.
(I then responded to her specific question about the significance of a particular MRI finding.)
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
My earlier post on physicist Richard Feynman ("Feynman on Honors") spawned an intense discussion on whether Feynman's stated disdain for what he called "honors" indicated a rejection of justice.
In light of that, I'd like to post the text of his Nobel Banquet Speech delivered in Stockholm on December 10, 1965, followed by a few of my own comments.
Here is what he said:
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.
The work I have done has, already, been adequately rewarded and recognized.
Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward.
Then, having fashioned tools to make access easier to the new level, I see these tools used by other men straining their imaginations against further mysteries beyond. There, are my votes of recognition.
Then comes the prize, and a deluge of messages. Reports; of fathers turning excitedly with newspapers in hand to wives; of daughters running up and down the apartment house ringing neighbor's doorbells with news; victorious cries of "I told you so" by those having no technical knowledge - their successful prediction being based on faith alone; from friends, from relatives, from students, from former teachers, from scientific colleagues, from total strangers; formal commendations, silly jokes, parties, presents; a multitude of messages in a multitude of forms.
But, in each I saw the same two common elements. I saw in each, joy; and I saw affection (you see, whatever modesty I may have had has been completely swept away in recent days).
The prize was a signal to permit them to express, and me to learn about, their feelings. Each joy, though transient thrill, repeated in so many places amounts to a considerable sum of human happiness. And, each note of affection released thus one upon another has permitted me to realize a depth of love for my friends and acquaintances, which I had never felt so poignantly before.
For this, I thank Alfred Nobel and the many who worked so hard to carry out his wishes in this particular way.
And so, you Swedish people, with your honors, and your trumpets, and your king - forgive me. For I understand at last - such things provide entrance to the heart. Used by a wise and peaceful people they can generate good feeling, even love, among men, even in lands far beyond your own. For that lesson, I thank you...
I found the following aspects of his remarks especially noteworthy:
1) For him, his achievement was its own reward.
As a scientist, his primary orientation was towards reality and existence, as opposed to a second-hander's orientation towards other people. He eloquently noted the joy a brilliant scientist feels when, "...suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed".
In that moment of achievement, it's him "alone" with nature.
2) He acknowledged and was justly appreciative of the recognition he received from his peers in the form of having his work "used by other men straining their imaginations against further mysteries beyond".
3) He recognized his winning the Nobel Prize served as a focal point by which others who might not understand much about physics could still offer their own appreciation and praise of his work. Although his primary motivation as a physicist was to unlock the secrets of nature, rather than to garner praise from others, he was genuinely appreciative of the praise he received from "friends and acquaintances".
And he returned their praise with a "depth of love" which he "had never felt so poignantly before".
In my experience, this sort of benevolence towards one's fellow man is possible only to those who are independent in a very deep way -- i.e., not primarily trying to seek the approval (or avoid the disapproval) of others.
4) He recognized that "honors" awarded by a "wise and peaceful people" were commendable. Hence, I think he had an implicit understanding of what Objectivists mean by "justice".
(I do acknowledge that his quote in the earlier post could be interpreted to indicate that he did not believe that "honors" were a form of justice.)
5) I'm not an expert on the biography or psychology of Richard Feynman, although I have read some of his books.
But my understanding of his attitude towards his work was that he was incredibly first-handed.
In that way, he was similar to Hank Rearden, as portrayed by Rand in Part 1, Chapter 8 of Atlas Shrugged ("The John Galt Line") as follows:
...[Rearden] was watching the performance of track and train with an expert's intensity of professional interest; his bearing suggested that he would kick aside, as irrelevant, any thought such as "They like it," when the thought ringing in his mind was "It works!"
Of course, Rand was not saying that all thoughts such as "They like it" are "irrelevant". After all, one of the key themes of Atlas Shrugged was the importance of granting approval and moral sanction to those who deserve it (and withdrawing it from those who do not deserve it).
But it's also clear from Rand's portrayals of Howard Roark or Hank Rearden, that an independent first-handed thinker would find others' praise of his work ("They like it") to be irrelevant to the primary reward that the creator gains from his achievement -- namely the work itself. This issue is separate from the fact that justice is a virtue and that in a healthy society, good men will receive justly-earned praise for their achievements.
My own take on Feynman was that because he was so extremely first-handed in his attitude towards his work, he viewed others' praise of his work as extremely secondary to the primary reward he gained from the work itself, which may have caused him to regard such praise as "unreal", just as Hank Rearden regarded others' approval of Rearden Metal as "irrelevant" to the primary reward of knowing that "it worked".
But Feynman was clearly still appreciative and thankful for the praise that he did receive when it came from those whom he esteemed. And in his Nobel Banquet speech, he expressed that gratitude with great warmth and benevolence.
To summarize: I found Feynman's first-handed attitude towards his work to be a rare and admirable trait. And given the fuller context provided by his Nobel Banquet Speech, I believe he also had at least an implicit appreciation for the Objectivist virtue of justice.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:01 PM
The fabulous Rory Hodgson (aka @Tenure) recently sent me the following poem by the Scottish poet Charles Mackay (1814 - 1889). It suits me well.
"No Enemies" - Charles Mackay
You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor; He who has mingled in the fray Of duty, that the brave endure, Must have made foes! If you have none, Small is the work that you have done. You've hit no traitor on the hip, You've dashed no cup from perjured lip, You've never turned the wrong to right, You've been a coward in the fight.
"I don't like honors. I'm appreciated for the work that I did, and for people who appreciate it, and I notice that other physicists use my work. I don't need anything else. I don't think there's any sense to anything else. I don't see that it makes any point that someone in the Swedish Academy decides that this work is noble enough to receive a prize. I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me. I don't believe in honors. It bothers me, honors..."
This is a good gut-level response of a man who is a primary creator of value, as opposed to a second-hander.
Several years ago, I volunteered at an elementary school and became friendly with a mother and son who both taught there. My health has since deteriorated to the point where I am in a wheelchair. I left my volunteer job and the mother and son moved on.
In the eight years since we worked together, the mother has sent me jokes and prayers through e-mail, but seldom a personal message. I have not heard from the son in at least four years. Nothing at all until I received his wedding invitation.
I sent my regrets, and a note saying I would send a gift when I was out of the hospital. That day, I was cleared for surgery, and I spent three days in a hospital and four weeks in a rehab facility.
While I was unable to get my e-mail, the mother of the groom sent me four e-mails reminding me to send her son "something to honor his special day." I then received a group e-mail with a few wedding pictures, so everyone she sent it to was able to read her message that I could finally get her son a gift, and how was surgery? I could also see that she had abased another recipient.
I finally wrote her that I'd had enough. They claim to be devout Christians, yet they are hounding me for a gift. I explained that being in a wheelchair, it is difficult to get out, and I was sorry I didn't go shopping.
Then her son took over. He ignored my physical limitations and went on and on about how he gave me two months and I should have had plenty of time to buy him something. I have not heard from the man in four years, and then I receive an invitation to his wedding. Do I owe him a gift?
Miss Manners, as expected, responded quite reasonably, writing the following:
As a symbol of your affectionate relationship? The next step in such a campaign is to threaten to break your knees. When this happens, Miss Manners recommends involving the police. In the meantime, she suggests blocking or deleting their e-mail.
That's right, but it doesn't speak to the kind of vicious moral psychology underlying the actions of this young man and his mother.
I'm not the slightest bit surprised that these people are "devout Christians." In fact, even apart from that claim, I would have bet $100 that they were serious advocates of altruism. They are not hypocrites, either, as most people would suppose. They practice what they preach -- even in this instance. How so?
The altruist denies the value of his own existence. He regards the welfare of others as of greater moral significance than his own: he regards himself as morally obliged to sacrifice his concerns, his values, and even his life for the sake of others. (That's the definition of altruism: it's other-ism.) He does not hold that view due to some particular imperfection or degradation unique to himself. Instead, he denigrates the self as such: he regards every person as obliged to do the same. (That's ultimately incoherent, but I'll leave that aside for now.) Consequently, the serious altruist will develop the most disgusting kind of contempt for other people. He values them as little as he values himself -- meaning: not at all. So if another person pursues his own values rather than sacrificing himself as demanded, that person must be condemned as immoral. Morality requires every person to forgo his own values for the sake of others. And so you have the strange phenomena of committed altruists demanding sacrifices from other people to satisfy their most petty whims -- and condemning them as selfish for failing to do. That's not hypocrisy: it's the twisted logic of altruism.
In contrast, the rational egoist knows the value of his own life -- and his own responsibility for achieving his happiness. He knows that every other person can and ought to take the same perspective on his own life. He knows that he only profits from interacting with others to the extent that they do so. He wants other people to act as rational egoists in pursuit of their own personal values. Consequently, he treats other people with respect for doing so -- never as his personal serfs.
It is the egoist, not the altruist, who values other people.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Last week, my father left me a voicemail message regarding Paul's and my plans to meet them for a bit of camping as they traveled through southern Colorado. Due to the dissertation, I'd already delayed our planned meet-up by a day. In his message, he said that if I decided that I needed to take another day (or longer) that I should do that. It would be fine with them. Then he said, very emphatically, "you need to do what's good for you, not what's good for us."
When I say that I wasn't raised in an altruistic family, I mean it. My parents are awesome.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Ayn Rand's interview with Playboy is now available on the Playboy web site. I was going to select just one or two particularly good exchanges to reproduce here, but too many struck me as interesting. You'll just have to read the whole thing -- but here are two on emotions to whet your appetite:
PLAYBOY: Couldn't the attempt to rule whim out of life, to act in a totally rational fashion, be viewed as conducive to a juiceless, joyless kind of existence?
RAND: I truly must say that I don't know what you are talking about. Let's define our terms. Reason is man's tool of knowledge, the faculty that enables him to perceive the facts of reality. To act rationally means to act in accordance with the facts of reality. Emotions are not tools of cognition. What you feel tells you nothing about the facts; it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts. Emotions are the result of your value judgments; they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong. A whim is an emotion whose cause you neither know nor care to discover. Now what does it mean, to act on whim? It means that a man acts like a zombi, without any knowledge of what he deals with, what he wants to accomplish, or what motivates him. It means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity. Is this what you call juicy or colorful? I think the only juice that can come out of such a situation is blood. To act against the facts of reality can result only in destruction.
PLAYBOY: Should one ignore emotions altogether, rule them out of one's life entirely?
RAND: Of course not. One should merely keep them in their place. An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his emotions--provided he observes their proper relationship. A rational man knows--or makes it a point to discover--the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come; if his premises are wrong, he corrects them. He never acts on emotions for which he cannot account, the meaning of which he does not understand. In appraising a situation, he knows why he reacts as he does and whether he is right. He has no inner conflicts, his mind and his emotions are integrated, his consciousness is in perfect harmony. His emotions are not his enemies, they are his means of enjoying life. But they are not his guide; the guide is his mind. This relationship cannot be reversed, however. If a man takes his emotions as the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow--then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery, failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction--his own and that of others.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Some months ago, Miranda Barzey -- now of the blog Ramen & Rand -- wrote to me about her disappointment in college. I offered some advice, largely based on my own experiences. The result was this delightful blog post: Depression in College: Getting Out of my Own Way. Here's the opening paragraph:
I had always expected college to be awesome. High school felt more like a daycare than a place to learn (albeit a few classes). So senior year, I was so excited to finally get out, to move onto bigger and better things at college, to study what I wanted and leave all the immaturity behind. Coming to college, I expected stimulating conversations with interesting people. I expected people who really loved what they were doing, who were passionate and intellectual. I expected... more.
She quotes my whole e-mail to her, and I really enjoyed her list of the ten things "to make sure life was better this semester." Go read the whole thing. And be sure to check Ramen & Rand regularly.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Via Flibbertigibbet and The Crucible, I recently discovered the fabulous little experiment of the the tweenbots. Here's the basic idea, as described by its creator, Kacie Kinzer:
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot's progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot--a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary--bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the "right" direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can't go that way, it's toward the road."
The actual robots are quite adorable, so I definitely recommend checking out the pictures on the web site.
Regarding the significance of the experiment, Kendall writes:
There is an idea that I've heard repeated at various times in my life, that there is not enough charitable feeling in naturally "self-centered" man to be of meaningful help to those in need. When I respond that there is ample benevolence in man, and in a capitalist society, ample surplus of productive resource (time, money, etc) that we should not make it a forced duty to be charitable, but rather allow man's natural benevolence to take its course, most people tell me that resources have to be aggregated and centrally directed to be effective.
Kendall then observes that the tweenbot experiment shows the dismal view of man to be false. He's right.
I'd say something in addition, however. As Flibby's own hope to see a tweenbot illustrates, many people are eager for some fresh novelty in their lives. They want to experience interesting things outside the ordinary humdrum of their daily tasks. To a benevolent person, such experiences brighten the mood. They make a day particularly memorable and pleasant. They highlight the simple joys of being a human creature living in a hospitable world.
Many such experiences are mere happenstance -- yet a person can also seek them out for himself. He can visit places he's never seen, attend to the small features of his surroundings, and pause to consider bright spots therein. The happy little tweenbots offer much reward to people who do that. So to offer the tweenbots a little help in return seems like a very reasonable trade.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Right around the time of the CU Boulder "Think!" debate on Ayn Rand's ethics between Onkar Ghate and Mike Huemer, I listened to a very interesting discussion of the obligation to offer minimal aid to a person in distress in one of Leonard Peikoff's podcasts.
Kevin McAllister -- of the blog Logical Disconnect -- was kind enough to transcribe the question and answer for me. Here it is:
Episode 41: 10:25 - 11:37
Q: Am I morally obligated to call for help if I see someone in a car accident or experiencing a heart attack?
This is obviously from someone who does not know what the Objectivist view of selfishness is. Absolutely yes, you are morally obligated. If you have chosen to live in a society of human beings and your mode of survival depends on your trade with them then you have to value human life so far as it's not guilty or criminal to your knowledge. In that case if you know no evil about a person and no sacrifice is involved then only a psychopath would turn away from such cases. And that would mean besides all the psychological things a direct contradiction of the value of human life. You can't value your life and decide to live with others of your species and say, "They're nothing to me, I don't care if they live or die." That's self-contradiction.
Dr. Peikoff's analysis is substantially Aristotelian, I think. (That's a compliment, in this context: Aristotle's moral psychology is superb.) It's not a cost-benefit analysis: the point is not that the person might reward you with cash, that he might be a talented neurosurgeon who might someday save the life of your dear mother, that he might invent some widget that you'd like to buy, or whatnot. Rather, Dr. Peikoff focuses on the kinds of attitudes and dispositions toward other people required to live and live well among other men. That's the right approach to these kinds of cases, I think.
Kevin also transcribed the relevant portion from another of Dr. Peikoff's podcasts -- one I've not yet heard -- on the validity of "lifeboat" scenarios in ethics:
Episode 48: 12:30 - 15:48
Okay, do you know what a lifeboat question is? You know, what do you do when there [are] more people in the lifeboat then there is food and someone has to die, what does Objectivism say? And why those questions are completely illegitimate, because morality is for the circumstances when it is possible for men to coexist. If they can't, then you can't have any morality.
Now, this is a lifeboat question, which I normally wouldn't answer but it's from a high school student from another continent. So I'll read it. This is a really... Okay I won't comment, just listen.
He made this up, it's not true: My wife is extremely sick she is my greatest value, but she will die in 24 hours if I do not acquire a certain medicine for her. I leave the house and go to the pharmacy and find out that the last bottle of medicine has been sold to the man in front of me. There is no other place I can get this medicine. By coincidence the man who purchased the medicine is walking home in front of me. I approach the man and explain to him my situation and request that he give me the medicine. However, he says no, as his wife is in the same situation as mine. He turns around and continues to walk away. I know that if I wanted to I could easily overpower this man and steal the medicine. Now my question is, what is the moral thing to do?
Now, I'd like to know some things about the realistic possibility of this example. For instance, she is only going to live for 24 hours. Who long did you know that? Who told you? And why did you wait? How many other pharmacies have you tried? How many websites? Did you try the manufacturer? I mean this whole thing, point after point, is a completely unreal situation. You are just setting up, two men, for no reason, with no plausibility, want the same thing desperately, should they kill each other? Without the faintest expectation... at least in the life boat, you know that they're there you know and ... but here, there is no reason at all. So, what you have to do, before you ask moral questions, is figure out are they realistic, and what should the characters in them have done, what could have done that would have eviscerated and wiped out the very possibility of the situation.
Notably, Objectivism does not oppose reasoning from lifeboat scenarios in ethics merely because a person is unlikely to ever encounter such circumstances in his lifetime. I'm very unlikely to ever be propositioned with large sums of money by a student seeking an undeserved grade, yet we can certainly say that my accepting that offer would be grossly immoral.
Rather, as can be seen from Dr. Peikoff's remarks, the problem with "lifeboat ethics" is that the proposed scenarios are concocted so as to produce irresolvable conflicts between people. By various artificial constraints, they make life in society impossible. They preclude any rational solutions to the problem at hand. Is it then any wonder that the results are unseemly? Of course not.
The simple fact is that lifeboat scenarios do not reflect the most basic facts about human nature, namely our distinctively human methods of producing and trading the values required to sustain life. Consequently, moral principles cannot be applied to such scenarios, nor induced from them.
By Greg Perkins @ 12:01 AM
How do you quickly explain -- or at least motivate further exploration of -- subtle ideas that would challenge "what everybody knows"? It's just hard, a skill to be practiced, which is why I eagerly listened to the (quite excellent) debate between Dr. Ghate (Ayn Rand Institute) and Dr. Huemer (CU Boulder Philosophy Department) over Ayn Rand's ethics.
One of Huemer's big points was that egoism logically entails predation. The idea is that there are times when it is in one's interest to lie, cheat, steal, etc. -- so it logically follows that a true egoist selfishly seeks to exploit others when he would so profit. Huemer's reduction to absurdity on this was that the true egoist would do so even when the overall benefit is tiny and the offense is great, like killing someone for the net benefit of a dollar. If an "egoist" wouldn't murder for a dollar, then he isn't actually an egoist and ought to stop peddling the notion that thoroughgoing selfishness is proper.
That one can profit from "prudent predation" is one of those things that Everybody Knows. So what might an Objectivist say to shake a general audience's confidence in the idea that predation is egoistic? That's a tall order given our current culture; there's just too much conceptual territory to cover to truly nail it down in a scant few minutes. So my first-blush approach would be to only try to indicate how Objectivists have a considered view that reveals predation -- no matter the form or degree -- to be utterly, unequivocally, hideously at odds with genuine egoism. Something like:
Recall my sketch of Rand's analysis of the nature of "value" and how values are what living organisms must pursue to live -- i.e., that there are needs they must satisfy to maintain their existence as living organisms. Different kinds of organisms do this in different ways, of course. Look at, say, the need for food: trees grow roots and turn their leaves to the sun, while squirrels climb and scurry to harvest nuts, and lions use their speed and teeth and claws to chase and catch their prey. But we are a bit different, in that there is no particular method we need to use to satisfy our requirement for food: we may grow it on a farm, harvest it from the sea, raise it on a ranch, hunt for it in the plains, trap it in the forest, create it in the lab, and on and on. So it wouldn't make sense to say that we eat by virtue of fangs, claws, or roots like we might say of other organisms -- rather, we get our food by some method, but that method is determined by our thinking. It's a long discussion, but the same is true for every need we have and every value we pursue: put simply, our primary or basic means of survival is thinking. We are the rational animal, discovering by reason what is valuable, and determining via reason how to achieve it.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed -- and ignoring facts and acting on emotion or whim means courting disaster. So someone really interested in living -- our truly selfish ethical egoist -- will want to internalize the fact that reason is his fundamental means of survival, his basic tool for living, the essential faculty and activity that he needs to cultivate and use and jealously protect as the lifeline it genuinely is. Reliant on the power of his conceptual awareness, he will see the value of working to understand the nature of concepts and the implications for the nature of knowledge; the laws of logic and absolute requirement for objectivity -- because indifference to these things would mean indifference to his lifeline! He will seek to think and act on principle because reason demands it as his only hope for methodologically pursuing life over the span of an entire lifetime in the face of an incredibly complicated world.
Morality is a set of principles guiding your choices and actions in life. And rationality is our fundamental tool for living. So it makes sense that an egoist will understand moral virtues as expressions or applications of rationality to various aspects of living. Indeed, Rand framed each major virtue as the recognition of a fundamental fact. At this point you should be able to glimpse why Objectivists recoil in horror at someone suggesting that even the most "prudent" of predation would be egoistic: seriously considering predation means ignoring or outright rejecting the fundamental facts of human life captured in supremely-prudent moral principles like productiveness, justice, and honesty. Seriously entertaining their violation means rejecting not just particular principles and the facts they describe, but the need to act on principle and rationality as one's basic means of survival. What a real egoist hears is someone suggesting living by actively repudiating their fundamental means of living! That's insanity. And it's certainly not selfish.
This of course invites followup on just what those fundamental facts are, why reason demands thinking and acting on principle, etc. That's fine, though, as the goal was only to weaken their confidence in what "everybody knows" and spark further investigation.
There are so many angles that could be taken, so many basic ideas to try to sketch -- how would you approach this? What are the actual words you would use in such a setting?
By Greg Perkins @ 12:01 AM
Never wanting to pass up a chance to confirm that I am on the moral straight and narrow, I eagerly took the Do You Have Biblical Morals? quiz. Here's my result:
Your morality is 8% in line with that of the bible.
Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.
Now, before you go and conclude that the 8% means I'm some kind of moral monster, let me explain. Really, the 8% result was only due to poor question design -- not to any flaw in my character! Exhibit A in my defense:
12. What is the best way to curry favor with the Lord?
By treating all people, including atheists, with kindness and courtesy.
By learning and accommodating the culture and customs of other people.
By ritualistically slaughtering animals and burning the parts.
See, all the other questions asked what I would do or what I understand to be right, whereas this one only asked me to recall what the Bible says -- which is why I got an answer "right" Biblically.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Having followed the discussion of the supposed value of virginity on NoodleFood from last year, Ergo of Leitmotif took note of -- and even transcribed -- the following question and answer from Ayn Rand's Ford Hall Forum lecture on "Of Living Death." (Good man! Notably, he sent me this many moons ago. I delayed it -- for far too long -- because I wanted to check the transcription, but I never got around to it. Ah well, I have no time to do so now.) It's quite fascinating.
Question: If romantic love includes more than one person, what does this do to the institution of monogamy?:
Ayn Rand's answer: To begin with, if you want to ask it in principle, I'm fine. But I resent the nonsense of saying that Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged was promiscuous. She had three men in her life, not simultaneously. Where have you been all your life? It is not only permissible, it is virtuous and moral. I have never said that marriage is the only proper form of romantic love. There is nothing wrong with a romantic affair, if there are reasons why a couple cannot be married or if they are too young to marry; and that is not promiscuity, provided it is a serious feeling based on serious values.
Now, as to more than one love, now remember men have free will. It is the Catholic Church that advocates indissoluble marriage. I don't. And a reason one cannot is because man is not omniscient. He can make a mistake in his choice of partner or the partner may change through the years and therefore a man may fall out of love, or as so can a woman, if the partner he or she has chosen no longer lives up to the proper values. In Atlas Shrugged, the better example of it to cite is Hank when he had met his wife Lillian. He was romantically in love with her at first because he thought she was a certain type of woman and she deliberately faked the kind of image she thought he would want and he got disappointed. Now, he was very wrong in carrying out a secret affair with Dagny, but what was wrong with it was not sex, but secrecy--the lie.
An open relationship with as many men as you can meet if you are unlucky--but not several at a time--is appropriate, except that of course, one cannot be as unlucky that often, one would have to then check one's standard if one makes constant mistakes. But as a principle of romantic love, one cannot say that only a single life-long romance can appropriately be called romantic. That is the ideal. If a couple achieves that, they are extremely lucky and they must have extremely good premises, but one can't make that the norm. Sometimes it is an exclusive single love for all time; sometimes not. The issue to judge here--the moral principle--is the seriousness of their feeling and one gauges that by what kind of values is it based on. What is it that the person is attracted to in a man or a woman, and why. That is the standard of romantic love.
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
The Center for Values and Social Policy in the Philosophy Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder is pleased to announce a "Think!" debate on Ayn Rand's Objectivist ethics.
What: Debate on "Making a Virtue of Selfishness? A Debate about Ayn Rand's Ethics"
Who: Dr. Onkar Ghate (Ayn Rand Institute) and Prof. Michael Huemer (CU Boulder, Philosophy)
Dr. Onkar Ghate will argue: "Ayn Rand challenges the idea, dominant in the West since Christianity, that morality consists of commandments. Even though this conception of morality has often been secularized, its essence has remained: the source of morality is something external to the self, to which the self owes obedience. In sharp contrast, Rand argues that the nature and purpose of morality is to teach one how to achieve one's self-interest."
Dr. Ghate is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute where he teaches at the Institute's Objectivist Academic Center. He lectures on philosophy and Objectivism throughout North America. Dr. Ghate received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Calgary.
Dr. Michael Huemer will argue: "Ayn Rand champions an excessively egoistic ethic, one in which individuals must place themselves before everyone and everything else. This ethic can lead one to hurt, exploit, or simply ignore the needs of others, when it suits one's own interests to do so. Rand's ethic of selfishness clashes with the moral sense of philosophers, spiritual leaders, and ordinary people the world over. These people are not all wrong -- Ayn Rand is wrong."
Dr. Huemer is an associate professor of philosophy at CU Boulder. He has written on such topics as philosophical skepticism, the problem of induction, ethical intuitionism, free will, and deontological ethics. Dr. Huemer received his doctorate in philosophy from Rutgers University in 1998.
All "Think!" events are free and intended for the public. For more information, please visit the "Think!" web page.
For further information on the series, please contact Dr. Alastair Norcross at Alastair.Norcross(at)Colorado.edu. For announcements of upcoming "Think!" events, e-mail Diana Hsieh at Diana.Hsieh@colorado.edu with that request.
Upcoming "Think!" Events:
Tuesday, April 14th: Prof. Ajume Wingo, "Politics as an Alternative to Violence," 7:30 - 9:00 pm, Old Main Chapel
"Think!" lectures are sponsored by the Center for Values and Social Policy in the Philosophy Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder and funded through the generosity of The Collins Foundation.
E-mail Paul Hsieh
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